Cicero to L. Papirius Paetus, written at Rome after the Ides of August (13 August) 46 BC — Perseus: Romae post Id.~Sext.~a.~708 (46). Paetus has written to Cicero with a worry that Caesar’s land settlements for his veterans may sweep up his own holdings (or those of friends and townships near him); the surveyors have indeed come close, into the Veientine and Capenate fields just north of Tusculum. Metadata note: the meta/works.yaml entry gives day-precision -0046-08-13, the Ides of Sextilis itself; the Perseus dateline says post Id.~Sext., so the true date is between 14 and 31 August. The entry should be revised to year-or-month precision when the metadata is consolidated.

Three short sections, drier than the great gastronomic letters of mid-46 but in the same Paetus voice. The opening jab is perfect: are you not an absurd fellow, asking me what is to become of the townships and the land, when you have had Balbus staying with you — the very man from whom I learn everything I know, and whom you could have got it out of, sober or drunk? Cicero then turns serious: he himself does not ask these things, because for nearly four years now they have been living de lucro, on bonus time, if it can be called bonus time to outlive the commonwealth; and because he already knows the answer anyway — what will happen is what those who have the strength want, and the strength is in arms. The surveyors at the Veientine and Capenate land have come close, but nihil tamen timeo: he is enjoying things while he can, prepared, as vir fortis idemque philosophus — brave man and philosopher together — to love the man through whose kindness he is still alive. The closing flourish is the great Stoic-tinged triad: optare optima, cogitare difficillima, ferre quaecumque erunt — hope for the best, brace for the worst, bear what comes; even Caesar, he adds, does not know what is to be, since nos enim illi servimus, ipse temporibus — we are slaves to him, he to circumstances.