Quintus Cicero to Tiro, the freedman whose recovery from illness at Patrae is the standing preoccupation of the family. The manuscript dateline gives only “written in Campania, at the end of January or in February 49” (Scr. in Campania vel ex. m. Ian. vel Febr. a. 705 (49)); the entry carries the conventional 15 January placement. This is the briefest of the Tiro letters from these weeks — a paragraph from the brother, slipped into the same courier traffic that is carrying Marcus’s own long letter to Tiro (Fam.~16.12).

The shape is medical-affectionate throughout. Section 1 takes the report from the travellers — akinduna men chroniotera de, “free of danger, but slower to clear” — as both consolation and warning: the longer Tiro is away, the more keenly his absence is felt. Section 2 doubles the warning about a winter crossing with a line of Euripides on the cold as the enemy of a delicate frame, and closes with the affectionate sign-off and a greeting from young Quintus the son. The two Greek tags are the characteristic register of this family’s medical correspondence: a clinical phrase for the prognosis, a poetic line for the season.