Cicero to Atticus, written at the Tusculan villa about 21 June 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Tusculano inter a. d. xv et xi K. Quint. a. 710 (44), between 17 and 21 June. The first section gathers up two recurring threads. Buthrotum — the small Epirote town whose interests Atticus has championed against a planned Caesarian settlement of veterans — has come to nothing in spite of his efforts; Cicero asks why Brutus, as urban praetor, is now reopening it. Brutus’s affairs are altogether overburdening Atticus, the work of ten men loaded onto one — laborious [erg\=odes] but bearable [anekton], in the Greek terms Cicero reaches for. The reference to “the arms” is glancing and conspiratorial: Cicero will not commit anything more explicit to paper, and proposes that he and Atticus run together and confer face to face.

The second section reports an extraordinary piece of intelligence. Statius, Quintus Cicero’s freedman, has written to say that the younger Quintus — Cicero’s nephew, an intemperate and unreliable young man — has announced his intention of going over to Brutus and Cassius. The three possible motives Cicero offers (anger with Antony, fresh ambition, sheer improvisation [schediasma]) shade quickly into the fourth, that the last is no doubt the truth. The boy’s father, Quintus the elder, is upset, for he remembers things his son has said about him — unspeakable things [aphata]. The note closes with two quick questions: did Gaius Antonius (Mark Antony’s younger brother) want a place on the board of seven for land distribution, and what is happening with Menedemus.