Cicero to his freedman Tiro, written from the suburbs of Rome on the day before the Ides of January 49 BC (the manuscript dateline, garbled in Perseus as pdd. Id. Ian., is prid. Id. Ian.). Tiro is still at Patrae, recovering from the illness that kept him behind when Cicero sailed home from Cilicia; this is the first letter back to him from Italy since Cicero reached the city walls. He is at the suburbs and not within them because, holding the imperium of a returning proconsul, he is still keeping his claim to a triumph alive.

Section 1 is the affectionate medical opening the Tiro letters have settled into — the quartan fever, the order not to risk a winter crossing, the worry that goes through every line. Sections 2 and 3 are the news. The senate’s emergency decree (ut curaremus ne quid res p. detrimenti caperet, the senatus consultum ultimum) has just passed; Antony and Cassius have left the city to join Caesar; Curio has been egging Caesar on; the regions of Italy have been distributed among the commanders, and Cicero has been given Capua. This is the news he is sending in parallel to Terentia and Tullia at home — Tiro abroad is being kept on the same footing as the household. The closing etiam atque etiam vale is the standard sign-off of these letters; it does double duty here, written as the world tips toward war.