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 fifth letter in the Servius-recommendation cluster of Book 13, and the first of a second sub-sequence (Fam. 13.24–28) which continues the same patronage business begun in 13.20–23. The beneficiary here is Lyso of Patrae, a Greek hospes (formal guest- friend) of Cicero, already commended to Servius in an earlier letter no longer extant. Someone at Achaia had evidently carried a story to the governor that Lyso spoke disparagingly of him at Rome; Lyso had written back to Cicero to report that the first commendatory letter had been enough to dislodge the suspicion.

The letter is essentially a thank-you note folded inside a renewed recommendation. The structure is careful: a movement of gratitude in section 1 to section 2, a categorical denial of the slander on Lyso’s behalf and on everyone’s behalf ("there is no one alive who has ever made mention of you except with the highest praise" — a calibrated hyperbole that nevertheless performs the loyalty-formula correctly), and then a return to the original commendation, asking that Servius extend his good offices further. The piece is a useful specimen of how a Roman of standing managed a small provincial crisis between absent friends: not by demanding anything, but by repairing the social fabric in the standard idiom of the commendaticia and trusting his correspondent to read the gesture correctly.