Cicero to C. Memmius, written from Rome around April 52 BC (the manuscripts: Scr. Romae, ut videtur, m. Apr. aut paulo post a. 702). The Memmius addressed is C. Memmius, tribune in 54 and a correspondent Cicero approached more than once on behalf of clients and friends; Fam. 13.1 and 13.3 are part of the same cluster. The subject of this note is a small favour — a request that Memmius let C. Avianius Evander, a sculptor who lodges and works in Memmius’ sacrarium (a private shrine or chapel on his property), stay on past the Kalends of July rather than having to move out in the middle of extensive ongoing work.

The letter is short and businesslike, the standard register of the Book 13 letters of recommendation. Cicero leans twice on the etiquette of the genre: the appeal is qualified quod sine tua molestia fiat (“so far as it can be done without trouble to you”), and the closing turn — si tua nihil aut non multum intersit, eo sis animo, quo ego essem si quid tu me rogares — is the characteristic Ciceronian formula of mutual obligation: if the matter is no real concern of yours, treat my request as you would have me treat one of yours. Avianius Evander, the patron M. Aemilius (presumably M. Aemilius Lepidus, the future triumvir), and the problem of a sculptor’s atelier full of half-finished commissions all give a momentary glimpse of the texture of patronage at the level just below the great political moves of the year.