Cicero to Atticus, written from Brundisium on the day before the Ides or the Ides of June 47 BC — 12 or 13 June (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ Brundisi prid.\ Id.\ aut Id.\ Iun.\ a.\ 707 (47)). A single section, hurried into the hands of someone else’s couriers because they were on the point of leaving, and made shorter still by Cicero’s intention to send his own messengers shortly. The occasion is Tullia’s arrival at Brundisium on the day before the Ides (12 June): she has brought three letters from Atticus and a long account of his kindness to her.

What Tullia’s presence draws out of her father is not the pleasure such a daughter ought to give but a grief sharper than her arrival warrants. The contrast is set out in Cicero’s most characteristic shape — her virtus, humanitas, and pietas ranged against tam misera fortuna, and the cause of that fortune assigned not to any fault of hers but to the gravest fault of his own. From this admission flows the letter’s only business: he expects neither consolation nor counsel from Atticus any longer. He knows Atticus wants to offer the one, and that no one can devise the other, and that Atticus has tried everything, in many earlier letters and most recently of all.