Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, written from Side on the south coast of Asia Minor on the 4th of August 50 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. Sidae a. d. iii aut prid. Non. Sext. a. 704 (50)). Cicero is sailing west, his year of proconsular command in Cilicia now over, and lands at Side to find a packet of letters from his people in Rome. Two pieces of news shape this letter. The first is the acquittal of Appius on his second prosecution, the ambitus charge, brought again by Dolabella. The second is that, in Cicero’s absence, his wife Terentia and his daughter Tullia have concluded Tullia’s engagement to Dolabella himself — the same Dolabella who has just twice prosecuted Appius. Cicero is now obliged to write to Appius from inside a piece of forensic geometry: he must congratulate Appius on his acquittal of the very prosecution his daughter’s prospective husband had pressed.

Section 1 dispatches the congratulation in high register. The marvel, Cicero says, is not that Appius was acquitted — no one ever doubted that — but that in these times, with these manners, no malice ventured to assail him even in the secrecy of the ballot. Section 2 then turns to the awkward matter of the engagement. Cicero asks Appius to step into his place and feel for him: “If you find it easy to say what to say, you needn’t make any allowance for my hesitation.” He insists that the match was concluded without his knowledge by his people in Rome, that the timing was not of his choosing, and that he has no quarrel with the man chosen — but the position is delicate, and he is plainly sweating it out for the reader to see.

Section 3 resolves the difficulty with a characteristic Ciceronian formula: had he himself been on the spot, he would have approved the match, but he would not have settled the timing without Appius’s counsel. Section 4 closes with a small but affecting domestic scene: as Cicero’s ship neared Side, with Q. Servilius beside him, the letters from Rome were brought aboard, and Cicero — seeing that Servilius too looked shaken — promised at once that Appius should expect from him only greater attentions. The deepening of his old goodwill, with the new adfinitas added on, is the note on which the letter ends.