1I am taking you into counsel on a matter of family property, as I usually do. 1An estate neighbouring my lands and even running into them is for sale. 1In it many things tempt me, and some, no less important, deter me. 2What tempts me first is the very attraction of joining them together; 2then — which is no less useful than pleasant — being able to visit both with the same effort and the same travelling expenses, to keep them under the same steward and almost the same agents, to cultivate and adorn one villa and merely maintain the other. 3Included in this calculation is the expense of furniture, the expense of housekeepers, gardeners, workmen, and even hunting gear; 3and it makes a great difference whether you bring these together in one place or scatter them in different ones.
4On the other hand, I fear it may be imprudent to expose so large a property to the same weather and the same mishaps; 4it seems safer to meet the uncertainties of fortune by variety of possessions. 4There is also much pleasure in a change of soil and climate, and in that very travelling about among one's own properties. 5Now, which is the chief point of our deliberation, the fields are fertile, rich and well watered; 5they consist of plains, vineyards and woods, which provide timber and from it an income, modest but steady. 6But this richness of the land is being worn out by feeble cultivators. 6For the previous owner rather often sold off the tenants' securities, and while he reduced their arrears for the moment, he exhausted their resources for the future, and with their failure the arrears grew again.
7The tenants must therefore be equipped with slaves, the more costly because they must be honest; 7for I myself keep no slaves in chains anywhere, nor does anyone there. 7It remains for you to know at what price it seems it could be bought. 7Three million sesterces, not because it was not once worth five, but because of this shortage of tenants and the general hardship of the times, the price, like the income of the land, has gone down. 8You ask whether we can easily raise this very three million. 8I am indeed almost wholly invested in land, yet I have some money out at interest, and it will be no trouble to borrow; 8I shall get it from my mother-in-law, whose cash-box I use no differently from my own.
9So do not let this trouble you, if the other considerations do not stand in the way; and I would like you to examine them as carefully as possible. 9For in all matters, but especially in managing property, you have an abundance of both experience and foresight. 9Farewell.