Cicero to Atticus, written at the Tusculan villa on 28 May 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Tusculano v K. Iun. a. 710 (44). The Liberators’ courier has just returned with letters from both Brutus and Cassius. Brutus is pressing Cicero for counsel between two courses (the province assigned him by the Senate’s decree, or some bolder step); Cassius is pressing him to make Hirtius — the consul-designate and Cicero’s own former pupil — as well-disposed to their cause as possible. Cicero registers blank dismay: he has nothing to write and means to keep silence. Cassius’s request in particular he dismisses with the daggered Greek tag [Greek: ho th\=esauros anthrakes] (“the treasure is coals”), proverbial for hopes that turn out worthless — Hirtius, however he may have been earlier, will not be made better by Cicero’s authority now.

Section 2 reports that Balbus and Oppius confirm the provincial decree Atticus had mentioned; Hirtius is already at his own Tusculan villa and urges Cicero to keep away from Rome, on grounds of danger. Cicero’s own reason is different: not Antony’s suspicion (he is, if anything, willing to be seen displeased at Antony’s good fortune), but simply that he does not want to have to look at the man. Section 3 turns to the disbanded veterans, who according to a letter to Varro from an unnamed source are talking in the most disgraceful way, so that any dissenter in Rome will be in real peril; and to Lucius Antonius moving against Decimus Brutus. The famous formulation closes the letter — a city in which Cicero once “not only flourished at the height, but also served in slavery with some measure of dignity” — and he resolves at least, for now, not to return to Rome, leaving the question of whether to leave Italy altogether for Atticus to decide with him face to face.