[sect. 3]
tu veneris [gap in text] nos incidimus: there is an implied compliment in the application of veneris to Cicero and incidimus to himself.
cum iis esse actum: cf. nobiscum egerit, 2.
licitum est : licitum est and placitum est, for licuit and placuit, belong to the sermo cotidianus. Cf. Fam. 8.4.4; Ep. XI. 5; and see Krebs, Antibarbarus, 11.22. These passive forms are frequent in Comedy. Cf. Plaut. Men. 589; Ter. And. 443, and Donatus, note. See also placitum est, Ep. LXXXVI.2n.
quae res? quae spes? a case of assonance.
adulescente: Tullia's last husband, Dolabella, must have been about 18 years old at the time of their marriage; cf. Appian, B. C. 2.129.
primario: adjectives in -arius are very rare in Cicero, but common in colloquial Latin. Cf. manufestarius, Plaut. Aul. 469; praesentarius, Trin. 1081 quasillarius, Petron. 132, etc. Cf. also Lorenz to Plaut. Pseud. 952. In late Latin the ending is especially common, e.g. barbaricarius, scandularius, muliercularius, etc.
ut [gap in text] gereret : ironical. Tullia's first husband, Piso, died prematurely, and from Crassipes and Dolabella she was divorced after an unhappy wedded life (cf. Intr. 53).
licitum est : cf. licitum est, above. Schmalz thinks that licitum est [gap in text] putares may be an adaptation of Ter. Hec. 212: qui illum decrerunt dignum, suos quoi liberos committerent.
ex hac iuventute: the degenerate youth of today, as they seemed to be to the old man of 60, although Sulpicius has in mind Tullia's unhappy married life in particular.
honores ordinatim: i.e. the offices of quaestor, aedile, praetor, and consul.
ordinatim: for classical ordine. Adverbs in -im are found frequently in early and late Latin, but in the Ciceronian period, with a few exceptions, their use is confined to colloquial Latin. Neue, Formenlehre, 2.662, says: Adverbs in -im are especially common in archaic Latin, and in late writers who affected an archaic style; and of ecclesiastical Latin, Rnsch writes (It. u. Vulg. 473): In the formation of adverbs the substitution of the endings -im and -iter for -e is especially common. In Cicero's letters to Atticus we find affatim, summatim, and syllabatim. No one of these forms occurs, however, in the orations.
malum [gap in text] perpeti: it is a misfortune to lose one's children, unless it may be regarded as so much greater a misfortune to witness the ruin of one's country and the loss of one's liberty that all other afflictions become insignificant.
