Cicero to Manius Acilius Glabrio, proconsul of Sicily, written from Rome in 46 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Romae, ut videtur, a. 708 (46)). The letter belongs to the cluster of Acilius commendaticiae at Fam.\ 13.30–39 sent during his governorship, and stands as the opening piece of the sequence in the manuscript order.

The beneficiary is Lucius Manlius Sosis, a man of Catina by origin who took Roman citizenship together with the rest of Naples and now sits as a decurion there, his municipal status having predated the post-Social-War grant to the Italian allies and Latins. His brother has lately died at Catina, leaving an inheritance which Cicero expects to pass without contest; but Sosis has older business of his own in Sicily, and Cicero commends both. The register is warmer than the strict commendaticia minimum — the beneficiary is to be reckoned “among my closest intimates and most particular connections” — and the ground given is, characteristically, the man’s literary and scholarly pursuits, the same shared bond Cicero so often invokes when recommending men of learning to governors.