[1]: Dolabella had been married to Cicero's daughter Tullia, but was divorced from her.
[2]: The name was given them early. Juvenal, who wrote within a hundred years of Cicero's time, calls them “divina Philippica”.
[3]: This meeting took place on the third day after Caesar's death.
[4]: *mh\ mnhsikakei=n
[5]: The hook was to drag his carcass along the streets to throw it into the Tiber. So Juvenal says—“Sejanus ducitur unco Spectandus.”—x. 66.
[6]: This refers to a pillar that was raised in the forum in honour of Caesar, with the inscription, “To the Father of his Country.”
[7]: See Philippic 2.
[8]: This was the name of a legion raised by Caesar in Gaul, and called so, probably, from the ornament worn on their helmet.
[9]: He means to insinuate that Antonius had been forging Caesar's handwriting and signature.
[10]: Fulvia, who had been the wife of Clodius, and afterwards of Curio, was now the wife of Antonius.
[11]: These were the names of slaves.
[12]: Ityra was a town at the foot of Mount Taurus.
[13]: Brutus was the Praetor urbanus this year, and that officer's duty confined him to the city; and he was forbidden by law to be absent more than ten days at a time during his year of office.
[14]: I have translated jugerum, “an acre,” because it is usually so translated, but in point of fact it was not quite two-thirds of an English acre. At the same time it was nearly three times as large as the Greek ple/qron, which is often translated acre also.
[15]: Sisapo was a town in Spain, celebrated for some mines of vermilion, which were farmed by a company.
[16]: She was a courtesan who had been enfranchised by her master Volumnius. The name of Volumnia was dear to the Romans as that of the wife of Coriolanus, to whose entreaties he had yielded when he drew off his army from the neighborhood of Rome.
[17]: This is a play on the name Hippia, as derived from i(/ppos, a horse.
[18]: The custom of erecting a spear wherever an auction was held is well known; it is said to have arisen from the ancient practice of selling under a spear the booty acquired in war.
[19]: There seems some corruption here. Orellius apparently thinks the case hopeless.
[20]: The Latin is, “non solum de die, sed etiam in diem vivere;” which the commentators explain “De die is to feast every day and all day. Banquets de die are those which begin before the regular hour.” (Like Horace's Partem solido demere de die.) “To live in diem is to live as so as to have no thought for the future.”—Graevius.
[21]: This accidental resemblance to the incident in the “Forty Thieves” in the “Arabian Nights” is curious.
[22]: The septemviri, at full length septemviri epulones or epulonum, were originally triumviri. They were first created A. C. 198, to attend to the epulum Jovis, and the banquets given in honour of the other gods, which duty had originally belonged to the pontifices. Julius Caesar added three more, but that alteration did not last. They formed a collegium, and were one of the four great religious corporations at Rome with the pontifices, the augures, and the quindecemviri. Smith, Dict. Ant. v. Epulones.
[23]: It has been explained before that Fulvia had been the widow of Clodius and of Curio, before she married Antonius.
[24]: Riddle (Dict. Lat in voce) says, that this was the regular punishment for deserters, and was inflicted by their comrades.
[25]: Caius Octavius, the real father of Octavius Caesar had been praetor and governor of Macedonia, and was intending to stand for the consulship when he died.
[26]: Bambalio is derived from the Greek word bamba/lw, to lisp.
[27]: Julia, the mother of Antonius and sister of Lucius Caesar, was also a native of Aricia.
[28]: He had intended to propose to the senate to declare Octavius a public enemy. We must recollect that in these orations Cicero, even when he speaks of Caius Caesar, means Octavius.
[29]: It is quite impossible to give a proper idea of Cicero's meaning here. He is arguing on the word dignus, from which dignitas is derived. But we have no means of keeping up the play on the words in English.
[30]: The general proceeding on such occasions being to ask each senator's opinion separately, which gave those who chose an opportunity for pronouncing some encomium on the person honored.
[31]: Spartacus was the general of the gladiators and slaves in the Servile war.
[32]: Lepidus had not in reality done any particular service to the republic (he was afterward one of the triumviri), but he was at the head of the best army in the empire; and so was able to be of the most important service to either party, and, therefore, Cicero hoped to attach him to his side by this compliment.
[33]: It has been already explained that this was the name of one legion.
[34]: The mirmillo was the gladiator who fought with the retiarius; he wore a Gallic helmet with a fish for a crest.
[35]: The English reader must recollect that what is called Gaul in these orations, is Cisalpine Gaul, containing what we now call the North of Italy, coming down as far south as Modena and Ravenna.
[36]: After the year B.C. 403, there were two classes of Roman knights; one of which received a horse from the state, and were included in the eighteen centuries of service; the other class, first mentioned by Livy (v. 7) in the account of the siege of Veii, served with their own horses, and instead of having a horse found them, received a certain pay (three times that of the infantry), and were not included in the eighteen centuries of service. The original knights, to distinguish them from these latter, are often called equites equo publico, sometimes also flexumines or trossuli. Vide Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 394-96, v. Equites.
[37]: He had been one of the septemvirs appointed to preside over the distribution of the lands.
[38]: Janus was the name of a street near the temple of Janus, especially frequented by bankers and usurers. It was divided into summus, medius and imus. Horace says:—“Haec Janus summus ab imo Edocet Postquam omnis res mea Janum Ad medium fracta est.”
[39]: I.e. tumultus, as if it were timor multus.
[40]: These were the names of officers devoted to Antonius.
[41]: The province between the Alps and the Rubicon was called Gallia Citerior, or Cisalpina, from its situation; also Togata, from the inhabitants wearing the Roman toga. The other was called Ulterior, and by Cicero often Ultima, or Transalpina; and also Comata from the fashion of the inhabitants wearing long hair.
[42]: Sulpicius was of about the same age as Cicero, and an early friend of his, and he enjoyed the reputation of being the first lawyer of his time, or of all who ever had studied law as a profession in Rome.
[43]: There is some corruption of the text here.
[44]: Brutus had been adopted by his maternal uncle Quintus Servilius Caepio; so that his legal designation was what is given in the text now, as Cicero is proposing a formal vote—though at all other times we see that he calls him Marcus Brutus.
[45]: The Latin is Samiarius, or as some read it Samarius. Orellius says, “perhaps it means some sort of trade, for I doubt its having been a Roman proper name,” Nizollius says, “Samarius exul—proverbium.” Facciolatti calls him a man whose business it was to clean the arms of the guards. &c., with Samian chalk.
[46]: Vopiscus is another name of Bestia.
[47]: It is impossible to give the force of the original here, which plays on the word tabula. The Latin is vindicem enim novarum tabularum novam tabulam vidimus; novae tabulae meaning, as is well known, a law for the abolition of debts, nova tabula in the singular, an advertisement of (Trebellius's) property being to be sold.
[48]: Here too is a succession of puns. Lysidicus is derived from the Greek lu/w, to loosen and di/kh, justice. Cimber is a proper name and also means one of the nation of the Cimbri. Germanus is a German and germanus a brother; and he means here to impute to Caius Cimber that he had murdered his brother.
[49]: Compare St. Paul,—“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” I Cor. 14.8.
[50]: That is, without being crucified as a slave.
[51]: The Latin here is Itaque Caesaris munera rosit,—playing on the name mus, mouse; but Orellius thinks the whole passage corrupt, and indeed there is evident corruption in the text here in many places.
[52]: He means Lucius Aemilius Paullus, and Caius Claudius Marcellus, who were consuls the year after Servius Sulpicius and Marcus Claudius Marcellus, A.U.C. 704.
[53]: These two were tribunes of the people, who had been dispossessed of their offices by Julius Caesar.
[54]: There is some difficulty here, Many editors propose to read offenderint, which Orellius thinks would hardly be Latin. He says, “Antonius is here speaking of those veterans who had deserted him indeed, but who, at the time of his writing this letter, had not acted against him.” Therefore, he says it is open to them to become reconciled to him again (wishing to conciliate them, and to alarm his enemies). On the other hand, Cicero replies, Nothing is so open to them now as to do what their duty to the republic requires. That is to say, openly to attack you, whose party they have already abandoned.
[55]: There were two wine feasts, Vinalia, at Rome: the vinalia urbana, celebrated on the twenty-third of April; and the vinalia rustica, on the nineteenth of October. This was the urbana vinalia; on which occasion the wine-casks which had been filled In the autumn were tasted for the first time.