Cicero to Atticus, written from the Tusculanum on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of June 709 AUC — 18 May 45 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr.\ in Tusculano xv K.\ Iun.\ a.\ 709 (45)). The note written the same day Atticus left the Tusculanum, before the slightly fuller ad Att. 12.49 of the following morning. The single section is built on a perfect Ciceronian antithesis — ut me levarat tuus adventus sic discessus adfiixit, “as your coming had relieved me, so your departure has cast me down” — and asks for the return visit as soon as the Sextian auction is done.

The last line — “I would come to Rome myself \ if I had taken sufficient counsel on a certain matter” — is one of the elliptical half-confidences that mark this whole spring. The matter is presumably the Publilia question (the second wife, whom Cicero is trying to put off indefinitely) or some piece of the Terentia settlement; either way the formula quadam de re signals that Atticus will know what is meant without having to write it.