Cicero to Atticus, written at Cales on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, 27 January 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Calibus a. d. vi K. Febr. a. 705 (49)), as Cicero sets out from Cales for Capua. The last letter of the Rubicon-week sequence: the southward retreat from the City has become the inland march to join Pompey, and a tentative peace proposal has reached the camp.

Section 1 records the breaking news. Lucius Caesar (Caesar’s distant cousin, then acting as his envoy) has brought terms to Pompey at Teanum: Caesar to withdraw his garrisons from towns outside his province, and in that case the senate at Rome to be allowed to settle the matter. Cicero hopes the peace will hold for the moment — the symmetrical clause is the sharp one: illum furoris et hunc nostrum copiarum suppaenitet, “that man is somewhat regretting his frenzy and our own is somewhat regretting his forces.” Section 2 is the levy at Capua, where the Campanian colonists are slow, and a small bright spot: Caesar’s gladiators in the training school at Capua have been quietly distributed two apiece among householders — five thousand shields were in the school, and a breakout was rumoured.

Section 3 returns to the women. Cicero wants Terentia and Tullia (and Pomponia, Atticus’s sister) out of Rome — it does not look decent for them to stay when their peers have gone; the seaboard estates in his own district can hold them. The closing line is the one to underline: ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus — I do not cease to urge peace; which even unjust is more useful than the most just war with citizens. The Att 7.10–7.14 sequence ends here, on that sentence.