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received at Rome, which, as I thought, gave me a very clear idea of the hurry you were in to get away. My answer to Clodius was that I would do so, and, indeed, much more willingly than if I had been obliged to fulfil my promise to Phania. And so I changed my plan and immediately sent you a letter written with my own hand; and I gather from your letter that mine was delivered to you in plenty of time.

³ This is that action of mine with which I am so thoroughly satisfied; no action could have been more friendly. Now it is your turn to reflect upon your own. Not only were you not at the place where you could have had the earliest opportunity of seeing me, but you went off to where I could not even catch you up within the thirty days which were fixed, I think, by the Cornelian law^[1] as the limit of your stay in the province; with the result that your conduct appears to those who know nothing of our mutual feelings to be that of a stranger, to use the mildest possible term, and of one who wanted to run away from an interview, while mine on the other hand appears to be that of one closely attached to you and the best of friends.

⁴ And yet even before I came to the province, a letter from you was handed to me, in which, although you clearly indicated that you were setting out for Tarsus, you still gave me no uncertain hope that you would meet me; while in the meantime, I imagine, evil-minded persons,—for it is a widespread vice—who had yet got hold of some plausible grounds for their gossip, knowing nothing of my staunchness as a friend, were trying to alienate my goodwill from you by alleging that you were holding an assize at Tarsus,