Cicero to Servius Sulpicius Rufus, proconsul of Achaia, written from Rome in 46 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Romae, ut videtur, a. 708 (46)). Servius, the great jurist and old friend whose consolation on Tullia’s death will follow in 45, is governing the new province of Achaia carved out of Macedonia by Caesar; Cicero is sending him a sheaf of letters of recommendation for clients with business in Greece. This is the first of the surviving four (Fam. 13.20–23), all to the same correspondent. The beneficiary is Asclapo, a Greek physician of Patrae who has treated members of Cicero’s household and earned Cicero’s confidence both as a doctor and as a man.

The letter is brief and entirely formulaic in shape — a sketch of the man, a statement of the favour asked, an indication of what return Cicero expects — but the formulae are turned with care. Cicero asks not merely for help but for visible help: the request is that Asclapo come away knowing that Cicero’s name has carried weight, which is the standard calculus of the commendaticia. The series is a useful window onto the patronage economy that ran beneath Roman provincial administration, and onto the friendship between Cicero and Servius, which the recommendations quietly trade on without ever insisting.