Cicero to M. Caelius Rufus, written from the camp at Pindenissus in the highlands of Cilicia in late October or early November 51 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. in castris ad Pindenissum vel ex m. Oct. vel in. Nov. a. 703 (51)). It is the prompt reply to the news — belatedly arrived at the besieging army — that Caelius has been elected curule aedile. The greater part of the elation is at Caelius’s other, unhoped-for victory: that of his old rival Hirrus, defeated by Caelius in the augural election earlier in the year. Cicero is sending congratulations from a camp under a Cilician hill-fort, with brigand-country between him and Rome and his news running months late.

The conceit on which the letter turns is that of an actor working a part. Cicero, hearing of Hirrus’s defeat, claims to have become Hirrus himself — the pompous orator from Lucilian satire, with his balbus (stammering) speech and his roster of showy young proteges — and to have played out his mannerisms scene by scene. The three short scraps of verse in section 2 are quotations or near-quotations of old Latin comedy or tragedy (ne edepol quantam rem egeris..., incredibile hoc factu obicitur, ego voluptatem animi nimiam), each set in Hirrus’s mouth and broken off at a comic instant. Cicero closes by collecting himself in his proper voice: he loves Caelius as the man fortune has given him as the magnifier of his own standing and the avenger of his enemies — a glance back at the political shaming of Hirrus, of which the augural defeat had been only the beginning.