Letter 1055: You ask — like a good citizen born for the common welfare — what reliable reports say about the current crisis.

You ask, as one born for the common good, what may be reported to you, something close to the truth, about these troubling affairs. From reliable informants we have learned favorable news; thereafter the long silence has given room to suspicion among anxious rumors. But for me there is no cure for opinions of this sort, which come forth without any author. I am exceedingly tormented in mind, because by manifold sacrifices, repeated often through each of the magistracies, the Spoletine portent has not yet been expiated in the public name. For the eighth victim has scarcely appeased Jupiter, and to Public Fortune the eleventh honor, with manifold victims, has been rendered in vain. You understand in what position we are. Now it is decided to call our colleagues into assembly. I shall take care that you may know, if the divine remedies have advanced anything. Farewell.