Letters to friends/1.3

To P. Lentulus Spinther in Cilicia

Rome, January? 56 BC

M. Cicero presents his compliments to P. Lentulus, proconsul. Aulus Trebonius, who has important business in your province, both of wide extent and sound, is an intimate friend of mine of many years standing. As before this. he has always, both from his brilliant position and the recommendations of myself and his other friends, enjoyed the highest popularity in the province, so at the present time, trusting to your affection for me and our close ties, he feels sure that this letter of mine will give him a high place in your esteem. That he may not be disappointed in that hope I earnestly beg of you, and I commend to you all his business concerns, his freedmen, agents, and servants; and specially that you will confirm the decrees made by T. Ampius in his regard, and treat him in all respects so as to convince him that my recommendation is no mere ordinary one.^[1]

Footnotes

↑ This is a specimen of the short letter of introduction to a provincial governor which were given almost as a matter of course by men of position at Rome. We shall have many of them in the course of the correspondence: and Cicero elsewhere warns the recipient of such letters not to pay attention to them unless he expressly indicates his wish by some less formal sentence (see Letter CXIV). T. Ampius was the predecessor of Lentulus in Cilicia.

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[1] This is a specimen of the short letter of introduction to a provincial governor which were given almost as a matter of course by men of position at Rome. We shall have many of them in the course of the correspondence: and Cicero elsewhere warns the recipient of such letters not to pay attention to them unless he expressly indicates his wish by some less formal sentence (see Letter CXIV). T. Ampius was the predecessor of Lentulus in Cilicia.

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