To the last year of Cicero’s life (709), belong the last Philippics, which come down to the end of April, besides several of the letters _ad diversos_, and also those to Brutus. This collection of epistles, as is well known, consists of two portions: an older one, which was very likely found in the same manuscript with those _ad Quintum fratrem_; and another, which has first appeared in the _Cratandrina_, and is stated to have been found in Germany. With regard to these last letters, there is a difficulty which cannot be cleared up. Whether they were forged in the sixteenth century, or, whether they are really old, I am not able to decide: if they are forged, he who did it has produced an incomparable masterpiece. And as for the other letters to Brutus in the first part, there is likewise a great dispute whether they be genuine or not. That they are very old, even as old as the first century, there can be no doubt; yet for all that they may very easily have been fabricated, even as early as the reign of Augustus, or at least in that of Tiberius: they are written by an ingenious man who had a very good knowledge of that age. It is nearly a hundred years since the question of their genuineness was first mooted by an English editor. Wolf was fully convinced that they were spurious; but I would not assert it so positively. I should however be glad if they were not genuine, of which I am morally convinced, as I am also with regard to the oration _pro Marcello_; yet there are still great doubts on the subject. These letters show some misunderstanding between Brutus and Cicero; and although we must not implicitly rely on them, yet they date so near the time itself, and are written so much from contemporary sources, that they may be looked upon as authorities.