Cicero to M. Junius Brutus, written at Rome at the beginning of 46 BC (Perseus: Romae in.~a.~708 (46)). This is the first piece in the long book of recommendations addressed to Brutus, who at this date was governor of Cisalpine Gaul under Caesar. Cicero is commending to him his own quaestor, M. Terentius Varro Gibba — a young man who has grown up in Cicero’s friendship, who has been one of the literary circle (hoc studio nostro, the studies of oratory and letters that Cicero keeps central even now), who took losses in the public-revenue companies, served honourably on both sides of the advocate’s bench, and stood for office before the war intervened.

The letter does what a Roman recommendation is supposed to do, with the deliberate doubling that marks the genre at its best. The opening move is institutional: the quaestorship is a bond like that of son to father, and Terentius does not strictly need a letter at all. The body then supplies what the institutional tie cannot — a biography of long acquaintance, intellectual common ground, the test of carrying confidential letters from Cicero to Caesar at Brundisium, a survey of character. The close returns to the institutional opening with a graceful epigram: in any new connection it matters by what recommendation the door of friendship is first opened, and that is the work of this letter. The piece is the standard against which the rest of book 13 wants to be read.