Cicero to C. Cassius, from Rome between the end of March and 7 April 43 BC — Perseus dateline Scr. Romae inter ex. m. Mart. et vii Id. Apr. a. 711 (43). Written in the most precarious days of the Mutina campaign, before the relief of D. Brutus and the death of the consuls. Cicero passes on news through the bearer, C. Titius Strabo, and turns in the second section to the political confession that gives the letter its weight: “the whole refuge of loyal men has been laid upon you and Brutus” — M. Brutus and Cassius, the eastern command — “if anything adverse should happen.” The line is the clearest signal in the correspondence that Cicero has already, while the Mutina battle is still undecided, reckoned the price of failure and looks east for the fallback.