Quintus Cicero — the orator’s younger brother — to Tiro, written from an uncertain location at the end of December 44 BC, per the Perseus dateline loco incerto ex. m. Dec. a.~710 (44). The salutation Q. CICERO TIRONI SVO S. P. D. identifies the sender as Quintus (not his son and namesake); the warmth of the close (te fero in oculis) marks the long friendship between Quintus and his brother’s freedman.

The voice is unmistakably Quintus: blunter than his brother, more openly contemptuous of the political leadership, and given to scathing characterisations. The consuls-designate for 43 are Aulus Hirtius and Vibius Pansa, dismissed here as unmanned voluptuaries unfit for power. The “bandit” is Antony. The Caesena reference and the Cossutian shops are obscure jabs — proverbial bywords for utterly worthless property, the point being that the consuls-designate are not even fit to be put in charge of those. The closing image of kissing Tiro’s eyes if he meets him in the middle of the Forum is characteristic unguarded Quintus.