Cicero to his wife Terentia and daughter Tullia, written from the Formian villa on the ninth day before the Kalends of February 49 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Formi; ix K. Febr. a. 706 (49)). Cicero is moving south from the suburbs of Rome — where he had stationed himself a fortnight earlier as a returning proconsul still claiming a triumph — to take up the coastal command Pompey has given him. Terentia and Tullia are still at the family house in Rome.

The letter is the question put to them plainly: stay at Rome, come to him, or fall back to one of the country estates. The argument both ways is laid out honestly — Dolabella, the son-in-law on Caesar’s side, could shield the house; but all the loyal men have already left, and have their wives with them. The region around Formiae is full of estates of theirs; they can be with him there and, when they want, fall back into private property. The practical orders — tell Philotimus to fortify the house, set up reliable couriers, write daily — close the letter in the clipped tone the household notes of the coming weeks will keep.