Cicero to Atticus, written from Brundisium on the eleventh day before the Kalends of Sextilis (August) 47 BC — 22 July (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ Brundisi xi K.\ Sext.\ a.\ 707 (47)). The note is a courtesy: Atticus’s own people happen to be travelling back, and Cicero has used the chance to send something, though he has nothing to send. Atticus’s letters, too, have grown rarer and shorter — because, Cicero supposes, he has nothing he thinks Cicero will be glad of. Write anyway, he asks, whatever there is, of whatever kind.

The one thing left to wish for is that something might be done about peace; Cicero has no hope of that, but says that Atticus’s occasional light hints force him to hope for what is hardly to be hoped for. The remaining business is two lines: Philotimus is reported coming on the Ides of Sextilis (13 August), no further news of him, and Cicero asks for replies to his earlier letters. The closing self-judgement is one of the bitterest in the book — “I have just enough time to be on my guard, amid the worst of circumstances, where I have never in my life been on my guard at all.” The signed dateline is preserved.