Cicero to M. Brutus, from Rome, mid-July 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae in. m. Quint. a. 711 (43). The meta entry rounds the month-precision date to 15 July; the dateline’s in.~m.~Quint. (“at the beginning of July”) would actually place it a few days earlier than 1.10 (med.~m.~Quint.), but the two letters are clearly of a piece in tone and political moment. The bearer is the vetus noster — the “old friend” — whom Cicero mentioned at the close of 1.9 as the future courier of a fuller dispatch; in this letter he is praised explicitly. Messala Corvinus is also about to carry a letter east.

Two things happen here. The first is the mother-and-sister scene of section 1. Servilia and Junia have come to Cicero to plead for Lepidus’s children, who stand to be ruined if Lepidus is declared a public enemy (as he will be, on 30 June, when the Senate hostis-declares him). Brutus’s mother and half-sister are also Lepidus’s wife’s relations — this is a tightly intermarried world — and Cicero is distressed that he could not yield to their pleas. His reasoning is rigorous: Lepidus’s case cannot be distinguished from Antony’s; the laws have wisely arranged that love of children should make a parent a better citizen, not the reverse; “it is Lepidus who is cruel to his children, not the man who pronounces Lepidus an enemy.” The second thing is the renewed imperative of section 2: come into Italy, with your forces and with your counsel, as soon as may be. The closing paragraph passes on news of young Marcus Cicero, studying with Brutus in Greece: Cicero hopes to see his son “before long,” with Brutus bringing him in person. That hope, like the larger hope, will not be redeemed.