Letter · 14 July 45 BC · in Tusculano

Ad Atticum 13.43

Ad Atticum 13.43

Headnote

Cicero to Atticus, written at the Tusculan villa on 14 July 45 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Tusculano prid. Id. Quint. a. 709 (45). A single short section, the kind of two-line acknowledgement these two exchanged daily that summer. Atticus has written from the games themselves to tell Cicero that some appointment of theirs at Rome has been pushed back; Cicero is grateful both for the news and for the small attention of writing while the show was still going on. He will use the extra time and come up two days later than planned.

The note sits among the daily letters of mid-July, with the Academica now in Varro’s hands and the Tullia-shrine search and the suppressed letter to Caesar still working in the background. Register is hurried-domestic — the courteous humanissime fecisti (“it was very good of you”) is the characteristic Ciceronian thank-you-note formula, and sed consequemur biduo post (“we shall follow on two days later”) closes the letter on the practical detail with no further ornament.

I will indeed make use of the postponement, and it was very good of you to let me know — and to do it in such a way that I received your letter at a moment when I was not expecting one, and that you wrote from the games themselves. I have, to be sure, some business to do at Rome; but we shall follow on two days later.
ego vero utar prorogatione diei, tuque humanissime fecisti qui me certiorem feceris atque ita ut eo tempore acciperem litteras quo non exspectarem tuque ut ab ludis scriberes. sunt omnino mihi quaedam agenda Romae sed consequemur biduo post.

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Ad Atticum 13.43

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