Cicero to Atticus, written from Astura on the fifth day before the Kalends of Sextilis 709 AUC — 28 July 45 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ Asturae v K.\ Sext.\ a.\ 709 (45)). A single short section, written the day after 12.9. Cicero is still in the post-Tullia retreat at the seaside villa; the mood is sober and practical. The letter opens with the news that Athamas, evidently a slave of Atticus’s household, has died or done badly — male me hercule de Athamante; and Cicero turns at once to consolation in his own most characteristic register: that reason should win the point that time would win anyway.

From the death of one household member he moves to the care of others. Alexis, a young slave of Atticus’s whom Cicero calls “the very image of Tiro,” is in some danger; Cicero’s own Tiro has had to be sent home from Astura ill. If the Quirinal hill where Atticus lives carries any epid\=emion, any local outbreak, both Alexis and a second name (corrupt in the manuscripts and preserved here as Tisamenus) should be sent down to him at once: the upper floor of his Roman house is empty, as Atticus knows, and the point matters.