Cicero to his wife Terentia, written from Brundisium on the fourth day before the Nones of June 47 BC — 2 June. Cicero has now been at Brundisium since the previous autumn, waiting for Caesar; Caesar is still pinned at Alexandria with Cleopatra, and no one in Italy knows when, or in what mood, he will return. The same week’s letter to Atticus (Att. 11.16, 3 June) shows the same suspended state, the same dependence on every scrap of news from the East.

The note is four lines. Word has reached him, both by letter and by messenger, that Terentia has suddenly come down with a fever; he urges her in the strongest terms to look after herself. He thanks her for the speed of her report about Caesar’s letter (presumably one of the periodic dispatches from Alexandria on which Cicero’s whole future hangs), and asks her to keep doing the same as new things come in. The closing repeats the opening: cura ut valeas, “take care of your health.” This is the voice of a man who has nothing left to give but practical solicitude.