[1]: Rhunck has enclosed this sentence in brackets, as the gloss and interpolation of an ignorant man; but Orellius thinks some part of it really Cicero's, though not free from corruptions.
[2]: Alexander, king of Egypt, had died at Tyre in the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, two years before, and had bequeathed Alexandria and Egypt to the Roman people, and in consequence many people advocated the course of claiming that inheritance, and depriving Ptolemy the king of Egypt. The subject will be mentioned again in the next oration.
[3]: The Scantian wood was in Campania.
[4]: “Those Romans who had passed through one of the high offices of aediles, praetor, or consul were allowed to have their likenesses handed down to posterity. These likenesses were, according to Casaubon, busts; but according to Schweighauser, masks; they were kept in the hall of the house, in niches appropriated for their reception, and were brought forth on occasions of funerals, together with their robes of office, to impersonate the dead. Whoever had such images in his possession was nobilis.”—Riddle, Lat. Dict. v. Imago.
[5]: Middleton says (with express reference to this passage,) “the method of choosing consuls was not by an open vote, but by a kind of ballot or little tickets of wood distributed to the citizens with the names of the candidates severally inscribed on each; but in Cicero's case, the people were not content with this secret and silent way of testifying their inclinations but before they came to any scrutiny, loudly and universally proclaimed Cicero the first consul; so that, as he himself declared in his speech to them after his election he was not chosen by the votes of particular citizens, but by the common suffrage of the city; nor declared by the voice of the crier, but of the whole Roman people.”
[6]: The last four lines of this paragraph are very corrupt in the original, and there is a good deal of variety in the readings.
[7]: The comitia curiata, at which alone a lex curiata could he passed, was a meeting of the populus of Rome, assembled in its tribes of houses; and no member of the plebs could vote at such a meeting. They met principally for the sake of confirming some ordinance of the senate; a senatus consultum was an indispensable preliminary, and with regard to elections and laws, they had merely the power of confirming or rejecting what the senate had already decreed. The lex curiata (de imperio),which was the same as the auctoritas patrum, was necessary in order to confer upon the dictator, the consuls, and the other magistrates the imperium or military command. The comitia curiata were held by the patrician magistrates, and they voted by their curies. The comitia centuriata were the assembly of the populus and plebs together, and they voted by their centuries by ballot. The comitia tributa were not established till B. C. 491. They were an assembly of the people according to the local tribes into which the Plebs was originally divided. No qualification of birth or property was necessary to enable a them to vote in the comitia tributa. They were summoned by the tribuni plebis, who were also the presiding magistrates in general; but the consuls or praetors might preside if they were convoked for the election of inferior magistrates, such as the quaestor, propraetor, or proconsul. Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 274, v. Comitia, q. v.
[8]: This and the preceding chapter are exceedingly obscure, and almost unintelligible to us; perhaps also the text is a little corrupt. Manutius says, “An exceedingly difficult passage, which has perplexed men of the greatest ability and learning.” His explanation is as follows: “The ancient Romans had chosen that the people should decide on the election of every magistrate in two comitia; but the magistracies are distinguished into patrician and plebeian; the patrician magistrates are the quaestor, the curule aedile, the praetor, the consul, and the censor; the plebeian are the tribune of the people, the aedile of the people, and others. But there were two comitia first about the patrician magistrates before the plebeian ones were elected, namely the centuriata comitia, and the curiata. I except the censors, who, although they were patrician magistrates, still were elected by one comitia only, the centuriata. But when the plebeian magistrates were elected, then the tributa comitia succeeded to the place of the curiata, for the curiata had nothing to do with the plebeian magistrates. For they were instituted for the sake of the patrician magistrates long before the origin of the plebeian ones. Some one may say, Why were not the centuriata taken away for the same reason, as they were instituted by king Servius when there were not yet any plebeian magistrates? The answer is, In order that there might be some comitia held with proper auspices at which the patrician magistrates might be created, for the auspices were not taken at the tributa comitia. As, therefore, in the case of the patrician magistrates, (with the exception, as I have said before, of the censor,) the people gave their votes first in the centuriata comitia and then in the curiata, before the plebeian magistrates were elected; so, when the plebeian magistrates were elected, the same people voted in the centuriata and tributa comitia.”
[9]: The Latin terms are populus and plebs. For the best account of the populus to be found in a small space, see Smith's Dict. Ant. p. 726, v. Patricii; and consult the same admirable book, p. 765, v. Plebes, or plebs. The word potestas, which I have translated “authority,” means strictly only civil authority, in opposition to imperium, military command.
[10]: “In after times, when the comitia curiata were little more than a matter of form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors of the curiae, whose duty it was to summon the curiae when the meetings actually took place.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 273 a, v. Comitia.
[11]: The Latin has, “decemviri pullarii”. Pullarius was the officer appointed to feed and take care of the sacred chickens that were kept for the purpose of taking the auspices; and much was inferred from the way in which they took their food, or perhaps refused it.
[12]: There is, no doubt, some corruption here in the text.
[13]: This sentence and the succeeding one are considered very corrupt, and there is a great variety of readings proposed; for qui Etesiis some read quietis iis; for directo, decreto. Unaque is quite unintelligible.
[14]: It is unknown who this man was. Perhaps some puffing auctioneer.
[15]: This and the next sentence are given up as corrupt by every one. Many different readings have been proposed; and I have endeavoured to extract what appears to have been Cicero's meaning from them, keeping as closely as possible to the text of Orellius.
[16]: There is probably some corruption in the text here and in the next few sentences; Orellius marks them with a dagger.
[17]: Serva praedia mean such estates as were liable to certain burdens or duties; held by the performance of certain services.
[18]: The Crabra aqua is several times mentioned by Cicero in his letters as a small artificial stream running through his Tusculan property. He even had a law-suit respecting it, as appears from one of his letters.