then he had numerous legacies.  This is a source of income which is almost strange to our modern ways of acting and thinking.  It seldom happens among us that a man of property leaves any thing outside the circle of his family.  Sometimes an intimate friend will receive a legacy.  But instances of money bequeathed to a statesman in recognition of his services, or a literary man in recognition of his eminence, are exceedingly rare.  In Rome they were very common.  Cicero declares, giving it as a proof of the way in which he had been appreciated by his fellow-citizens, that he had received two hundred thousand pounds in legacies.  This was in the last year of his life.  This does something to help us out of our difficulty.  Only we must remember that it could hardly have been till somewhat late in his career that these recognitions of his services to the State and to his friends began to fall in.  He made about twenty thousand pounds out of his year’s government of his province, but it is probable that this money was lost.  Then, again, he was elected into the College of Augurs (this was in his fifty-fourth year).  These religious colleges were very rich.  Their banquets were proverbial for their splendor.  Whether the individual members derived any benefit from their revenues we do not know.  We often find him complaining of debt; but he always speaks of it as a temporary inconvenience rather than as a permanent burden.  It does not oppress him; he can always find spirits enough to laugh at it.  When he buys his great town mansion on the Palatine Hill (it had belonged to the wealthy Crassus), for thirty thousand pounds, he says, “I now owe so much that I should be glad to conspire if any body would accept me as an accomplice.”  But this is not the way in which a man who did not see his way out of his difficulties would speak.

Domestic affairs furnish a frequent topic.  He gives accounts of the health of his wife he announces the birth of his children.  In after years he sends the news when his daughter is betrothed and when she is married, and tells of the doings and prospects of his son.  He has also a good deal to say about his brother’s household, which, as I have said before, was not very happy.  Here is a scene of their domestic life.  “When I reached Arpinum, my brother came to me.  First we had much talk about you; afterwards we came to the subject which you and I had discussed at Tusculum.  I never saw any thing so gentle, so kind as my brother was in speaking of your sister.  If there had been any ground for their disagreement, there was nothing to notice.  So much for that day.  On the morrow we left for Arpinum.  Quintus had to remain in the Retreat; I was going to stay at Aquinum.  Still we lunched at the Retreat (you know the place).  When we arrived Quintus said in the politest way, ‘Pomponia, ask the ladies in; I will call the servants,’ Nothing could—­so at least I thought—­have been more pleasantly said, not only as far as words go, but in tone and look.