Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ Cold weather will prevent the meetings of the senate actually, but metaphorically politics will be also cold and dull, and that dullness will probably be nowhere so evident as in the deserted state of the Consul Appius's house, which in all probability will miss its usual bevy of callers. ”

“ The letter, indeed, on the point of which you expect to hear, will almost coincide with your return: [5] the other business of each day I will write on condition of your furnishing me with letter-carriers. However, such cold weather is threatening, [6] that there is very great danger that Appius may find his house frost-bitten and deserted! ”

“ And certainly I did chaff him pretty well, and not only wrenched from his grasp that petty township of his--situated in the territory of Zeugma on the Euphrates [2] —but also raised a loud laugh by my satire on the man's purple-edged toga, which he had been granted when Caesar was consul. [3] "His wish," said I, "for a renewal of the same honour, to save the yearly re-dying of his purple-edged toga, I do not think calls for any decree of the house ”