§12.3.1unum te puto minus blandum esse quam me et, si uterque nostrum est aliquando adversus aliquem, inter nos certe numquam sumus.
I think you are the one person less flattering than myself; and if both of us are sometimes so towards someone, between ourselves we certainly never are.
audi igitur me hoc ἀγοητεύτωσ dicentem.
Hear me, then, saying this without flattery (ἀγοητεύτως).
ne vivam, mi Attice, si mihi non modo Tusculanum, ubi ceteroqui sum libenter, sed μακάρων νῆσοι tanti sunt ut sine te sim tot dies.
May I die, my dear Atticus, if not only my Tusculan villa, where otherwise I am gladly present, but even the Islands of the Blessed (μακάρων νῆσοι) are of such value to me that I should be without you for so many days.
qua re obduretur hoc triduum ut te quoque ponam in eodem πάθει; quod ita est profecto.
Therefore, let this three-day period be endured, so that I may put you too in the same state of feeling (πάθει); which is indeed surely the case.
sed velim scire hodiene statim de auctione et quo die venias.
But I should like to know whether today there will be news immediately about the auction, and on what day you are coming.
ego me interea cum libellis; ac moleste fero Vennoni me historiam non habere.
Meanwhile, I shall occupy myself with my books; and I am annoyed that I do not have Vennonius' history.
sed tamen ne nihil de re, nomen illud, quod a Caesare, tris habet condiciones, aut emptionem ab hasta (perdere malo, etsi praeter ipsam turpitudinem hoc ipsum puto esse perdere) aut delegationem a mancipe annua die (quis erit cui credam, aut quando iste Metonis annus veniet?) aut Vettieni condicione semissem.
However, so as not to say nothing about business: that debt from Caesar has three conditions. First, a purchase at public auction (I prefer to lose it, though besides the shame itself, I think this very thing is a loss); second, a delegation from the contractor with a year's grace (whom shall I find to trust, or when will that Meton's year of yours arrive?); third, a payment of fifty percent on Vettienus' terms.
σκέψαι igitur.
Consider this (σκέψαι), then.
ac vereor ne iste iam auctionem nullam faciat sed ludis factis Ἀτύπῳ subsidio currat, ne talis vir ἀλογηθῇ.
And I am afraid that fellow will now make no auction at all, but, the games being over, will run to the aid of Atypus (Ἀτύπῳ) so that such a man may not be slighted (ἀλογηθῇ).
sed μελήσει.
But it will be cared for (μελήσει).
tu Atticam, quaeso, cura et ei salutem et Piliae Tulliae quoque verbis plurimam.
Please take care of Attica, and give her, and Pilia, and Tullia too, the warmest greetings in my name.