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ing to me, it naturally follows that I should like you to think that it will be, and already is, an urgent charge upon me to see to it that, in the first place you and all your people, and secondly the rest of the world also, may be able to recognize that I am most friendly disposed towards you; and it seems to me that those who are still not fully convinced of it, do not so much fail to understand the fact as object to our being on such friendly terms. But understand it they assuredly will: for neither will the characters be insignificant, nor the motives mean in the drama that is to be enacted. But I wish the performance of all this to be better than what I say or write.

³ My itinerary seems to have caused you considerable doubt as to whether you will see me in the province; well, this is how the matter stands. When I spoke with your freedman Phania at Brundisium, I came to a point in the conversation when I said that I would willingly come first to that part of the province to which I thought you were most anxious that I should come. Then he told me, that since you desired to quit the province on board a fleet, it would be extremely convenient to you if I put in to Sida,^[1] a sea-board part of the province, with my ships. I said I would do so, and I should have done so, had not our friend L. Clodius told me at Corcyra that that was the very last thing I should do; that you would be at Laodicea to meet me on my arrival. That meant a much shorter journey and was much more convenient for me, especially as I thought you preferred it so.

⁴ After that your plans were completely altered. As things now stand, it will be easiest for you to decide what can be done; what I propose to do