[74] Reading tibi ipsi (not ipse), with Tyrrell.
[75] Ora soluta. Or, if ancora sublata be read, "when the anchor was already weighed." In either case it means "just as you were starting." Atticus wrote on board, and gave the letter to a carrier to take on shore.
[76] A word lost in the text.
[77] See end of Letter [XXI]. Cicero playfully supposes that Atticus only stayed in his villa in Epirus to offer sacrifices to the nymph in his gymnasium, and then hurried off to Sicyon, where people owed him money which he wanted to get. He goes to Antonius first to get his authority for putting pressure on Sicyon, and perhaps even some military force.
[78] C. Calpurnius Piso (consul B.C. 67), brother of the consul of the year, had been governor of Gallia Narbonensis (B.C. 66-65), and had suppressed a rising of the Allobroges, the most troublesome tribe in the province, who were, in fact, again in rebellion.
[79] M. Pupius Piso.
[80] "By the expression of his face rather than the force of his expressions" (Tyrrell).
[82] Pompey.
[83] Or, "inclose with my speech"; in both cases the dative orationi meæ is peculiar. No speech exists containing such a description, but we have only two of the previous year extant (pro Flacco and pro Archia Poeta). Cicero was probably sending it, whichever it was, to Atticus to be copied by his librarii, and published. Atticus had apparently some other works of Cicero's in hand, for which he had sent him some "queries."