D. Junius Brutus Albinus to Cicero, from Cisalpine Gaul between mid-October and the end of November 44 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. in Gallia citeriore inter med. m. Oct. et ex. Nov. a. 710 (44). Decimus Brutus, already imperator and consul-designate for 42, had occupied the province assigned him by Caesar and was now campaigning against the Alpine tribes to season his army and earn salutation as imperator in his own right. A salutation conceded on the field by the troops gave him a formal claim to a senatorial supplicatio on his return, and a stronger civil position against Antony, who was already manoeuvring to drive him out of the province.

The letter is a short, businesslike provincial dispatch, and reads as the opening note of the active correspondence between the two men. Decimus does not quite ask for support: he takes Cicero’s goodwill as established (me tibi esse curae), reports victories, and closes with the practical request that adiuva nos tua sententia — “assist us with your vote” — in the senatorial debate his own dispatch to the Senate is about to provoke. The reply (11.5) and its follow-up eleven days later (11.6) are Cicero’s acceptance of exactly that role.