Cicero to Aulus Caecina, written at Rome at the beginning of December 46 BC (Perseus: Romae in.~m.~Dec. a.~708 (46); works.yaml carries mid-December at month precision). The letter closes the Caecina cluster (Fam.~6.5–8); for Caecina see the headnote to Fam.~6.6. The piece is the practical companion to the substantive Fam.~6.6: where that letter argued the political reading, this one reports a concrete success in negotiation and disposes of Caecina’s logistical question.

Three short paragraphs. In §~1 Cicero has, through Balbus and Oppius — Caesar’s regular men of business in his absence — got Caecina’s deadline of 1~January waived, with a guarantee that he may remain in Sicily as long as he wishes without incurring Caesar’s displeasure. (Cicero notes that what Balbus and Oppius transact in Caesar’s absence is taken by Caesar as ratified; this is the practical point of the cluster.) In §~2 he answers a letter that had crossed his own — Caecina had asked whether he should stay in Sicily or set out to settle his remaining affairs in Asia. Cicero’s reading is unambiguous: stay; the nearness of Sicily helps both the petition and the speed of the eventual return. In §~3 he commends Caecina to Titus Furfanius Postumus, the new governor of Sicily, and his legates — all friends of Cicero’s, all just arrived from Mutina — and encloses a letter of recommendation to Furfanius, appended below in the manuscript tradition (it is not preserved in our text). This is the form of mediation Caecina had asked for in Fam.~6.7: the load on Cicero, the moves coming from Cicero, the issue brought through by Cicero. The reply delivers.