Titus Pomponius Atticus

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 2.9 §4 Titus the Athenian

  Atticus himself, addressed by his praenomen Titus and his nickname "the Athenian" (for his long residence in Athens). The greeting is quoted in Greek as the small son's words: "and little Cicero greets Titus the Athenian."

• Ad Atticum 3.4 §1 my Pomponius

  'Pomponius' is Atticus himself --- T. Pomponius Atticus, the recipient of every letter in this book --- addressed by his nomen as an intimacy, not a third party.

• Ad Atticum 3.9 §1 you, who urged me to live

  Atticus had argued Cicero out of suicide when the exile was decreed; Cicero now throws the consequence back at him.

• Ad Atticum 3.11 §2 by your work, your counsel, your influence

  Cicero asks Atticus for practical help (opera, consilio, gratia) rather than further consolation, which now only deepens his grief.

• Ad Atticum 3.12 §2 See to that wound

  Cicero asks Atticus to do damage control over the leaked speech, treating its escape as a fresh injury to him.

• Ad Atticum 3.19 §3 T. Pomponius

  Atticus addressed by his formal name, Titus Pomponius. Cicero uses the solemn vocative as he turns to his most urgent entreaties.

• Ad Atticum 9.2 §1 the Nones of March, your birthday

  Atticus's birthday fell on the Nones of March (7 March); Cicero, isolated at Formiae, marks the date as he waits for a fuller letter. The personal touch sits oddly against the political crisis, which is exactly the contrast Cicero feels.

• Ad Atticum 13.14 §1 added to the dialogue as the third party

  Cicero has cast Atticus himself as the third interlocutor (alongside Cicero and Varro) in the new Academica. Atticus thus has a personal stake in whether the work is published.

• Ad Atticum 13.47 §1 Agamemnon

  A playful epithet for Atticus, cast as the Homeric commander-in-chief whose orders Cicero leaps to obey. The conceit suits Atticus's habit of issuing literary commissions to his friend.

• Ad Atticum 15.14 §2 our friend Atticus

  Titus Pomponius Atticus, the recipient of the main letter and Cicero's lifelong intimate; the Buthrotum estates at issue were Atticus's, which is why his thanks to Dolabella matter so much to Cicero.

• Ad Atticum 16.2 §2 my dear Atticus

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong friend, financial manager, and the recipient of these letters; here Cicero asks him to run all his affairs at Rome while he is away.

• Ad Atticum 16.10 §2 Now, my dear Atticus

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong friend and confidant and the recipient of these letters, whose counsel Cicero urgently solicits here.

• Ad Atticum 16.13 §1 anything from Atticus

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong intimate friend and the recipient of these letters; a wealthy and politically neutral man whose advice and courier network Cicero relied on constantly.

• Ad Familiares 5.5 §1 Titus Pomponius

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong intimate, here travelling to Antonius (then governing Macedonia) on business of his own. The whole letter is built around commending Atticus's affairs to Antonius.

• Ad Familiares 6.10 §1 our Atticus

  Titus Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's closest friend and prolific correspondent; a wealthy eques who stayed scrupulously neutral in the civil wars and acted as a channel of communication and goodwill for friends on all sides.

• Ad Familiares 7.31 §2 our Pomponius

  Pomponius is T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's closest friend; the cognomen 'Atticus' (from Attica/Athens) lets Cicero pun on him as the keeper of 'ancient Attic glory,' that is, of refined Attic wit (urbanitas).

• Ad Familiares 13.1 §5 I love Pomponius Atticus as a second brother

  T. Pomponius Atticus (110–32 BC), Cicero's closest friend and correspondent, had a long personal friendship with the Epicureans at Athens (though not himself an Epicurean) and was pressing Cicero to intercede with Memmius on Patro's behalf.

• Ad Familiares 13.17 §1 he is the closest intimate of our friend Atticus, and beyond all others it is he alone whom Atticus singles out for his regard and affection

  Titus Pomponius Atticus (110--32 BC), Cicero's lifelong friend and correspondent, had extensive business ties in Greece; his endorsement of Curius is Cicero's strongest rhetorical card, since Atticus's judgment of character was universally trusted and he was also a close friend of Sulpicius.

• Ad Familiares 13.18 §1 whom I saw beside himself with delight

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's closest friend and financial adviser, was a major property-owner in Epirus; Servius had evidently written to Atticus directly, an unsolicited gesture that delighted both men.

• Ad Familiares 14.5 §2 Pomponius

  T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong friend and chief correspondent, here asked to manage a property auction in Cicero's absence. Atticus was Rome's most reliable financial fixer for his friends.

• Ad Familiares 14.10 §1 What I wanted done I wrote to Pomponius

  Pomponius is Titus Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong friend and financial agent. The deliberately guarded wording (Cicero will not write openly because he has already instructed Atticus) reflects his caution at Brundisium in 47 BC about the family's money and Tullia's dowry.

• Ad Familiares 14.19 §1 a letter from Pomponius

  Pomponius is T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's closest friend and confidant, addressed here by his gentile name. Written from Brundisium in late November 48 BC, while Cicero, stranded after Pharsalus, anxiously awaited word and fretted over Tullia's illness.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.9 §2 Pomponius

  T. Pomponius Atticus by his nomen, the form Cicero uses when writing about him to Quintus.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §1.16 our friend Atticus

  Titus Pomponius Atticus, Cicero's lifelong friend and correspondent, was himself an Epicurean. He had heard the Epicurean teachers with Cicero and especially loved Phaedrus.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.4 all but one of the Attics

  A pun on the cognomen 'Atticus' that T. Pomponius earned for his long residence at Athens. 'The Attics' are the people of Attica, the region around Athens.

• Orator: To Marcus Brutus §120 the record of seven hundred years

  Atticus' Liber Annalis, a single-volume chronology of Roman history down to Cicero's day; Cicero credits it with making the sequence of events available to the orator who needs historical examples.