Cicero to T.~Furfanius Postumus, governing as proconsul (most likely in Sicily), written at Rome around the start of December 46 BC (Perseus dateline: Romae circa initium Decembris 708 (46)). A short, single-purpose letter of recommendation on behalf of A.~Caecina — the same Etruscan friend whose case generates the much longer, anguished consolatory exchange of Fam.~6.5–8. Caecina had fought for Pompey, had been condemned after Thapsus, and was living a precarious exile; Cicero, prevented from doing more politically, spent the year of Caesar’s clemency working the provincial governors on his behalf.

The letter is built on the standard two-step shape of Cicero’s commendationes. First, the relationship: Caecina is not an acquaintance but a man Cicero has loved a puero, bound to him by the friendship of fathers, by the offices of friendship, and by shared literary studies (Caecina was himself a writer of repute). Second, the ask: Furfanius is already, Cicero is sure, well disposed; he is asked only to add Cicero’s recommendation as a cumulus — a heaping-up — to what his own goodwill would have given anyway. The closing vale is the brisk businesslike form proper to a magistrate.