From M’. Curius at Patrae to Cicero, written on the fourth day before the Kalends of November — 29 October 45 BC. (The meta entry’s day-precision date of 1 November is a touch off; the Perseus dateline gives a.\,d. iiii K. Nov. = 29 October.) Curius was a Roman negotiator long resident in Greek Patrae, a banker friend whom both Cicero and Atticus prized. The letter is a single elaborate jest on the legal categories of slave ownership: Curius pretends to be Cicero’s chattel by usus and Atticus’s by mancipium, with the further joke that as property he would fetch a poor price at the coemptio of worn-out elders.

The substantive request is that Cicero commend Curius to the successor of Ser. Sulpicius Rufus as governor of Achaea, so that he may wind up his affairs in Patrae and come home to Rome in the spring. The Greek tag — chrēsei men ... ktēsei de, “in use ... in ownership” — is the Roman law of property recast in Greek philosophical idiom, and the proverb about whitewashing two walls from one pot warns Cicero not to let Atticus see the letter, since Curius is professing a stronger allegiance to Cicero than the parallel relation with Atticus would publicly allow.