Cicero to Quintus Ligarius, written at Rome in early August 46 BC (works.yaml -0046-08-15 at month-precision; the Perseus dateline reads Romae in.~m.~Sext.~a.~708 (46), “at the beginning of the month of Sextilis” — a tightening to circa $-0046$-$08$-$01$ is plausible, but month-precision covers it). Ligarius, who had been left in command in Africa under the elder Considius and was caught up in the Pompeian remnant under Scipio and Cato that Caesar destroyed at Thapsus in April 46, is the addressee whose case Cicero argues the following year before Caesar himself in the speech Pro Ligario. He is in exile when this letter is written, his recall not yet secured; the despatches from Africa have only just come in, and Cicero, in company with Ligarius’s brothers (Titus and Publius), has begun the campaign at Rome.

No Greek. The letter is short, working, and tightly keyed to Fam.~6.10 of the same month — the line si tantum possem quantum in ea re~p., de qua ita sum meritus is the same self-deprecating formula about Cicero’s diminished gratia that opens 6.10.2, and the doctrinal pivot at the close (conscientia et factorum et consiliorum tuorum, “the consciousness of what you have done and meant”) is the standing Stoic-consolatio formula of the Pompeian-exile cluster. The structural beat “first I shall write what I see; then I shall show what I want by the deed, not by speech” is the shape of the letter: section~2 the survey, section~3 the realism about Caesar’s anger over the African resistance, section~4 the pledge of work for the brothers, section~5 the bravery-charge — a four-part architecture inside five short paragraphs.