The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

192

In his Formianum or Pompeianum, his villas at Formiæ and Pompeii.

193

An architect, a freedman of Cyrus, of whom we have heard before.

194

The triumvirs. The mission to Egypt was in the affairs of Ptolemy Auletes (father of Cleopatra), who was this year declared a "friend and ally." He soon got expelled by his subjects.

195

Il. vi. 442; xxii. 100. Cicero's frequent expression for popular opinion, or the opinion of those he respects—his Mrs. Grundy.

196

Theophanes, a philosopher of Mitylene, a close friend of Pompey's, in whose house he frequently resided. He took charge of Pompey's wife and children in b.c. 48-47.

197

Q. Arrius, an orator and friend of Cæsar's, by whose help he had hoped for the consulship. See p. 49.

198

Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos (consul b.c. 57). His brother, the consul of b.c. 60, had just died and made a vacancy in the college of augurs.

199

A captive brought by Lucullus, who became a friend of Cicero and tutor to his son and nephew.

200

One of the two yearly officers of a colony—they answer to the consuls at Rome. Therefore Cicero means, "I wish I had been a consul in a small colony rather than a consul at Rome."

201

For distribution of land under Cæsar's law. P. Vatinius was a tribune this year, and worked in Cæsar's interests.

202

Theopompus of Chios, the historian (Att. vi. 1, § 12). Born about b.c. 378. His bitterness censured by Polybius, viii. 11-13.

203

The money due from the treasury to Q. Cicero in Asia. He wants it to be paid in Roman currency (denarii), not in Asiatic coins (cistophori), a vast amount of which Pompey had brought home and deposited in the treasury. So an Indian official might like sovereigns instead of rupees if he could get them.

204

As he was a man sui iuris, Clodius's adoption into a new gens (adrogatio) would have to take place before the comitia curiata (now represented by thirty lictors), which still retained this formal business. The ceremony required the presence of an augur and a pontifex to hold it. Cicero supposes Pompey and Cæsar as intending to act in that capacity. Pompey, it seems, did eventually attend.

205

One of the twenty commissioners under Cæsar's agrarian law. Cicero was offered and declined a place among them. The "only man," of course, refers to the intrusion on the mysteries.

206

To Egypt.

207

This seems also to refer to the twenty agrarian commissioners, who, according to Mommsen, were divided into committees of five, and were, therefore, spoken of indifferently as quinqueviri and vigintiviri. But it is somewhat uncertain.

208

κατὰ τὸ πρακτικόν.

209

Castricius seems to have been a negotiator or banker in Asia. We don't know what mistake is referred to; probably as to some money transmitted to Pomponia.

210

It is suggested that Aristodemus is some teacher of the two young Ciceros, to whom the young Marcus wishes to apologize for his absence or to promise some study.

211

Perhaps some inscription or other ornament for Atticus's gymnasium in his villa at Buthrotum.

212

A verse from Lucilius. "Young Curio" is the future tribune of b.c. 50, who was bribed by Cæsar, joined him at Ravenna at the end of that year, was sent by him in b.c. 49 to Sicily and Africa, and fell in battle with the Pompeians and King Iuba.

213

L. Saufeius, the Epicurean friend of Atticus (see Letter II). He seems to mean, "as indefatigable as Saufeius." But Prof. Tyrrell points out that it might mean, "at the risk of your thinking me as Epicurean and self-indulgent as Saufeius, I say," etc.

214

The bay of Misenum, near which was Cicero's Pompeianum.

215

Q. Cæcilius Bassus, probably quæstor at Ostia. Antium would be in his district.

216

βοῶπις, sc. Clodia. She is to talk to her brother about Cicero. She is "Iuno" perhaps as an enemy—as Bacon called the Duchess of Burgundy Henry VII.'s Iuno—or perhaps for a less decent reason, as coniux sororque of Publius.

217

Pompey, who was proud of having taken Jerusalem. Traductor ad plebem, said of the magistrate presiding at the comitia for adoption.

218

Cicero himself. Clodius may have called him this from his biting repartees. Prof. Tyrrell, "Tear 'em."

219

The nobility, whom Cicero has before attacked as idle and caring for nothing but their fish-ponds (piscinarii, cp. p. 59).

220

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.

221

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

Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle at the Lyceum, Athens (p. 70).

223

The purple-bordered toga of the augur. Vatinius did not get the augurship. He had some disfiguring swelling or wen.

224

Himself.

225

ἄνδρ' ἀπαμύνεσθαι, ὅτε τις πρότερος χαλεπήνῃ (Hom. Il. xxiv. 369).

226

Written in Greek, perhaps by the boy himself.

227

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.

228

Δικαίαρχος and ἀδικαίαρχοι, a pun on a name not reproducible in English: "just-rulers" and "unjust-rulers."

229

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.

230

Homer, Odyss. ix. 27.

231

τηλέπυλον Λαιστρυγονίην, whose king Lamus (Odyss. x. 81) was supposed to have founded Formiæ (Horace, Od. iii. 17).

232

A despatch from senate or consuls. See Letter XXIV, p. 60.

233

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.

234

Because he would be inclined to sell it cheap in his disgust.

235

The spectacle Cicero hopes for is Clodius's contests with the triumvirs.

236

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.

237

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.

238

Cæsar.

239

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).

240

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

See Letter XXIX, p. 82. They were abolished b.c. 60.

242

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.

243

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.

244

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.

245

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.

246

The marriage of Pompey with Cæsar's daughter Iulia.

247

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).

248

C. Curius, one of the Catiline set, who had been ignominiously expelled from the senate.

249

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

See Letter XIX, p. 35.

251

I.e., Cæsar's agrarian law, by which some of the Campanian ager publicus was to be divided.

252

M. Iuventius Laterensis. See Letter L, p. 123.

253

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.

254

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

Statius, a slave of Quintus, was unpopular in the province. See p. 125.

256

Terence, Phorm. 232.

257

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.

258

Ennius on Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator.

259

Pompey was in Campania acting as one of the twenty land commissioners.

260

The lex Roscia theatralis (b.c. 67), which gave fourteen rows of seats to the equites.

261

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.

262

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

The uncle of Atticus. See p. 15.

264

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).

265

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

See Letter XXIV, p. 56.

267

I.e., in biting language. Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo (Hor. A. P. 79).

268

The Cosmographia of Alexander of Ephesus. See Letter XLVIII, p. 120.

269

Appius Claudius Pulcher, elder brother of P. Clodius.

270

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).

271

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

Alexander of Ephesus. See Letter XLVI, p. 115.

273

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.

274

Reclamatum est. The MSS. have haud reclamatum est, "it was not refused."

275

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.

276

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.

277

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.

278

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.

279

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.

280

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.

281

Probably a prætor, not the triumvir.

282

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."

283

ἑλικτὰ κοὐδὲν ὑγιὲς ἀλλὰ πᾶν πέριξ φρονοῦντες.

Eur. Androm. 448.

"With tortuous thoughts, naught honest, winding all."

284

τὰς τῶν κρατούντων ἀμαθίας φέρειν χρεών.

Eur. Phœn. 393.

"Follies of those in power we needs must bear."

285

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.

286

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.

287

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

Whom he called (Letter XXIX) "a madman and a knave."

289

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.

290

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.

291

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.

292

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.

293

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."