[sect. 2]
ab eo loco, beginning with. Gallus's words were perhaps quoted from Cicero's Phaenomena.
tecum habeto, keep it to yourself; for the more common construction, tibi habeto, cf. the formula of divorce, res tuas tibi habe; but see Att. 4.15.6 verum haec tu tecum habeto, and Plaut. Poen. 890 hoc tu tecum tacitum habeto. The expression is colloquial.
ne [gap in text] dixeris: cf. Intr. 84b.
videro: I am as yet undecided.
transversum unguem (sc. discedas), the breadth of a nail; a proverbial expression, the meaning of which appears from Plaut. Aul. 56 si hercle tu ex istoc loco digitum transvorsum aut unguem latum excesseris. As Manutius observes, this letter is remarkable from the number of popular expressions which it contains: rideamus γέλωτα σαρδάνιον, manum de tabula, and transversum unguem. Proverbilis autem locus magis videtur esse cum ad familiares familiariter scribimus; nam ad spectatos viros, in re praesertim gravi, sententiis quidem proverbiorum similibus, ut Homeri aliorumve poetarum versibus, saepe utitur Cicero; quae vero proverbia vere et plane sunt, ea non ita frequenter attingit, arbitratus fortasse Romanae gravitatis non esse proverbia inculcare (Manutius).
is [gap in text] opifex: cf. de Or. 1.150 stilus optimus et praestantissimus dicendi effector ac magister; 1.257 stilus ille tuus quem tu vere dixisti perfectorem disendi esse ac magistrum.
equidem: common in the Ciceronian letters, while ego quidem is regularly used in the non-Ciceronian letters; cf. Fam. 6.7.3; 8.5.1; Ep. LXXIX. 2.