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From a little specimen which remains of it, describing a memorable omen given to Marina from an oak at Arpinum, there is reason to believe that his poetical genius was scarcely inferior to his oratorical, had it been cultivated with equal industry.
A score of slaves and peasants looked after what remained of the dwelling and cultivated the land attached to it, garden, oliveyard, vineyard, partly on the island, partly beyond the river in the direction of Arpinum, which historic city, now but sparsely peopled, showed on the hillside a few miles away. Excepting his house in Rome, this was all the property that Marcian possessed.
I now come to your letters which I received in several packets when I was at Arpinum. For I received three from you in one day, and, indeed, as it seemed, despatched by you at the same time one of considerable length, in which your first point was that my letter to you was dated earlier than that to Cæsar.
The primitive tombs of Caere and Alsium, and probably the oldest one also of those recently discovered at Praeneste, have been, exactly like the thesauroi of Orchomenos and Mycenae, roofed over with courses of stone placed one above another, gradually overlapping, and closed by a large stone cover. The gates constructed on the same system are entirely similar in Arpinum and in Mycenae.
After the defeat at Pharsalia he waited with his father at Brundisium till a kind letter from Caesar assured him of pardon. In B.C. 46 he was made aedile at Arpinum, his cousin being appointed at the same time. The next year he would have gladly resumed his military career.
He says it is urgent, and so it may be; but, from what I have learnt I doubt whether he is wholly to be trusted. Can you send some one with him? 'Nothing easier. 'I, continued Basil, 'ride straightway for Arpinum. Ask me no questions, Venantius. When I return, if I do return, you shall know what sent me there. I may be back speedily. He took food, and in an hour's time was ready to start.
In the same letter Cicero consults Atticus as to the best mode of going to Greece. Brundisium is the usual way, but he has been told by Tiro that there are soldiers in the town. He is now at Arpinum, on his journey, and receives a letter from Brutus inviting him back to Rome, to see the games given by Brutus. He is annoyed to think that Brutus should expect this.
He had spent a considerable part of his life before he saw and tasted the pleasures of the city; having passed previously in Cirrhaeaton, a village of the territory of Arpinum, a life, compared with city delicacies, rude and unrefined, yet temperate, and conformable to the ancient Roman severity.
His most intimate companions were the younger Marius, the adopted son of his uncle; and, singularly enough, the two Ciceros, Marcus and his brother Quintus, who had been sent by their father to be educated at Rome. The connection of Marius with Arpinum was perhaps the origin of the intimacy.
"A rough, wild nurse-land, but whose crops are men". Fragments of Cicero's villa are thought to have been discovered built into the walls of the deserted convent of San Dominico. There was an aptness in the quotation; for at Arpinum, a few years before, was born that Caius Marius, seven times consul of Rome, who had at least the virtue of manhood in him, if he had few besides.
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