be laid aside in the bosom of his family, a paterfamilias is none the less bound to observe the laws of courtesy.  But it yet leads us to notice that C.P.C. loved his wife and children.  His wife was the daughter of one Fabatus, who would most undoubtedly have been long since forgotten but that his son-in-law wrote him model letters, sometimes on business, sometimes on his health, sometimes about visits that had been delayed—­generally complimentary, always short, always implying high reverence for the father of a well-loved wife.  But he carried the family passion for reading to excess.  One of his regrets is that his favorite reader is consumptive, and, despite a season in Egypt for his health, was still suffering.  So he sends him to the country-seat of a friend, to see if the country air and good nursing will not restore him.  It was an accomplishment to read well that added to the value of a slave, and Pliny prized his “boy” accordingly.  This is but a slight indication of the excess to which he carried his love for reading and scribbling.  If he could not read, he must scribble; so he scribbled when out hunting!  If he had been fishing with a book in his hand, that had been excusable.  But we do not believe that the Romans took kindly to fishing as a sport.  They bred their fish in private fish-ponds—­piscinae—­and they had a revolting habit of fattening their fish.  Old Izaak would have abhorred the very thought of casting a line for such prey:  sickening thoughts of cannibalism would have filled him with horror.  But C.P.C. consented to hunt one day, so he writes to Tacitus.  Did he ride after the dogs, spear in hand, to kill the fierce wild-boar?  Not he.  He; sat down by the nets with tablets on his knee, under the quiet shade, and meditated and enjoyed the solitude, and scribbled to his heart’s content.  Here a doubt arises.  Let us whisper it:  Did he inherit the avuncular tendency to obesity?  We have seen no hint of this, and of course it would not enter into his correspondence; but it is possible.  At all events, our natural conclusion is, that he was too literary to be merely a bon vivant.  No, he was a shrewd reader of human nature, a man of rare taste, of strong sense, and fond of an equable life.  He had means, and often, if not always, the proper leisure to live well.  And by living well we mean, not that he indulged in a greedy enjoyment of the good things of this life, nor yet in a profuse and gaudy display, but that, being a heathen, he lived as an upright heathen lawyer, magistrate, statesman and millionaire should live.

It was needful for him, then, having the wherewithal, and being a refined and well-balanced man, to have the place where to live well.  Did he have this?  Yes:  he had two villas—­one a summer residence near the mountains, and a winter one sixteen miles from Rome, near Laurentum.  This was the villa of Laurentinum.  It was fitted up with every then known comfort and convenience which a man of wealth,