Cicero to Terentia, written from Brundisium on the fourth day before the Kalends of December 48 BC (the manuscript dateline: Scr. Brundisi iv K. Dec. a. 706 (48)). Three weeks after the homecoming note of Fam. 14.12, Cicero is still stuck at Brundisium under the same shadow; Tullia, now married to Dolabella, is unwell at Rome, and Terentia has been urging him to come up the road toward her.

The letter is six lines long and registers three things in turn: dread for Tullia’s health (he will not elaborate, knowing it weighs on Terentia as heavily as on him); the admission that he ought to be moving closer to them and would have already, but for impediments not yet cleared; and a courier instruction — he is waiting on a letter from Pomponius (Atticus), and Terentia is to make sure it reaches him at speed. The closing “take pains to keep well” is the same formulation he has been writing to her all autumn.