Ad Familiares 13.13
Ad Familiares 13.13
Headnote
Cicero to Brutus, the third in the cluster of recommendation letters from the Cisalpine governorship. L. Castronius Paetus, “by far the leading man” of the municipality of Luca — the Etruscan town on the southern road into Brutus’s province, the same Luca that had hosted the triumvirs’ summit of April 56 BC — is recommended on grounds of personal worth, fortune, and (most warmly) his close attention to Cicero himself. A single section, classic in its tripartite formula: my friend, worthy of yours, oblige him.
L. Castronius Paetus, by far the leading man of the municipality of Luca, is honourable, weighty, full of duty, plainly a good man, and adorned both by his virtues and — if this counts for anything — by his fortune as well; and he is my closest intimate, so wholly so that he respects no one of our order more diligently than me. For these reasons I commend him to you both as my friend and as one worthy of your friendship. In whatever matters you may oblige him, you yourself will surely find pleasure in it; to me, certainly, it will be welcome. Farewell.
L. Castronius Paetus, longe princeps municipi Lucensis, est honestus, gravis, plenus offici, bonus plane vir et cum virtutibus tum etiam fortuna, si quid hoc ad rem pertinet, ornatus; meus autem est familiarissimus, sic prosus ut nostri ordinis observet neminem diligentius. qua re ut et meum amicum et tua dignum amicitia tibi commendo. cui quibuscumque rebus commodaveris, tibi profecto iucundum, mihi certe erit gratum. vale.