lest they should do something to discredit the family. It is needless to say that he confides his alarms to Atticus. One such communication may serve to illustrate the elder brother's uneasiness. When Cicero quitted Cilicia after his year of governorship (50 B.C.), it was a difficult question, whom to leave in charge of his province; he finally resolves that he will not pass over his quæstor, officially the second in command, in favour of the higher standing and greater experience of his brother. In writing to Atticus, after a long string of arguments for this decision, he concludes[1]—"So much for reasons which we can give to the world; next one for your private ear. I should never have a moment's peace for fear he should do something hasty or insolent or indiscreet, for such things will happen in this world. Then there is his son, a boy, and a boy with a mighty good opinion of himself; what a vexation it would be; and his father will not hear of sending him home, and is displeased at your suggesting it. Now as for the quæstor, I don't pretend to say what he may or may not do, but then I plague myself much less about it."
On one occasion (see below, p. 342) a darker cloud came between the brothers; but though the evidence looks black against Quintus, the complete reconciliation which followed allows us to hope that what looked like baseness proved to have been only ill-temper and indiscretion. In death they were not divided; and Cicero's nephew, too, redeemed a
- ↑ Ad Att., vi., 6, 4.
