M. Junius Brutus to Cicero, written on 19 May 43 BC. The Perseus header gives the place as Rome (Scr.\ Romae xiv K.\ Iun.\ a.\ 711 (43)), but this is a Perseus error: the letter’s own closing subscript reads x iiii K.\ Iunias ex castris ad imam Candaviam — “the 14th day before the kalends of June, from camp at the foot of Candavia” — which fixes both the date (19 May) and the place (the mountain pass on the Via Egnatia between Dyrrachium and Macedonia). The launch metadata in the meta entry gives Dyrrachium, plausibly the staging city from which Brutus had set out; the closing subscript is authoritative and is used in the parallel sidecar. Brutus is on the march from the Adriatic into Macedonia.

The letter has four practical items, each handled with Brutus’s characteristic plainness. Section 1 waves off thanks — the relationship is past such formalities — and reports that young Marcus, currently leading the cavalry from Ambracia through Thessaly, will meet Brutus at Heraclea; what to do about his return to Rome for office (whether to stand in person or to be set up in absence) will be decided jointly when they meet. Section 2 is a personal recommendation of Glyco, Pansa’s physician, accused of poisoning his patient: Brutus defends him on motive (Glyco had everything to lose by Pansa’s death) and on character, and asks bluntly for his release. Section 3, the most historically loaded of the four, reports the news — still arriving piecemeal — that Dolabella has been cut down and put to flight, sent on by Satrius, Trebonius’s former lieutenant, via Tillius and Deiotarus; the actual death of Dolabella at Laodicea, by his own hand under siege by Cassius, will be confirmed in fuller detail later. Section 4 closes with a private matter: a contested inheritance at Dyrrachium in which Flavius (a friend of Brutus’s) is heir and the city denies the debt as forgiven by Caesar; Brutus asks Cicero, as agreed judge, to settle it. The Greek letter of Cicereius mentioned at the end of section 3, sent to Satrius and enclosed by Brutus, is not preserved.