Cicero to Atticus, written from Brundisium. The manuscript dateline as transmitted is corrupt (Scr.\ Brundisi vir i Id.\ Mart.\ a.\ 707 (47)), but the postscript at the end of 2 gives the date plainly: viii Idus Mart., the eighth day before the Ides of March — 8 March 47 BC. This is the same day as 11.12, and indeed the two letters were probably dispatched together (cf.\ 11.12.1, where Cicero notes that he had sent off the morning’s letters before Cephalio brought Atticus’s of the previous evening). The works.yaml entry carries a day-precision date of 15 March, evidently a guess at the corrupt vir i Id.\ Mart.; this should be corrected to 8 March in the consolidation pass.

The letter is brief and almost without business. Cicero is so worn down by his “greatest of pains” that he can no longer easily compose answers, and is no longer even waiting for Atticus’s letters (though they always bring something he wants). The single piece of operational content concerns money: thirty thousand sesterces received from Gnaeus Sallustius are to be paid out to Publius Sallustius, and Atticus is to see, with Terentia, that there is some further sum left for Cicero’s own use; he has not dared draw on anyone at Brundisium until he knows funds are in hand at Rome. The closing sentences turn to brother Quintus (“the other man, in Achaea”), who continues to run Cicero down behind his back: Atticus’s letters of remonstrance, evidently, did no good. Cicero’s verdict on himself — “the grief is the heavier in proportion as the fault is the greater” — is the Book 11 keynote.