Cicero to Marcus Tullius Tiro, written at sea on the third day before the Nones of November 50 BC — 3 November — between Patrae and Alyzia. Tiro, Cicero’s freedman secretary, had fallen ill at Patrae; Cicero, pressed to reach Rome and the unresolved business of his triumph, sailed on without him, and from the voyage back across the Ionian Sea sends this — the first of the “Tiro left ill at Patrae” cluster — along with the slave Marion to bring word.

The salutation is unusual: Tullius Tironi suo s. p. d. et Cicero meus et frater et fratris f. — “Tullius to his Tiro, warm greetings, and my Cicero too, and my brother, and my brother’s son” — the whole travelling household putting its name to the letter, as if to reinforce by sheer family weight that Tiro is missed. The body is fatherly anxiety in three short movements: permission to stay (approbavi tuum consilium), the careful offer of a route to catch up (Marion has been dispatched to ferry him onward if he is fit, or come back alone if not), and the close that resolves the apparent contradiction — amor ut valentem videamus hortatur, desiderium ut quam primum; illud igitur potius: love wants him well, longing wants him quickly, and love wins. The whole cluster is the personal correspondence of the corpus at its most exposed.