For the colloquial style of the letters cf. ad Fam. ix. 21, 1 (to Paetus), ‘Quid tibi ego in epistulis videor? nonne plebeio sermone agere tecum? nec enim semper eodem modo: quid enim simile habet epistula aut iudicio aut contioni? ... epistulas vero cottidianis verbis texere solemus.’
The following works are now lost: (a) Miscellaneous prose writings.—1. Panegyrics on Porcia (ad Att. xiii. 37, 3) and Cato, B.C. 45; and funeral orations written for other people to deliver (ad Q.F. iii. 8, 5, ‘laudavit pater scripto meo’).
2. Memoirs of Cicero’s consulship, written B.C. 60, in both Greek and Latin (ad. Att. i. 19, 10). He took great pains with this book, and was anxious that it should be well circulated (ad Att. ii. 1, 1).
3. A secret history, Anekdota, mentioned in letters of B.C. 59 and 44 (ad Att. ii. 6, 2; xiv. 17, 6).
4. Admiranda, a collection of wonders (Pliny, N.H. xxxi. 51).
5. Chorographia, a book on geography, mentioned by Priscian. The letters to Atticus show that Cicero was studying the subject in B.C. 59.
6. A work on law, De iure civili in artem redigendo (Gell. i. 22, 7).
7. A translation of Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, made when Cicero was about the age of twenty (de Off. ii. 87).
(b) Poems.—1. Cicero’s earliest effort in verse was a poem in tetrameters, entitled Pontius Glaucus: Plut. Cic. 2, καὶ τι ποιημάτιον ἔτι παιδὸς αὐτοῦ διασῴζεται Πόντιος Γλαῦκος ἐν τετραμέτρῳ πεποιημένον.
2. In B.C. 60 he made a verse translation of the astronomical poems of Aratus, ad Att. ii. 1, 2, ‘Prognostica mea ... propediem exspecta.’ Quotations are given in De Nat. Deor. ii. 104 sqq.