Cicero to Servius Sulpicius Rufus, proconsul of Achaia, written from Rome in 46 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Romae, ut videtur, a. 708 (46)). The third in the Servius-recommendation sequence (Fam. 13.20–23). The beneficiary is T. Manlius, a Roman businessman based at Thespiae in Boeotia; the interesting feature is that Cicero is writing in tandem with a separate letter from A. Terentius Varro Murena, the future consul of 23 BC. Manlius is in effect being double-commended: Varro’s letter is the primary testimonial, and Cicero’s, as Varro evidently asked, is the reinforcing one. Cicero says so cleanly.

The phrase to watch is "no stranger to our pursuits" (a studiis nostris non abhorret): in a recommendation letter this is the standard way of signalling that the beneficiary is a cultivated man, not a mere businessman — that he reads what Cicero reads and converses well. It is one of the small loyalty-tokens of the late-republican literary class. The closing assurance, that Servius will reap from Manlius the same fruit that good men reap from the offices of other good men, is the standard commendaticia formula: the patron does not merely earn the client’s gratitude but enters into a durable reciprocal bond with him. The letter is short, correct, and unambitious, but the choice of phrase throughout is precise.