Cicero to Atticus, written from the Formian villa on the fourth day before the Ides of February 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. in Formiano iv Id. Febr. a. 705 (49)). A single short paragraph, the morning after Ad Atticum 7.23, walking back the rumour Philotimus had sent. Cassius has had a letter from his friend Lucretius at Capua relaying news from Domitius’s camp: Vibullius is hurrying with a handful of men to Pompey, Caesar is hot on his heels, Domitius does not have three thousand soldiers, the consuls have left Capua.

The arithmetic is the whole letter. “I have no doubt that Gnaeus is in flight; may he only get away” — modo effugiat — is a short prayer between two clauses. The last sentence is the decision the previous day’s news had already made: ego a consilio fugiendi, ut tu censes, absum, “As for me, I am keeping my distance from the plan of flight, as you advise.” He is still on the coast, still at Formiae, still — for now — not on a ship.