Letter coll=F:book=6:letter=6 Letter LXV: ad familiares 6.6
Rome, Sept. or Oct., 46 B.C.
A. Caecina, descended from an old Etruscan family, was a man of considerable ability, both as a writer and as an orator. Cf. Sen. Nat. Quaest. 2.56.1 hoc apud Caecinam invenia, facundum virum et qui habuisset aliquando in eloquentia nomen, nisi illum Ciceronis umbra pressisset. In fact it was his course as a political pamphleteer, rather than as a soldier, which led Caesar to banish him (cf. Suet. Iul. 75). He was at this time in Sicily. It was in his father's behalf that Cicero delivered the oration pro Caecina in 69 B.C.
Cicero wrote two other letters to the younger Caecina (viz. Fam. 6.5 and 8), one in his behalf (Fam. 13.66), and received one from him (Fam. 6.7).
[sect. 1]
studiorum parium: Caecina was an authority upon the Etruscan method of interpreting omens, and had written a book, de Etrusca Disciplina, while Cicero, after his elevation to the augurate, had interested himself in the same class of subjects, and had written a treatise called de Auguriis. Cf. also Fam. 6.9.1.
litterarum: used as a plural; cf. litteris, Ep. XCIX.1n.
melius:cf. prolixe Ep. XXI.1n.