He seems to have passed the greater portion of this year in Rome.

One letter only was written from the country, to Atticus, from his Tusculan villa, and that is of no special moment.

He spent his time in the city, still engaged in the politics of the day; as to which, though he dreaded the coming together of Caesar and Pompey and Crassus--those "graves principum amicitias" which were to become so detrimental to all who were concerned in them--he foresaw as yet but little of the evil which was to fall upon his own head.

He was by no means idle as to literature, though we have but little of what he wrote, and do not regret what we have lost.

He composed a memoir of his Consulate in Greek, which he sent to Atticus with an allusion to his own use of the foreign language intended to show that he is quite at ease in that matter.