That it was so was well known to history in the time of Quintilian, whose testimony as to the "repudiatus vigintiviratus"-- his refusal of a place among the twenty commissioners--has been already quoted.[253] And yet biographers have written of him as of one willing to sell his honor, his opinions, and the commonwealth, for a "pitiful bribe;" not that he did do so, not that he attempted to do it, but because in a half-joking letter to the friend of his bosom he tells his friend which way his tastes lay![254] He had been thinking of writing a book on geography, and consulted Atticus on the subject; but in one of his letters he tells his friend that he had abandoned the idea.

The subject was too dull; and if he took one side in a dispute that was existing, he would be sure to fall under the lash of the critics on the other.

He is enjoying his leisure at Antium, and thinks it a much better place than Rome.

If the weather will not let him catch fish, at any rate he can count the waves.

In all these letters Cicero asks questions about his money and his private affairs; about the mending of a wall, perhaps, and adds something about his wife or daughter or son.