L. Munatius Plancus, governor of Transalpine Gaul, to Cicero, written from Gallia Narbonensis on 26 or 27 April 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Gallia Narbonensi vi aut v K. Mai. a. 711 (43). A short, businesslike report on the eve of the Mutina campaign: Plancus’s army has just crossed the Rhone, a thousand horse have been sent ahead from Vienna by the shorter road, and the writer is bracing for the question of whether Lepidus, his neighbouring governor and now his rival, will let him pass.

The letter is also a careful piece of political positioning. Cicero has been promising the Senate that Plancus will come down on the right side; Plancus, who has been slower to commit than some of his correspondents would have liked, declares that he covets no honours for himself — and gladly leaves Cicero temporis et rei moderatorem, “regulator both of the timing and of the substance.” His forces are numero et genere et fidelitate firmissimas, very strong in numbers, in quality, and in loyalty. The valedictory line — “keep loving me, if you know I shall do the like in return” — is the kind of measured guarantee a junior consular delivers to a senior in the same hand he uses to itemize the cavalry.