Cicero to Atticus, written from Astura on the eighth day before the Kalends of April 709 AUC — 25 March 45 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ Asturae viii K.\ Apr.\ a.\ 709 (45)). Silius is to meet Atticus that very day; Cicero asks for news tomorrow “or rather, when you can.” He is not avoiding Brutus, he insists, nor does he expect any levatio — any easing of grief — from him; but he will need an excuse to Brutus all the same.

The second section is the most explicit statement in the Astura sequence of what the horti are actually for. The “capital point” — the shrine for Tullia — Atticus already knows; but Cicero now adds the corollary: he needs a place for himself, since he can neither live in a crowd nor be apart from his Roman circle. The Silius property suits both ends. He asks Atticus to put the case to Oppius and Balbus, Caesar’s two most powerful financial intermediaries, and to let them lead on the purchase: it depends on settling the “Faberian business” — a stalled debt Cicero has long despaired of — and if some loss must be taken to convert it into ready money, so be it. The letter closes with two Greek words for the property that have become famous: Atticus, in a letter not preserved, had called the gardens an enge\=erama, “a thing to grow old in.” Cicero answers that Atticus may treat them either as that or as an entaphion, “a thing to be buried in.” The phrase belongs with the great turns of the Astura grief. The Ostia property is dismissed; if the Silius gardens cannot be had, and nothing can be expected from Lamia either, Damasippus’ offer is the fallback.