[1]: Quintus Cicero was praetor in B.C. 62. In B.C. 61 (March) he went out to "Asia" as propraetor; his first year of office would be up in March, B.C. 60, but his governorship was, as was very common, extended till March, B.C. 59. Towards the end of B.C. 60 the senate seems to have arranged not to appoint his successor, that is, he would be left in office till about March, B.C. 58. It is in view of this third year of office that Cicero writes this essay-letter to him on the duties of a provincial governor. Apparently Quintus bad faults of temper which had caused some scandals to reach Rome. We have seen how he was one of the few who managed to quarrel with Atticus; and in B.C. 48 we shill find how fiercely he resented the exercise of his brother's influence which had led him to take the losing side, which from his attachment to Caesar he may have been half inclined to think the wrong side. His constant squabbles with his wife (though the fault was evidently in great part hers) also go towards forming our conclusion about him that, with some ability and honesty, he was un peu difficile.
[2]: Of the persons mentioned, L. Aelius Tubero is elsewhere praised as a man of learning (pro Lig. § 10); A. Allienus (praetor B.C. 49) was a friend and Correspondent; M. Gratidius is mentioned in pro Flacco, § 49, as acting in a judicial capacity, and was perhaps a cousin of Cicero's.
[3]: The class of Romans who have practically become provincials.
[4]: Rome and its society and interests.
[5]: Father of Augustus, governor of Macedonia, B.C. 60-59. But he seems to refer to his praetorship (B.C. 61) at Rome; at any rate, as well as to his conduct in Macedonia.
[6]: Reading primum; others primus, "his head lictor."
[7]: a)ll' ai)ei]\ tina fw=ta me/gan kai\ kalo\n e)de/gmhn "but I ever expected some big and handsome man" (Hom. Od. 9.513). 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,
[8]: 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 Blandius. But the name of the town seems certainly Blaundus, blau=ndos, or mlau=ndos (Stephanus, *blau=dos); 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.
[9]: Whom he called (Letter XXIX) "a madman and a knave."
[10]: C. Vergilius Balbus, propraetor in Sicily (pro Planc. § 95, Letter XXIX). C. Octavius (father of Augustus), in Macedonia (see p. 78). L. Marcius Philippus was propraetor 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.
[11]: 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.
[12]: 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.
[13]: The governor of a province would stand in such a matter in the place of the praetor 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.
[14]: o)rqa\n ta\n nau=n. Quintus had written, it seems, defiantly about the slanders afloat against him, and had quoted two Greek proverbial sayings. The first is found in Stobaeus, 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."
[15]: a(/pac qanei=n, perhaps "Better to die once for all than give in to every unjust demand." The editors quote Aeschylus, PV. 769: krei=sson ga\r ei)sa/pac qanei=n h)\ ta\s a(pa/sas h(me/ras pa/sxein kakw=s. But I don't feel sure that this is the passage alluded to.
[16]: Reading queruntur for quae sunt.
[17]: Gaius Cato, tribune B.C. 56.
[18]: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who as praetor threatened Caesar with impeachment, and as consul (B.C. 54) tried to get him recalled. He was, in B.C. 50-49, appointed Caesar's successor in Gaul, defended Marseilles against him, and eventually fell in the battle of Pharsalia. P. Nigidius Figulus supported Cicero during the Catiline conspiracy. Gaius Memmius, aedile B.C. 60 (see p. 51). Lucretius dedicated his poem to him. L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul B.C. 49, accused Clodius in B.C. 61, murdered in Africa after Pompey, B.C. 48.
[19]: See pp. 92, 107.
[20]: Quintus was a candidate in B.C. 66 for the aedileship of the following year. The lex Aurelia, which divided the juries between the senators, equites, and tribuni aerarii, was passed in Pompey's first consulship, B.C. 70. As this was the compromise in the matter of the iudicia favoured by Pompey, Hortensius, and the like, an attack on it would be likely to give offence.
[21]: Reading defuit for fuit.
[22]: Quintus Cicero was in Sardinia as Pompey's legatus as superintendent of the corn-supply, to which office he had been appointed in August. The letter is written not earlier than the 10th of December, for the new tribunes for B.C. 56 have come into office, and not later than the 16th, because on the 17th the Saturnalia began. Perhaps as the senate is summoned and presided over by Lupus, it is on the 10th, the day of his entrance upon office.
[23]: Full,"that is, for the time of year. A "full house" is elsewhere mentioned as between three and four hundred.
[24]: P. Rutilius Lupus, one of the new tribunes.
[25]: This refers to Cicero's attempts to exempt the ager publicus in Campania from being divided (see Letter XXIV, p. 55); and not only to his speeches against Rullus. It was because Caesar disregarded the ancient exception of this land from such distribution that Cicero opposed his bill, and refused to serve on the commission.
[26]: Nihil vos moramur were the words used by the presiding magistrate, indicating that he had no more business to bring before the senate. If no one said anything, the senate was dismissed; but any magistrate, or magistrate-designate, could speak, and so continue the sitting up to nightfall, when the house stood adjourned.
[27]: Because consul-designate. L. Racilius, one of the new tribunes.
[28]: The sortitio iudicum was performed by the praetor drawing out the required number of names ftom the urn, which contained the names of all liable to serve. The accused could, however, challenge a certain number, and the praetor had then to draw others.
[29]: The formula whereby the senate declared its opinion that so and so was guilty of treason. It had no legal force, but the magistrates might, and sometimes did, act on it.
[30]: C. Porcius Cato, distant relation of Cato Uticensis, one of the new tribunes.
[31]: I.e., Marcellinus (Cn. Cornelius Lentulus).
[32]: The senators not in office only spoke when called on (rogati). The consuls-designate (if there were any) were always called first, and then the consulars in order. To be called first was a subject of ambition, and an opportunity for the presiding magistrate to pay a compliment or the reverse.
[33]: They went and sat or stood near the speaker they wished to support. It was not, however, a formal division till the speeches ended, and the presiding magistrate counted. Still, it made the division easier.
[34]: A platform outside the senate-house, where representatives originally of Greek and then of other states were placed. It was apparent]y possible to hear, or partly hear, the debates from it. It was a locus substructus (Varro, L. L. 5.155). There is no evidence that it was a building to lodge ambassadors in, as Prof. Tyrrell says.
[35]: Agent or steward of Atticus
[36]: The architect See Letter XXVIII, p 68.
[37]: Clodius, who was aedile this year
[38]: For commissioning Pompey with two lictors to restore Ptolemy.
[39]: Milo impeached by Clodius before the comitia tributa for his employment of gladiators. Dio (xxxix. 18) says that Clodius thus impeached Milo, not with any hope of securing his conviction against the powerful support of Cicero and Pompey, but to get the chance of insulting these latter. Marcellus was one of the candidates for the aedileship with Clodius. See Letter XCI.
[40]: In B.C. 129, after making a speech in favour of the claims of the Italians for exemption from the agrarian law of Gracchus, Scipio Aemilianus, the younger Africanus, was found dead in his bed. The common report was that he had been assassinated by Carbo, or with his privity, but it was never proved (see de Orat. 2.170). Cicero does not here assume the truth of the story he merely repeats Pompey's words.
[41]: M. Tullius Albinovanus: It was on this charge de vi that Cicero defended Sestius in the extant speech. The charge of bribery does not appear to have been proceeded with.
[42]: Adlegatos, probably commissioners named to receive and report on a deposition of an informer before the senate acted.
[43]: L. Calpurnius Piso Bestia, a candidate in the last election of lediles.
[44]: Cn. Domitius Calvinus, consul B.C. 53. In the Civil War he sided with Pompey, and perished at sea after Thapsus (B.C. 46).
[45]: Ad lucum Pisonis. The place is not known, but there is not sufficient reason for the change to ad lacum Pisonis, a place equally unknown.
[46]: A part of Rome on the slope of the Mons Oppius.
[47]: I. e., get out of it as soon as you can.
[48]: L. Aemilius Paullus, praetor B.C. 53, consul B.C. 50, a strong Optimate and friend of Cicero's.
[49]: P. Vatinius, the tribune of B.C. 59, who had supported Caesar and proposed the law for his five years' command in Gaul. Cicero spoke against him for perjury; but afterwards we shall find them ostensibly reconciled.
[50]: A Greek grammarian and geographer, of whom we have heard before, and shall hear of again in connexion with Cicero's library.
[51]: P. Furius Crassipes. Tullia's first husband, C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, died, it seems, before Cicero returned from exile in B.C. 57. This second marriage (or, perhaps, only betrothal) was shortly ended by a divorce.
[52]: I. e., on which the sponsalia could not take place.
[53]: Not going the right way to work to get it.
[54]: At the end of the next letter he says that, pending Quintus's arrival, he has stopped some of his building.
[55]: On some alleged informality the feriae Latinae were held a second time (instaurata), really, Cicero implies, in order to bar some additional days for public business, and prevent legislation, as later on the election of Pompey and Crassus was prevented (Dio, 39.30).
[56]: At the end of B.C. 57, or the beginning of 56, fifteen days of supplicatio were decreed in consequence of Caesar's success in Gaul (Caes. B. G. 2.35).
[57]: Gaius Cato the tribune, who proposed to recall Lentulus.
[58]: A scriba or public clerk, and a client of the patrician Clodii.
[59]: Unknown. Cicero's words seem to imply that he nearly got convicted, but not quite.
[60]: In B.C. 357 a "college" was established for celebrating the ludi Capitolini, in celebration of the failure of the Gauls to take it. It consisted of men living on the Capitoline (Livy, 5.50). The Mercuriates were a "college" or company of merchants who celebrated the rite of the Consecration of the temple of Mercury (B.C. 495) on the Ides of May (Livy, 2.27; Ov. F. 5.669; C. I. L. i. p. 206).
[61]: It was on this journey that Pompey visited Luca to meet Caesar and Crassus.
[62]: The name of a property of Quintus at Arpinum.
[63]: Another property of Quintus near Mintumae.
[64]: One of the tribunes. He was convicted of vis in B.C. 54. Gabinius was governor of Syria B.C. 57-54. He had been engaged in some war-like affairs in Iudaea, for which, or for some successes over the Arabs, he claimed the supplicatio.
[65]: ei)likrine/s, ''pure," '' clear."
[66]: Mihi aqua haeret, there is a stoppage in my water course."
[67]: His poem "On his own Times."
[68]: In his poem de Consulatu suo, the second book of which (Urania) ends with a speech of Iupiter, who recommends his leaving politics for literature.
[69]: A statue in the temple of Tellus.
[70]: Brogitarus was a Galatian and connexion of Deiotarus. Clodius, as tribune, had done some services to Byzantium, and had also got Brogitarus the office of high priest of Cybele. He wants now to go and get his money for these favours.
[71]: The praetorian elections, like the consular, had been put off till February. Those elected would therefore enter on their office at once, and so escape prosecution, to which they would have been liable if, as in ordinary years, they had been "praetors designate" from July to January. Afranius's motion seems to have been for suspending the bribery laws pro hoc vice. Cato had been beaten: if there had been an opportunity of impeaching his rivals he might have got in.
[72]: Some bore, unknown to us.
[73]: The two boys seem to be receiving their education together at this time in the house of Quintus.
[74]: It is all but impossible to explain these words. Some editors transfer them to the sentence after de Republica. But they are scarcely more in place there. The Greek quotation is not known.
[75]: M. Marius, to whom Letter CXXVI is addressed.
[76]: C. Anicius, a senator, seems to have obtained from Ptolemy Auletes, by gift or purchase, his state sedan and its attendants.
[77]: The Pompeianum.
[78]: An unintelligible word, meant apparently for Greek (perhaps arce Yuri/a|, see Att. 16.13), is in the text. The most probable conjecture refers it in some way to Arpinum, Cicero's hardy mountain birthplace.
[79]: The de Oratore.
[80]: The ruin of his country.
[81]: For us to walk and converse in. It hardly refers to a supply of vegetables, as some suggest.
[82]: Lit. "has been beheaded with the axe of Tenes," mythical founder and legislator of Tenedos, whose laws were of Draconian severity. A legatiofrom Tenedos, heard as usual in February, had asked that Tenedos might be made a libera civitas.
[83]: Some publicanus who had made a charge on the Magnesians which they considered excessive.
[84]: Lucretius seems to have been now dead, according to Donatus 15 October (B.C. 55), though the date is uncertain. I have translated the reading multi tamen artis, which has been changed by some to multa etiam artis. But the contrast in the criticism seems to be between the fine poetical passages in the de Rerum Natura and the mass of technical exposition of philosophy which must have repelled the "general reader" at all times. It suggests at once to Cicero to mention another poem on a similar subject, the Empedoclea of Sallustius, of which and its writer we know nothing. It was not the historian.
[85]: Retaining populi convicio, and explaining populi to have the general meaning of the crowd, including senators and spectators. Cicero uses populus in this vague way elsewhere.
[86]: Zeugma I take to mean the "territory of Zeugma," a town on the Euphrates, part of the Roman province of Syria, and close to the frontier of Commagene. Antiochus had asked that some stronghold should be reckoned as his rather than as belonging to the province.
[87]: Appius, he insinuates, hoped to make money by granting the request of Antiochus, left king of Commagene by Pompey, for some special privileges, among which was the right of wearing the toga praetexta, which symbolized some position with a shadow of Roman' imperium, while at the same time conveying a compliment to the Roman suzerainty. See Polyb. xxvi; 30.26; Suet. Aug. 60.
[88]: Some petty prince of Bostra (Bozra), in Arabia, of whom we know nothing.
[89]: Quintus was expecting, what he got, the offer of serving under Caesar as legatus. Caesar was preparing for his second invasion of Britain.
[90]: Which will prevent meetings of the senate, and so give me no news to send you.
[91]: There is a double entendre. Cold weather will prevent the meetings of the senate actually, but metaphorically politics will be also cold and dull, and that dullness will probably be nowhere so evident as in the deserted state of the Consul Appius's house, which in all probability will miss its usual bevy of callers. This explanation—put forward by Prof. Tyrrell—is not wholly satisfactory, yet it is the best that has been given.
[92]: We cannot tell the allusion, not having the letter of Quintus. But he seems to have used the expression for something incongruous either in politics, or in regard to his contemplated services with Caesar.
[93]: I.e. the day he had to appear for trial, usually fixed by the praetor on the tenth day from the notice of prosecution. Caelius had been acquitted in B.C. 56, when Cicero defended him; this second trial appears to have in some way fallen through. The praetor Domitius is said to be Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Lucius, but he was much too young to have been praetor this year. The former trial of Caelius (B.C. 56) had been before Cn. Domitius Calvinus, hence a difficulty about this passage. For the praetor Domitius of this year is not known. Domitius Calvinus was praetor B.C. 56.
[94]: The publicani of Syria were enraged with Gabinius for neglecting his province while going to Egypt, thus allowing the pirates so to plunder that they could not collect enough dues to recoup them for their bargain to the state (Dio, 39.59).
[95]: L. Aelius Lamia, an eques, appears to have been one of the deputation of publicani who attended the senate to accuse Gabinius.
[96]: The praetorian elections were again postponed from the previous year to the early months of B.C. 54. Appius Claudius found means to put them off till March by holding meetings of the senate each day—the electoral comitia not being able to meet on the same day as the senate.
[97]: The tribune C. Memmius was prosecuting Gabinius (Letter CXLVII). The judicial comitia could meet, though not the electoral.
[98]: Callisthenes of Olynthus wrote (1) a history of the Trojan war ; (2) an account of Alexander the Great. Philistus of Syracuse (1) a history of Sicily ; (2) a life of Dionysius the elder ; (3) a life of Dionysius the younger. He imitated Thucydides (de Orat. 17).
[99]: A municipium of Campania nine miles from Naples.
[100]: At Luca in the year B.C. 56.
[101]: Comitia habendi causa. No such had been appointed since B.C. 202, and the irregular dictatorship of Sulla in B.C. 82 made the idea distasteful. Pompey was understood to wish for the appointment, now and later on. See pp. 326, 335.
[102]: toiau=t' o( tlh/mwn po/lemos e)cerga/zetai (Eur. Supp. 119).
[103]: For the nature of this compact, see p.300.
[104]: In the "Banqueters" (su/ndeipnoi) of Sophocles, Achilles is excluded from a banquet in Tenedos. Some social mishap seems to have occurred to Quintus in camp.
[105]: Sending coals to Newcastle.
[106]: r(a|qumo/tera.
[107]: That is, to get them seats at the games. See Letter XXVI, p.63.
[108]: The porticus is a kind of cloister round the peristylium or atrium.
[109]: Calventius is said to stand for L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the consul of B.C. 58, against whom Cicero's speech was spoken in B.C. 55 in the senate. He calls him Calventius from his maternal grandfather, and Marius because—as he had said, in the speech, 20—he had himself gone into exile rather than come to open fight with him; just as Q. Metellus had done in B.C. 100, when, declining to take the oath to the agrarian law of Saturninus, rather than fight Marius, who had taken the oath, he went into exile. This seems rather a roundabout explanation; but no better has been proposed, and, of course, Quintus, who had lately read the speech, would be able better to understand the allusion.
[110]: I.e., with money.
[111]: This tragedy of Quintus's never reached Cicero. It was lost in transit. Perhaps no great loss.
[112]: Milo was aedile and had just given some splendid games.
[113]: Majestas. He would be liable to this charge, under a law of Sulla's, for having left his province to interfere in Egypt.
[114]: See p.300.
[115]: Apparently referring to the death of his daughter Iulia.
[116]: deute/ras fronti/das from Eurip. Hipp. 436, ai( deu/terai pws fronti/des sofw/terai.
[117]: Or, "as kindly and critical at once as Aristophanes (of Byzantium), "as though Quintus had written a Caxtonian criticism of his son's style.
[118]: gnw=qi pw=s a)/llw| ke/xrhtai.
[119]: Of his poem "On his own Times." Piso in Macedonia, where he had been unsuccessful with border tribes: Gabinius in going to Egypt to support Ptolemy. He left many of his soldiers there.
[120]: C. Memmius, a tribune of this year, not the same as the C. Memmius Gemellus of the last letter.
[121]: Referring to the fact that Gabinius, on his arrival outside Rome, without the usual procession of friends which met a returning proconsul, skulked about till nightfall, not venturing to enter Rome (the city of his enemies!) in daylight. By entering Rome he gave up his imperium and could no longer ask a triumph.
[122]: Caesar was accustomed to come to North Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) for the winter to Ravenna or Luca, and there he could be communicated with and exercise great influence.
[123]: That is, he would go to his province of Cilicia on the strength of his nomination or allotment by the senate. There was some doubt as to the question whether such allotment did not give imperium even without a lex curiata. Besides, the consul had already imperium, and he might consider it to be uninterrupted if he left Rome immediately. However, as there was always an interval between the end of the consulship and the quitting Rome paludatus, the lex curiata had generally been considered necessary (Caes. B.C. 1.6). After B.C. 52 the lex Pompeia enacted a five years' interval, when, of course, a law would be necessary.
[124]: qetikw/teron. From qe/sis, a philosophical proposition or thesis. In Paradox. praef. he uses qetika/ of subjects suited to such theses.
[125]: Pompey was outside the pomerium (ad Romam) as having imperium.
[126]: Two gladiators, one incomparably superior to the other.
[127]: A proverbial expression, cp. "snapped my nose off."
[128]: C. Pomptinus, praetor in B.C. 63 (when he had supported Cicero), was afterwards employed against the Allobroges as propraetor of Narbonensis (B.C. 61). He had been, ever since leaving his province (? B.C. 58), urging his claim to a triumph. He obtained it now by the contrivance of the praetor Serv. Sulpicius Galba, who got a vote passed by the comitia before daybreak, which was unconstitutional (Dio, 39, 65).
[129]: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus (consul B.C. 48) was an admirer of Cato. See p.112.
[130]: *)/arh pne/wn.
[131]: B.C. 129. The Novendialia was a nine days' festival on the occasion of some special evil omens or prodigies; for an instance (in B.C. 202), see Livy, 30, 38. The book referred to is that "On the Republic."
[132]: I.e., a mere theorist like Heraclides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato's, whose work "On Constitutions" still exists.
[133]: Hom. 51.6.208.
[134]: Reading qui omnia adiurat debere tibi et te valere renuntiat. The text, however, is corrupt.
[135]: Hom. Il. 16.385.
[136]: Cicero means, "the substantial gain to be got from your serving under Caesar in Gaul is the securing of his protection in the future : all other gains, such as money etc., are merely to be regarded as securing you from immediate loss in thus going to Gaul: they don't add anything fresh to our position and prospects."
[137]: Quintus had his winter quarters among the Nervii, in a town near the modern Charleroi. In this winter he was in great danger from a sudden rising of the Nervii and other tribes (Caes. B. G. 5.24-49).
[138]: Twenty days of supplicatio had been decreed in honour of Caesar's campaigns of B.C. 55 (Caes. B.C. 4.38).
[139]: His gladiators, which he kept in training for the games he was going to give in honour of a deceased friend.
[140]: I.e., rather than defend him. to/te moi xa/noi (eu)rei=a xqw/n), Hom. Il. 4.182.
[141]: o( de\ mai/netai ou)k e)/t' a)nektw=s (Hom. 51.8.355). The numerals seem doubtful. According to some MSS. the amount would be 10,000,000.
[142]: The tragedy written by Quintus and lost in transit.