[637] Antius is not known. Favonius was a close imitator of Cato's Stoicism. He was now opposing both Pompey and Cæsar strenuously, but on the Civil War breaking out, attached himself strongly to Pompey. He was put to death by Augustus after the battle of Philippi (Suet. Aug. 13). He had a very biting tongue. See Plut. Pomp. 60.
[638] Drusus was probably Livius Drusus, the father of Livia, wife of Augustus; he was accused by Lucretius of prævaricatio, "collusion."
[639] This time for ambitus.
[640] The de Oratore.
[641] C. Memmius, a tribune of this year, not the same as the C. Memmius Gemellus of the last letter.
[642] Referring to the fact that Gabinius, on his arrival outside Rome, without the usual procession of friends which met a returning proconsul, skulked about till nightfall, not venturing to enter Rome (the city of his enemies!) in daylight. By entering Rome he gave up his imperium and could no longer ask a triumph.
[643] Cæsar was accustomed to come to North Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) for the winter to Ravenna or Luca, and there he could be communicated with and exercise great influence.
[644] That is, he would go to his province of Cilicia on the strength of his nomination or allotment by the senate. There was some doubt as to the question whether such allotment did not give imperium even without a lex curiata. Besides, the consul had already imperium, and he might consider it to be uninterrupted if he left Rome immediately. However, as there was always an interval between the end of the consulship and the quitting Rome paludatus, the lex curiata had generally been considered necessary (Cæs. B. C. i. 6). After B.C. 52 the lex Pompeia enacted a five years' interval, when, of course, a law would be necessary.
[645] θετικώτερον. From θέσις, a philosophical proposition or thesis. In Paradox. præf. he uses θετικά of subjects suited to such theses.
[646] Pompey was outside the pomœrium (ad Romam) as having imperium.
[647] Two gladiators, one incomparably superior to the other.
[648] A proverbial expression, cp. "snapped my nose off."
[649] C. Pomptinus, prætor in B.C. 63 (when he had supported Cicero), was afterwards employed against the Allobroges as proprætor of Narbonensis (B.C. 61). He had been, ever since leaving his province (? B.C. 58), urging his claim to a triumph. He obtained it now by the contrivance of the prætor Serv. Sulpicius Galba, who got a vote passed by the comitia before daybreak, which was unconstitutional (Dio, 39, 65).
[651] Ἄρη πνέων.
[652] Cicero gives him this title, by which he had been greeted by his soldiers after some victory over the predatory tribes in Cilicia. This letter is Cicero's most elaborate apology for his change of policy in favour of the triumvirs.
[653] Cicero has been variously supposed to refer to C. Cato (who proposed the recall of Lentulus), to Appius the consul, and finally to Pompey. The last seems on the whole most likely, though the explanation is not without difficulties. In that case the "disclosure" will refer to Pompey's intrigues as to the restoration of Ptolemy Auletes, of which he wished to have the management.
[654] I.e., to keep in with the Optimates, who were at this time suspicious of, and hostile to Pompey.
[655] At the trial of Sestius.
[656] B.C. 59, when Vatinius proposed the law for Cæsar's five years' rule in Gaul.
[657] B.C. 56.
[658] Pompey is only speaking metaphorically. Quintus had guaranteed Cicero's support. Pompey half-jestingly speaks as though he had gone bail for him for a sum of money.
[659] Q. Cæcilius Metellus Numidius, expelled from the senate and banished B.C. 100 for refusing the oath to the agrarian law of Saturninus, but recalled in the following year. Cicero is fond of comparing himself with him. See Letter CXLVII.
[660] M. Æmilius Scaurus, consul B.C. 115 and 108, censor 109, and long princeps senatus. Cicero comments elsewhere on his severitas (de Off. § 108).
[661] Plato, Crit. xii.
[662] Like the character in the play (Terence, Eun. 440), if the nobles annoyed Cicero by their attentions to P. Clodius, he would annoy them by his compliments to Publius Vatinius.
[663] The beginning of the letter is lost, referring to the acquittal of Gabinius on a charge of maiestas.
[664] γοργεῖα γυμνά, "mere bugbears."
[665] Antiochus Gabinius was tried, not for treason (maiestas), but under the lex Papia, for having, though a peregrinus, acted as a citizen; but he says "will not acquit me of treason," because he means to infer that his condemnation was really in place of Gabinius, whose acquittal had irritated his jury; therefore he was practically convicted of maiestas instead of his patron Gabinius. I have, accordingly, ventured to elicit the end of a hexameter from the Greek letters of the MS., of which no satisfactory account has been given, and to read Itaque dixit statim "respublica lege maiestatis οὐ σοί κεν ἄρ' ἶσα μ' ἀφείη (or ἀφιῇ)." The quotation is not known. Antiochus Gabinius was doubtless of Greek origin and naturally quoted Greek poetry. Sopolis was a Greek painter living at Rome (Pliny, N. H. xxxv. §§ 40, 43).
[666] Pomptinus had been waiting outside Rome for some years to get his triumph (see p. 309). The negant latum de imperio must refer to a lex curiata originally conferring his imperium, which his opponents alleged had not been passed. The insulse latum refers to the law now passed granting him the triumph in spite of this. This latter was passed by the old trick of the prætor appearing in the campus before daybreak to prevent obnuntiatio. The result was that the tribunes interrupted the procession, which led to fighting and bloodshed (Dio, 39, 65).
[667] Because he wanted to go to his province himself in spite of having failed to get a lex curiata (p. 324).
[668] I.e., without waiting for the senate to vote the usual outfit (ornare provinciam).
[669] B.C. 129. The Novendialia was a nine days' festival on the occasion of some special evil omens or prodigies; for an instance (in B.C. 202), see Livy, 30, 38. The book referred to is that "On the Republic."
[670] I.e., a mere theorist like Heraclides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato's, whose work "On Constitutions" still exists.
[671] Hom. Il. vi. 208.
[672] Reading qui omnia adiurat debere tibi et te valere renuntiat. The text, however, is corrupt.
[673] Hom. Il. xvi. 385.
[674] By Livius Andronicus or Nævius. Tyrrell would write the proverb in extremo sero sapiunt, "'tis too late to be wise at the last." There was a proverb, sero parsimonia in fundo, something like this, Sen. Ep. i. 5, from the Greek (Hes. Op. 369), δειλὴ δ' ἐν πυθμένι φειδώ.
[675] In Gallia Belgica, mod. Amiens.
[676] There are some words here too corrupt to be translated with any confidence. They appear to convey a summary of news already written in several letters as to the bribery at the elections, the acquittal of Gabinius, and the rumour of a dictatorship.
[677] A legacy of a twelfth left by a certain Felix to Cicero and Quintus had been rendered null by a mistake as to the will. See the letter to Quintus, p. 338.
[678] Cicero means, "the substantial gain to be got from your serving under Cæsar in Gaul is the securing of his protection in the future: all other gains, such as money etc., are merely to be regarded as securing you from immediate loss in thus going to Gaul: they don't add anything fresh to our position and prospects."
[679] Quintus had his winter quarters among the Nervii, in a town near the modern Charleroi. In this winter he was in great danger from a sudden rising of the Nervii and other tribes (Cæs. B. G. v. 24-49).
[680] Twenty days of supplicatio had been decreed in honour of Cæsar's campaigns of B.C. 55 (Cæs. B. G. iv. 38).
[681] His gladiators, which he kept in training for the games he was going to give in honour of a deceased friend.
[682] I.e., rather than defend him. τότε μοι χάνοι (εὐρεῖα χθών), Hom. Il. iv. 182.
[683] ὁ δὲ μαίνεται οὐκ ἔτ' ἀνεκτῶς (Hom. Il. viii. 355). The numerals seem doubtful. According to some MSS. the amount would be 10,000,000, i.e., £80,000.
[684] The tragedy written by Quintus and lost in transit.
[685] He seems to refer to the rising of the Nervii against the Roman winter quarters (Cæs. B. G. v. 39 seq).
[686] Andabatam, a gladiator with a closed helmet covering the face, who thus fought without seeing his adversary.
[687] A title granted to the Hædui by the senate (Cæs. B. G. i. 33; Tac. Ann. xi. 25).
[688] Terence, Heautont. 86.
[689] Cicero perhaps means that Valerius's "opinions" are too right to suit such a set as are to be found in the province. Valerius will not mind people there thinking him a bad lawyer. "At Rome you are considered a good lawyer, in Cilicia they don't think so!"
[690] Cognosces tuorum neminem.. Others read cognoscere tuorum nemini, "you will not be recognized by any of your friends," which agrees better with Homer's account of the return of Ulysses. But perhaps the exact comparison is not to be pressed.
[691] The younger Curio was now quæstor to C. Clodius, brother of Publius and Appius, in Asia. He was tribune in B.C. 50, when he suddenly changed sides and joined Cæsar, who purchased his adhesion by paying his immense debts.
[692] Curio had supported Cicero against Clodius, and had worked for his recall. He seems to have attended at Cicero's house for the study of rhetoric or legal practice, as was the fashion for young men to do. He presently married Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, who after his death in Africa (B.C. 48) married Antony.
[693] The interregna lasting this year till July. No legal business could be done, as the law courts were closed during an interregnum. But Cicero jestingly says that he advises clients to apply to each interrex (who only held office for five days) for two adjournments, whereby he would get his case postponed indefinitely: for if each adjournment was to the third day, the two would cover each interregnum. Of course he is only jesting, for in any case the cause would not come on.
[694] There is a play on the double meaning of signa, "signs" and "statues." Cicero did not like the statues in his Tusculanum. See Letter CXXV.
[695] Samobriva (Amiens), where Trebatius was, or had been, in Cæsar's camp. Cæsar spells it Samarobriva.
[696] Laberius is a rival jurisconsult, Valerius a writer of mimes. Though Cicero jests at the supposed comic character, "a lawyer in Britain" (as we might say, "a lawyer among the Zulus"), it does not appear that Trebatius went to Britain with Cæsar.
[697] A freedman and agent of Curio's. The question is of funeral games and an exhibition of gladiators in honour of Curio's father. Curio gave them, and involved himself in huge debt in consequence.
[698] C. Vibius Pansa had been in Gaul, and was now home to stand for the tribuneship, which he obtained for B.C. 52-51.
[699] Where he would have been in luxury.
[700] A follower of the new academy, with which Cicero was more in sympathy than with the Epicurean ethics, but apparently only partly so. The leading doctrine was the denial of the possibility of knowledge, and, applied to ethics, this might destroy all virtue.
[701] All these jesting objections to a lawyer being an Epicurean are founded on the Epicurean doctrine that individual feeling is the standard of morals, and the summum bonum is the good of the individual. The logical deduction that a man should therefore hold aloof from politics and social life, as involving social obligations and standards, was, of course, evaded in practice.
[702] For the Epicureans believed the gods to exist, but not to trouble themselves with the affairs of men. In taking an oath by Iupiter lapis the swearer took a stone in his hand and said, "If I abide by this oath may he bless me: but if I do otherwise in thought or deed, may all others be kept safe, each in his own country, under his own laws, in enjoyment of his own goods, household gods, and tombs—may I alone be cast out, even as this stone is now." Then he throws down the stone. This passage from Polybius (iii. 25) refers to treaties, but the same form seems to have been used in suits about land.
[703] Ulubræ—like other municipia—had a patronus at Rome to look after its interests. If Trebatius (who was its patronus) would take no part in politics, he would be of no use to the Ulubrani. πολιτεύεσθαι, "to act as a citizen," "to act as a member of a political body."
[705] Ennius, Ann. 275. The phrase manum consertum in legal language meant to make a joint claim by the symbolical act of each claimant laying a hand on the property (or some representation of it) in court. But it also meant "to join hands in war." Hence its equivocal use in this passage. Consertum is a supine, and some such word as eunt must be understood before it.
[706] Reading at tu non soles. I cannot explain Prof. Tyrrell's reading et tu soles in connexion with what follows.
[707] This elaborate joke is founded on a pun upon the name of the Gallic Treviri and the commissioners in Rome: (1) the III viri capitales, who had charge of prisons, executions, etc.; (2) the III viri auro argento æri flando feriundo, "the commissioners for coining gold, silver, and bronze." Also there is a reference to the meaning of capitalis, "deadly," "affecting the life or citizenship."
[708] Græculam tibi misi cautionem chirographi mei. Various interpretations have been given to this: (1) "a truly Greek security," i.e., "not to be depended on"; (2) referring to a poem in Greek, perhaps the one in praise of Cæsar's achievements, mentioned before (p. 338), in which some compliment to Trebatius was introduced; (3) Prof. Tyrrell would make it refer to this letter itself, which he supposes to have been written in Greek, and afterwards translated by Tiro. But this letter does not read like a translation, and, after all, is not of a nature to shew as a "commendation." It is conceived in too jocular a vein. I have taken it to refer to some inclosure written in Greek which he might use in this way, and the mention of his "own handwriting" to refer to the fact that he would naturally have employed a Greek secretary to write Greek. The diminutive Græculam I take to be apologetic for the Greek. But it is not at all certain.
[709] On his journey along the via Appia to one of his seaside villas Cicero has put up at a friend's house (a freedman of Lepidus), near the Pomptine marshes, as was his wont (Att. vii. 5). It was near Ulubræ, of which he was deputy patronus in the absence of Trebatius, and he jestingly pretends that the frogs which he hears croaking in the marshes are frogs of Ulubræ turning out to do him honour, as though they were the citizens of the town. Ulubræ was a very dull and decaying town.
[710] The great rising in Gaul in B.C. S4-53, and the second expedition across the Rhine.
[711] The friendship between Trebatius and Matius remained as long as we know anything about them. Cicero afterwards acknowledges (F. ii. 27) the great services Matius had done him with Cæsar, to whom Matius remained attached to the end.
[712] In these vague though ominous sentences Cicero is referring to the constant and violent hindrances to the election of magistrates, that is, to the orderly working of the constitution, which were occurring. No consuls were elected till September.
[713] Milo. His full name is T. Annius Milo Papianus; originally of the gens Papia, he had been adopted by his maternal grandfather, T. Annius.
[714] Pompey was præfectus annonæ B.C. 57-52. As such he had a number of legati, of whom this Titus Titius was one; but there is nothing to shew in which of the corn-supplying countries he was employed. Avianius is a corn merchant, and wants concessions as to the importation of his cargoes.
[715] The letter in some MSS. is inscribed to Sextius or Sestius. Of P. Sittius of Nuceria we hear in the speech pro Sulla, §§ 56, 58. Sulla (who was accused of assisting Catiline) had sent P. Sittius on a mission to Spain, as it was alleged, to raise a rebellion there in support of Catiline. It does not, however, appear that his condemnation took place then. It seems to have been just previous to Cicero's return from exile (August, B.C. 57), and it is suggested that it was after his ædileship of the previous year, when a scarcity of corn had contributed to his unpopularity. The date of the letter is uncertain.
[716] P. Sulla. Sittius was not, it seems, brought to trial with Sulla, but his journey to Spain formed part of the allegations against Sulla.
[717] Titus Fadius Gallus had been a quæstor in Cicero's consulship (B.C. 63), and a tribune in B.C. 58, when Cicero reckoned him among those on whom he depended to resist Clodius. He also, among others, had a motion prepared for Cicero's recall, of which Cicero speaks with approbation (p. 178). We do not know on what charge he had been condemned, but a number of prosecutions followed the death of Clodius and Pompey's legislation as to violence and corruption of juries.
[718] Pompey. He uses the word potentia, as he generally does, in an invidious sense of "tyrannical, or, unconstitutional power," as opposed to auctoritas, "legitimate influence."
[719] Brother of Cicero's enemy, P. Clodius. He had been consul in B.C. 54, and was now proconsul in Cilicia, in which government Cicero was to succeed him. His relations with Cicero had been varied, and though Cicero speaks warmly to him, he does not do so often of him, and his compliments are evidently not really sincere.
[720] "I shall, in compliment to your accomplishments, call the goddess of learning and wisdom 'Appias,'" i.e., the "Appian Goddess." But the meaning of the elaborate and dull joke or compliment is far from clear, especially the phrase si forte de tuis sumpsero. Was Cicero expecting a present of a bust of Minerva, or intending to purchase one from Appius's collection? Or does he allude, as has been suggested, to the Minerva he had himself dedicated before his exile, and which had probably fallen into the hands of the Appian family?
[721] The condemnation of T. Munatius Plancus Bursa, who, being tribune in B.C. 52, had promoted the riots following the death of Clodius, especially in regard to burning his body in the Curia, and had, after his office terminated (10th December), been prosecuted de vi by Cicero successfully. Bursa, with others, had supported Pompey's wish for the dictatorship, as well as his legislation, and accordingly, in attacking him, Cicero had against him the weight of Pompey's influence. He therefore looks upon it as a great triumph.
[722] The condemnation of Bursa was a point in favour of Milo, whereas Milo's murder of Clodius only brought his ultimate condemnation and exile. Milo's trial had taken place in April.
[723] Pompey and his friends.
[724] The new laws introduced by Pompey de vi, de magistratibus, de pecunia ob iudicium.
[725] The intercalary month was inserted between the 23rd and 24th of February. Whether it was to be inserted or not depended on the pontifices, who kept their secret jealously. If it is inserted, Cicero will be kept all the longer in town with senatorial and legal business, and so be prevented from seeing Marius, who lived near his Pompeian villa.
[726] It is to be observed that at this time Pompey is reckoned as inclined to the populares. His legislation in B.C. 70 had been somewhat in their favour; but he had not, as a fact, ever declared himself either way.
[727] C. Antonius, impeached by Cæsar for plundering Macedonia, appellavit tribunos iuravitque se forum eiurare, quod æquo iure uti non posset (Ascon. § 84). His offences in Macedonia, where he had been left by Sulla, were in B.C. 83-80; his impeachment, B.C. 76; his expulsion from the senate, B.C. 70.
[728] M. Marius Gratidianus (Ascon. § 84). These denunciations of Antonius and Catiline seem to be taken from the oration in toga candida.
[729] Cælius, consul B.C. 94 with Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus.
[730] Cicero, of course, was now a senator, but he was the first of his family who had been so. The others who came forward for the consulship were two patricians, P. Sulpicius Galba, L. Sergius Catilina; four plebeians, C. Antonius, L. Cassius Longinus, whom Asconius calls nobiles, i.e., members of families who had held curule office; and Q. Cornificius and C. Licinius Sacerdos, whose families had only recently risen to this position, tantum non primi ex familiis suis magistratum adepti erant (Asc.)
[731] He hints, I think, at Cæsar, who supported Antonius and Catiline, and also the Luculli, who were opponents of Pompey.
[732] C. Fundanius, defended by Cicero B.C. 66, fr. p. 216. Q. Gallius, defended by Cicero on ambitus B.C. 64, fr. p. 217 (Brut. § 277). C. Cornelius, quæstor of Pompey, tr. pl. B.C. 67, defended by Cicero B.C. 65 (Ascon. § 56 seq.) C. Orchivius, Cicero's colleague in prætorship B.C. 66 (Or. § 160). We don't know on what charge Cicero defended him. The passage in pro Cluent. § 147, does not mean that he was accused of peculatus, but that he presided over trials of peculatus as prætor.
[733] Manilius, tr. pl. B.C. 66, proposed the law for appointing Pompey to supersede Lucullus in the East. After his year of office he was accused of maiestas, and later on of repetundæ, but apparently neither case came on. C. Cornelius, tr. pl. B.C. 57, was accused of maiestas in B.C. 55, and defended by Cicero. He had become alienated from the senate by its opposition to his legislation against usury in the provinces, and the case made a great sensation.
[734] From fio, according to Cicero, credamusque quia "fiat" quod dictum est, appellatam fidem (de Off. i. § 23). He is referring to his promise to emancipate Tiro on a particular day.