Cicero to Atticus, written partly at Thessalonica and partly at Dyrrachium, finished on the sixth day before the Kalends of December (26 November) 58 BC. The hinge letter of the move out of Thessalonica: Plancius the quaestor has held him there longer than he wished, hoping to leave the province in his company when the new soldiers arrive; but now Cicero must move. §4 explains why he has gone north to Dyrrachium rather than west into Epirus through Thessaly: he would have heard nothing for too long on the longer route, and the men of Dyrrachium are well-disposed. §1 opens with a faint reproach to Atticus for letting his other business interrupt his news; §2 names P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther — consul-elect for 57 and the man who, with the new tribunes, will carry the recall — as the visible proof of Pompey’s good will, and reports that Atticus’s diplomacy with Q. Metellus Nepos (Cicero’s other consul-elect) has begun to bear fruit.