[217] Cicero himself. Clodius may have called him this from his biting repartees. Prof. Tyrrell, "Tear 'em."
[218] The nobility, whom Cicero has before attacked as idle and caring for nothing but their fish-ponds (piscinarii, cp. p. 59).
[219] The lex Ælia (about B.C. 150) was a law regulating the powers of magistrates to dissolve comitia on religious grounds, such as bad omens, servata de cœlo, etc. Cicero (who could have had very little belief in the augural science) regards them as safeguards of the state, because as the Optimates generally secured the places in the augural college, it gave them a hold on elections and legislation. Bibulus tried in vain to use these powers to thwart Cæsar this year. The lex Cæcilia Didia (.B.C. 98) enforced the trinundinatio, or three weeks' notice of elections and laws, and forbade the proposal of a lex satura, i.e., a law containing a number of miscellaneous enactments. Perhaps its violation refers to the acta of Pompey in the East, which he wanted to have confirmed en bloc. The senate had made difficulties: but one of the fruits of the triumvirate was a measure for doing it. The lex Iunia et Licinia (B.C. 62) confirmed the Cæcilia Didia, and secured that the people knew what the proposed laws were.
[220] As Pompey did in Asia, e.g., to Deiotarus of Galatia, and about ten others. It is curious that Cicero speaks of the pauci just as his opponent Cæsar and Augustus after him. Each side looks on the other as a coterie (Cæsar, B. C. i. 22; Monum. Ancyr. i. § 1)
[222] The purple-bordered toga of the augur. Vatinius did not get the augurship. He had some disfiguring swelling or wen.
[223] Himself.
[224] ἄνδρ' ἀπαμύνεσθαι, ὅτε τις πρότερος χαλεπήνῃ (Hom. Il. xxiv. 369).
[225] Written in Greek, perhaps by the boy himself.
[226] Where the road from Antium joins the Appia. Cicero seems to be on his way to Formiæ, where he had intended to arrive on the 21st. He must be going very leisurely.
[227] Δικαίαρχος and ἀδικαίαρχοι, a pun on a name not reproducible in English: "just-rulers" and "unjust-rulers."
[228] On the via Appia. Cicero halts at Appii Forum and at once despatches a short note, probably by some one he finds there going to Rome, to announce a change of plan. He had meant to get back to Antium on 6th May, because Tullia wanted to see the games. See Letter XXXIV, p. 96.
[229] Homer, Odyss. ix. 27.
[230] τηλέπυλον Λαιστρυγονίην, whose king Lamus (Odyss. x. 81) was supposed to have founded Formiæ (Horace, Od. iii. 17).
[232] 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.
[233] Because he would be inclined to sell it cheap in his disgust.
[234] The spectacle Cicero hopes for is Clodius's contests with the triumvirs.
[235] To Arpinum (see last letter). The verse is not known, and may be a quotation from his own poem on Marius. He often quotes himself.
[236] This is not mentioned elsewhere. The explanation seems to be that for the ager publicus allotted under the Sempronian laws a small rent had been exacted, which was abolished by a law of B.C. 111 (the name of the law being uncertain). But some ager publicus still paid rent, and the publicanus Mulvius seems to have claimed it from some land held by Terentia, perhaps on the ground that it was land (such as the ager Campanus) not affected by the law of Gracchus, and therefore not by the subsequent law abolishing rent.
[237] Cæsar.
[238] The old territory of Capua and the Stellatian Plain had been specially reserved from distribution under the laws of the Gracchi, and this reservation had not been repealed in subsequent laws: ad subsidia reipublicæ vectigalem relictum (Suet. Cæs. 20; cp. Cic. 2 Phil. § 101).
[239] According to Suetonius 20,000 citizens had allotments on the ager publicus in Campania. But Dio says (xxxviii. 1) that the Campanian land was exempted by the lex Iulia also. Its settlement was probably later, by colonies of Cæsar's veterans. A iugerum is five-eighths of an acre.
[241] This and the mention of Cæsar's "army" (a bodyguard) is explained by Suet. Cæs. 20: "Having promulgated his agrarian law, Cæsar expelled his colleague, Bibulus, by force of arms from the Forum when trying to stop proceedings by announcing bad omens ... and finally reduced him to such despair that for the rest of his year of office he confined himself to his house and only announced his bad omens by means of edicts." Bibulus appears to have been hustled by the mob also.
[242] πρόσθε λέων ὄπιθεν δὲ ——. Cicero leaves Atticus, as he often does, to fill up the rest of the line, δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα (Hom. Il. vi. 181). He means, of course, that Quintus is inconsistent.
[243] The question seems to be as to goods brought to a port and paying duty, and then, not finding a sale, being transferred to another port in the same province. The publicani at the second port demanded the payment of a duty again, which Cicero decides against them.
[244] Schutz takes this to mean, "Are the quæstors now doubting as to paying even cistophori?" i.e., are they, so far from paying in Roman denarii, even hesitating to pay in Asiatic? But if so, what is the extremum which Cicero advises Quintus to accept? Prof. Tyrrell, besides, points out that the quæstors could hardly refuse to pay anything for provincial expenses. It is a question between cistophori and denarii. See p. 92.
[245] The marriage of Pompey with Cæsar's daughter Iulia.
[246] ἀδιαφορία, a word taken from the Stoies, huic [Zenoni] summum bonum est in his rebus neutram in partem moveri, quæ ἀδιαφορία ab ipso dicitur (Acad. ii. § 130).
[247] C. Curius, one of the Catiline set, who had been ignominiously expelled from the senate.
[248] Another nickname of Pompey, from the title of the head of the Thebais in Egypt. Like Sampsiceramus and the others, it is meant as a scornful allusion to Pompey's achievements in the East, and perhaps his known wish to have the direction of affairs in Egypt.
[250] I.e., Cæsar's agrarian law, by which some of the Campanian ager publicus was to be divided.
[252] Pulchellus, i.e., P. Clodius Pulcher. The diminutive is used to express contempt. Cicero, since his return to Rome, is beginning to realize his danger.
[253] A libera legatio was really a colourable method of a senator travelling with the right of exacting certain payments for his expenses from the Italian or provincial towns. Sometimes it was simply a legatio libera, a sinecure without any pretence of purpose, sometimes it was voti causa, enabling a man to fulfil some vow he was supposed to have made. It was naturally open to much abuse, and Cicero as consul had passed a law for limiting it in time. Clodius would become tribune on 10 December, and this libera legatio would protect Cicero as long as it lasted, but it would not, he thinks, last long enough to outstay the tribuneship: if he went as legatus to Cæsar in Gaul, he would be safe, and might choose his own time for resigning and returning to Rome.
[255] Terence, Phorm. 232.
[256] ἅλις δρυός, i.e., feeding on acorns is a thing of the past, it is out of date, like the golden age when they fed on wild fruit et quæ deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes (Ovid, Met. i. 106); and so is dignity, it is a question of safety now.
[257] Ennius on Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator.
[258] Pompey was in Campania acting as one of the twenty land commissioners.
[259] The lex Roscia theatralis (B.C. 67), which gave fourteen rows of seats to the equites.
[260] That is, the law for distribution of corn among poorer citizens. There were many such. Perhaps the most recent was the lex Cassia Terentia (B.C. 73). Cæsar, who, when in later years he became supreme, restricted this privilege, may have threatened to do so now.
[261] I.e., as one of the twenty land commissioners. The next clause seems to refer to some proverbial expression, "to be invited to a place at Pluto's table," or some such sentence. Cicero means that his acceptance would be equivalent to political extinction, either from the obscurity of Cosconius or the inconsistency of the proceeding.
[263] After the scene of violence in which Bibulus, on attempting to prevent the agrarian law being passed, was driven from the rostra, with his lictors' fasces broken, he shut himself up in his house and published edicts declaring Cæsar's acts invalid, and denouncing the conduct of Pompey (Suet. Cæs. 20; Dio, xxxviii. 6).
[264] M. Terentius Varro, "the most learned of the Romans," and author of very large numbers of books. He was afterwards one of Pompey's legati in Spain. He survived most of the men of the revolutionary era.
[266] I.e., in biting language. Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo (Hor. A. P. 79).
[268] Appius Claudius Pulcher, elder brother of P. Clodius.
[269] The speeches known to us of this year are those for his colleague, C. Antonius, A. Thermus, and L. Flaccus. The two former are lost, but we know from his own account that he had not avoided touching on politics in the speech for Antonius, but had so offended Pompey and Cæsar that they at once carried out the adoption of Clodius (de Domo, § 41).
[270] Βοῶπις, i.e., Clodia. See Letters XXXV, XL. Crasso urgente is difficult. Cicero must mean that while Crassus (whom he always regards as hostile to himself) is influencing Pompey, he cannot trust what Pompey says, and must look for real information elsewhere.
[272] I.e., between the time of his election and of his entering on his office. The tribunes entered on their office on the 10th of December; the elections usually took place in July, but were postponed till October this year by Bibulus. See Letter XLVI, p. 115.
[273] Reclamatum est. The MSS. have haud reclamatum est, "it was not refused."
[274] Marcus Iunius Brutus, the future assassin of Cæsar, adopted by his uncle, Q. Servilius Cæpio. The father of Lentulus was flamen Martialis (L. Lentulus), in Vat. § 25. Paullus is L. Æmilius Paullus, consul B.C. 50.
[275] Cum gladiatoribus. Others omit cum, in which case the meaning will be "at the gladiatorial shows of Gabinius." As some date is wanted, this is probably right.
[276] Under the lex de sicariis of Sulla carrying a weapon with felonious intent was a capital crime, for which a man was tried inter sicarios. See 2 Phil. §§ 8, 74.
[277] Q. Lutatius Catulus, who died in the previous year, B.C. 60, had been a keen opponent of Cæsar, who tried to deprive him of the honour of dedicating the restored Capitoline temple, and beat him in the election of Pontifex Maximus.
[278] Servilia, mother of Brutus, was reported to be Cæsar's mistress. As Cicero is insinuating that the whole affair was got up by Cæsar to irritate Pompey with the boni, this allusion will be understood.
[279] If Vettius did say this, he at any rate successfully imitated Cicero's manner. These names are always in his mouth. See 2 Phil. §§ 26, 87; pro Mil.. §§ 8, 82, etc. For a farther discussion of Vettius, see Appendix B.
[280] Probably a prætor, not the triumvir.
[281] Q. Considius Gallus, who, according to Plutarch (Cæs. 13), said in the senate that the attendance of senators was small because they feared a massacre. "What made you come, then?" said Cæsar. "My age," he replied; "I have little left to lose."
Eur. Androm. 448.
Eur. Phœn. 393.
[284] L. Valerius Flaccus, as prætor in B.C. 63, had assisted Cicero in the Catiline conspiracy. He was now being tried for embezzlement in Asia, and was defended by the famous Q. Hortensius (Hortalus) and Cicero—the only extant speech of this year.
[285] ἀλλ' αἰεί τινα φῶτα μέγαν καὶ καλὸν ἐδέγμην, "but I ever expected some big and handsome man" (Hom. Odyss. ix. 513). Statius had been manumitted by Quintus Cicero, and there had been much talk about it, as we have already heard. See XLIV, p. 109, and XLV, p. 111.
[286] Reading quam pro civitate sua for prope quam civitatem suam. I think prope and pro (pr) might easily have been mistaken for each other, and if the order of quam and pro (mistaken for prope) were once changed, the case of civitate would follow. Prof. Tyrrell, who writes the town Blandus, would read molliorem for nobiliorem, and imagines a pun on the meaning of Blandus. But the name of the town seems certainly Blaundus, Βλαῦνδος, or Μλαῦνδος (Stephanus, Βλαῦδος); see Head, Hist. Num. p. 559: and Cicero, though generally punning on names, would hardly do so here, where he is making a grave excuse.
[288] C. Vergilius Balbus, proprætor in Sicily (pro Planc. § 95; Letter XXIX). C. Octavius (father of Augustus), in Macedonia (see p. 78). L. Marcius Philippus was proprætor of Syria B.C. 61-59. The governor of Cilicia in the same period is not known; probably some one left in charge by Pompey.
[289] I have endeavoured to leave the English as ambiguous as the Latin. Cicero may mean that he has done some good, for at the end of Letter XXIX he says that Quintus has improved in these points, and had been better in his second than in his first year. On the other hand, the context here seems rather to point to the meaning "how little good I have done!"—impatiently dismissing the subject of temper.
[290] These "requisitionary letters" were granted by a provincial governor to certain persons requiring supplies, payment of debts, or legal decisions in their favour in the provinces, or other privileges, and, if carelessly granted, were open to much abuse. Cicero, in his own government of Cilicia, boasted that he had signed none such in six months. The ill-wishers of Quintus had apparently got hold of a number of these letters signed by him (having been first written out by the suitors themselves and scarcely glanced at by him), and a selection of them published to prove his injustice or carelessness.
[291] The governor of a province would stand in such a matter in the place of the prætor in Rome, i.e., he would decide on questions of law, not of fact, as, whether a debt was due or not. However, Quintus perhaps only erred in the form of his injunction. He might forbid the deceased's estate being touched till the question of Fundanius's debt was decided; but in his letter he assumed (as he had no right to do) that the claim was good. Substantially it seems to me that Quintus was right, and certainly in his appeal to him Cicero does not follow his own injunction to disregard personal feelings.
[292] ὀρθὰν τὰν ναῦν. Quintus had written, it seems, defiantly about the slanders afloat against him, and had quoted two Greek proverbial sayings. The first is found in Stobæus, 108 (extract from Teles): "It was a fine saying of the pilot, 'At least, Poseidon, a ship well trimmed,'" i.e., if you sink my ship, she shall at least go down with honour. Quintus means, "Whatever my enemies may do afterwards, I will keep my province in a sound state as long as I am here."
[293] ἅπαξ θανεῖν, perhaps "Better to die once for all than give in to every unjust demand." The editors quote Æschylus, Pr. V. 769:
But I don't feel sure that this is the passage alluded to.
[294] Reading queruntur for quæ sunt.
[295] Gaius Cato, tribune B.C. 56.
[296] L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who as prætor threatened Cæsar with impeachment, and as consul (B.C. 54) tried to get him recalled. He was, in 50-49, appointed Cæsar's successor in Gaul, defended Marseilles against him, and eventually fell in the battle of Pharsalia. P. Nigidius Figulus supported Cicero during the Catiline conspiracy. Gaius Memmius, ædile B.C. 60 (see p. 51). Lucretius dedicated his poem to him. L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul B.C. 49, accused Clodius in B.C. 61, murdered in Africa after Pompey, B.C. 48.
[297] There is no direct means of dating these letters, as we have no other information as to the proconsulship of Culleolus. Illyricum was not always a separate government, but was sometimes under the governor of Macedonia, sometimes under the governor of Gaul. The indications of date are (1) Pompey is at home and often seen by Cicero, therefore it is not between the spring of B.C. 67 and the end of 62; (2) it is not later than March, B.C. 58, because from that time for ten years Cæsar was governor of Illyricum, and before he ceased to be so Pompey had left Italy, never to return. Even if Culleolus was not governor of Illyricum, but of Macedonia, the same argument holds good, for C. Antonius was in Macedonia B.C. 63-60, and Octavius from B.C. 60 to March, B.C. 59. That is, Culleolus could not have been in Macedonia while Pompey was in Italy till after March, B.C. 59.
[298] L. Lucceius, whom we have heard of before as a candidate for the consulship with Cæsar, and whom we shall hear of again as the author of a history of the social and civil wars (Sulla and Marius), and as being asked to write on Cicero's consulship. He was a close friend of Pompey, and took his side in B.C. 49 (Cæs. B. C. iii. 18). The people of Bullis owed Lucceius money, and Cicero asks for "mandatory letters" from Culleolus to get it.
[299] Mod. Monte Leone, on the road to Rhegium, from which at this time Cicero meant to cross to Sicily, and thence to Malta.
[300] Nares Lucanæ (Monte Nero), near the River Silarus, and on the via Popilia (south-western branch of the Appia). Cicero has therefore come north again from Vibo, having given up the idea of Rhegium and Sicily, and making for Beneventum, and so by the via Appia for Brundisium.
[301] A friend of Cicero's, of whose death at Brundisium we afterwards hear (Fam. xiv. 4, § 6).
[302] The bill originally named 500 miles as the distance from Italy. Before passing it had to be put up in public three weeks (trinundinæ), and meanwhile might be amended, and was amended to 400.
[303] P. Autronius Pætus, one of Catiline's confederates, who would injure Cicero if he could. Cicero would not be able to reach Epirus without coming within his reach; for he had been condemned for ambitus, and was in exile there or in Achaia. Illas partes=Epirus.
[304] To Malta. The proprætor of Sicily, C. Vergilius, opposed his going to Malta, which was in the province of Sicily, though it had a primus of its own (Planc. 40; Plut. Cic. 32).
[305] Because of entertaining the condemned man, a special proviso in this law (Dio, xxxviii. 17).
[306] In Epirus, believing that Atticus will understand that his going to Brundisium means that he will go to Epirus: and as Atticus lives there, he naturally asks him to come to meet him. Epirus was, for certain purposes at least, in the province of Macedonia, and it depended on the governor, L. Appuleius Saturninus, what reception he would meet. His friend Plancius was quæstor.
[307] One of Clodius's concessions to the consuls, to keep them quiet, was to get Macedonia assigned by a lex to L. Calpurnius Piso. As Atticus lived in what was practically part of the province, and had much business there, it was important to him to be on the spot, and try to influence the choice of a governor. That being over, he would not have so much to detain him in Rome.
[308] We suppose that Cicero has heard from Atticus that he is not going to be at Tarentum or Brundisium, for he writes before arriving at either.
[309] Reading prid. Kal. instead of a. d. II. Kal., which Tyrrell calls audacius in Schutz. But absolute nonsense is not to be kept even for a MS.
(1) Cicero says that he has been thirteen days at Brundisium. In the next letter he tells Atticus he arrived on the 17th. That, in the Roman way of counting, brings it to prid. (29th).
(2) Either the date at the end of the letter is wrong, or prid. must be used here
(3) There is no such date properly as a. d. II. Kal. The day before prid. is a. d. III.
In regard to dates we must remember that Cicero is using the præ-Julian calendar, in which all months, except February, March, May, July, and October, had twenty-nine days. These last four had thirty-one and February twenty-eight.
[310] Cicero does not mean that young Marcus is to come to him at once, but that, when Tullia's marriage portion is settled, Terentia is to bring him with her if she comes. Really he didn't mean any of them to come, at any rate for a long while. Piso is Tullia's husband.