Cicero to C. Trebonius, written from Rome (or its vicinity) in April 44 BC (Perseus: m. Apr. 710 (44)). The salutation gives the recipient explicitly: M. Cicero s. d. C. Trebonio. Trebonius — one of the conspirators of the Ides, who had detained Antony outside the senate-house during the killing — was now on his way to take up his proconsulship in the province of Asia, travelling east in stages and meeting M. Brutus along the way. The letter is the response to one Trebonius had sent on departure, and catches the moment when the chief tyrannicides were scattering to their provinces while Antony consolidated power in the city.

The opening is bookish bantering: Cicero has placed his Orator — the rhetorical treatise of 46 BC dedicated to Brutus — in the hands of a man called Sabinus who is travelling with or known to Trebonius, and adds a little joke about whether the cognomen Sabinus has been honestly come by or grabbed candidate-style; the man’s bearing, at least, looks plausibly like that of someone from Cures, the chief town of the Sabines. The substantive turn is the famous epigram on the inverted geography of the late Republic: “in the old days those who were at Rome used to write on public affairs to friends in the provinces, but now you must write to us, for the Republic is over there.” The Senate of the Republic, the letter implies, is wherever the Liberators are, and no longer at Rome. The close asks for a journey-report and news of Brutus.