[1]: Caius Scipio, surnamed Asiaticus, was proscribed by Sulla, and compelled to retire to Marseilles for safety.
[2]: Now Marseilles.
[3]: It has been said before that decuriones was the name of the senators of a senate of a colony.
[4]: There is great reason to think that there is some corruption here.
[5]: The text here is very corrupt. The Latin is “puteali et foeneratorum gregibus inflatus atque perculsus”. The puteal was the puteal Libonis, mentioned in Horace, the enclosure surrounding a well erected by Scribonius Libo to preserve the memory of a chapel which had been struck by lightning, and it was a common place of meeting for usurers.
[6]: See vol. i. p. 123, note.
[7]: “Seplasia was the name of the forum at Capua, where the perfumers carried on their trade.”—Nizol.
[8]: “The Lex Aelia and Lex Fufia were passed about the end of the sixth century, and gave all magistrates the power of dissolving the comitia by obnuntiatio, i.e. by observing the omens, and declaring them unfavourable.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 560.
[9]: Clodius had an old grudge against Ptolemaeus king of Cyprus for refusing to ransom him once when be was taken prisoner by pirates; and now, having proposed a law to reduce his kingdom to the state of a province, and to confiscate all his property, he got the execution of the decree given to Cato, partly to throw discredit on Cato, and partly to oblige him to acknowledge the validity of his acts by submitting to bear a part in them: and Cato was much pleased at the commission. Ptolemaeus, as soon as he had heard of the law and of Cato's approach, poisoned himself in despair.
[10]: Metellus Celer
[11]: He was dead.
[12]: The text here seems undoubtedly corrupt.
[13]: Here also the text is probably very corrupt.
[14]: Aelius was of Ligurian family originally, and the Ligurians were not very famous for their good faith.
[15]: The Latin word is paludati. “The paludamentum always denotes the cloak worn by a Roman general commanding an army, and by his principal officers, in contradistinction to the sagum of the common soldiers, and to the toga or robe of peace.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 713, v. Paludamentum.
[16]: A name of Cincinnatus, given to him also by Virgil:—Velte sulco Serrane serentem.—Aen. vi. 845.
[17]: There is probably some corruption here in the text. “Calata comitia, a kind of comitia for the consecration of a priest; hence calatis granis for comitiis, facete. Cic.”—Riddle, Lat. Dict. in voc. Calo. There seems a sort of pun on Calatus and Calatinus.
[18]: The man's real name was Numerius Quinctius, who had assumed the name of Gracchus, to which he had no right, in order to make himself popular with the multitude; who, perhaps, on that account elected him tribune.
[19]: It is quite impossible to give Cicero's meaning here in any translation. The Latin word he uses is optimates, which when spoken generally means the nobles and the aristocratic party but all through this passage he connects it with optimus, best most virtuous.
[20]: It is not quite certain what was the amount of property requisite as the qualification for a knight; most probably, it was 400,000 ases, or, pounds weight, of copper. But whatever it was, a knight who had squandered his property, so as not to have the requisite qualifications, was liable to be struck out of the body by the censors.
[21]: This was a play of Afranius, on the subject of the pretended madness of Junius Brutus, the expeller of the Tarquins.
[22]: These words, quoted also by Horace, are from Pacuvius's play of Ilione, the mother of Polydorus, and are put into the mouth of the shade of the murdered Polydorus.
[23]: Publius Lentulus had been named one of the college of augurs, in spite of his youth, which was a legal disqualification for such an office, in compliment to his father.