Cicero to Atticus, written from Astura on the seventh day before the Ides of March 709 AUC — 9 March 45 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ Asturae vii Id.\ Mart.\ a.\ 709 (45)). A single section, the most often quoted of the early Astura letters. After a one-sentence instruction about the augur Appuleius (the standing excuse will not do, so the daily excuse must continue), Cicero gives the sequence’s clearest description of his routine: cumque mane me in silvam abstrusi densam et asperam, non exeo inde ante vesperum — in the morning he hides himself in a thick rough wood and does not come out until evening.

The middle sentence — secundum te nihil est mihi amicius solitudine, “next to you, nothing is more my friend than solitude” — carries the keynote that runs through the sequence. In the wood his talk is with books, but weeping breaks in on it and he is, so far, no match for it. He closes by promising the reply to Brutus by tomorrow, to be forwarded by Atticus when a courier appears.