Cicero to Atticus, written at the Cumean villa on 1 March 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Cumano K. Mart. a. 710 (44). The letter sits out of book-order in the manuscript tradition: although it stands between 14.14 (27 April) and 14.16 (3 May), its dateline places it more than six weeks earlier. The discrepancy is real and longstanding; we keep the manuscript position but record the March date here and in the parallel JSON.

The letter is one short paragraph of pure exhilaration — the famous o mirificum Dolabellam meum! As consul, Dolabella has just torn down the column and altar that the mob had set up to Caesar in the Forum, near the spot of the funeral pyre, and dealt summarily with the false-Marius pretenders who had gathered round it (the de saxo, in crucem clause catches both punishments — throwing from the Tarpeian Rock and crucifixion). The Greek tag anathe\=or\=esin — “reconsideration,” a fresh second look — registers Cicero’s about-face on a son-in-law he had hitherto distrusted. The remaining two sections handle housekeeping: Cicero will not leave Italy while Atticus thinks he should stay; he is transferring Pilia’s villa to her care as he sets off for Pompeii on the Kalends of May; and he wishes Atticus would persuade Marcus Brutus to come to Astura.