The simple fact was that Cicero was always regarded as a safe man to lend money to, by the business men and the great capitalists; partly because he was an honest man,—­a vir bonus who would never dream of repudiation or bankruptcy; partly because he knew every one, and had a hundred wealthy friends besides the lender of the moment and among them, most faithful of all, the prudent and indefatigable Atticus.  Undoubtedly then it was by borrowing, and regularly paying interest on the loans, that he raised money whenever he wanted it.  He may have occasionally made money in the companies of tax-collectors; we have seen that he probably had shares in some of their ventures.  But there is no clear evidence in his letters of this source of wealth,[141] and there is abundant evidence of the borrowing.  After his return from exile, though the senate had given him somewhat meagre compensation for the loss of his property, he began at once to borrow and to build:  “I am building in three places,” he writes to his brother,[142] “and am patching up my other houses.  I live somewhat more lavishly than I used to do; I am obliged to do so.”  Here again we know from whom he borrowed,—­it was this same brother, who of course had no more certain income than his own, probably less.  But he had been governor of Asia for three years (61-58 B.C.), and must have realised large sums even in that exhausted province; and at this moment he was legatus to Pompeius as special commissioner for organising the supply of corn, and thus was in immediate contact with one of the greatest millionaires of the day.  In order to repay his brother all Marcus had to do was to borrow from other friends.  “In regard to money I am crippled.  But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained quite dry myself” (ad Att. iv. 3).  Two years later an unwary reader might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his astonishment will vanish.  With the prospect before him of a prolonged stay in Gaul with Caesar, Quintus might doubtless have borrowed to any extent; and in fact with Caesar’s help—­the proceeds of the Gallic wars—­both brothers found themselves in opulence.  The Civil War, and the repayment of his debts to Caesar, nearly ruined Marcus towards the end of his life, but nothing prevented his contriving to find money for any object on which he had set his heart; when in his grief for the loss of his daughter he wishes to buy suburban gardens where a shrine to her memory may (strange to say) attract public notice, he tells Atticus to buy what is necessary at any cost.  “Manage the business your own way; do not consider what my purse demands—­about that I care nothing—­but what I want."[144]