ABSTRACT
I had only just arrived from Arpinum when a letter from you was delivered to me; and by the same hand I received one from Avianius,4 containing this very handsome offer, that when he came he would enter my debt to him on whatever day I pleased. Pray put yourself in my place. Is it consistent with either your sense of honour or mine, first to haggle about the day, and then to ask for more than a year's credit? But everything would have been easy, my dear Gallus, had you bought only what I wanted, and that only up to the price I had in my mind. But for all that, the actual purchases mentioned in your letter I shall ratify, and they will gratify me too; for I quite understand that you showed not only your anxiety to please, but your affection also, in buying up, because you considered them worthy of me, things which gave pleasure to yourself, who, as I have always thought, show most refined taste wherever critical skill is needed.
