Cicero to L. Munatius Plancus, written from Rome in the middle of December 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae med. m. Dec. a. 710 (44). This is the first letter of the surviving correspondence with Plancus, governor of Transalpine Gaul and consul-designate for 42, that will run through the spring and summer of 43 and form one of the central documents of Cicero’s last political campaign. Plancus had written two identical letters (“the same content” — Cicero’s gloss is that this was itself a sign of his anxiety to get the message through) declaring his good faith toward the republic and recalling his father’s friendship with Cicero. Cicero’s reply is a brisk piece of management: he warmly accepts the personal note, redirects to the political one, and then closes with a sharp piece of moral counsel.

The argument of section three is the one Cicero will press on Plancus all spring: that what he has so far attained is owed in part to “fortune and the times,” and that the present crisis is his chance to make his own dignitas on his own merit, by coming down on the right side against Antony. The latrones, the “brigands,” are Antony’s circle — the standing Philippics term that runs through these letters. The hand-on-hilt mood — “in the gods’ name, do not let the moment slip” — is the same urgency Cicero will turn on Decimus Brutus and on the Senate itself over the next three months.