The composition attributed to Quintus contained lessons of advice equally suitable to any candidate, sprung from the people, striving to rise to high honors in the State.

This letter is adapted not only to the special position of Quintus, but to the peculiarities of his character, and its strength lies in this: that while the one brother praises the other, justly praises him, as I believe, for many virtues, so as to make the receipt of it acceptable, it points out faults--faults which will become fatal, if not amended--in language which is not only strong but unanswerable.
The style of this letter is undoubtedly very different from that of Cicero's letters generally--so as to suggest to the reader that it must have been composed expressly for publication whereas the daily correspondence is written "currente calamo," with no other than the immediate idea of amusing, instructing, or perhaps comforting the correspondent.

Hence has come the comparison between this and the treatise De Petitione Consulatus.

I think that the gravity of the occasion, rather than any regard for posterity, produced the change of style.

Cicero found it to be essential to induce his brother to remain at his post, not to throw up his government in disgust, and so to bear himself that he should not make himself absolutely odious to his own staff and to other Romans around him; for Quintus Cicero, though he had been proud and arrogant and ill tempered, had not made himself notorious by the ordinary Roman propensity to plunder his province "What is it that is required of you as a governor ?"[245] asks Cicero.