whether he had seen Demetrius on the road, and at what hour he might be expected. The procession had indeed been organised to do honour to Pompey's freedman.
Quintus Cicero had a confidential servant named Statius, and Pomponia, Quintus' wife, who was something of a domestic tyrant, was very jealous of this Statius. Cicero gives an amusing picture of the family to Pomponia's brother Atticus.[1] "When we arrived, Quintus said in the kindest way in the world, 'Pomponia, do you invite the women, and I will see after the lads'; nothing could be more pleasant, to my judgment, and that not only in the words but in the tone and manner. But she, in my presence, replied: 'I am a stranger in this house'; and all because Statius had been sent beforehand to get ready some breakfast for us. 'See,' says Quintus to me, 'what I have to submit to every day.'" Quintus Cicero was a man of choleric and blustering temper in the outside world, but he was meek as a lamb at home. The poor husband rebelled at last and divorced Pomponia, but even here he could not act on his own account, but must needs make Statius the confidant of his plans. A letter of his freedman on this matter fell into the hands of his son and caused some unpleasantness. Quintus would never marry again; he had learnt, he declared, to appreciate the blessing of going to sleep without a curtain lecture.[2] When Quintus Cicero was governor of Asia, Statius appears to have acted as his vicegerent.
