Note 232 — XL (A II, 14)

At comparem for at quam partem. At has its usual force of introducing a supposed objection. I can't, say you, compare the Æmilian tribe, the Formiani, to a crowd in a court-house! They are not so bad as that, not so wasteful of time! I take basilica to mean the saunterers in a basilica, as we might say "the park" for the company in it, "the exchange" for the brokers in it. I feel certain that Prof. Tyrrell is wrong in ascribing the words sed—sunt to a quotation from Atticus's letter. What is wanted is to remove the full stop after sunt. The contrast Cicero is drawing is between the interruption to literary work of a crowd of visitors and of one or two individuals always turning up. The second is the worse—and here I think all workers will agree with him: the crowd of visitors (vulgus) go at the regular hour, but individuals come in at all hours.