Cicero to Atticus, written from the Tusculanum in the second half of June 709 AUC — mid-to-late June 45 BC. The Perseus dateline is garbled (Scr.\ in Tusculano xttv K.\ Quint.\ a.\ 709 (45)); the editorial tradition has variously restored it as xiv K.\ Quint. (18 June) or read the day-element as “Kalends of Quintilis” (1 July). Either reading places the letter in the Tusculanum sequence that runs from Atticus’ visit through Cicero’s planned removal to Arpinum. Dolabella has come up from Rome and stayed for a long morning’s talk; Trebatius is now an houseguest; and Torquatus has arrived in time to hear Dolabella report the warmth with which Cicero had pleaded his cause.

The texture is unusually thick with Greek — [Greek: ektenesteron] “more attentive,” [Greek: philostorgoteron] “more affectionate,” [Greek: aphata], [Greek: adiegeta] “unspeakable, not to be recounted,” [Greek: eukairos] “at just the right moment” — the standard private-language of the Atticus correspondence at moments of feeling and of discretion. The reference to Quintus is one of the half-confidences Cicero will not commit to writing even to Tiro’s dictation; the brother quarrel is at this point the running grief beneath the philosophical calm. Section 2 turns to the Brutus–Claudia divorce (Nicias’ news, the question whether it will be ratified) and to Cicero’s plan to get to Arpinum before Caesar’s return puts travel out of reach.