Cicero to Atticus, written at the Formian villa on 15 April 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Formiano xvii K. Mai. a. 710 (44), the body confirming e Formiano exiens xvii Kal. as he prepares to leave for Puteoli. A month after the Ides, Cicero is still on the road south. He has just seen L. Aemilius Paulus at Caieta and picked up further bad news about “Marius” — the impostor Herophilus who had been trading on a claimed descent from the great Marius; Antony, having earlier protected him, has just had him killed without trial (cf. Phil. 1.5). Brutus, banished in effect from the city, is seen at Lanuvium, and no one yet knows where he will settle.

The second section turns to the domestic anxiety that threads through these weeks: the welfare of young Marcus, studying in Athens, whose latest letter pleases Cicero by its pinos — the patina of stylistic finish. Three Greek phrases cluster on the same metaphor (pepinomenai, pinos), then the closing instruction to Atticus uses a classic Latin idiom for casual writing — quod in buccam venerit, “whatever first comes to mind” (the image of words rising onto the tongue is lost in English but the function is preserved, per STYLE.md). The letter closes with the public plan that floats through this whole April: a quiet departure mense Quintili in Graeciam, in July, by sea — contingent on a political settlement that does not come.