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Of these boys, until they took the toga
virilis, he says hardly anything in his letters to Atticus, though
Atticus was the uncle of the elder boy. Only when his brother Quintus
was with Caesar in Gaul do we really begin to hear anything about
them, and even then more than once, after a brief mention of the young
Quintus, he goes off at once to tell his brother about the progress
of the villas that are being built for him. But it is clear that the
father wished to know about the boy as well as about the villas;[254]
and in one letter we find Cicero telling Quintus that he wishes to
teach his boy himself, as he has been teaching his own son. "I'll do
wonders with him if I can get him to myself when I am at leisure, for
at Rome there is not time to breathe (nam Romae respirandi non est
locus)."[255] It is clear that the boys, who were only eleven and
twelve in this year 54, were being educated at home, and as clear too
that Cicero, who was just then very much occupied in the courts, had
no time to attend to them himself.


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