Cicero to Atticus, written from his Cumanum just after 10 May 54 BC. Vestorius — the Puteoli banker who is the brothers’ shared correspondent on the bay of Naples — has reported Atticus’s late departure from Rome and the illness behind it. Cicero’s main request is for the run of Atticus’s library while the owner is away: “especially Varro’s,” he says. The work in his hands is almost certainly De Re Publica, drafted through 54 BC and published in 51, for which Varro’s antiquarian materials would be exactly what he needed.

Section 2 is the standard Cicero-on-Atticus’s-letters formula: a request for any news, especially from Quintus (now in Caesar’s camp in Gaul) and from Caesar himself; on the elections; on the commonwealth in any form. “You tend to scent these things wittily.” Even an empty letter is welcome. Closing with a greeting to Dionysius and a wish for Atticus’s safe return.