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 third in the surviving Acilius cluster (Fam.\ 13.30–39). The beneficiary is Lyso of Lilybaeum, son of Lyso, a man of an established Sicilian family with whom Cicero shares an inherited tie of hospitality going back at least to the previous generation. Cicero recommends to the proconsul both Lyso’s affairs and his household.

The hospitium relationship — a formal, inheritable bond of mutual obligation between Roman and provincial families — is the structural foundation of the recommendation. Cicero traces the tie back through father and grandfather, locating it on a family axis rather than a personal one, and the strongest of the formal markers (maiorem in modum, magnoque opere) appear in the asking. The hospes does not need character notes; he needs a provincial governor primed to recognise that helping him will register as honour for both parties. The shortness of the letter is itself the measure of the strength of the claim.