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of a letter from you about these affairs. And that is why, although, when you read these words, I shall have already completed my year of office, I should still like to have a letter from you on my way home, to post me up in the general state of public affairs, so that I may not be an utter stranger when I arrive. ² There is nobody who can do so better than yourself. Your friend Diogenes, a nice quiet man, has left me and gone with Philo from Pessinus. They are on their way to visit Adjatorix,^[1] though they were well aware that the whole situation there held out no prospect of either loving-kindness or lucre. Rome, my dear Rufus, Rome—stay there in that full light and live.

All foreign service (and this has been my conviction from the days of my youth) is obscurity and squalor for those whose active services at Rome can shine forth in splendour. And being so well assured of this, would that I had remained true to my creed! All the profits of a province are not to be compared, I swear it, with one single little stroll, and one single talk, with you. I hope I have gained a reputation of integrity; but that I gained quite as much by my rejection, as by my successful administration of a province.^[2] "Any hope of a triumph?" you say. I should have quite a glorious triumph if only in the shortening of the period of my yearning for all that is dearest to me. But (such is my hope) I shall see you at an early date. Mind you send me some letters worthy of their writer to meet me on the way.