when Curio entered the crowd rose and cheered him, “as they used to cheer Pompey when the commonwealth was safe."[126] Perhaps the mysterious Vettius episode, an ancient Titus Oates affair, which belongs to this year, reflects the desire of the triumvirs to get rid of Curio, and shows also their fear of his opposition.  This unscrupulous informer is said to have privately told Curio of a plot against the life of Pompey, in the hope of involving him in the meshes of the plot.  Curio denounced him to Pompey, and Vettius was thrown into prison, where he was afterward found dead, before the truth of the matter could be brought out.  Of course Curio’s opposition to Caesar effected little, except, perhaps, in drawing Caesar’s attention to him as a clever politician.

To Curio’s quaestorship in Asia reference has already been made.  It fell in 53 B.C., and from his incumbency of this office we can make an approximate estimate of his date of birth.  Thirty or thirty-one was probably the minimum age for holding the quaestorship at this time, so that Curio must have been born about 84 B.C.  From Cicero’s letter to him, which has been given above, it would seem to follow that he had performed his duties in his province with eminent success.  During his absence from Rome his father died, and with his father’s death one stimulating cause of his dislike for Caesar may have disappeared.  To Curio’s absence in his province we owe six of the charming letters which Cicero wrote to him.  In one of his letters of this year he writes:[127] “There are many kinds of letters, as you well know, but one sort, for the sake of which letter-writing was invented, is best recognized:  I mean letters written for the purpose of informing those who are not with us of whatever it may be to our advantage or to theirs that they should know.  Surely you are not looking for a letter of this kind from me, for you have correspondents and messengers from home who report to you about your household.  Moreover, so far as my concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new.  There are two kinds of letters left which please me very much:  one, of the informal and jesting sort; the other, serious and weighty.  I do not feel that it is unbecoming to adopt either of these styles.  Am I to jest with you by letter?  On my word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days.  Or shall I write something of a more serious character?  What subject is there on which Cicero can write seriously to Curio, unless it be concerning the commonwealth?  And on this matter this is my situation:  that I neither dare to set down in writing that which I think, nor wish to write what I do not think.”