The correspondence, usually entitled _Ad Familiares_, includes a period of about twenty years, commencing immediately after Cicero’s consulate, and ending a few months before his death. The letters which this collection comprehends, are so extremely miscellaneous, that it is impossible even to run over their contents. Previous to the battle of Pharsalia, it chiefly consists of epistles concerning the distribution of consular provinces, and the political intrigues relating to that constantly recurring subject of contention,—recommendatory letters sent with acquaintances going into the provinces—details to absent friends, with regard to the state of parties at Rome, particularly the designs of Pompey and Cæsar, and the factions of Milo and Clodius; and, finally, entertaining anecdotes concerning the most popular and fashionable amusements of the Capital. Subsequently to the battle of Pharsalia, and during the supremacy of Cæsar, the letters are principally addressed to the chiefs of the Pompeian party, who were at that time in banishment for their adherence to the same cause in which Cicero had been himself engaged. These epistles are chiefly occupied with consolatory reflections on the adverse circumstances in which they were placed, and accounts of his own exertions to obtain their recall. In the perusal of these letters, it is painful and humiliating to observe the gratification which Cicero evidently appears to have received at this period, from the attentions, not merely of Cæsar, but of his creatures and favourites, as Balbus, Hirtius, and Pansa. After the assassination of Cæsar, the correspondence for the most part relates to the affairs of the Republic, and is directed to the heads of the conspiracy, or to leading men in the state, as Lepidus and Asinius Pollio, who were then in the command of armies, and whom he anxiously exhorts to declare for the commonwealth, and stand forward in opposition to Antony.