Sec.1. _Noster_: our common friend. Varro was much more the friend of Atticus
than of Cic., see Introd. p. 37. _Nuntiatum_: the spelling _nunciatum_ is a
mistake, cf. Corssen, _Ausspr._ I. p. 51. _A M. Varrone_: _from M. Varro's
house_ news came. _Audissemus_: Cic. uses the contracted forms of such
subjunctives, as well as the full forms, but not intermediate forms like
_audiissemus_. _Confestim_: note how artfully Cic. uses the dramatic form
of the dialogue in order to magnify his attachment for Varro. _Ab eius
villa_: the prep is absent from the MSS., but Wesenberg (_Em. M.T. Cic.
Epistolarum_, p. 62) shows that it must be inserted. Cic. writes _abesse
Roma_ (_Ad Fam._ V. 15, 4), _patria_ (_T.D._ V. 106) etc., but not _abesse
officio_ (_De Off._ I. 43, where Wes. alters it) or the like. _Satis eum
longo intervallo_: so all the MSS.; but Halm, after Davies, reads _se
visentum_ for _satis eum_, quoting _Ad Att._ I. 4, Madv. _tum_ for _eum_
(Baiter and Halm's ed. of 1861, p. 854). The text is sound; the repetition
of pronouns (_illum_, _eum_) is quite Ciceronian. The emphatic _ille_ is
often repeated by the unemphatic _is_, cf. _T.D._ III. 71, and _M.D.F._ V.
22. I may note that the separation of _satis_ from _longo_ by the word
_eum_ is quite in Cicero's style (see my note on 25 _quanta id magis_).
Some editors stumble (Goerenz miserably) by taking _intervallo_ of distance
in space, instead of duration in time, while others wrongly press _satis_,
which only means "tolerably," to mean "sufficiently." The words _satis
longo intervallo_ simply = "after a tolerably long halt." For the clause
_ut mos_, etc., cf. _De Or._ II. 13.

Sec.2. _Hic pauca primo_: for the omission of _locuti_, cf. the very similar
passages in _D.F._ I. 14, III. 8, also my note on 14. _Atque ea_: Halm
brackets _ea_, quite needlessly, for its insertion is like Cic. _Ecquid
forte Roma novi_: _Roma_ is the ablative, and some verb like _attulisset_
is omitted. (So Turnebus.) To take it as nom., understanding _faciat_, is
clearly wrong. _Percontari_: the spelling _percunctari_ rests on false
derivation (Corss. I. 36). _Ecquid ipse novi_: cf. _De Or._ II. 13. The
MSS. have _et si quid_, bad Latin altered by Manutius. _Istum_: some edd.
_ipsum_, but Cic. often makes a speaker use _iste_ of a person who is
present. Goer. qu. _Brut._ 125, _De Or._ II. 228. _Velit_: Walker reads
_velis_ with St Jerome. For _quod velit_ = _quod quis velit_, cf. _De Or._
I. 30.