Note 9 — Chapter XI

Writing three years later to Atticus, he says: “Confirmabam omnium privatorum possessiones, is enim est noster exercitus, ut tute scis locupletium.”—To Atticus, i. 19. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero’s most intimate correspondent, was a Roman knight, who inheriting a large estate from his father, increased it by contracts, banking, money-lending, and slave-dealing, in which he was deeply engaged. He was an accomplished, cultivated man, a shrewd observer of the times, and careful of committing himself on any side. His acquaintance with Cicero rested on similarity of temperament, with a solid financial basis at the bottom of it. They were mutually useful to each other.