Cicero to Atticus, written on the journey back from Antium to the Tusculan villa on 16 June 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in itinere ex Antiati in Tusculanum xvi K. Quint. a. 710 (44). Cicero has set out from Antium and is crossing one of the small lakes on the road north when he breaks off to dispatch a courier. Tiro, his freedman and secretary, is to ride ahead to take a hand in the business Atticus is conducting on his behalf in Rome — in particular the question of an embassy that would give Cicero a respectable title for leaving Italy. He has also written separately to Dolabella, one of the consuls, asking for the mules he will need for transport if he is to travel.

The second section turns urgent. Atticus is pulled in every direction — by the affair of Buthrotum (the disputed town in Epirus whose interests he is defending) and by the games Marcus Brutus must put on as urban praetor, whose expense and management Cicero now realises have largely fallen on Atticus too. Yet Cicero needs a small share of his time, and he needs it because he is in fear of his life. The men are visible, the arms are visible: bloodshed is coming, and soon. He wants Atticus to write at once whether he should leave. Staying at home, he says, he much prefers, if he safely can — a sentence whose conditional is the whole substance of these weeks.