Cicero to Atticus, written at Aquinum on 10 November 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Aquini iv Id. Nov. a. 710 (44). A small filmic moment of the road: Cicero has risen before dawn at Sinuessa, come at first light to the Tirenus bridge at Minturnae — the turn-off for the inland road to Arpinum — and there, in the half-light when there is no lamp yet but not enough daybreak to read by, Atticus’s courier rides up. “Caught me pondering a long voyage” — Cicero quotes Odyssey 3.169 of himself.

Two letters from Atticus are produced. The first (“the most graceful of any — may I not be well if I write otherwise than I feel”) sets Cicero’s course; the second urges him on with another Odyssean tag (“past windy Mimas”) — which Cicero glosses for the joke: keeping the Appian Way on his left. He stayed that day at Aquinum, set out next morning, and sent this letter from the road. After a lacuna, the practical questions: he would rather be at Tusculum or somewhere in the suburbs — should he come closer? — write often. The closing answer to Atticus’s own question is laconic: if the parties are evenly matched, sit still; if not, the trouble will reach us, and we will act together.