[sect. 2]
Decimum : Decimus Brutus had shown himself without plans and without energy in the critical days following Caesar's assassination. Cf. especially Ep. LXXXVI.3. The other conspirators were, however, equally helpless. In his province D. Brutus had likewise been inactive.
oportuisset : fieri is omitted, as often with oportet, potest, solet, etc.; cf. Brix on Plaut. Trin. 705; Lorenz on M. G. 252.
quemquam [gap in text] tangi: a covert reference to the mistake in not killing Antony. Cf. Fam. 12.4.1 vellem Idibus Martils me ad cenam (i.e. to the murder of Caesar) invitasses: reliquiarum nihil fuisset. Nunc me reliquiae vestrae exercent. See also Fam. 10.28.1. tangi is euphemistic for occidi.
tua familiaris : i.e. Servilia.
neminem: sc. dicentem.
ego repressi: sc. me, or perhaps with Bckel quae disturus eram. With such a phrase the reference would be to quemquam [gap in text] tangi.
iturus: i.e. into the province which it was thought the senate had assigned to him.
illa frumenti curatio: Servilia hoped that she could induce the senate to reconsider its assignment of the grain commission to Cassius.
noster: sc. Brutus.
illo inani sermone: referring to Romam, si tibi videtur, 1.
ludi: it was the duty of M. Brutus as praetor urbanus to take charge of the ludi Apollinares.