Cicero to D. Junius Brutus Albinus, imperator and consul-elect, from Rome on 6 June 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae viii Id. Iun. a. 711 (43). Written two days after the longer 11.21, in answer to a short, telegram- brisk dispatch from Brutus in Cisalpine Gaul. Brutus has reported that he is well and getting better, that Lepidus is “leaning the right way” (a hope that would be overtaken within days), and that with three armies in play — his own, Plancus’s, and Octavian’s — nothing should now be feared.

Cicero matches his correspondent’s brevity for once and lets the dry humour show. He has, he says, “champed the bit” as Brutus told him to — the Latin idiom for putting up with restraint — and is ready to hand over his vigilia, his nightwatch in the city, to Brutus, on condition that doing so does not lower his own steadiness. On the operational point: if the enemy permits, Brutus should wait in Italy for further letters before moving (the city has business he is wanted for); if his coming will end the war outright, nothing is more important. The senate has voted him the funds nearest to hand; Servius Sulpicius Rufus is acting as his friend in town; Cicero is not failing in his part.