Cicero to Atticus, written from the Formian villa on the Nones of March 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ in Formiano Non.\ Mart.\ a.\ 705 (49)). A very short letter — a single section as transmitted — written the day after the long letter that opens book 9, on what Cicero identifies as Atticus’s birthday. He had expected a longer reply; what he received instead was a brief note Atticus had dashed off four days before the Nones at the moment of decision, and to that he now responds.

The substance is one tight knot: Atticus says he is glad Cicero stayed, and that he holds to his earlier opinion — but Cicero remembers the earlier opinion differently. As he read it, Atticus had not doubted that he should withdraw, provided two conditions held (Pompey well attended on board, the consuls across). Either Atticus has forgotten this, or Cicero misunderstood it, or Atticus has changed his mind. The next letter from Atticus will resolve it, or another will be elicited. The closing line is the daily refrain: from Brundisium nothing had yet been brought. The text breaks off there; the letter as transmitted is essentially this one opening section, sometimes labelled 9.2 in the manuscript tradition over against the longer “9.2a” / 9.2A that follows in modern editions.