[sect. 3]
ne multa: sc. dicam.
hoc dempto [gap in text] offici, apart from this service which love and duty too required of me.
sequebatur: subject is ut mecum (sc. cogitarem).
ἡ δεῦρ' ὁδός, etc.: Cicero uses the same quotation from an unknown comic poet, of an unsatisfactory journey to Greece inAtt. 16.6.2.
navigium: the state here, as often, is compared to a ship. Cf. contraxi vela, Ep. V.2n.
nihil consilio, etc.: sc. fit. Cf. Decimum, 2 n.
ubi [gap in text] audiam: from an unknown poet (cf. Ribbeck, Trag. Rom. Frag. p.252). Cicero uses the phrase in four other places. The full verse was probably Vbi nec Pelopidarum nomen nec facta aut famam audiam. The Pelopidae and their dreadful deeds typify, as in Fam. 7.30.1, the Caesarians and their course of action.