Cicero to Atticus, written from Capua on the fifth day before the Kalends of February in 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Capuae v K. Febr. a. 705 (49)). Cicero, in flight from Rome since Caesar crossed the Rubicon, has now reached the Pompeian headquarters at Capua. He has met the consuls and a great many of the senatorial order, and reports back what the conference looks like from inside.

The picture is grim. The consensus is to accept Caesar’s terms — only Favonius wants to refuse them — and Cato, of all people, “prefers to serve rather than to fight” (servire quam pugnare mavult) and is unwilling to leave the Senate even to take up the urgent governorship of Sicily. Postumius will not go without him; the assignment falls instead on Fannius. In section 3 Cicero gives Atticus his own reading: most think Caesar is bluffing to keep the Pompeian side from arming, but Cicero believes Caesar will actually withdraw his garrisons, since once he is consul “he will have won” (vicerit enim), and won by a lesser crime than the one he began with. The cold sentence at the close is the strategic confession: “we are shamefully unprepared” in soldiers and in money, and have left both private and public funds behind in the city for Caesar to take. Pompey himself has gone off to the two old Caesarian legions (the Appianae) with Labienus at his side; Cicero plans to slip back to his Formian villa at once.