Cicero to L. Munatius Plancus, written from Rome between 24 and 29 June 43 BC by the Perseus dateline Scr. Romae inter viii et iii K. Quint. a. 711 (43); substantively, however, the letter reports on senatorial business done in response to the joint declaration of concord between Plancus and his consular colleague, which places its drafting some weeks before that, in early June.

A short, politic note. The joint despatch declaring concordia between Plancus and Lepidus has been read in the Senate to general applause. Cicero explains why the agrarian provision Plancus had asked for has not been carried by a proper decree: parliamentary slowness, leading him and Plancus’s brother L. Plotius Plancus to fall back on a senatus consultum the framing of which was obstructed (Cicero leaves the obstructer unnamed, pointing Plancus to his brother’s letter for detail). The closing reassurance — “no kind of the most exalted dignity can be devised which is not in store for you” — is the standard senatorial soothing of an absent commander; the cryptic “letters of just such a sort as I most wish” is sharper, hinting that the next dispatch from Gaul had better confirm the alliance with Lepidus rather than unwind it. By the time Cicero’s note reached Cularo, Lepidus had defected, and the next letter Cicero received was 10.23.