Cicero to C. Cassius, from Rome about 1 February 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae circ. K. Febr. a. 711 (43). A short, biting note. The famous opening line — “I wish you had invited me to dinner on the Ides of March: there would have been no leftovers” — is one of the most quoted sentences in the correspondence: a wry reproach that the conspirators spared Antonius and so left Cicero now to mop up the “leftovers.” The body catalogues the political balance at Rome on the eve of the Mutina war: excellent consuls (Hirtius and Pansa), worthless consulars, a Senate steady only at its lower ranks, the people and Italy sound, and the envoys Philippus and Piso ridiculed for returning from Antonius with his counter-demands rather than his submission. Cicero also reports the rumour, unconfirmed, that Cassius is in Syria raising forces — which by this date he in fact was.