Remetente desconhecido → Marcus Tullius Cicero
Tradução moderna em inglês
If you are well, I am glad, and I am well. If you maintain your custom in protecting your clients, Publius Vatinius has come as a client who wishes his case to be pleaded on his behalf. You will not, I think, reject in the matter of an honor the man you took on when he was in danger. And whom should I rather adopt or invoke than the man by whose defense I learned to win? Should I fear that he who disregarded the conspiracy of the most powerful men for the sake of my safety will not prostrate and crush the slanders and jealousies of petty and malicious men for the sake of my honor? Therefore, if you love me as you are accustomed to, take me up entirely, and consider this burden and duty, whatever it may be, as something to be defended and sustained by you for the sake of my dignity. You know that my fortune somehow easily finds detractors, not by my own desert, by Hercules, but what does that matter if it happens by some fate or other? If there should be anyone who wishes to harm my dignity, I ask you to show me your customary generosity in defending me in my absence. I have written out below for you the copy of the letter I sent to the senate concerning my achievements. I am told that your runaway slave, the reader, is with the Vardaei; you gave me no instructions about him, but I have already ordered that he be searched for by land and sea, and I shall certainly find him for you, unless he has fled into Dalmatia, and even from there I shall dig him out eventually. See that you love me. Farewell. The fifth day before the Ides of July, from the camp at Narona.
Texto latino / grego
IX. Scr. in castris Naronae a. d. V Idus Quinctiles a.u.c. 709. VATINIUS IMP. CICERONI SUO SAL. S. V. B. E. E. V. Si tuam consuetudinem in patrociniis tuendis servas, P. Vatinius cliens advenit, qui pro se causam dicier vult: non, puto, repudiabis in honore, quem in periculo recepisti. Ego autem quem potius adoptem aut invocem quam illum, quo defendente vincere didici? an verear, ne, qui potentissimorum hominum conspirationem neglexerit pro mea salute, is pro honore meo pusillorum ac malevolorum obtrectationes et invidias non prosternat atque obterat? quare, si me, sicut soles, amas, suscipe me totum atque hoc, quidquid est oneris ac muneris, pro mea dignitate tibi tuendum ac sustinendum puta. Scis meam fortunam nescio quo modo facile obtrectatores invenire, non meo quidem mehercules merito, sed quanti id refert, si tamen fato nescio quo accidit? si qui forte fuerit, qui nostrae dignitati obesse velit, peto a te, ut tuam consuetudinem et liberalitatem in me absente defendendo mihi praestes. Litteras ad senatum de rebus nostris gestis, quo exemplo miseram, infra tibi perscripsi. Dicitur mihi tuus servus anagnostes fugitivus cum Vardaeis esse; de quo tu mihi nihil mandasti, ego tamen, terra marique ut conquireretur, praemandavi, et profecto tibi illum reperiam, nisi si in Dalmatiam aufugerit, et inde tamen aliquando eruam. Tu nos fac ames. Vale. A. d. V. Idus Quinctiles, ex castris, Narona.