Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, written from Rhodes around the 10th of August 50 BC (Perseus dateline: Scr. Rhodi circ. iv Id. Sext. a. 704 (50)). It is a short follow-up only six days after Ad Familiares 3.12, written from the next stop on Cicero’s return voyage. The letter answers fresh news that has reached Cicero of Appius’s service to him during the prosecution: not only had Appius spoken and voted in his favour, but he had gone to Cicero’s house, met with Cicero’s people, and left no piece of friendship’s office for anyone else to perform. It is the moment in the correspondence at which Cicero, having now folded the Dolabella engagement into his calculations, openly says that the weight has been returned to him in fuller measure than he sent it out.

The body of the letter is a small set-piece on amicitia as its own reward: “the outward marks of virtue many have attained even without virtue; the zeal of such men, virtue alone can attain.” The fruit of friendship, Cicero says, is the friendship itself. Beneath this lies the practical note that the new tie of adfinitas through Tullia’s marriage to Dolabella has not subtracted from his goodwill toward Appius, but added to it. The letter is shorter and (Cicero says) the more modest in form because he is writing to a man he hopes is now censor — master of public morals — a status Appius would in fact assume not long after.