They came at all hours, in numbers sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house.

How can he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this?
Nevertheless he will attempt something.

He goes on criticising all that is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt was vacillating sadly between Caesar, to whom he was bound, and Bibulus, the other Consul, to whom he ought to have been bound, as being naturally on the aristocratic side.

He cannot for a moment keep his pen from public matters; nor, on the other hand, can he refrain from declaring that he will apply himself wholly, undividedly, to his literature.

"Therefore, oh my Titus, let me settle down to these glorious occupations, and return to that which, if I had been wise, I never should have left."[260] A day or two afterward, writing from the same place, he asks what Arabarches is saying of him.