[370]: Caelius contrasts plebs and populus. Of course these terms no longer have the old political meaning; but plebs had come to be used as we use the "masses" for the lower orders generally; whereas populus was the whole body of the citizens as possessed of political power; and when contrasted with plebs may be taken to mean the whole body politic which formed the majority at the comitia—the mass of voters. Caelius tried to gain the latter by opposing the exaction of debts under arbitration, as arranged by Caesar, and by proposing a suspension of house rents.
[371]: The reading is very doubtful. The reference, perhaps, is to Gaius Cato, the turbulent tribune of B.C. 56.
[372]: Caelius seems to insinuate that Pompey's wisest course would be to avoid an engagement and to make again for Italy, where the Caesarians were weak. This is the last appearance of Caelius in the correspondence. The discontent with his position here indicated-founded on the fact that though he had been appointed praetor by Caesar's influence, Trebonius was praetor urbanus and in a superior position to himself-presently led him to take up a position of violent opposition, especially regard to Caesar's financial arrangements, the result of which was that he was forcibly suspended from his functions by the consul Servilius Isauricus. Finally, under pretence of going to Caesar at Alexandria, he attempted to join Milo in Apulia, who was trying to secure by force his own restoration, which had not been included in the revocation of other exiles. Milo, however, had already fallen; and when Caelius proceeded to raise forces on his own account, before he could do anything material, he was killed near Thurii by some foreign auxiliary soldiers, whom he attempted to win over. (Caes. B.C. 3.20-22; Dio Cass. 42.21.)
[373]: This refers to the lines, fifteen miles long, drawn by Caesar round Pompey's position on the bay of Dyrrachium. They were not, however, completed at the southern extremity, and shortly afterwards pierced them at this point, and inflicted a severe defeat upon Caesar.
[374]: There is still a possibility of the ultimate success of the Pompeians, who are mustered in great force in Africa. Pompey's son Gnaeus had threatened to kill Cicero at Corcyra, when he refused to go on with the war; and, if that party succeeded in the end, they would regard Cicero as having acted treasonably in returning to Italy. This was one of the "injuries"; another was the fact that his brother and nephew had turned against him, and, as he believed, were denouncing him to Caesar.
[375]: Like most irresolute men, Cicero is apt to lay the blame of any step which seems to be turning out badly upon the insidious advice of friends. It was his constant theme in his exile. In this case he is referring, not I think to his abandoning the Pompeian fleet, but to his coming to Italy instead of staying in Achaia. He said before (see p.19) that this was in consequence of Dolabella writing to say that Caesar wished it.
[376]: Tullia's dowry had not been fully paid, and the instalments paid had been squandered. See pp.39, 44, etc.
[377]: Cicero, as usual, is distracted by seeing acutely the dangers on both sides. He wishes for the divorce, but can Dolabella make it unpleasant for them if it comes from their side? If so, best not to do anything. But on the other hand, if they don't move, perhaps he will, and that would be safer for them, but less dignified.
[378]: That is, the members of the defeated party who had taken up their abode in Asia and Achaia, and the numerous adherents who had gathered in Africa.
[379]: Cassius had joined Caesar early with his fleet. See p.31.
[380]: Cassius does not appear to have been in Egypt with Caesar, but to have remained at Rhodes or on the coast of Cilicia with his ships. When Caesar crossed from Alexandria to Cilicia in this year, Cassius met him at the mouth of the Cydnus, and, according to a later assertion of Cicero's (Phil. 2.26), contemplated turning against him and destroying him. This is not mentioned by anyone else.
[381]: We know nothing of this letter from Cassius. He seems to have advised Cicero not to leave Italy.
[382]: This, the last letter to Terentia, is as cold and abrupt as all those which he wrote from Brundisium. What must have been especially galling to her was being referred to Atticus for all information, while receiving such barren notelets herself. The divorce followed shortly.
[383]: Gaius Trebonius had been all along a strong Caesarian. In his tribuneship (Dec. B.C. 56-Dec. B.C. 55) he proposed the law for the extension of Caesar's governorship. From B.C. 54 he was his legatus in Gaul. He helped to conduct the siege of Marseilles B.C. 49. He was praetor urbanus in the year B.C. 48, and maintained Caesar's financial enactments against Caelius. Some time in B.C. 47 he was sent to southern Spain as proconsul in place of Cassius. He seems to have been an admirer of Cicero, in spite of politics, and to have made s collection of his bons mots. He did not succeed in Baetica, and though afterwards nominated by Caesar to the province of Asia, he was one of his assassins. Of his own miserable death we shall hear later on. He had some tincture of letters, and wrote verses on the model of Lucilius.
[384]: As quaestor, B.C. 60, Trebonius had opposed the passing of the law allowing Clodius's adoption into a plebeian gens.
[385]: Trebonius seems to have remonstrated on some laudatory expressions in a letter to Calvus, which he had seen. C. Licinius Calvus, son of the annalist Licinius Macer, was born B.C. 82. He was a poet and orator. In the latter capacity Cicero elsewhere (Brut. § 283) speaks of him as being learned and accurate, but too much enslaved to the model of the Attic style, which he had set himself to imitate. That is the "certain definite style" of which he here speaks.
[386]: B.C. 46. Coss., C. Iulius Caesar III., M. Aemilius Lepidus. Dictator C. Iulius Caesar III. Magister Equitum, Am. Aemilius Lepidus.
[387]: That is, I think, as accusing or defending men on their trial. The counsel for the prosecution and defence occupied different benches (see vol. ii., p. 219; pro Flacc. §22; in Verr. 2, § 73). I do not think it can be explained as "advocate and juryman," for the use of subsellia for the seats of the jury is doubtful, and for the praetor (in a civil suit) it would be "tribunal."
[388]: The person here recommended is M. Terentius Varro Gibba.
[389]: Marcus Brutus had not only been pardoned by Caesar for his part in the Civil War, but made governor of Cisalpine Gaul, i.e., North Italy, which was still treated as a province, though its inhabitants were full citizens, and continued to be so treated till the time of Augustus. An analogy in some respects would be the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
[390]: Confirmed by an inscription, C. I. L. 1.1178.In this inscription the name of Fufidius occurs among the three aediles, shewing that the Fufidii were a family of Arpinum. From one of them Quintus Cicero bought a property. See vol. i., p.292.
[391]: We have seen before how these private letters were sent to provincial governors on matters upon which they had to act judicially (see Vol. ii., pp.121, 122). They would be thought highly improper now. But we must remember that Cicero did not expect such formal letters to be very much attended to. See vol. i., pp.208, 241. There is no means of dating these letters of introduction to Brutus.
[392]: Varro, the "most learned of the Romans," and author, it is said, of 490 books (two only of which remain even partially), had been one of Pompey's legates in Spain in B.C. 49, where he had to surrender his legions to Caesar. He, however, joined Pompey in Epirus. Whilst Caesar was at Alexandria, Antony seized Varro's villa at Casinum (Phil. 2.103), but on his return Caesar restored him to his property and civil position, and indeed employed his services in the collection of the public library. He was the oldest of the leading men of this period, yet survived them all. He was born B.C. 116, and died B.C. 28.
[393]: Plancus had been Caesar's legatus in Gaul, and was with him in Africa. He lived through the period of the Civil Wars, surviving Antony—whom he betrayed—and settling down to enjoy the wealth that his extortions had gained him, as a courtier in the train of Augustus. Velleius Paterculus gives the blackest account of him (ii. 83) as an ingrained traitor (morbo proditor) and profligate. Horace, however, seems to have regarded him with some affection (Od. 1.7). We shall hereafter see something of his shifty policy following the murder of Caesar.
[394]: That is, he was staying over his year because the allotment of provinces at the end of B.C. 50 had been vetoed.
[395]: B.C. 50.
[396]: About £240.
[397]: Cicero's quaestor in Cilicia, of whom he elsewhere expresses no good opinion. See vol. ii., pp. 167, 178, 235.
[398]: For Cicero's feelings as to his solitude in a crowd, see vol. i., pp. 49-50.
[399]: The other alternatives are discussed in the de Senectute.
[400]: That is, Baiae, a holiday resort full of amusement and gay company. Varro had apparently suggested going there.
[401]: Our "coals to Newcastle." See vol. i., p.290.
[402]: The battle of Thapsus was fought on the 6th of April, according to the unrevised calendar. The news reached Rome on the evening of the 20th (Dio, 43, 42).
[403]: Iliad, 10.224, also quoted at vol. ii., p.322: "when two go together one hits one thing first and the other another." "Two heads are better than one." Cicero expects the learned Varro, as he did Atticus, to fill up the quotation.
[404]: Terence, Andr. 112. The old father, seeing his son weep at a funeral of a comparative stranger, says, "I liked that: I thought to myself, what will he do for me, his father?" So, Cicero means, "If Caesar pardoned his bitter enemy, young Lucius Caesar, what must he do to me, his old friend?" L. Caesar is the man who brought the messages to and from Pompey (vol. ii., pp.249, 250, 255).
[405]: A fragment of Ennius.
[406]: a)poprohgme/non, a technical word of the Stoics. Nothing is good or bad but virtue and vice; but among other things which are strictly neither good nor bad some are to be preferred (prohgme/na), some not (a)prohgme/na). Cicero uses the word jestingly for what he considers very bad.
[407]: I.e., to meet Caesar.
[408]: Caesar did come by Sardinia, and therefore sailed straight to Ostia, not to Puteoli (Dio, 43, 14).
[409]: Because of its unhealthiness. Vol. i., p.217.
[410]: polloi\ maqhtai\ krei/ssones didaska/lwn, a line of which the author is unknown. He refers to his instructing Dolabella in oratory.
[411]: For starting to meet Caesar. We must remember that, in spite of an intercalary month inserted after the 23rd of February, the calendar this year was two months in advance, and was not rectified till the autumn. Therefore the 5th of June is really about the 5th of April, and that was full early for Caesar to embark on a voyage from Africa.
[412]: B.C. 49. This apology for his conduct is somewhat like that addressed to Lentulus, vol. i., p.310.
[413]: When Pompey pierced Caesar's lines and defeated him. See pp. 6-7.
[414]: There is no certain means of dating this letter; but as the death of Cato is perhaps referred to, it must be not earlier than May. The pression as to the finis of the duty of those engaged in the Civil War seems to put it near in time to the preceding letter to Marius, as Cicero often uses the same phrase in letters written nearly at the same time. The general point of view (which so often shifts with Cicero) is about the same.
[415]: His father, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, killed in the cavalry pursuit after Pharsalia (2 Phil. §§ 27, 71; Caes. B.C. 3.99), and his uncle Cato, who had committed suicide at Utica, rather than fall into Caesar's hands after Thapsus.
[416]: Porcia, sister of Cato.
[417]: Cicero playfully alludes to the necessitudinarian doctrines of Diodorus of Caria (the Megaric philosopher, ob. B.C. 307) and Chrysippus of Soli, the Stoic (born B.C. 280). Diodorus maintained that "only what is or what will be is possible." Chrysippus, on the other hand, defined "the possible" as what is "capable of being true if circumstances do not prevent." Diodotus was a Stoic who lived many years in Cicero's house, and died there B.C. 59. See vol. i., p.115.
[418]: Probably means (though it is a strange way of expressing it) a garden to sit and converse in, like philosophers in the Academy: the library being like Cicero's Tusculan gymnasium, round a court containing shrubs, etc. There is a similar reference to Cicero's villa at Cumae, Vol. i., p.253 (Q. Fr. 2.8).
[419]: On the coast of Etruria, about eighteen miles north of the mouth of the Tiber. Caesar had a villa there, but so had many Roman nobles, and I suppose that he would be among enemies.
[420]: At Alsium and Ostia, that he might be ready to meet Caesar in, either.
[421]: Reading otiosissimi minabantur.
[422]: The elephants of King Juba.
[423]: Iure, the MS. reading. I am not satisfied that it is rightly rejected, as it is by all editors; ut scriberem is easily understood after rogarat. He elsewhere (vol. i., p.354) says that the proper purpose of a letter is to inform the recipient of what he does not but ought to know, and the writer does. So in asking that, Caninius asked iure, in accordance with the law of letter writing.
[424]: The reading is doubtful.
[425]: Paetus, to whom twelve letters are addressed, is an unknown man, though evidently very intimate with Cicero, to whom we have heard of his presenting a collection of books (vol. i., pp.60, 66).
[426]: Servius Claudius, whose books Paetus had given to Cicero. He was probably cousin, not brother, of Paetus.
[427]: His Dicta Collectanea, which Augustus would not allow to be published (Suet. Iul. 56).
[428]: For the acta diurna, see vol. i., p. 146; vol. ii., pp.187, 404. But besides this Caesar seems to have had a private report made to him each day of what was happening, just as Augustus did, whether of public or domestic occurrences (Suet. Aug. 32 and 78). It was Caesar who first ordered the acta of the senate to be published (Suet. Iul. 20).
[429]: That is, anything unfavourable. "Caesar considers that he knows the worst that I say from his own reporters, and will listen to nothing more."
[430]: A play of Accius, from which Paetus had, it seems, quoted some lines recommending him to avoid exciting envy.
[431]: The fabulae Atellanae got their name from Atella in Campania. They were coarser Oscan plays (vol. i., p. 259), presented after those taken from Greek tragedies, on the analogy of the satyric dramas at Athens. Mimes were solo plays or recitatives by single actors with appropriate gestures. They were becoming fashionable, and we hear of an eques who acted his own mime (Suet. Iul. 39; Aug.45, 99).
[432]: A dinner at a denarius (10d.) a head.
[433]: To understand this rather elaborate chaff we must remember the circumstances of the time. Caesar's law of B.C. 49 to relieve the financial situation in Italy enacted that creditors foreclosing for mortgage debtors were: (1) to deduct certain sums received as interest; (2) to take over the mortgaged properties at their value before the war panic. That value had to be estimated, and to accept an aestimatio meant generally a loss: for a creditor had property on his hands which often would not fetch the amount of the debt. Suetonius reckons the average loss to have been twenty-five per cent. Now Paetus was a Caesarian, and therefore Cicero says, "Of course you are bearing your losses cheerfully (in the good cause), so you needn't make a fuss about entertaining me. It was some good being close-fisted when you had anything to save, now you may look upon any expense I cause you as only one other item in your bankruptcy." He does not seriously mean that Paetus was bankrupt. He chooses to represent the losses under tbe Caesarian law as amounting to that. I have accepted the reading, non est quod non sis, though I do not feel that it is satisfactory.
[434]: See vol. ii., pp.311,344.
[435]: That is, "red-leaded" Iupiter. On certain festivals, especially at triumphal banquets, figures of Iupiter were introduced stained with red-lead or cinnabar (Plin. N. H. 33.112). An earthenware figure of the same god was also in the Capitolium coloured in the same way (Plin. N. H. 35.157). It is remarked that the polypus is not naturally red-some colouring substance must have been used in the cooking.
[436]: Q. Selicius, a money-lender, whose villa near Naples Cicero was thinking of buying.
[437]: Schütz supposes that there may have been salinae, "salt-works," on the property, and Cicero puns on the other meaning of salt—"wit." He seems to mean, "I won't buy the property, for, though there is plenty of salt in it (as there was wit in your letter), there is a lack of sound attractions (sanorum)." Tyrrell and Purser read saniorum, and translate, "We have had enough of joking, too little common sense." The MSS. have sannionum, "of jesters," which perhaps might be rendered, "though there is enough salt (material for jest), there are not enough people to take advantage of it."
[438]: Dolabella and Hirtius.
[439]: Caesar, on his return from his victory in Africa.
[440]: Cicero tells the story again in Tusc. iii. § 27, but the proverb, "Dionysius in Corinth," in Att. 9.9(vol. ii., p.329) is not, I think, connected with it.
[441]: Pompey was assassinated in Egypt; Metellus Pius Scipio (Pompey's father-in-law), attempting after Thapsus to escape to Spain, threw himself into the sea to avoid capture; Afranius fell into the hands of Sittius after Thapsus and perished in a military riot. Cicero did not accompany Pompey's army to Pharsalia.
[442]: Haterius, probably a lawyer with whom Paetus was in some way engaged. There is doubtless a play on the double meaning of jus, "sauce" and "law." A similar metaphor was used on a celebrated occasion in recent years, when certain politicians were recommended to "stew in their Parnellite juice."
[443]: Of Hirtius, Cicero's instructor in the art of dining, pp.93, 98.
[444]: From a Greek proverb, u(=s *)aqhna=n. See Theocr. 5.53; Acad. 1, § 18.
[445]: aestimationes, properties taken over for debts at a valuation under Caesar's law. See p.93.
[446]: The other Caesarians at Naples.
[447]: I.e., sold it to buy necessaries. We don't know what grumbling about money losses from Paetus drew out all this chaff. For the mule to ride and the horse to carry luggage, see vol. ii., p.213.
[448]: VoL ii., p.90.
[449]: Omitting eis or meis, with Schütz. Mueller brackets meis.
[450]: Reading perinvitus, the reading of one MS. The rest have pluribus. Tyrrell and Purser adopt Orelli's per librarios, "by my secretaries," "by deputy." But why should Volumnius mind Cicero employing his secretaries to read to him?
[451]: Referring to the foreclosures on lands which Paetus had been obliged to take on the valuations (aestimationes) according to Caesar's law, which were unsaleable; so he had land on his hands and yet was short of money. See pp.93, 96.
[452]: See vol. i., p.362 (Fam. 5.18). Fadius had been quaestor in the year of Cicero's consulship. He bad been in exile since B.C. 52, and seems to have thought Cicero might have done something more to secure his restitutio, and to have reproached him with the value of his services during the Catilinarian conspiracy, and in securing his recall. Mueller places this letter in March, B.C. 52, but in that year there could have been no question of being recalled by Caesar.
[453]: A quotation from the Pelops of Accius, which he applies more than once again to the Caesarians: evolem, ubi nec Pelopidarum nomen nec facta aut famam audiam. Oh that I might fly away, where neither name nor deed nor fame of the sons of Pelops might reach my ear!
[454]: I retain dicere in this sentence. Tyrrell and Purser read discere, and translate intellexi discere, "I remember learning," which I cannot follow. It would be better to omit dicere altogether.
[455]: Caesarians, like Balbus, who are now in quasi-royal power. But rex often used for "patron" or "great man, as in Horace.
[456]: Punning on the meaning of Balbus.
[457]: No doubt for his amanuensis to copy. Writing letters at the dinner table seems to have been no unusual thing with busy men. It was Caesar's constant habit (Plut. Caes. 63). And we have already heard of letters being delivered both to host and guest at dinner (p.76).
[458]: Dion, a Stoic (Acad. ii. 4, § 12).
[459]: Of whom we have heard as accompanying Antony in his round of the Italian cities in B.C. 49 (vol. ii., p. 389). In the 2nd Philippic (§58) Cicero says her connexion with Volumnius was so notorious, that she was addressed then as Volumnia. Cytheris was her theatrical name.
[460]: e)/xw ou)k e)/xomai (Diogen. Laert. Vita Aristippi, 74). Anecdotes of the famous Corinthian meretrix will be found in the 13th book of Athenaeus.
[461]: I have translated this as a retort which Cicero expects Paetus to make: "You chaff me about my neglecting philosophy for dinner: but why do you care for a dinner so much as to dine in such company?" It is not a very obvious or certain explanation, but neither are any of those given by others, which all differ. At naturally introduces a supposed objection. But the text is very doubtful.
[462]: Caesar's sumptuary law. Suetonius says that he carried it out so strictly, that he set inspectors in the provision market to seize forbidden dainties, and even sent lictors to remove them from the table if they had been procured. Of course, however, it failed (Suet. Iul. 43; cp. Dio, 43, 25).
[463]: Who, as Caesar's friend and agent, would know his intentions.
[464]: That is, for allotments of land to veterans.
[465]: That is, of confiscations in Campania.
[466]: The text is doubtful. I have taken Mueller's reading, quam tibi perspectam esse gaudeo, omitting animumque erga te meum tibi perspectum.
[467]: Technically Gallia bracata was the Province, i.e., Narbonensis.
[468]: See pp.94, 107.
[469]: He is referring to the period of his own consulship, and the years immediately preceding it. Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul B.C. 78) had been a consistent supporter of the party of the Optimates, supported Cicero against the Catilinarian conspirators, and hailed him as pater patriae (pro Sest. § 121). He died in B.C. 6o. See vol. i., pp.59, 124.
[470]: Caesar.
[471]: Other references to falsifications of senatus consulta are de Domo, § 50; pro Sulia, § 40. In these cases here mentioned Cicero alleges that his name was placed on the back as having been one of the committee to draw up the decree (esse ad scribendum, or adesse scribendo). See vol. ii., p.194.
[472]: The title of praefectus moribus had been given to Caesar for three years, among other honours, this year after the news of Thapsus (Dio, 43, 14).
[473]: Caesar had become an augur, in virtue of a decree of B.C. 47 making him a member of all the sacred colleges (Dio, 42, 51). We do not know the date of the election of Isauricus—Caesar's colleague in the consulship of B.C. 48-but it was probably in B.C. 47, when there were two death vacancies (Q. Cassius and Appius Claudius). He was now proconsul of Asia. For Cicero's election in B.C. 53, see vol. ii., p.107 (note); cp. vol. i., p.90.
[474]: The sort of injuries inflicted on Asia may be gathered from vol. i., p.73; cp. de imper Pomp. § 64.
[475]: P. Servilius Vatia, consul B.C. 79, who has received the cognomen of Isauricus from his victory over the Isaurian robber tribes (B.C. 78), for which he celebrated a triumph in B.C. 74. He died in B.C. 44.
[476]: P. Nigidius Figulus, tribune B.C. 60-59, praetor B.C. 58, had adhered throughout to the Pompeian party. He was a very learned man, who wrote on various subjects of natural history, augural science, and language. Suetonius (Aug. 94) says that he prophesied the future greatness of Augustus by astrology from the hour of his birth. He was not recalled, but died shortly after the date of this letter. He professed to follow Pythagoras in some way.
[477]: Literary or philosophical subjects, apparently, or perhaps lively and sportive subjects. See vol. i., p.354.
[478]: See vol. i., p.172.
[479]: M. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 51, though he had offended Caesar by his action as to the magistrate at Comum (vol. ii., p.30), and had been with Pompey in Epirus, had been since Pompey's defeat living at Mitylene unmolested. It was on his recall that Cicero delivered the speech (pro Marcello) in the senate this year. See pp. 136-137.
[480]: That is, with the amount of forces Pompey had to depend upon at the beginning of B.C. 49 (see Caes. B.C. 1.1), whence Marcellus is said to have proposed that Caesar's demand should not be brought before the senate until the levies had been held and an army enrolled. See also vol. ii., p.247.
[481]: That is, of the heterogeneous character of the army in Epirus, made up of all nations, Asiatic as well as European. See vol. ii., p.329.
[482]: As a matter of fact, when Marcellus, shortly after this letter, had his permission to return home, he shewed by no means any haste to avail himself of it. He did not leave Mitylene till the next spring, when he was murdered in the Piraeus on his way home, as we shall hear.
[483]: He is referring to various irregular and unauthorized seizures of properties of the Pompeians by some of the Caesarians, who, however, were in certain cases made to disgorge. See the case of Antony seizing the villa of Varro at Casinum (2 Phil. §§ 103-104).
[484]: "When we only know a thing by hearsay, we are apt to exaggerate its gravity: when we see it we know better its true proportions." The reverse is often stated by Cicero himself, that what is seen gives keener pain than what is heard (see p.138, etc.). Both are in a way true.
[485]: From the time of Sulla and Marius onwards.
[486]: By "our divination" Cicero may mean to include the augural science as known to the college of augurs. But though he plays round the subject, we need not suppose that he really thought that he had learnt to predict events thereby. What follows seems rather to point to Milton's "Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain," though the two ideas are (perhaps purposely) confused.
[487]: This prediction seems rather slender capital on which to set up business as a prophet. Pompey and Caesar combined for the express purpose of checkmating the senate, and if they quarrelled difficulties would be sure to follow. Besides, he puts quite a different complexion on it elsewhere (Phil. 2.24), representing the remark as an aspiration expressed to Pompey after the war had begun. But "I told you so " is a gratification that few can resist.
[488]: It seems almost impossible that Cicero should ever have given this advice. Whilst in Cilicia, indeed-when, as we have seen, he got rather behindhand in his knowledge of the inner nature of things—he was strong for Pompey not going to Spain (vol. ii., pp.30, 73). On his return he had an interview with Pompey on the 10th of December (vol. ii., p.223), in which he certainly made no such suggestion. As the days of December went on, and the fatal days of January approached, he all along supposes Pompey's presence in the senate, and himself to be supporting him (vol. ii., pp.226, 229). Nor in a second interview with Pompey, on the 25th of December, does his account admit of the idea of his having expressed such an opinion (vol. ii., p.230); in fact, though Pompey apparently did mention it, Cicero thought it the worst of allthe alternatives (vol. ii., p.232). After about January 7th, he saw Pompey no more till he joined him in Epirus, when such a suggestion could not have been made. He was cognizant, however, of the proposals of Ciesar—sent through Lucius Caesar—one of which was that Pompey should go to Spain, though he characterized them as "utterly absurd" (vol. ii., p.249); still they were accepted—on condition of Caesar withdrawing from Italy—about the 25th of January, and Cicero may then have expressed this opinion, but so did others, only with this impossible condition (vol. ii., pp.253-254).
[489]: The author of the line is not known. Amphiaraus, husband of Eriphyle, sister of Adrastus, was enticed by his wife into joining the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, though he knew he was going to his death. Eriphyle had been bribed by Polynices to persuade her husband. It was a common theme of tragedy.
[490]: The Caecinae were a noble family of Volaterrae in Etruria.
[491]: This is Cicero's polite way of characterizing a book of Caecina's against Caesar, which Suetonius (Iul.75) says was most abusive (criminosissimus). He appears since then to have written some recantation, which he called Querelae.
[492]: Cicero trusts to Caesar wishing, like Napoleon, to have the countenance and support of the nobility.
[493]: After surrendering his fleet to him on his voyage to Alexandria.
[494]: M. Brutus was made governor of Cisalpine Gaul, B.C. 46.
[495]: Ser. Sulpicius Rufus (see p. 20). For Caesar's occupation of Greece, see p.35.
[496]: M. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 51. See p.113.
[497]: The wife and daughter of T. Ampius.
[498]: T. Ampius Balbus was a tribune in B.C. 63, and praetor in B.C. 59 the first the Catilinarian year, the second the year of Caesar's consulship, which Cicero regards as fatal to the constitution. He had always been an ardent Pompeian, having proposed special honours to Pompey in B.C. 63 for his Eastern campaign. For his activity at the beginning of the Civil War, see vol. ii., p.271. He was not, it seems, at the battle of Pharsalia, but was in Asia, where he tried to seize the treasures of the temple at Ephesus (Caes. B.C. 3.105).
[499]: This work is quoted apparently by Suetonius, Iul. 77.
[500]: That is, in the college of augurs. There was a vacancy this year by the death of Faustus Cornelius Sulla, and though we don't know it positively, Cornificius may have been nominated to it by Caesar, in reward for his services in Illyricum in B.C. 48-47.
[501]: Cornificius was governor of Africa next year (B.C. 45), but it is supposed from this passage that he was on some service in the East at the present time. The disturbance in Syria was caused by Q. Caecilius Bassus, who, escaping from Pharsalia, got the governor of Syria murdered, and, assuming the title of praetor, held out till B.C. 43.
[502]: Some of the best of Caesar's laws were passed this year (Dio, 43, 25), but perhaps Cicero means some more or less complete restoration of the Republic.
[503]: A polite hint that Cicero has a great fear of, or regard for, the criticism of Cornificius.
[504]: Orator, ad Brutum. The objection he expects to be taken to this work is the high place assigned to the orator as compared with men of action. The other works of this year are the Cato (lost), Paradoxa, Brutus (de claris Oratoribus).
[505]: Schütz assigns this letter to the next year, in which case the reference might be to Africa.
[506]: Mueller gives a date, November 26th; but it does not appear to rest on anything certain.
[507]: The year B C. 51, in May of which year Cicero started for his province.
[508]: That is, jurisprudence.
[509]: Achaia was not an organized province at this time; its communities were free (liberi populi, Caes. B.C. 3.3), though in a certain sense it was a province, as owing some allegiance to Rome, and is so classed by Cicero in, B.C. 59, along with Marseilles, Rhodes, Sparta, Athens, Thessaly, and Boeotia (pro Flacc. § 100). But Caesar had been in military occupation of it since B.C. 48, having sent Q. Fufius Calenus there with a legion (Caes. B.C. 3.56), and though after Pharsalia the legion was withdrawn (ib. 106), Fufius seems to have remained there with some forces during part of B.C. 47 (see p.37; Caes. B. Alex. 44). Fufius returned to Rome with Caesar in the course of B.C. 47, and it was then, it appears, that Sulpicius was asked by Caesar to accept charge of Achaia, with authority in other parts of Greece also.
[510]: M. Marcellus, consul with Sulpicius B.C. 51 (see p.113). It was on Caesar's consenting to his recall that Cicero now explains why he made the speech in the senate.
[511]: C. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 50, who was married to Caesar's great-niece Octavia. Though he had handed over the two legions sent by Caesar on pretext of the Parthian war to Pompey, he seems yet to have no part in the war of B.C. 49-48 (Caes. B. G. 8.48, 55). He was cousin (not brother) of M. Marcellus.
[512]: Paetus had apparently compared his presumption to that of Salmoneus: "Demens, qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen Aere et cornipedum pulsu simularet equorum" (Verg. Aen. 6.590).
[513]: Quintus Trabea, a writer of comedies, who flourished about B.C. 120. Cicero quoted him before (see vol. ii., p. 80); but it does not appear what the quotation made by Paetus was-some think the remark about imitating thunder.
[514]: The hero of the second Samnite war was consul six times, dictator three times.
[515]: See Vol. ii., p.215. C. Papirius Carbo, a friend and supporter of Tib. Gracchus, and one of the commissioners (after the death of Tiberius) for carrying out his land law. He was tribune in B.C. 131.
[516]: Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, consul in B.C. 85, 84, and 82, the partisan of Marius. For his death at the hands of Pompey, see vol. ii., p.347.
[517]: Q Ligarius, who had as the legatus of Varus in Africa, B.C. 49, excluded the senatorial governor Tubero and his son from landing there, had afterwards fought against Caesar at Thapsus, and had been exiled. His brothers tried to secure his recall, but the younger Tubero brought a charge of majestas against him, on which Cicero defended him. See letter CCCCLXXXVII.
[518]: November September before Caesar's rectification of the calendar. Besides the usual intercalary month of twenty-three days inserted at the end of February, two months of sixty-seven days in all were intercalated between the last day of November and the first of December. This year thus consisted of four hundred and forty-five days.
[519]: That is, of the second intercalary month of twenty-eight days in this last year of confusion, answering to 16th of November in the correct calendar.
[520]: L. Scribonius Libo, whose daughter was married to Sext. Pompeius.
[521]: Marius's villa looked out on the bay of Stabiae (vol. i., p.258) not far from Cicero's Pompeianum.
[522]: Along the Campanian coast, between the Volturnus and Cumae.
[523]: See ante, p.119.
[524]: Caesar had been a colleague of Servilius's in the consulship of B.C. 49. They were also both members of the college of augurs. See ante, p 108.
[525]: Cibyra, Apamea, Synnada. See vol. ii., p.70.
[526]: Cicero seems to have owed money to this rich lady (Att. 12.51). She posed as a philosopher and authoress, but seems to have not been very scrupulous as to where she got materials for her books (Att. 13.21, 22).
[527]: For this man's services to Tiro in his illness at Patrie, see vol. ii. pp. 210-222.
[528]: We know that Atticus had many transactions with towns in the Peloponnese, and he probably required the countenance of Sulpicius, as governor of Achaia, to get his interest on capital paid (vol. i., pp.57, 60, 66).
[529]: The doctor at Patrae who attended Tiro. See vol. ii., p.209.
[530]: Another of the doctors who attended Tiro (vol. ii., p.212).
[531]: A. Licinius Murena was adopted by Terentius Varro, and was thus called A. Terentius Varro Murena. His sister Terentia was wife of Maecenas, and his brother was Proculeius, celebrated for his liberality by Horace (Odes, 2.2). His augurship is honoured by another ode of Horace (iii. 19), who also gave him a hint as to the rashness which seems to have led to his ruin in B.C. 22, the year after his consulship, when he was implicated with Fannius Caepio in a plot against Augustus (Horace, Od. 2.10; Suet. Aug. 19; Tib. 8; Dio, 54, 3).
[532]: Hegesaretus had taken the Pompeian side in the Civil War, and therefore, no doubt, needed some protection. He was at the head of one of the two factions which divided Thessaly, but we do not know what Cicero had done for him in B.C. 63 (Caes. B.C. 3.35). That Sulpicius should be asked to protect a man in Thessaly, as before he was asked to protect Atticus's interests in Epirus (p.155), shews that his authority was not confined to Achaia. Indeed, Cicero (p.123) says that he was governor of "Greece"—a much wider term.
[533]: See vol. ii., p.93 (Fam. 13.56) for the ecdici sent to Rome on such appeal business. The system of thus removing the venue of such cases was, of course, open to abuse; but it must often have been more satisfactory than trusting to the local courts, especially when the governor was corrupt or tyrannically disposed.
[534]: I. e., hospites, foreigners with whom a Roman had some agreement as to mutual entertainment, not necessarily implying intimacy. For Cicero's view as to intimacy with Greeks, see vol. 1., p.127.
[535]: We cannot tell which of the Titii, of whom several occur in the correspondence, this is, nor when the letter was written. The mention of the pestilential year might tempt us to put it in B.C. 43 (Dio, 45, 17); but then pestilences were frequent in Rome, and the general tone in regard to public affairs seems rather in unison with the other letters of B.C. 46, and one would have expected some allusion to his own loss if it had been written after Tullia's death. The letter has the air of a"commonplace," a sort of model of ordinary condolence: "One writes that 'other friends remain': That 'loss is common to the race': And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain."
[536]: From [Caes.] B. Afr. 10, it appears that Vatinius and Sulpicius had been in joint command of Caesar's fleet before B.C. 46, but had then ceased to be so. Vatinius had been engaged in B.C. 48-47 in Illyricum against Octavius, and in B.C. 45 was again in command in the same country, which, though not a regular province-being generally attached either to Macedonia or (as in Caesar's case) to Gaul—was during this period made subject to a separate command. It is probable, therefore, that Sulpicius was in command in Illyricum in the intervening year, B.C. 46. It is not, however, known from any other source, and some of the old editors addressed this letter toVatinius in B.C. 45, against all MSS.
[537]: B.C. 45. Dictator, r.p.c., C. Iulius Caesar III. Magister Equitum, M. Aemilius Lepidus. Coss., C. Iulius Caesar IV., sine collega. Q. Fabius Maximus, mort., C. Caninius Rebilus, C. Trebonius.
[538]: I think this letter must belong to the early part of B.C. 45, not to December, B.C. 46, as Messrs. Tyrrell and Purser and Mueller place it. Caesar only left Rome for Spain on the 2nd of December, and Cicero could hardly have been expecting news so soon. Moreover, Cassius—who declined to accompany Caesar to Spain—seems to have gone on his tour in the early part of B.C. 45, and to be staying at Brundisium.
[539]: Reading, in palaestra est. Mueller, however, retains the MS. reading, molesta est, "only gives me annoyance," as though it reminded him of what he should, without enabling him to do it—video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.
[540]: Who said that men ought to "be free and fear slavery worse than death," Rep. 387B. To be "busy about other things" or "about something else " is a kind of proverbial way of saying that one is not attending to serious business.
[541]: The Epicureans. The Greek terms which follow are those used by them-kat' ei)dw/lwn fantasi/as, "according to the appearance of idols" or shapes"; dianohtika\s fantasi/as, "mental impressions." These refer to the doctrines of Democritus as to the formation of mental impressions by fine atoms thrown off the surface of things, which, retaining the same position and relation, and hurrying through the void, strike the senses, which convey these "atom-pictures" to the mind. Cicero hits the true objection, founded on the fact that we can recall these pictures at will.
[542]: From the Stoic sect.
[543]: The summum bonum of the Stoics.
[544]: The summum bonum of the Epicureans.
[545]: For Caecina's book against Caesar, see p 123. Suetonius (Caes. 75) calls it "most abusive" (criminosissimus).
[546]: In the Orator (§ 35) Cicero says that he wrote his Cato at the instigation of Brutus.
[547]: In the lex Iulia Municipalis, passed this year, qui praeconium designationem libitinamve faciet, i.e., "auctioneers and undertakers," are excluded from any magistracy, or from being senator or decurio in a colonia, municipium, or praeftctura (Bruns, Fontes Juris Romani, p. 106). Cicero's question seems to imply that the law was not actually passed, as he would have been able to see for himself that qui faciet would not exclude those who had followed these occupations in the past. He has to apply to Caesar's agent for information about it. Auctioneers were disliked—as brokers—because they had to do with confiscated property, as with ruined estates generally. See 2 Phil. 64, vox acerbissima praeconis.
[548]: Servius Sulpicius Galba, of whom we shall hear again. He was great-grandfather of the Emperor Galba, who, it is interesting to note, maintained his ancestor's "carefulness" in money.
[549]: Written the previous year.
[550]: Son of the recipient of this letter.
[551]: To be repaid by Dolabella after his divorce from Tullia.
[552]: Hesiod, WD 289: th=s d' a)reth=s i(drw=ta qeoi\ propa/roiqen e)/qhkan.
[553]: Mueller places this letter in the early part of B.C. 46, Klotz in October, B.C. 46 (which I accepted in introduction to vol. i., p. xlv). But it is evidently after the news of his divorce of Terentia and re-marriage with Publilia. This must not only have taken place, but long enough to allow a post to and from Corcyra: and if the divorce took place at the end of B.C. 46—as Klotz in his own table dates it—then the letter belongs to the early part of B.C. 45.
[554]: Cicero in this paragraph is referring to his divorce of Terentia.
[555]: An astonishing remark to a man whom Cicero's daughter had just divorced for gross misconduct. But the letter is forced and cold.
[556]: The text is corrupt, and we know nothing of Septima, if, indeed, that is the name. We may suppose a reference to a dinner party at a rich freedman's table, with a learned lady who rather bored the guests. For fercularum (MS. cularum) iocatiuncularum, bons mots, has been suggested.
[557]: For Bursa, see vol. i., p. 365. Cicero seems to be jesting at his illiterate character, but rather clumsily. We may suppose that his recall had been brought about by Dolabella.
[558]: The auctions of confiscated property, at which P. Sulla was a constant bidder or sector, which was always considered discreditable. He had begun the business early in the time of the confiscations of his uncle, the dictator Sulla, see de Off. ii. § 29, where Cicero speaks of his conduct now as even worse than in the previous matter. In his defence of him in B.C. 60 he put a very different complexion on his character; but his conduct as Caesar's legatus seems to have alienated him thoroughly. See pp. 51, 53.
[559]: Aulus Manlius Torquatus was praetor in B.C. 52, and presided at the trial of Milo. He had supported Cicero at various times of difficulty (de Fin. 2, § 72).
[560]: Cicero had suggested just the reverse to Marcellus, p.184.
[561]: I.e., from the Pompeian army after Pharsalia.
[562]: glaux' ei)s )aqh/nas. See vol. i., p.290; vol. iii., p.73.
[563]: See p. 185.
[564]: Madvig conjectures macellarius, "victualler,"to correspond with the trade of Attius. But it is not necessary.
[565]: As proconsul of Gallia Cisalpina. See p.201.
[566]: The Stoic doctrine, which Cassius had abandoned for Epicurism. See p. 175.
[567]: a)taraci/an, apparently a Stoic word.
[568]: See p.175; vol. i., p. 68.
[569]: a)taraci/an, a Stoic term. Cassius retorts on the Stoics that this a)taraci/a which they advocate is best obtained by the Epicurean doctrines.
[570]: Cassius uses Greek words for these philosophical terms filh/donoi, filo/kaloi, filodi/kaioi. For Sulla, see p.185.
[571]: Afranius and Petreius were conquered by Caesar in B.C. 49. See p. 1.
[572]: Baetica and the legions there were disaffected to Caesar all along. They turned out Caesar's first governor, Cassius, and afterwards Trebonius. After Thapsus (B.C. 46) they invited the surviving Pompeians to come to them, and meanwhile elected Titus Quintus Scapula and Quintus Afranius to command them. When Cn. and Sextus Pompeius and the other survivors of Thapsus arrived, the state of things became so serious that Caesar had to go to Spain himself.
[573]: I leave this letter in the position it occupies in Tyrrell and Purser's work with great doubt. On the one hand, it seems very unlikely to have been written after Tullia's death; on the other, Cicero—who is careful in such matters-gives Caesar the title of imperator, with which his soldiers greeted him on the 19th of February. Mueller puts it close to Letter CXLII.
[574]: Il 22.304, quoted more than once before. See vol. ii., p.357.
[575]: Cicero may well have apologized for the style of letter. The accumulation of not very apt tags from Homer, the rather flippant allusion to his own conduct to Caesar, the familiar En, hic ille est, etc., all go to make up a letter very unlike even the most off-hand of Cicero's letters, though full of his usual phrases. It is not the sort of letter which one would expect to be written to the head of the state, and I should not be surprised if it was never sent. The quotations from Homer are from Hom. 0d. 7.258; Hom. Od. 1.302; Hom. Od. 24.315; Hom. 51.22.304-5; Hom. 51.1.343; Hom. 51.11784.The line of Euripides is a fragment of some play not known.
[576]: There is nothing to shew where this letter was written, and only the allusion to the expectation of a decisive blow in Spain to put the time as late as March. Yet Cicero had begun speaking of expected news from Spain ever since January, and the absence of a reference to Tullia's death is an argument—though not quite decisive—of an earlier date. It does not much matter, however, as it represents Cicero's abiding view of the political situation, and is somewhat a relief in the rather monotonous lamentations for Tullia and plans for her memorial. C. Toranius was aedile with Octavius, father of Augustus, and one of the tutores of Augustus himself. He perished in the proscription of B.C. 43, betrayed by his son. Perhaps Augustus acquiesced in it because he had found him an unfaithful tutor. See Suet. Aug. 27; App. B.C. 4, 12, 18; Valer. Max. 9, II, 5; Nic. Damasc. Vit. Aug. 2.
[577]: Reading voluisse with the MSS. The noluisse adopted by some appears to me to misrepresent what Cicero always maintains, that his joining Pompey was right and his duty to the constitution, yet that his abandoning the Pompeians after Pharsalia was necessary for the safety of the state. He did not refuse to maintain his own safety.
[578]: Reading (with Mueller) discesseras. The phrase is rather elaborate and fanciful, but so is the whole style of Lucceius throughout the letter.
[579]: This is the M. Marcellus, whose restoration by Caesar called out Cicero's senatorial speech pro Marcello. He had been consul with Sulpicius in B.C. 51. His assassination appears to have arisen from jealousy on the part of Cilo, who had not been recalled.
[580]: The conventus or assizes. Sulpicius had been appointed by Caesar to govern Greece. See p. 136.
[581]: Slaves of a murdered master were liable to be put to death.
[582]: Athens was a libera civitas, and had complete management of internal affairs. The Athenians had been rather Pompeian in sympathy, and were perhaps afraid to shew special favour now to a prominent member of the beaten party.
[583]: That is, in the grounds about a gymnasium.
[584]: Cicero had twice defended Dolabella (vol. ii., pp. 160-161).
[585]: An Epicurean philosopher (de Fin. 2.119).
[586]: Reading Amo verecundiam, tu potius libertatem loquendi. The MS. reading vel potius, etc., might be explained if libertatem could mean "freedom from the constraint of double entendre," as if Cicero had meant "I like a modest and simple use of language without suggestiveness." But it is very difficult.
[587]: In the de Off. 1.127-128, Cicero attributes this to the Cynics or Stoics, who were almost Cynics, and expresses disapproval of it.
[588]: A comedy of Sextus Turpilius (died about B.C. 101). We have no clue to the context of the words, though the few fragments of the play (Ribbeck, p. 78) shew that a meretrix was an important character in it.
[589]: It is not known from what tragedies these scraps are taken (Ribbeck, Trg. fragm., p.217). Cicero quotes the first as from Accius in Orator 156.
[590]: The first syllable of culpam perhaps suggested culleus, the scrotum; illam dicam might produce laudica, the clitoris. But it is very far-fetched.
[591]: From the Greek binei=n.
[592]: The Matronalia, the feast of the matrons, when special respect was paid to women.
[593]: For Cicero's previous relations with Vatinius, see vol. i., pp. 219, 311, sq.
[594]: Of a supplicatio for successes in Illyricum.
[595]: The Vardaei or Ardiaei were a tribe living south of the Naro, on which Narona stands. They had been subdued in B.C. 135 by Fulvius Flaccus, but were probably imperfectly obedient (Livy, Ep. 56).
[596]: Cicero had asked Vatinius's predecessor, Sulpicius Rufus, to see after Dionysius in the previous year (see Letter DXXVIII, p. 172), but apparently had not written to Vatinius on the subject.
[597]: That is, apparently, into the interior; for Narona is in Dalmatia in one interpretation of the term.
[598]: Varro had promised to dedicate some work to Cicero. See p.289.
[599]: The idea of Toranius apparently was to go somewhere to meet Caesar on his way from Spain. The "voyage without harbours" best suits the east coast of Italy, and it has been supposed that he meant to go to Ravenna, and thence cross the continent and meet Caesar somewhere in Gaul. As a matter of fact, Caesar did not come home that way.
[600]: Near Mount Petrinum, close to Sinuessa.
[601]: The games Caesar meant to give upon his triumph. Lepta wished to take the contract for the supply of wine. He had been Cicero's praefectus fabrum in Cilicia (vol. ii., p. 118).
[602]: To secure Caesar's favour.
[603]: A story is told by Plutarch (Cat. min. 2) of how, at the beginning of the Marsic or Social War, Pompaedius Silo, staying in the house of Cato's uncle Drusus, suggested to the boy that he should ask his uncle to side with the allies, and when he refused, picked him up and, holding him out of the window, threatened to drop him down if he didn't. But the boy held out. As Cato was just four years old then (b. B.C. 95) this is probably the story, and the book alluded to Cicero's Cato, published in B.C. 46, of which the librarii would be making fresh copies. Schmidt, however, reads de quadrivio Catonis, and refers it to Cato's exposition of the Stoic philosophy in the de Finibus.
[604]: Tertia was sister of Brutus and wife of Cassius. Who Publius was and why she objected to meet him we cannot tell. Dolabella is suggested.
[605]: Demetrius is unknown, except from these letters to Tiro, but it is likely that Cicero found him tiresome. He is not, he says, quite a "Demetrius of Phalerum," i.e., the philosophic and eloquent governor of Athens in the later Macedonian period (B.C. 317-307). Billienus was the slave of this or another Demetrius: he murdered a certain Domitius at Ventimiglia, which led to an outbreak which Caelius (B.C. 49) was sent by Caesar to quiet (see vol. ii., p.299). There is also a Demetrius, a freedman of Pompey (vol. i., p.253), who may be the Demetrius meant. Why Cicero should say that Demetrius has become a Billienus is not clear. Some have suggested a pun on bilis, as though he were ill-tempered.
[606]: It is not easy to see in what Tiro's solecism consists. It is suggested that fideliter must refer to duty to another, but that is probably what Tiro meant—"he took care of his health as in duty bound to Cicero." But fideliter—"thoroughly," "conscientiously"—may at any rate be defended by Ovid's didicisse fideliter artes. Of course Tiro might have said diligenter, but Cicero seems to me to have been hypercritical.
[607]: Demetrius (see p.317) seems not to have been satisfied with Cicero's reception of him.
[608]: The Sardinian singer whose affectations are described by Horace, Sat. i. 2, 3, sq.
[609]: Cipius was a complaisant husband who feigned sleep for the benefit of his wife and her lover, but woke when a slave began stealing the silver.
[610]: That is, in his consulship, especially in the Catiline affair.
[611]: Sardinia, notoriously unhealthy (vol. i., p.217).
[612]: C. Licinius Calvus (b. B.C. 84) wrote satiric scazons-verses on the model of Hipponax of Chios (fl. in c. B.C. 540). Addictum means "knocked down at a price"; praeconio means the "puffing" or "appraising" of the auctioneer (praeco).
[613]: This is not the trial in which Cicero's extant speech for Sestius was delivered (B.C. 56), but a prosecution for bribery under Pompey's law of B.C. 52. As Phamea died in B.C. 49 (see vol. ii., p.332), and Cicero was absent in Cilicia from May, B.C. 51, this trial must have been in the autumn of B.C. 52 or the spring of B.C. 51.
[614]: Reading cantorem for unctorem. As Tigellius was a favourite of Caesar and other great men, his grandfather expected Cicero to support him.
[615]: I. e., worthless fellows. The explanation of this proverbial expression is given by Victor (de Vir 101.65), who says that the consul C. Sempronius Gracchus (B.C. 177) took such an enormous number of captives in the war against the rebel Sardinians (B.C. 181-177) that they became a drug in the slave market.
[616]: A "laugh on the wrong side of my mouth," from a herb found in Sardinia which was said to contort the features with a grin of pain.
[617]: Keeping the MS. word catomum, said to refer to the hoisting of boys on a man's shoulders to be flogged, as in the well-known picture from Pompeii (kat' w)/mwn). Others read catonium, explaining it to mean the "world below" (ka/tw), "Hades." The "master" is, of course, Caesar; and the metaphor of a school is kept by manus de tabula, (perhaps) "No more scribbling-here comes the schoolmaster," i.e., we had better stop writing "Catos" now Caesar is back home.
[618]: In the de Orat. 33, he says, "the pen, the best producer and master of eloquence." See Quint. Inst. Orat. 10.3.1-4.
[619]: Q Caecilius Bassus (quaestor B.C. 59) fought on Pompey's side at Pharsalia, whence he escaped to Tyre. He managed to win over some of the army of the propraetor of Syria, Sext. Iulius Caesar; and, taking advantage of rumours in B.C. 46 of Caesar being defeated in Africa, he caused Sext. Iulius to be assassinated and took over the government of Syria. He fortified Apamea, and there repulsed Antistius Vetus and Statius Murcus, who were successively sent against him, and had dealings with the Parthians. Though Murcus was reinforced by Crispus, governor of Bithynia, Bassus held out till Cassius arrived in B.C. 43, to whom he surrendered and was allowed to go away unharmed.
[620]: T. Munatius Plancus Bursa, tribune in B.C. 52. An adherent of Publius Clodius, and principally responsible for the burning of the Curia when Clodius's body was burnt. He had been condemed for vis, and seeing him at the games Cicero knew that he had been recalled by Caesar. See vol. i., p. 365.
[621]: Decimus Laberius and Publilius Syrus were writers of minies (vol. i., p. 345; ad Att. 14.2). It is said that Caesar, who employed them in these games, taunted Laberius with being surpassed by the improvisations of the foreigner Syrus. A number of sententiae or sententious verses are extant under the name of Syrus, and a fragment of his on luxury is preserved by Petronius Arbiter, § 55. Laberius died at Puteoli in B.C. 43. They doubtless on this occasion introduced flatteries of Caesar.
[622]: There is a touch of malice in this suggestion. Cicero jeers at the over-caution of Bibulus elsewhere. See vol. ii., pp.199, 217.
[623]: There is really nothing to decide the exact date of these two letters to Orca. The land commission referred to was established in the previous year (B.C. 46), and the letters may possibly belong to that year.
[624]: This was Orca's title as head of the land commission; he was "legate (i.e., of Caesar) with rank of praetor." For Caesar's use of public land for his veterans at this time, see Suet. Iul. 38.
[625]: The circumstances were these. Volaterrae had taken the side of Marius against Sulla, and offered a refuge to many of the defeated party. Owing to the advantages of its position, it had held out against a two years' siege by Sulla (B.C. 81-80, Strabo, 5, 2, 6; Livy, Ep. 89; Cic. pro Sext. Am. § 20). Sulla therefore carried a law disfranchising it and declaring its lands forfeited (pro Caec. § 18, 104); but for some reason the lands thus made "public" were never divided among new owners (vol. i., p.54;Att. 1.19). Attempts were, however, made by various land reformers to deal with the territory as public land. Cicero here says that he successfully resisted one of these in B.C. 63, and that in Caesar's lex agraria of B.C. 59 it was specially exempted, and the full citizenship of the Volaterrani acknowledged.
[626]: Possessio, a term properly applied to the holding of ager publicus; it was short of dominium, "absolute ownership."
[627]: That is, with proper social distinction. It seems certain that at this time there was no legal qualification as to property necessary for a senator.
[628]: That is, Caesar has commissioned him to divide certain lands, not to decide which are to be divided.
[629]: Cicero's runaway slave. See p.172.
[630]: Curius uses legal terms connected with the ownership of land-first in Greek and then in Latin. Usus (xrh=sis) is the holding of property of which the ownership belongs to another; dominium (kth=sis) is full ownership; fructus or usus fructus is the right to the profit of the property which the man who has usus takes; mancipium is (1) property acquired by mancipatio, (2) the full ownership of such property.
[631]: A proverb for one who "blows hot and cold," who "sits on the hedge, or who tries "to serve two masters."
[632]: The text of this sentence is doubtful.
[633]: Apparently native cloths or textures sent as presents to his friends at Rome.
[634]: Cicero means to refer to Antony, who had opposed Dolabella's consulship, for which Dolabella inveighed against him in the senate on the next Kalends of January. See the passage of the second Philippic quoted in the note to the previous letter.
[635]: This seems to have no reference which we can now hope to explain. Tiro had apparently objected to some phrase in a writing of Cicero's, partly at any rate on grammatical grounds.
[636]: These words are given in Greek, as medical terms usually were.
[637]: It is impossible to be sure of the state of things to which allusion is made. Tiro seems to have complained that the gardener Helico at Tusculum wasn't doing well. Cicero says, "Get Parhedrus to take it-supplying what is wanted in the house as part rent—he will keep the workman up to his work. Helico is a great rascal not to do better by the garden, for he has had it at a small rent, never raised in spite of all the improvements which I have made. Parhedrus will pay more, and also be more satisfactory."
[638]: Perhaps Motho is the town gardener—as we know there was a garden at Cicero's town house. A supply of flowers there would be specially needed for parties, festivals, etc.
[639]: Reading itaque abundo coronis.
[640]: The Crabra was the name of the conduit supplying Tusculum with water, for which Cicero paid a rate to the municipality (Leg. Agr. 3.8).
[641]: Vol. i., p.331; supra, p.24.
[642]: The physician.
[643]: B.C. 44, aet. 62. Dictat. r. p. ger. C. Iulius Caesar IV. Mag. Eq. M. Aemilius Lepidus II. Coss., C. Octavius, Cn. Domitius (non inierunt.) C. Iulius Caesar V. occis. M. Antonius. P. Cornelius Dolabella.
[644]: For this quotation, see p.100.
[645]: Q. Fabius Maximus had been named consul when Caesar resigned the consulship after his return from Spain.
[646]: It does not appear that any difference in the manner of taking the auspices was observed between the two assemblies, which after all were the same, though the manner of taking the votes was different. The quaestors were elected by the tributa, consuls by the centuriata.
[647]: Because his consulship ended at midnight, as the Roman civil day —like ours—did. C. Caninius Rebilus—who had been Caesar's legate in Gaul (vol. ii., p.219) and elsewhere-was only consul for about eleven hours. The object, according to Tacitus, Hist. 3, 37, was to reward him for his services by this sort of brevet rank.
[648]: See p.344.
[649]: Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was going out to govern Achaia as Caesar's legatus. The legions were no doubt to be in readiness to cross to Syria if needed.
[650]: Sartum tectum, lit. repaired and roofed. A common phrase for keeping a house in good repair. See p.62.
[651]: See pp. 303, 344.
[652]: Some man who had been acting as a pirate on the coasts of Illyricum, perhaps an old Pompeian officer.
[653]: Vatinius, after being consul for a few days in B.C. 47, was sent to Illyricum at the end of that year, and was still there in B.C. 44, when he handed over his troops to M. Brutus, whether voluntarily or under compulsion is not certain. Anyhow he got his triumph at the end of B.C. 43.
[654]: See vol. i., p.110, note (4).
[655]: Though Fregellae was destroyed in B.C. 124, the name of the territory seems to have remained—the ager Fregellanus, and there was a station on the Latin road which was still called Fregellanum. It is possible that the town alluded to is Fabrateria in this district, which was made a Roman colony in B.C. 124, but it is not at all certain.
[656]: Apparently a son of Q. Hippius mentioned above, who had been adopted by a Valgius.
[657]: This letter must have been written between the end of Cicero's governorship of Cilicia (B.C 50) and B.C. 47, when Cyprus ceased to form part of the province.
[658]: P. Cornelius Lentulus was governor of Cilicia (and therefore of Cyprus) in B.C; 54.
[659]: Ad Att. xiv. 8, Letter DCCVII
[660]: By staying with me in my villas there.
[661]: One of the assassins, who struck so wildly that he wounded Rubrius (Nic. Dam. C. 24). He was murdered early in the next year by his own slaves in retaliation for a barbarous punishment inflicted on some of them (Appian, B.C. 3.98). The note is no doubt written immediately after the assassination; though there is no direct evidence of it, nor do we know anything of Cicero's relations with Basilus to explain why he is selected for congratulation out of all the conspirators. He is only once mentioned before (vol. iii., p.13), where it appears that he had been inclined to befriend Cicero after Pharsalia, but Cicero only commissions Atticus to send him a formal letter in his name.
[662]: See p. 26, and vol. i., p.110, note.
[663]: Rhodes was a libera civitas, and had the right of receiving exiles (ius exilii).
[664]: That is, take up arms against the government.
[665]: Sext. Pompeius had a large fleet in Sicily and neighbouring islands. Caecilius Bassus was in arms in Syria (see vol. iii., p.335). Both were at present in a position independent of either party in the state.
[666]: That is, as to the libera legatio and the guard.
[667]: Praetor of Sicily, and a partisan of Caesar. He seems to think that Caesar's death may put him in a dangerous position, in which Cicero may be of use to bim. See Cicero's answer, Letter DCCVIII., p.14.
[668]: Cicero is referring to the primitive manners and morals of the Sabines—often celebrated by Horace. The reference to the possible assumption of a name after the manner of candidates is believed to refer to Ventidius Bassus having done so in his canvass this year for the praetor. ship.
[669]: Recent editors—except Tyrrell and Purser—place this letter at the end of B.C. 46 or the beginning of B.C. 45. It is no doubt strange that, writing to one of the assassins, Cicero should not refer to Caesar's death or the change it had made. But there are reasons against thinking that the journey referred to was that which Trebonius took to Narbo, for that was in B.C. 45, about the time of the battle of Munda (Phil. 2.34), and Cicero would hardly have said that he relied entirely on Trebonius for authentic information as to the Spanish campaign; whereas he went to Asia with a full understanding with the Anti-Caesarians that he was to organize a force in Asia to aid Brutus and Cassius. The Orator was no doubt now a year and a half old; but Trebonius may have asked for a copy on his joumey, for he was in Spain when it first appeared.
[670]: Reading aut valent.
[671]: For the letter to which this is answer, see DCXCVIII., p. 3.
[672]: For these accusations against Antony, see 2 Phil. §§ 93-98.
[673]: At the meeting of the senate on the 17th of March, when Caesar's acta were confirmed. See p.17.
[674]: The great freedom with which Lucilius (B.C. 148-103) attacked living people is noticed by Juvenal (i. 165) and Persius (i. 114). The epigrams or satire of Trebonius appear to have been directed against Antony, who afterwards expressed satisfaction at the death which before many months were over he met with at the hands of Dolabella (Phil. 13.22).
[675]: Trebonius did not actually strike a blow in the assassination, but was employed in keeping Antony at a distance under pretence of making him some communication.
[676]: See pp. 48, 90, for Antony's picked guard.
[677]: The altar and column erected by the pseudo-Marius in the forum on the spot where Caesar's body had been burnt. Dolabella had removed it. See pp.33, 35, 40.
[678]: Probably a law of L. Antonius as to the assignment of land. But we do not know.
[679]: Q. Pompeius Bithynicus had written to ask Cicero to look after his interests while he was in Sicily. See Letter DCXCVIII, p. 3.
[680]: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus had just died at a very advanced age. "You must make up your own mind," says Cicero, "whether it is a blessing to have lived so long. I am not myself afraid of death, as Atticus thinks I am." Servilius was consul B.C. 79-when he conquered the Isaurae, and was over eighty when he died. For a curious anecdote illustrating the respect in which he was held, see Dio, 45, 16.
[681]: Tiro had apparently written urging Cicero to make some advances to Antony. In truth there had been very early bitterness between them. (see vol. i., p. 378), with intervals of friendship (Phil. 2.49).
[682]: go/nu knh/mhs, sc. e)/ggion, "the knee is nearer than the shin," "charity begins at home" (Theocr. 15.18). The proverb appears in various forms in Latin as: tunica proprior pallio (Plaut. Trin. v. 2, 30); proximus sum egomet mihi (Terence, Andr. 636); omnes sibi malle melius esse quam alteri (id. Andr. 427).
[683]: Some other name seems to have been lost from the text.
[684]: This stipulatio or sponsio was a preliminary proceeding in the case of a dispute as to the validity of a will, The praetor allowed the parties to make a bargain—the heir named in the will took formal possession of the estate, and the party who would be heir if there was no will agreed to pay down some forfeit of money if the decision was against him. The question then nominally tried was, "had the praetor given such a decision?" Of course the real question tried was the validity of the will, which in this case turned on the question whether Turpilia had satisfied all the formal requirements for enabling a woman to make a valid will.
[685]: All famous jurisconsults.
[686]: That is, yourself and Q. Mucius Scaevola, the great jurisconsult.
[687]: He seems to be referring, though not with very great precision, to the joint letter from Oppius and Balbus in March, B.C. 49. See vol. ii., p. 308 (Fam. 9.7a).
[688]: See vol. iii., p.89.
[689]: For a joint letter from Matius and Trebatius acquainting Cicero with Caesar's movements in B.C. 49, see vol. ii., p.350.
[690]: Vol.. ii., p. 5.
[691]: That is, after Pharsalia, at the beginning of November, B.C. 48. See vol. iii., p.11.
[692]: We have no certain indication of what law is meant. It may mean the law which gave Antony Gallia Cisalpina and the Macedonian legions
[693]: See p.52.
[694]: There were two financial laws of Caesar's, one in B.C. 49, which provided for the payment of loans-minus interest—by transferring property at a valuation, and regulated the proportion of money to be invested in Italian land (App. B.C. 3.48; Caes. B.C. iii. I; Dio, 41, 38); and a second of B.C. 47, remitting certain proportions of house and land rent in Rome and Italy (Dio, 42, 51; Suet. Iul. 38). Matius may be referring to either or both. He lost by them, being an investor rather than a borrower of money. See vol. iii., pp.93, 98.
[695]: This was slow travelling. Cicero speaks of twenty-one days being very rapid travelling for a letter-carrier from Rome to Athens (vol. ii., p. 201), but more than double of that implies bad weather or very leisurely movements.
[696]: This amusing letter from young Cicero gives a curious picture of
[697]: That is, Transalpine Gaul, with the exception of "the Province" the south-eastern part, called also Gallia Narbonensis. This latter was being held by Lepidus along with Hispania Citerior; while Pollio held Hispania Ulterior. Decimus Brutus is holding Gallia Cisalpina, from which Antony—having got himself named to it by a lex—is determined to oust him. These provincial arrangements must be remembered in following the remainder of the correspondence.
[698]: Cicero after giving up his voyage to Greece returned to Rome, which he reached on the 31st of August. On the 1st of September he absented himself from the senate, because Antony was to propose certain votes in honour of Caesar's memory. Antony therefore used some violent language about him, which Cicero answered next day—2nd September—in the speech known as the First Philippic.
[699]: Among the arrangements of Caesar was the nomination of Plancus to the consulship of B.C. 42.
[700]: Two proposals of Antony's were looked upon by Cicero as fatal to the working of the law courts: (1) the addition of a decuria to the juries to be drawn from all who had served as centurions, or who had served in any rank in the legion alauda; (2) granting an appeal to the comitia to those condemned for vis or maiestas (1 Phil. §§ 20-21).
[701]: See Appendix to vol. ii.
[702]: Gaius Furnius, tribune B.C. 51, was now a legatus to Plancus.
[703]: A supplicatio for some operations in Gaul of which we know nothing, perhaps against the Allobroges (Dio, 46, 50).
[704]: Cicero uses nearly the same expression (impunitas gladiorum) in Phil. 1.27. He refers to the bodyguard which Antony was gradually forming of ex-centurions and other veterans, which eventually amounted to 6,ooo men (Appian, B.C. 3.5).
[705]: Antony answered Cicero's first Philippic in a carefully prepared and violent speech on the 19th September. The second Philippic (which was never delivered) is written as though delivered in reply on the same day. In it Cicero asserts that the senate is "surrounded by a ring of armed men" (§ 112). This letter may refer to the same date, but if it does it is rather surprising that no allusion is made to the speech of Antony.
[706]: The first Philippic, spoken in the senate on the 2nd of September. The constant parallelism in thought and language in the following letters with the second Philippic shews that they were written while Cicero was composing it, i.e., after 19th September.
[707]: This is the motive alleged in Phil. 2.33.
[708]: L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father of Caesar's last wife, had spoken against Antony in the senate on the 1st of August (Phil. 1.14).
[709]: Cicero is fond of applying this term to Antony, partly in reference to his bodily size and strength. See 2 Phil. §§ 7, 63; infra, p.169.
[710]: The day on which Antony delivered his reply to the first Philippic, composed Cicero says by the aid of the rhetorician Sextus Clodius (Phil. 2.42).
[711]: L. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, who threw himself overboard while escaping from Africa after Thapsus (B.C. 46). Antony had in some way possessed himself of his villa at Tibur.
[712]: Repeated in 2 Phil. §§ 6, 42. For the vomiting—which is not meant to be merely metaphorical—see 2 Phil. §§ 63, 76, 84, 104.
[713]: Piso, Cicero, and P. Servilius Isauricus.
[714]: M. Aemilius Lepidus married Iunia, sister to Tertia, the wife of Cassius: they were both half-sisters to Brutus. The "new marriage connexion" refers to the marriage or betrothal of the son of Lepidus to a daughter of Antony's (Dio, 44, 53).
[715]: Quintus Cassius, tribune in this year, whom Antony threatened with death if he came to the senate (Phil. 3.23).
[716]: We don't know who this is. It may be M. Iunius Silanus, brother to Iunia and Tertia, now legatus to Lepidus, who survived to be consul in B.C. 25. He was serving under Antony at Mutina.
[717]: Brutus and Cassius being praetors B.C. 44, their" proper year" for the consulship would be B.C. 41. We don't know who was expecting to supplant them.
[718]: Pansa and Hirtius.
[719]: Antony.
[720]: The title of parens (or pater) patriae had been formally given to Caesar and was inscribed on coins (see Dio, 44, 3; Suet. Iul. 80). Cicero alludes to the guilt of parricide brought thereby upon his assassins in Phil. 2.31 ; cp. Phil. 13.23.
[721]: Cicero often repeats this sentiment, that if he had been one of the assassins, he would have killed Antony also. See, e.g., Phil. 2.34; supra, p.46.
[722]: Though Dolabella had gone to take possession of the province of Syria, Cassius still meant to possess himself of it in value of his appointment in Caesar's time. Meanwhile that appointment had been cancelled by the senate, and he had been nominated to Cyrene, and could therefore have legati, and a legal allowance for them. Antony no doubt interfered because he knew that Cassius would not go to Cyrene, but would defy this senatus consultum and go to Syria (Appian B.C. iii. 8, 12).
[723]: Q. Cornificius had gone as governor to Africa in B.C. 45 (vol. iii., p. 200). A law of Caesar's had limited a praetorian province to one year. But though Antony had caused that law to be revoked (Phil. 1.19), a successor had yet been nominated to Cornificius in the person of C. Calvisius Sabinus (praetor B.C. 43), who had already been there before Cornificius (3 Phil § 26), and was a devoted Caesarian. See infra, Letter DCCCXXII.
[724]: Whether Octavian did really countenance the attempt to assassinate Antony is a matter of much dispute. Appian (B.C. 3.39) denies it, shewing that it was not in his interest to get rid of Antony at this time. Plutarch (Ant. 16) disbelieved it, and Nicolas (vit. Aug. 30), who probably gives Octavian's own version, says that Antony invented both plot and the report inculpating Octavian, who, as soon as be heard of it, went to Antony's house and offered to act as one of his guard. Suetonius (Aug. 10) of course believes it. See also Seneca, de Clem. i. 9, 1. Cicero evidently had no definite knowledge on the subject. I am myself inclined to the version of Nicolas that the whole thing was a deliberate canard.
[725]: There were six legions stationed in Macedonia by Caesar with full complement of cavalry and equipment for the Getic and Parthian wars. Antony first extorted from the senate the command of them on the plea that the Getae were threatening Macedonia. Having surrendered one of the legions to Dolabella, he shortly afterwards asked the senate to give him Cisalpine Gaul instead of Macedonia—which was to be transferred to his brother Gaius. The senators-seeing how they were entrapped—refused, but Antony carried it over their heads by a lex: and then sent Gaius to bring over the four legions, leaving one for the protection of Macedonia. With these he proposed to drive Decimus Brutus from Cisalpine Gaul, which the senate secretly instigated Brutus to retain. See Appian, B.C. 3.25, 27.
[726]: For this title see vol. ii., p. 80. It implies that Decimus Brutus had been so greeted by his soldiers in some battle against the Gallic tribes—presumably during the campaign described in this letter in the Alpine district. The aristocratic party at Rome were not pleased at his proceedings, and thought that he should have reserved his forces to oppose Antony. He partly meets that objection, of which no doubt he had heard, by suggesting that his men had gained a training in this campaign which made them better fitted to oppose Antony's party. His real successes were probably unimportant. They are not recorded elsewhere.
[727]: See p. 32.
[728]: See p. 41.
[729]: Plancus was governor of all Transalpine Gaul, except Narbonensis, which Lepidus held with Hither Spain. This was sometimes called Gallia Comata.
[730]: See Letters DCCLXXXIV, DCCLXXXV.
[731]: From the journey to Greece, begun at Leucopetra and abandoned (see pp.119, 131). For Furnius, see p.134.
[732]: This letter well illustrates the vanity and shiftiness of the "constitutional traitor" Plancus, who was already making his plans to watch events and join the stronger party. He therefore contrives in most elaborate language to say just nothing. The two objects which he had in view were to keep his province, of which Antony's triumph would probably deprive him, but also to have the consulship of B.C. 42, to which Caesar had nominated him. For this latter purpose it might suit him better to join Antony. This double ambition kept him for many months hovering between the two sides.
[733]: Caesar's veterans, who had been settled in Campania. See p.145.
[734]: The legio Martia and the quarta were brought over by Antony from Macedonia to Brundisium, and ordered to march up the coast to Ariminum. But they left that road and marched along the via Minucia to Alba Fucensis. There they repelled Antony's agents and declared in favour of Octavian (Livy, Ep. 117; Cicero, 3 Phil. §§ 6-7).
[735]: The speech delivered by Cicero in the senate is that known as the third Philippic, the speech in the public meeting as the fourth Philippic. The speech in the senate ended with a series of resolutions, or rather a resolution in several heads (§§ 37-39): (1) C. Pansa and A. Hirtius, the consuls-designate, are authorized to provide for the protection of the senate on the 1st of January. (2) In regard to the edict of Brutus his services are to be commended, and he-like the other governors—is to hold his province for the full term of his appointment by the lex Iulia, and until successors are named by the senate. (3) The action of Octavian (whom he now calls Gaius Caesar) in raising the veterans is to be commended, and also that of the Martian and fourth legions, as done in the defence of senate and people. See also Dio 45, 19, sq.
[736]: That is, colleague in the college of augurs. "Gladiator" is the favourite term of abuse of Antony. See 2 Phil. §§ 7, 63; p.136.
[737]: See last letter.
[738]: What had happened about Senipronius is not known. Cicero thought that Cornificius had in some way either allowed him to do something illegal, or assumesome illegal position in his province. See pp. 186, 193.
[739]: A decree of the senate had transferred the province of Africa to C. Calvisius (Phil. 3.26), but Cicero regards that as canceled by the resolution moved at the end of his speech on the 20th of December. The other transactions he holds to have been carried out under comulsion from Antony.
[740]: "Hirtius would hardly do to command a small frontier town (Caesena is on the Rubicon), Pansa can scarcely be trusted to look after wine-cellars, as he is given to drink." Hirtius was the author of the eighth book of the commentaries on the Gallic War, and both he and Pansa were with Caesar in Gaul, but neither is mentioned in any way. Yet Caesar must have thought well of them, for he constantly employed and promoted them.
[741]: B.C. 43, aet. 63. Coss., C. Vibius Pansa, occis., A. Hirtius, occis. C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus, abd. C. Carinas, Q. Pedius, mort., P. Ventidius. Triumviri, r. p. c., M. Aemilius Lepidus, M. Antonius, C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus.
[742]: Paulla Valeria, whom he here calls Polla (cp. Claudius and Clodius). See vol. ii., p. 116: Fam. 8.7.For her brother Triarius, see vol. iii., p.221.
[743]: Those sent to Antony while encamped before Mutina. This measure had been proposed on the 1st ofJanuary, but successfully resisted by Cicero (fifth Philippic): it was, however, carried on the 6th, and Servius Sulpicius, L. Piso, and L. Philippus were despatched. Servius Sulpicius died in the course of the negotiations, and the other two brought back a very uncompromising answer. See the eighth Philippic.