Note 791 — Chapter I · (654-684.)

“Nothing damaged his reputation for chastity,” says Suetonius, “except his sojourn with Nicomedes; but the opprobrium which resulted from it was grave and lasting; it exposed him to the sneers of all. I will say nothing of those well-known verses of Calvus Licinius—

I will be silent on the speeches of Dolabella and Curio the father, ... neither will I linger over the edicts in which Bibulus publicly exposed his colleague by speaking of him as the queen of Bithynia.... M. Brutus informs us that a certain Octavius, whose craziness allowed him to say what he would, being one day in a numerous assembly, called Pompey king, then saluted Cæsar by the name of queen. C. Memmius also reproaches him for having mixed himself up with other debauchees to present Nicomedes with cups and wine at table, and he quotes the names of several Roman merchants who were among the guests.... Cicero apostrophised him once in full Senate. Cæsar was defending there the cause of Nysa, daughter of Nicomedes; he recalled the obligations which he owed to this king. ‘Let us pass by all that, I beg you,’ cried Cicero: ‘we know only too well what he has given thee, and what he has received from thee.’ On his triumph over the Gauls, the soldiers, among other satirical verses which it was their custom to sing as they followed the car of the general, repeated these, which are well known:—

[792] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.

[793] These reports, like other calumnies, were propagated by Cæsar’s enemies, such as Curio and Bibulus, and repeated in the ridiculous annals of Tanusius Geminus (Suetonius, Cæsar, 9), the authority of which Seneca despised. “Thou knowest that not much account is made of these annals of Tanusius, and how they are designated.” (Seneca, Epistle 93.)—Catullus (xxxvi. 1) gives us that term of contempt to which Seneca alludes (cacata charta).

[794] “Marius had in his army a nephew, called Caius Lucius, who, overcome by a shameful passion for one of his subordinates, offered him an act of violence. The man drew his sword and killed him. Cited before the tribunal of Marius, instead of being punished he was loaded with praises by the consul, who gave him one of the crowns which were the usual reward of courage.” (Plutarch, Marius, 15.)

[795] “Cæsar was not vexed at being accused of loving Cleopatra; but he could not bear that they should say he had been loved by Nicomedes. He swore it was a calumny.” (Xiphilinus, Julius Cæsar, p. 30, Paris edition, 1678.)

[796] Orosius, V. 23.

[797] Suetonius, Cæsar, 3.

[798] Florus, III. 23.

[799] Appian, I. 107.

[800] Suetonius, Cæsar, 3.

[801] Sallust, Fragments, I., p. 363.

[802] Florus, III. 23.

[803] Suetonius, Cæsar, 3.

[804] “The Romans regarded as honourable accusations which had no private enmity as their motive, and they liked to see young men attach themselves to the pursuit of the guilty, as generous dogs attack wild beasts.” (Plutarch, Lucullus, 1.)

[805] Plutarch, Cæsar, 4.—Asconius, Discourse for Scaurus, XVI. ii. 245, edit. Schütz.

[806] Valerius Maximus, VIII. ix. § 3.—“Cæsar was twenty-one years of age when he attacked Dolabella, in a speech which we still read to-day with admiration.” (Tacitus, Dialogue on the Orators, 34.)—According to the chronological order which we have adopted, Cæsar, instead of twenty-one, would have been twenty-three years old; but as Tacitus, in the same citation, also errs, by two years, in making Crassus, who had accused Carbo, nineteen instead of twenty-one, we may suppose that he has committed the same mistake with Cæsar. In fact, Crassus tells his own age in Cicero (On the Orators, III. 20, § 74): “Quippe qui omnium maturrime ad publicas causas accesserim, annosque natus unum et viginti nobilissimum hominem in judicium vocarim.”—Crassus, the orator, was born in 614; he accused Carbo in 635, the date given by Cicero.

[807] Plutarch, Cæsar, 3.—Asconius, Commentaries on the Oration, “In Toga Candida,” pp. 84, 89, edit. Orelli.

[808] Dialogue on the Orators, 21.

[809] Cicero, Oration for Cluentius, 59. The manuscripts of Cicero bear Cn. Decitius.

[810] This island, now called Fermaco, is at the entrance of the Gulf of Assem-Kalessi. Pliny and Stephen of Byzantium are the only geographers who mention it, and the last tells us further, that it was here that Attalus, the famous lieutenant of Philip of Macedon, was slain by Alexander’s order.

[811] Polyænus, Stratagems, VII. 23.

[812] Suetonius, Cæsar, 4.

[813] Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.

[814] Plutarch, Cæsar, 2.

[815] Plutarch, Crassus, 8.

[816] Suetonius mentions, as an act of humanity, that their corpses alone were nailed to the cross, Cæsar having had them strangled beforehand to shorten their agony. (Suetonius, Cæsar, 74.—Velleius Paterculus, II. 42.)

[817] Suetonius, Cæsar, 4.

[818] Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.—Asconius, On the Oration of Cicero against Pisa; edit. Orelli.

[819] Velleius Paterculus, II. 53.

[820] Suetonius, Cæsar, 5.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.

[821] The tribunes by the nomination of the general were usually called rufuli, because they were established by the law of Rutilius Rufus; the military tribunes elected by the people were called comitati; they were held as veritable magistrates. (Pseudo-Asconius, Commentary on the First Speech of Cicero against Verres, p. 142, edit. Orelli; and Festus under Rufuli, p. 261, edit. Müller.)

[822] Plutarch, Sertorius, 15, 16.

[823] “The enemy was already master of the passes which lead to Italy; from the foot of the Alps, he (Pompey) drove him back to Spain.” (Sallust, Letter from Pompey to the Senate.)

[824] Velleius Paterculus, II. 30.—100,000 according to Appian (Civil Wars, I. 117).

[825] Plutarch, Lucullus, 8.

[826] Sallust, Fragments, III. 258.

[827] Appian, Civil Wars, I. xiv. 121.

[828] “The Republic, wounded and sick, so to say, had need of repose, no matter at what price.” (Sallust, Fragments, I. 68.)

[829] “We see how far are carried the jealousy and animosity which the virtue and activity of the new men light up in the heart of certain nobles. If we turn away our eyes never so little, what snares do they not lay for us! One would say that they were of another nature, another kind, so much are their feelings and wishes opposed to ours.” (Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, v. 71.)—“The nobility transmitted from hand to hand this supreme dignity (the consulship), of which they were in exclusive possession. Every new man, whatever his renown and the glory of his deeds, appeared unworthy of this honour; he was as if sullied by the stain of his birth.” (Sallust, Jugurtha, 63.)

[830] Sallust, Catilina, 52.

[831] Plutarch, Lucullus, 9.

[832] Cicero, First Prosecution of Verres, 8, 9, 12; Second Prosecution, i. 29.—Pseudo-Asconius, On the first Prosecution of Verres, page 145, edit. Orelli. The orations of Cicero are full of allusions to these agents for the purchase of votes and judges.

[833] “In these later years, the men who make a trade of intriguing in elections have been enabled, by diligence and address, to obtain from the citizens of their tribes all that they chose to demand. Endeavour, by any means you will, to make these men serve you sincerely and with the steadfast will to succeed. You would obtain it if men were as grateful as they ought to be; and you will obtain it, I am afraid, since, for two years, four societies of those most influential in elections—those of Marcus Fundanius, Quintas Gallius, Gaius Cornelius, and Gaius Orcivius—have engaged themselves for you. I was present when the causes of these men were entrusted to you, and I know what was promised to you, and what guarantees have been given to you by their associates.” (On the Petition for the Consulship addressed to Cicero by his brother Quintus, 5.)

[834] Cicero, First Prosecution of Verres, 13.

[835] “Each city of the conquered peoples has a patron at Rome.” (Appian, Civil Wars, II. 4.)

[836] Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, III. 89. Cicero adds in a letter, “We may judge, by the sufferings of our own fellow-citizens, of what the inhabitants of the provinces have to endure from the public farmers (publicani). When several tolls were suppressed in Italy, remonstrances were made not so much against the principle of taxation as against abuses in levying it, and the cries of the Romans on the soil of the country tell only too plainly what must be the fate of the allies at the extremity of the empire.” (Letters to Quintus, I. 1, § 33.)

[837] Dio Cassius, 86; Fragments, CCCI. edit. Gros.

[838] Cicero, On Duties, II. 17; Letters to Quintus, II. 6, § 4.—Plutarch, Brutus, 14.

[839] Florus, III. 21.

[840] “The name of C. Marius—of that great man who we may justly call the father of the country, the regenerator of our liberty, the saviour of the Republic.” (Cicero, Speech for Rabirius, 10.)—“I have, as your guarantee, your indignation against Sylla.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 17, Oration of Catulus to the Senate.)—“Where can we find a personage (Marius) more serious, more firm, more distinguished by courage, circumspection, conscience?” (Cicero, Speech for Balbus, 25.)—“Not only do we suffer his acts (Sylla’s), but to prevent worse disasters, greater ills, we give them the sanction of public authority.” (Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, III. 35.)

[841] Plutarch, Cæsar, 6.

[842] Plutarch, Pompey, 12.

[843] Pompey slew Carbo, Perpenna, and Brutus, the father of the assassin of Cæsar, who had yielded themselves to him: the first had protected his youth and saved his patrimony. (Valerius Maximus, V. iii. v.)

[844] Count Franz de Champagny, Les Cæsars, I. p. 50.

[845] “It was in his character to show little regard for what he was ambitious to obtain.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 7.)—“Pompey, with a heart as depraved as his face was pure.” (Sallust, Fragments, II. 176.)

[846] “At last, when Pompey, haranguing the people for the first time at the gates of the city, in his capacity of consul-designate, came to treat of the matter which seemed to have been most ardently expected, and let it be understood that he would re-establish the power of the tribunes, he was received with applause, and a slight murmur of assent; but when he added that the provinces were devastated and oppressed, the tribunals disgraced, the judges without shame, and that he wished to be watchful of these abuses, and to restore good order, then it was not by a simple murmur, but by unanimous acclamations, that the people testified their desires.” (Cicero, First Prosecution of Verres, 15.)

[847] Catulus, when asked his opinion on the re-establishment of the tribunary power, began in these authoritative words:—“The conscript fathers administer justice evilly and scandalously; and if, in the tribunals, they had but answered the expectations of the Roman people, the power of the tribunes would not have been so warmly regretted.” (Cicero, First Prosecution of Verres, 15.)

[848] “His enemies had nothing else to reproach him with than the preference which he gave to the people over the Senate.” (Plutarch, Pompey, 20.)

[849] “He seconded with all his might those who wished to restore the power of the tribunes.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 5.)

[850] 7,100 talents. (Plutarch, Crassus, 1.)

[851] Plutarch, Crassus, 2.—Cicero, On Duties, I. 8.

[852] Plutarch, Crassus, 7.

[853] Plutarch, Crassus, 8.

[854] Plutarch, Crassus, 8.

[855] Plutarch, Crassus, 1, 16.

[856] “Cotta judicandi munus, quod C. Gracchus ereptum Senatui, ad equites, Sylla ab illis ad Senatum transtulerat, æqualiter inter utrumque ordinem partitus est.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 32.)

[857] “Equidem mihi videor pro nostra necessitate, non labore, non opera, non industria defuisse.” (Certainly, I believe I have displayed all the zeal, all the endeavour, all the ability which our kinship demands.) Cæsar, quoted by Aulus Gellius, XIII. 3.—Nonius Marcellus, “On the different significations of words,” under the word Necessitas.

[858] Sallust, Fragments, I. 68.

[859] Plutarch, Pompey, 21.

[860] Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 6.

[861] Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.

[862] The images of Æneas, of Romulus, and of the Kings of Alba Longa also figured in the funeral canopy of the Julia family. (Tacitus, Annales, IV. 9.)

[863] Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.—Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.

[864] Cicero, Oration on the Manilian Law, 12; For Fonteius, 2.

[865] Cæsar, Civil War, I. 37.

[866] “Sextus Pompeius Cordubam tenebat, quod ejus provinciæ caput esse existimabatur.” (Cæsar, The War in Spain, III.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 17.)

[867] Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, II. 13.—Paulus Diaconus, under the word Conventus.—Müller, p. 41.

[868] Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, II. 20, 24, 30; IV. 29.—Familiar Letters, XV. iv.

[869] Pliny, Natural History, III. i., and IV. xxxv. The three conventus of Lusitania were held at Emerita, Pax Julia (Béja), and at Scalabis: the four of Bætica were, Gades, Corduba, Astijo, Hispalis (Cadiz, Cordova, Ecija, and Seville).

[870] Dio Cassius, XLIV. 39, 41.

[871] “From the beginning of my questorship, I have shown a special affection for the province.” (Speech of Cæsar to the Spaniards, at Hispalis, Commentaries, The War in Spain, 43.)

[872] Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.

[873] Titus Livius, XXI. 21.—Florus, II. 17.

[874] Plutarch, Parallel between Alexander and Cæsar, 6.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 7.

[875] Suetonius, Cæsar, 8.

[876] Suetonius, Cæsar, 8.

[877] Velleius Paterculus, II. 31.

[878] Daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, and Fausta, daughter of Sylla. (Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 6.)

[879] The ships of the corsairs amounted to more than a thousand, and the towns which they took to four hundred. (Plutarch, Pompey, 23.)

[880] Plutarch, Pompey, 24.

[881] Cicero, Speech on the Manilian Law, 12.

[882] “Aulus Gabinius was a very bad citizen, in no wise inspired by love of the public good.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 6.)

[883] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 7.

[884] Plutarch, Pompey, 26.

[885] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 20.—Appian, War of Mithridates, 94.

[886] Plutarch, Pompey, 27.—“The very day on which you placed your naval armies under his orders, the price of corn, until then excessive, fell at once so low that the richest harvest, in the midst of a long peace, would have scarcely produced so happy an abundance.” (Cicero, Oration for the Manilian Law, 15.)

[887] Florus and Appian do not quite agree on the division of these commands. (Appian, War of Mithridates, 95.—Florus, III. 6.)

[888] Velleius Paterculus, II. 32.—Plutarch, Pompey, 29.

[889] Dio Cassius, XXXV. 14 and 15.

[890] Plutarch, Pompey, 31.

[891] Cicero, Oration for the Manilian Law, 16.

[892] Plutarch, Pompey, 31.

[893] Cicero, Oration for the Manilian Law, 23.

[894] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 26.—Plutarch, Lucullus, 50, 52.

[895] “The tribune Manilius, a venal soul, and the debased instrument of the ambition of others.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 33.)

[896] “As to the Valerians, informed that the magistrates at Rome had given them their discharge, they immediately abandoned their flags.” (Dio Cassius, XXXV. 15.)

[897] “They called Valerians the soldiers of Valerius Flaccus, who, having passed into the command of Fimbria, had left their general in Asia to join themselves to Sylla.” “These same soldiers, under the orders of Pompey (for he enrolled the Valerians anew), did not dream even of revolt, so much does one man carry it over another.” (Dio Cassius, XXXV. 16.)

[898] “There was no shame,” he said, “in submitting to him whom fortune raised above all the others.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 37.)

[899] Dio Cassius, XXXV. 16.

[900] This is taken from a passage of Cicero compared with another of Sallust. In fact, Cicero, in his Oration for Murena (23), thus expresses himself Confusionem suffragiorum flagitasti, prorogationem legis Maniliæ, æquationem gratiæ, dignitatis, suffragiorum.” It is clear that Cicero could not allude to the Manilian law on the freedmen, but to that of Caius Gracchus, since Sallust employs nearly the same words concerning this law, saying: “Sed de magistratibus creandis haud mihi quidem absurde placet lex, quam C. Gracchus in tribunatu promulgaverat: ut ex confusis quinque classibus sorte centuriæ vocarentur. Ita coæquali dignitate pecunia, virtute anteire alius alium properabit.” (Sallust, Letters to Cæsar, vii.)

[901] Dio Cassius, III. 36, 40.

[902] Plutarch, Cæsar, 5.

[903] Suetonius, Cæsar, 10.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.

[904] Titus Livius, IX. 40.

[905] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 8.

[906] “The gladiators whom you have bought are a very fine acquisition. It is said that they are well trained, and if you had wished to let them out on the last occasion, you would have regained what they have cost you.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, IV. 4.)

[907] Servius, Commentary on Book III. verse 67 of the Æneid.—Tertullian, On the Shows, V.—Titus Livius, XXIII. 30; XXIX. 46.—Valerius Maximus, II. iv. § 7.

[908] “When Cæsar, afterwards dictator, but then ædile, gave funeral games in honour of his father, all that was used in the arena was of silver; silver lances glittered in the hands of the criminals and pierced the wild beasts, an example which even simple municipal towns imitate.” (Pliny, Natural History, XXXIII. 3.)

[909] Suetonius, Cæsar, 10.

[910] Suetonius, Cæsar, 11.

[911] Plutarch, Cæsar, 6.

[912] Plutarch, Cæsar, 6.

[913] Plutarch, Cæsar, 6.

[914] Suetonius, Cæsar, 11.—Cicero, First Oration on the Agrarian Law, i. 16.

[915] Justin, xxix. 5, Scholiast of Bobbio, On the Oration of Cicero, “De Rege Alexandrino,” p. 350, edit. Orelli.

[916] Cicero, Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, xvi.

[917] “Augustus made it one, among other state maxims, to sequester Egypt, forbidding the Roman knights and senators of the first rank ever to go there without his permission. He feared that Italy might be famished by the first ambitious person who should seize the province, where, holding the keys of both land and sea, he might defend himself with very few soldiers against great armies.” (Tacitus, Annals, II. 59.)

[918] Suetonius, Cæsar, 11.

[919] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 9.

[920] “You name me a foreigner because I have come from a municipal town. If you regard us as foreigners, although our name and rank were formerly well established at Rome, and in public opinion, how much then must these competitors be foreigners in your eyes, this élite of Italy, who come from all parts to dispute with you magistrateships and honours?” (Cicero, Oration for Sylla, 8.)

[921] See Drumann, Julii, 147.

[922] J. Paul, Sentences, V. iv., p. 417, edit. Huschke.—Justinian, Institutes, IV. xviii. § 5.—Appian, On the Office of the Proconsul, vii.

[923] “Then, in the instructions directed against the sicarii, and the exceptions proposed by the Cornelian law, he ranked among these malefactors those who, during the proscription, had received money from the public treasury for having brought to Sylla the heads of Roman citizens.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 11.)

[924] Plutarch, Cato, 21.—Dio Cassius, XLVII. 6.

[925] Cicero, Third Speech on the Agrarian Law, 4.

[926] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.—Asconius, Commentary on the Orations of Cicero, “In Toga Candida,” pp. 91, 92, edit Orelli.

[927] Asconius, In Toga Candida, p. 91.

[928] Sallust, Catiline, 19.

[929] Plutarch, Cicero, 15.

[930] “I am preparing at this moment to defend Catiline, my competitor. I hope, if I obtain his acquittal, to find him disposed to come to an understanding with me on our next steps. If he is against this, I will [I shall know what to do (?)] take my way.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. ii.)

[931] Cicero, Oration for Sylla, 29.

[932] Plutarch, Cato, 3.

[933] Asconius, Cicero’s Oration, “In Toga Candida,” p. 82, edit. Orelli.

[934] Plutarch, Cicero, 3.

[935] They called new men those who amongst their ancestors counted none that had held a high magistracy. (Appian, Civil Wars, II. 2.)—Cicero also confirms this fact: “I am the first new man that, for a great number of years, is remembered to have been appointed consul; and this eminent post, in which the nobility were in a manner entrenched, and to which they had closed all the avenues, you have, to place me at your head, forced the barriers; you have desired that merit henceforth find them open.” (Cicero, Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 1.)

[936] Sallust, Catiline, 23.

[937] “Cicero favoured sometimes the one, sometimes the other, to be sought after by both parties.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 26.)

[938] Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 25.

[939] The territories conceded by a treaty being excepted, which freed from this obligation the African territory, which had become, since Scipio, the property of the Republic, and given by Pompey to Hiempsal. In Campania every colonist was obliged to have ten jugera, and, on the territory of Stella, twelve.

[940] Cicero, Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 26.

[941] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.—Plutarch, Cicero, 17.—“When young Romans, full of merit and honour, have found themselves in such a position that their admissibility to magistracies has effected the overthrow of the State, I have dared to brave their enmity, to interdict their access to the comitia and to honours.” (Cicero, Oration against L. Piso.)

[942] “They wish to deprive the Republic of all refuge, of every guarantee of safety in difficult conjunctures.” (Cicero, Oration for Rabirius, 2.)

[943] “This supreme power which, according to the institutions of Rome, the Senate confers upon the magistrates, consists in raising troops, in making war, in keeping to their duties, by every means, the allies and citizens; in exercising supremely, equally at Rome or abroad, both civil and military authority. In all other cases, without the express order of the people, none of these prerogatives are conferred upon the consuls.” (Sallust, Catiline, 29.)

[944] Cicero, Oration for Rabirius, 9.

[945] Suetonius, Cæsar, 12.

[946] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 26, 27.

[947] Macrobius, Saturnalia, I. 16.—Priscian, vi., p. 710, edit. Putsch.—Macrobius (l. c.) quotes the 16th book of the treatise of Cæsar on the Auspices.—Dio Cassius (xxxvii.) expresses himself thus: “Above all, because he had supported Labienus against Rabirius, and had not voted for the death of Lentulus.” But the Greek author errs: the nomination of Cæsar to the high pontificate took place before the conspiracy of Catiline. (See Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.)

[948] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 1, 8, 14.

[949] Plutarch, Cæsar, 7.

[950] Plutarch, Cæsar, 7.

[951] Suetonius, Cæsar, 13.

[952] Suetonius, Cæsar, 46.

[953] “On the 23rd of August, the day of inauguration of Lentulus, flamen of Mars, the house was decorated, and couches of ivory were set up in the triclinia. In the two first halls were the pontiffs Q. Catulus, M. Æmilius Lepidus, D. Silanus, C. Cæsar, king of the sacrifices, and ... L. Julius Cæsar, augur. The third received the vestals. The repast was thus composed:—For the first course: sea-urchins, raw oysters in any quantity, pelorides (a kind of oyster of extraordinary size), spondyli (shell-fish of the oyster kind), thrushes, asparagus; and, lower down, a fat hen, a vol-au-vent of large oysters, and sea-acorns black and white (sea and river shell-fish according to Pliny). Then more spondyli, glycomarides (another shell-fish mentioned by Pliny), sea-nettles, beccaficos, filets of venison and wild boar, fatted fowls powdered with flour, beccaficos, murices and purple fish (shell-fish bristling with points, which yielded the purple of the ancients). Second course: sows’ udders, wild boar’s head, fish-pie, sows’ udder-pie, ducks, boiled teal, hares, roast fowls, starch (flour that is obtained in the same manner as starch, without grinding—many sorts of creams, amylaria, were made of it), loaves from Picenum.” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, III. 9.)

[954] “It was at the very point when it required no more to upset the weakly government than a slight impulse from the first bold man who presented himself.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 15.)

[955] Cicero, Oration for M. Cælius, 5. This oration was delivered in the year 698.

[956] Plutarch, Cicero, 19.

[957] Sallust, Catiline, 27, 28.

[958] This is deduced from what Florus (III. 6) says of the command of the fleet which L. Gellius had, and from a passage in Cicero. (First Oration after his Return, 7.)—L. Gellius expresses himself clearly upon the danger the Republic had run, and proposed the awarding of a civic crown to Cicero. (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, XII. 21; Oration against Piso, 3.—Aulus Gellius, V. 6.)

[959] Cicero, First Catiline Oration, 1; Second Catiline Oration, 1.

[960] Sallust, Catiline, 32.

[961] Sallust, Catiline, 30, 31.—Plutarch, Cicero, 17.

[962] Sallust, Catiline, 47.

[963] Sallust, Catiline, 51.—Appian, Civil Wars, II. 6.

[964] Cicero, Fourth Catiline Oration, 1.

[965] Cicero, Fourth Catiline Oration, 2.

[966] Second Catiline Oration, 4.

[967] First Oration against Catiline, 2.

[968] Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 5.

[969] Suetonius, Cæsar, 14.

[970] Cicero, Fourth Oration against Catiline, 5.

[971] Sallust, Catiline, 52.

[972] Plutarch, Cato, 28.—See the Comparison of Alexander and Cæsar, 7.

[973] Suetonius, Cæsar, 53.

[974] Sallust, Catiline, 52.

[975] Plutarch, Cicero, 28.

[976] Sallust, Catiline, 49.

[977] Suetonius, Cæsar, 8.

[978] Sallust, Catiline, 49.

[979] “They feared his power and the great number of friends by whom he was supported, for everybody was persuaded that the criminals would be involved in the absolution of Cæsar, much more than Cæsar in their punishment.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 27.)

[980] “And I have myself since heard Crassus say openly that this cruel affront had been caused him by Cicero.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)

[981] We may read in the historians of the time the recital of fables invented at will to ruin the conspirators. Thus Catiline, seeking to bind by an oath accomplices in his crime, is represented as causing cups filled with human blood and wine to be passed round. (Sallust, Catiline, 22.)—According to Plutarch, they slaughtered a man, and all ate of his flesh. (Plutarch, Cicero, 14.—Florus, IV. 1.)

[982] Cicero himself acknowledged that these accusations were commonplaces for the necessity of the cause. In a letter to Atticus, he describes a scene which passed in the Senate a short time after the return of Pompey to Rome. He tells us that this general satisfied himself with approving all the acts of the Senate, without imputing anything personal to him (Cicero); “but Crassus,” he continues, “rose and spoke with much eloquence.... Brief, he attacked all the commonplace of sword and flame, which I have been accustomed to treat, you know in how many ways, in my orations, of which you are the sovereign critic.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.)

[983] “The populace, who at first, through the love of novelty, had been only too much inclined for this war, changes its sentiments, curses the enterprise of Catiline, and exalts Cicero to the skies.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)

[984] Sallust, Catiline, 39.—Dio Cassius, XXVII. 36.

[985] “Many young estimable noblemen were attached to this wicked and corrupt man.” (Cicero, Oration for M. Cælius, 4.)—“He had drawn around him men perverse and audacious, at the same time that he had attached to himself numbers of virtuous and steady citizens, by the false semblances of an affected virtue.” (Cicero, ibid. 6.)

[986] Sallust, Catiline, 17.

[987] “And this silver eagle, to which he had consecrated in his house an altar.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 6.)

[988] Sallust, Catiline, 20.

[989] Sallust, Catiline, 33. Speech of the envoys sent by Mallius to Marcius Rex.

[990] Sallust, Catiline, 30.

[991] Sallust, Catiline, 36.

[992] “Meanwhile, he kept refusing slaves, who, from the beginning, had never ceased joining him in large bands. Full of confidence in the resources of the conspiracy, he regarded any appearance of confounding the cause of the citizens with that of the slaves as contrary to his policy.” (Sallust, Catiline, 56.)

[993] Sallust, Catiline, 44.

[994] “People who will fall at our feet, if I show them, I do not say the points of our swords, but the edict of the prætor.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 3.)

[995] Sallust, Catiline, 61.

[996] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.

[997] The Emperor Napoleon, in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, also treats as a fable this opinion of the historians that Catiline desired to burn Rome, and give it up to pillage, in order afterwards to govern a ruined city. The Emperor thought, said M. de Las Cases, that it was rather some new faction, after the manner of Marius and Sylla, which, having been unsuccessful, had seen all the unfounded accusations that are brought in such cases heaped upon its leader.

[998] Cicero, Oration for Flaccus, 38.

[999] “He excited public cavil, not by evil actions, but by his habit of self-glorification. He never went to the Senate, to the assemblies of the people, to the courts of law, without having on his lips the names of Catiline and Lentulus.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 31.)

[1000] Cicero, Familiar Letters, v. 7.

[1001] See Cæsar’s speech, quoted above.

[1002] It may be interesting to reproduce here, from the letters of Cicero, the list of the discourses which he delivered during the year of his consulship. “I wished, I also, after the manner of Demosthenes, to have my political speeches, which may be named consulars. The first and second are on the Agrarian Law; the former before the Senate on the calends of January; the second before the people; the third, about Otho; the fourth, for Rabirius; the fifth, on the children of the proscribed; the sixth, on my relinquishing my province; the seventh is that which put Catiline to flight; the eighth was delivered before the people the day after his flight; the ninth, from the tribune, the day when the Allobroges came to give their evidence; the tenth, before the Senate, on the 5th of December. There are two more, not so long, which may be described as supplementary to the two first on the Agrarian Law.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.)

[1003] Velleius Paterculus, II. 40.—Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.

[1004] Suetonius, Cæsar, 46.

[1005] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44; XLIII. 14.

[1006] Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.

[1007] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 43.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.—Cicero, Oration for Sestius, 29.

[1008] Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.

[1009] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 24.

[1010] Plutarch, Cæsar, 9.

[1011] Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.

[1012] Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.

[1013] Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.

[1014] Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.

[1015] Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.

[1016] Suetonius, Cæsar, 1.—Plutarch, Cicero, 27; Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.—“This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the right of imperium, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal. The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to men, and whom Clodius terms the Good Goddess (Bona Dea), because she forgave him so gross an outrage.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 17.)—The Good Goddess, like the majority of the divinities of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.

[1017] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.

[1018] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 16.

[1019] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 17.

[1020] Appian, Mithridatic War, 101.

[1021] Appian, Mithridatic War, 106.

[1022] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 20.

[1023] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44. In contradiction to other authors, Dio Cassius asserts that the elections were adjourned. (Plutarch, Pompey, 45.)

[1024] “The more men were terrified, the more they were re-assured, on seeing Pompey return to his country as a simple citizen.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 40.)

[1025] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.

[1026] Metellus was subjugating Crete, when Pompey sent one of his lieutenants to depose him, under the pretence that that island was included in his own wide jurisdiction by sea.

[1027] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 49.

[1028] “No rectitude, no candour, not a single honourable motive in his policy; nothing elevated, nothing strong, nothing generous.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.)

[1029] Plutarch, Pompey, 47.

[1030] Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII. 5.

[1031] Vases from Carmania that were highly prized. They reflected the colours of the rainbow, and, according to Pliny, a single one was sold for seventy talents (more than 300,000 francs [£12,000]). (Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII, 7, 8.)

[1032] Pliny, XXXIII. 54.—Strabo, XII. 545.

[1033] Appian, War against Mithridates, 116.

[1034] Pliny, Natural History, XII. 9, 54.

[1035] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 2.—Velleius Paterculus, II. 34.

[1036] Appian, War against Mithridates, 117.

[1037] Plutarch, Pompey, 47.—Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.

[1038] Cicero, Oration for Murena, 14.

[1039] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

[1040] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 50.

[1041] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

[1042] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

[1043] Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 27.

[1044] “Your ancestors never set you the example of buying lands from individuals in order to send colonies thither. All the laws, up to the present time, have contented themselves with establishing them on the lands belonging to the State.” (Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 25.)

[1045] Plutarch, Cato of Utica, 36.

[1046] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 51.

[1047] Plutarch, Cato, 35.

[1048] “People abuse the Senate; the equestrian order stands aloof from it. Thus this year will have seen the overthrow of the two solid foundations on which I, single-handed, had planted the Republic—the authority of the Senate and the union of the two orders.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.)

[1049] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.

[1050] Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.—Appian (Civil Wars, II. 2, § 8) speaks of twenty-five million sestertii—i.e., 4,750,000 francs [£190,000].

[1051] Suetonius, Cæsar, 18.

[1052] Cicero, Letter to Atticus, I. 14, 16.

[1053] “From his youth up he was zealous and true to his clients.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 71.)

[1054] Suetonius, Cæsar, 12.

[1055] Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

[1056] Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

[1057] A chain of mountains in Portugal, now called Sierra di Estrella, separating the basin of the Tagus from the valley of Mondego. According to Cellarius (Ancient Geography, I. 60), Mount Herminium is still called Arminno. The principal oppidum belonging to the population of these mountains seems to have been called Medobrega (Membrio). It is mentioned in Cæsar’s Commentaries, War of Alexandria, 48.

[1058] Probably in the modern province of Leyria.

[1059] A survey made, in August, 1861, by the Duc de Bellune, leaves no doubt that the peninsula of Peniche was once an island. The local traditions state that in ancient times the ocean advanced as far as the town of Atoguia; but since Dio Cassius speaks of the rising tide which swept away soldiers, we must believe that there were fords at low tide. We give extracts from Portuguese authors who have written on this subject.

Bernard de Brito (Portuguese Monarchy, I. p. 429, Lisbon, 1790) says:—“As along the entire coast of Portugal we cannot find, at the present time, a single island that fulfils the conditions of the one where Cæsar sought to disembark better than the peninsula, on which there is a locality which, taking its name from its situation, is called Peniche, we shall maintain, with our countryman Resende, that it is to this that all the authors refer. And I do not believe it possible to find one more suitable in every way than this: because, over and above the fact that it is the only one, and situated at but a short distance from the mainland, we see that when the tide is low it is possible to traverse the strait dryshod, and with still greater facility than would have been possible in ancient times, because the sea has silted up sand against a large portion of this coast, and brought it to pass that the sea does not rise to so high a point upon the land. Still, it rises high enough to make it necessary, at high tide, to use a boat to reach the island, and that in a space of about 500 paces in width, which separates the island from the mainland.”

The following is the passage of Resende:—“Sed quærendum utrobique quænam insula ista fuerit terræ contigua, ad quam sive pedibus sive natatu profugi transire potuerint, ad quam similiter et milites trajicere tentarint? Non fuisse Londobrin, cujus meminit Ptolomæus (Berligam modo dicimus), indicio est distantia a continente non modica. Et quum alia juxta Lusitaniæ totius littus nulla nostra ævo exstet, hæc de qua Dion loquitur, vel incumbenti violentius mari abrasa, vel certe peninsula illa oppidi Peniche juxta Atonguiam, erit intelligenda. Nam etiam nunc alveo quingentis passibus lato a continente sejungitur, qui pedibus æstu cedente transitur, redeunte vero insula plane fit, neque adiri vado potest. Et forte illo sæculo fuerit aliquanto major.” (L. André de Resende. De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ cæteraque Historica quæ exstant Opera, Conimbricæ, 1790, I., p. 77.)

Antonio Carvalho (Da costa corografia Portuguesa, II. p. 144, Lisbon, 1712) sets forth the same view.

The preceding information is confirmed by the following letter of an English bishop who accompanied the Crusaders, at the time of the siege of Lisbon, in the reign of Alfonso Henrique, a.d. 1147:—“Die vero quasi decima, impositis sarcinis nostris cum episcopis velificare incepimus iter prosperum agentes. Die vero postera ad insulam Phenicis (vulgo Peniche) distantis a continente quasi octingentis passibus feliciter applicuimus. Insula abundat cervis et maxime cuniculis: liquiricium (lege glycyrrhizum) habet. Tyrii dicunt eam Erictream. Peni Gaddis, id est septem, ultra quam non est terra: ideo extremus noti orbis terminus dicitur. Juxta hanc sunt duæ insulæ quæ vulgo dicuntur Berlinges, id est Baleares lingua corrupta, in una quarum est palatium admirabilis architecturæ et multa officinarum diversoria regi cuidam, ut aiunt, quondam gratissimum secretale hospicium.” (Letter of an English Crusader on the sack of Lisbon, in Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, a sæculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, justa Academiæ Scientiarum Olisiponensis edita. Volumen I., fasciculus iii. Lisbon, 1861, p. 395.)

[1060] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 52, 53.—“Cæsar, as soon as he arrived, defeated the Lusitanians and the inhabitants of Galicia, and advanced as far as the outer sea. Thus he caused people who had never yet recognised the authority of the Romans to submit to them, and returned from his government loaded with glory and wealth, of which he gave a part to his soldiers.” (Zonaras, Annales, X. 6.)

[1061] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 8.

[1062] Cæsar, Spanish War, 42.

[1063] Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

[1064] “There come forward a whole army of accusers against those who enriched themselves by usury in contempt of a law passed by Cæsar when he was dictator, regulating the proportion to be observed between the debts and possessions in Italy: a law which had for a long while fallen into desuetude through the interest of individuals.” (Tacitus, Annals, vi. 16.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 42.)

[1065] “I will not enumerate all the marks of honour with which Cæsar distinguished the people of this town when he was prætor in Spain; the divisions he found means of healing among the citizens of Gades; the laws which, with their consent, he gave them; the old barbarism of their manners and customs, which he caused to disappear; the eagerness with which, at the request of Balbus, he loaded them with benefits.” (Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 19.)

[1066] “From his youth he was acquainted with Cæsar, and that great man was pleased with him. Cæsar, among the crowd of friends he had, marked him out as one of his intimates when he was prætor: when he was consul, he made him overseer of the manufactory of his military engines. He had experience of his prudence; appreciated his devotion; accepted his acts of kindness and his affection. At that time Balbus shared nearly all the labours of Cæsar.” (Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 28.)

[1067] “For this man (Cæsar) began by being prætor in Spain, and, distrusting the loyalty of this province, he would not give its inhabitants the chance of being subsequently more dangerous, through a delusive peace. He chose to do what was of importance to the interests of the Republic rather than to pass the days of his magistracy in tranquillity; and as the Spaniards refused to surrender, he compelled them to it by force. So he surpassed in honour those who had preceded him in Spain; for it is a harder task to keep a conquest than to make one.” (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 41.)

[1068] Suetonius, Cæsar, 54.

[1069] “Cæsar arrives in two days.” (Cicero to Atticus, II. 1, June, 694.)

[1070] Thence the name of candidate.

[1071] “Many candidates for the consulship had been nominated in their absence; as, for instance, Marcellus, in 540.” (Titus Livius, XXIV. 9.)

[1072] Plutarch, Cato, 36.

[1073] Florus, III. 23.

[1074] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

[1075] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

[1076] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.

[1077] “It even appears that Cicero had lent the accused a million of sestertii to purchase a mansion on the Palatine.” (Aulus Gellius, XII. 12.)

[1078] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.

[1079] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

[1080] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.

[1081] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

[1082] Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.

[1083] Cicero, Letters to Quintus, I. 1, 11.

[1084] Cæsar, when consul and dictator, declared many foreign cities free.

[1085] It will be seen in the next chapter that Cæsar recognized as friends to the Roman people Auletes, king of Egypt, and Ariovistus, king of the Germans.

[1086] Duumvirs, decemvirs, vigintivirs were the names given to magistrates who shared the same duties in boards of two, ten, or twenty. In the present case, however, the object was only to bind together the men of the greatest importance by a secret bond. Therefore the word triumvirate would be a misnomer.

[1087] “He wished me to join these three intimate consular men.” (Cicero, Oration on the Consular Provinces, 17.)

[1088] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 57.

[1089] Cicero, Familiar Letters, V. 12.

[1090] Suetonius, Cæsar, 19.—Eutropius, VI. 14.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 13.

[1091] Suetonius, Cæsar, 19.

[1092] Plutarch, Cato, 26.—Suetonius, 19.

[1093] “But will you say that we can only have the knights on our side by paying for them? What are we to do? Have we a choice of means?” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.)

[1094]

[1095] Suetonius, Cæsar, 19.

[1096] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.

[1097] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 10.

[1098] Cicero, Epistle to Atticus, II. 3.—“When consul, he wished me to take part in the operations of his consulship. Without approving them, I felt nevertheless grateful to him for his deference.” (Oration on the Consular Provinces, 17.)

[1099] Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 21.

[1100] Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.

[1101] Plutarch, Cato, 24.

[1102] Plutarch, Cato, 59.

[1103] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1104] Titus Livius, IX. 8.

[1105] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 7.

[1106] Cicero, Familiar Letters, XIII. 4.

[1107] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.

[1108] Epistles to Atticus, I. 18.—In allusion to a former law, we read as follows: “The senators who have discussed the present law shall be held, within ten days following the plebiscitum, to swear to maintain it before the questor, in the treasury, in open day, and taking for witnesses Jupiter and the gods Penates.” (Table of Bantia, Klenze, Philologische Abhandlungen, IV. 16-24.)

[1109] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.

[1110] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 2.

[1111] Ateius Capito, Treatise on the Duties of the Senator, quoted by Aulus Gellius, IV. 10.—Valerius Maximus, II. 10, § 7.

[1112] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 4.

[1113] Suetonius, Cæsar, 21.

[1114] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 11.

[1115] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 6.

[1116] The consuls, prætors, and generally all those who presided at an assembly of the people, or even who attended in quality of magistrates, had a right of veto, founded on popular superstition. This right was exercised by declaring that a celestial phenomenon had been observed by them, and that it was no longer permitted to deliberate. Jupiter darting thunder or rain, all treating on affairs with the people must be stopped; such was the text of the law, religious or political, published in 597. It was not necessary that it should thunder or rain, in fact; the affirmation of a magistrate qualified to observe the sky being enough. (Cicero, Oration for Sextius, 15.—Oration on the Consular Provinces, 19.)—(Asconius, In Piso, p. 9, ed. Orelli.)—(Orelli, Indices to his edition of Cicero, VIII. 126.)—(Index Legum, articles Laws Ælia and Fusia.)

[1117] Valerius Maximus, III. vii. 6.

[1118] Plutarch, Cato, 37.

[1119] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.—“The Campanian law contains a provision which compels the candidates to swear, in the assembly of the people, that they will never propose anything contrary to the Italian legislation upon property. All have sworn, except Laterensis, who preferred desisting from the candidature for the tribuneship to taking the oath, and much gratitude has been shown to him for it.” (Cicero, Epistles to Atticus, II. 18.)

[1120] This appears from the words of Dio Cassius (XXXVIII. 1). Several scholars are unwilling to admit the existence of two agrarian laws; yet Cicero, in his letter to Atticus (II. 7), written in April, announces that the twenty commissioners are named. In this first law (Familiar Letters, XIII. 4), he mentions the ager of Volaterra, which was certainly not in Campania. In another letter of the beginning of May (Letters to Atticus, II. 16), he speaks of Campania for the first time, and says that Pompey had approved the first agrarian law. Finally, in that written in the month of June (Letters to Atticus, II. 18), he speaks of the oath taken to the agrarian laws. Suetonius (Cæsar, 20) and Appian (Civil Wars, II. 10) mention the Julian agrarian laws in the plural. Titus Livius (Epitome of Book CIII.) speaks of the leges agrariæ of Cæsar; and Plutarch (Cato, 38) says positively: “Elated with this victory, Cæsar proposed a new law, to share among the poor and indigent citizens nearly all the lands of Campania;” and previously, in chapter 36, the same author had said of Cæsar, that he proposed laws for the distribution of the lands to the poor citizens. Thus there were positively two laws published at an interval of some months; and if the object of the second was the distribution of the ager Campanus, the first had without doubt a more general character. Dio Cassius, after having related the proposal of the first agrarian law, in which Campania was excepted, says similarly: “Besides, the territory of Campania was given to those who had three children or more” (XXXVIII. 7).

[1121] Cicero, Second Philippic, 15.

[1122] Liber Coloniarum, edit. Lachmann, pp. 220, 235, 239, 259, 260.—Several of these colonies probably dated no farther back than the dictatorship of Cæsar.

[1123] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.—Velleius Paterculus, II. 44.—Appian, Civil Wars, II. 10.—“Capua mura ducta colonia Julia Felix, jussu imperatoris Cæsaris a xx. viris deducta.” (Liber Coloniarum, I. p. 231, edit. Lachmann.)

[1124] Cicero, Second Philippic, 39.

[1125] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.—Cicero, Epistles to Atticus, II. 19.

[1126] Cicero, Epistles to Atticus, II. 7.

[1127] Cicero, Oration on the Consular Provinces, 17.

[1128] Cicero, Familiar Letters, VIII. 10.

[1129] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 13.—Scholiast of Bobbio on Cicero.—Cicero, Oration for Plancus, p. 261, edit. Orelli.

[1130] Cicero, Oration for Plancus, 14.

[1131] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1132] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.—Appian, II. 13.

[1133] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1134] Cicero, Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 16.—Scholiast of Bobbio on Cicero’s Oration In Rege Alexandrino, p. 350, edit. Orelli. This Ptolemy Alexas, or Alexander, appears to have been a natural son of Alexander I., younger brother of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who is also called Ptolemy Soter II.; in this case he would be, though illegitimate, cousin of Ptolemy Auletes. He had succeeded Alexander II., legitimate son of Alexander I., who married his step-mother, Berenice, only legitimate daughter of Ptolemy Soter II.

[1135] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 16.—The King of Egypt gave nearly 6,000 talents (35 millions of francs) to Cæsar and Pompey. (Suetonius, Cæsar, 14.)

[1136] Suetonius, Cæsar, 54.—Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 12.—Cæsar’s expressions (War of Alexandria, 33, and Civil Wars, III. 107) show the friendship of Ptolemy Auletes for the Romans.

[1137] Cæsar, War in Gaul, I. 35.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 35.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 34.

[1138] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1139] Plutarch, Cato, 38.—“It was about the sixth hour, when, in the course of my speech in court for C. Antonius, my colleague, I deplored certain abuses which prevailed in the State, and which seemed to me to be closely allied to the case of my unfortunate client. Some ill-disposed persons reported my words to certain men of high position in different terms to those I had used; and on the same day, at the ninth hour, the adoption of Clodius was carried.” (Cicero, Oration for his House, 16.)

[1140] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 14.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 12.—Plutarch, Pompey, 50.—Cicero, 39.

[1141] Cicero, Oration for Sestius, loc. cit.

[1142] Cicero, writing to Atticus about Cæsar’s first consulship, says: “Weak as he was then, Cæsar was stronger than the entire State.” (Letters to Atticus, VII. 9.)

[1143] “Bibulus thought to render Cæsar an object of suspicion. He made him more powerful than before.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 44.)

[1144] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1145] Cæsar rode an extraordinary horse, whose feet were shaped almost like those of man, the hoof being divided in such a way as to present the appearance of fingers. He had reared this horse, which had been foaled in his house, with great care, for the soothsayers had predicted the empire of the world to its master. Cæsar was the first who tamed it: before that time the animal had allowed no one to mount it. Finally, he erected a statue to its honour in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 61.)

[1146] “I am quite of opinion that the right of absent candidates to solicit the offices of the priesthood may be examined by the comitia, for there is a precedent for that. C. Marius, whilst in Cappadocia, was elected augur by the law Domitia, and no subsequent law has forbidden the course; for the Julian Law, the last on the subject of the priesthood, states: ‘He who is a candidate, or he whose right to become one has been examined.’” (Cicero, Letters to Brutus, I. 5.)

[1147] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 37.

[1148] Cicero, Oration on the Consular Provinces, 4.—Oration against Piso, 21.

[1149] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 16; Letters to Atticus, V. 10, 16, 21.—First Philippic, 8.

[1150] “You have obtained,” says he, addressing Piso, “a consular province with no other limits than those of your cupidity, in contravention of the law of your son-in-law. In fact, by a law of Cæsar’s, as just as it is salutary, free nations used to enjoy a full and entire liberty.” (Cicero, Oration against Piso, 16.)

[1151] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 25; Familiar Letters, II. 17; Letters to Atticus, VI. 7.—“I will add, that if the ancient right and antique usage were still in force, I should not have had to send in my accounts till after I had discoursed about them, and had them audited with good humour, and the formalities that our intimacy justifies. What I would have done in Rome according to the old fashion, I ought, according to the Julian law, to have done in my province: send in my accounts on the spot, and only deposit in the treasury an exact copy of them. I was obliged to follow the provisions of the law. The accounts, duly audited and compared, were to be deposited in two towns, and I chose, in the terms of the law, the two most important—Laodicea and Apamea.... I come to the point of the customary presents. You must know that I had only included in my list the military tribunes, the prefects, and the officers of my house (contubernales). I even made a blunder. I thought I was allowed any latitude in point of time. Subsequently I learnt that the request ought to be sent in during the thirty days allowed for the settling the accounts. Happily, all is safe as far as the centurions are concerned, and the officers of the household of the military tribunes—for the law is silent in regard to the latter. (Cicero, Familiar Letters, V. 20.)

[1152] Dio Cassius, XLIII. 25.

[1153] “I say nothing about the golden crown that has been so long a torture to you, in your uncertainty as to whether you ought to demand it or not. In fact, the law of your son-in-law forbad them to give it or you to receive it, unless your triumph had been granted you.” (Cicero, Oration against Piso, 37.)

[1154] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 37; Letters to Atticus, V. 10, 16.

[1155] “Take notice, I beg you, that I paid into the hands of the farmers of the revenues at Ephesus twenty-two millions of sestertii, a sum to which I have a perfect right, and that Pompey laid hands on the whole. I have made up my mind on the subject—whether wisely or unwisely matters not.” (Cicero, Oration against Piso, xxxvii. 16.)

[1156] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 21.

[1157] Cicero, Oration on the Consular Provinces, 2, 3, 4.

[1158] “Is there any position more disgraceful than that of a senator, who goes on a mission without the slightest authorisation on the part of the State? It was this kind of mission that I should have abolished during my consulship, even with the consent of the Senate, notwithstanding the apparent advantages it held out, had it not been for the senseless opposition of a tribune. At any rate I caused its duration to be shortened: formerly it had no limit; now I have reduced it to a year.” (Cicero, On Laws, III. 8.)

[1159] “Moreover, I think that the Julian law has defined the duration of free embassies: nor will it be easy to extend it.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, XV. 11.—Orelli, Index Legum, p. 192.)

[1160] Cicero, Oration for Sestius, 64. “Liberty torn from nations and individuals on whom it had been conferred, and whose right had been, by virtue of the Julian law, so precisely ensured against all hostile attacks.” (Oration against Piso, xxxvii. 16.)

[1161] Cicero, Familiar Letters, VIII. 8.—Several of its chapters have been preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI. It is generally supposed that the fragments inscribed on a tablet of brass in the Museum of Florence belong to the same law. They have been published by Maffei, Museum Veronese, p. 365, No. 4, and commented on by the celebrated Marini, in his work on the Monuments of the Fratres Arvales, I. pp. 39, 40, note 44.

[1162] Suetonius, Cæsar, 42.

[1163] Cicero, Oration for Rabirimus Postumus, 4, 5.

[1164] Fragments of the Julian law, De Repetundis, preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI.

The law is directed against those who, holding a magistracy, an embassy, or any other office, or forming part of the attendants of these functionaries, receive money.

They may receive money to any amount from their cousins, their still nearer relatives, or their wives.

The law includes those who have received money: For speaking in the Senate or any public assembly; for doing their duty or absenting themselves from it; for refusing to obey a public order or for exceeding it; for pronouncing judgment in a criminal or a civil case, or for not pronouncing it; for condemning or acquitting; for awarding or withdrawing the subject of a suit; for adjudging or taking an object in litigation; for appointing a judge or arbitrator, changing him, ordering him to judge, or for not appointing him or changing him, and not ordering him to judge; for causing a man to be imprisoned, put in irons, or set at liberty; for accusing or not accusing; for producing or suppressing a witness; for recognising as complete an unfinished public work; for accepting wheat for the use of the State without testing its good quality; for taking upon himself the maintenance of the public buildings without a certificate of their good condition; for enlisting a soldier or discharging him.

All that has been given to the proconsul or prætor contrary to the provisions of the present law, cannot become his by right of possession.

Sales and leases are declared null and void which have been made, for a high or a low price, with a view to right of possession by a third.

The magistrates are to abstain from all extortion, and receive as salary but 100 pieces of gold each year.

The action will lie equally against the heirs of the accused, but only during the year succeeding his death.

No one who has been condemned under this law can be either judge, accuser, or witness.

The penalties are exile, banishment to an island, or death, according to the gravity of the offence.

[1165] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.

[1166] De alternis consiliis rejiciendis. (Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, 11.—Scholiast of Bobbio, pp. 321, 323, edit. Orelli.)

[1167] “The citizens who, not being of your order, cannot, thanks to the Cornelian laws, challenge more than three judges.” (Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, II. 31.)

[1168] Suetonius, Cæsar, 28.

[1169] Cicero, Familiar Letters, XIII. 35. “Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, re-peopled Comum. Some time after, Scipio established 3,000 inhabitants there; and, finally, Cæsar sent 5,000 colonists, the most distinguished of whom were 500 Greeks.” (Strabo, cxix.)

[1170] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 18.—Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8.

[1171] Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8.—Orelli, Index Legum, 178.

[1172] Cicero, in his speech against Vatinius, chap. 6, while reproaching him for having disregarded the auspices, exclaims, “I ask you first, Did you refer the matter to the Senate, as Cæsar did?”

“It is true that Cæsar’s acts were, for the benefit of peace, confirmed by the Senate.” (Cicero, Second Philippic, 39.)

[1173] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.

[1174] Cæsar conducted himself with discretion in his consulship.” (Plutarch, Crassus, 17.)

[1175] “Cæsar published laws that were worthy, I will not say of a consul, but of the most reckless of tribunes.” (Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.)

[1176] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, VI. 1.—Appian, Civil Wars, II. 13.

[1177] Pliny, Natural History, XXXIII. 5. Drumann and Mommsen, like ourselves, refuse their belief to the assertion of Suetonius.

[1178] Plutarch, Lucullus, 9.

[1179] Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.—Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.

[1180] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 14.

[1181] Plutarch, Crassus, 17.

[1182] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.—Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

[1183] Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

[1184] Dio Cassius, XL. 34.

[1185] “At the gladiatorial exhibition, the giver of the show and all his attendants were received with hisses. At the games in honour of Apollo, the tragedian Diphilus made a pointed allusion to our friend Pompey in the lines—

and was called upon to repeat the words a thousand times. Further on, the whole assembly cheered him when he said,

for they are lines that one might have said were written on purpose by an enemy of Pompey. The words

were received with a tempest of acclamation. When Cæsar arrived, he met with a cold reception. Curio, on the other hand, who followed him, was saluted with a thousand cheers, as Pompey used to be in the prosperous times of the Republic. Cæsar was annoyed, and sent off a courier post haste to Pompey, who is, they say, at Capua.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.)

[1186] Suetonius, Cæsar, 9.

[1187] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.

[1188] “Bibulus is being praised to the skies, I know not why; but he is being extolled as the one only man who, by temporising, has restored the State. Pompey, my idol Pompey, has been his own ruin, as I own with tears to-day; he has no one left who takes his side from affection. I am afraid that they will find it necessary to resort to intimidation. For my own part, I forbear, on the one hand, to combat their views on account of my ancient friendship with them, and, on the other, my antecedents prevent my approving of what they are about; I preserve a middle course. The humour of the people is best seen in the theatres.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19, 20, 21.)

[1189] “He keeps prudently in the background, but hopes at a safe distance to witness their shipwreck.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 7.)

[1190] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 13.

[1191] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 17.

[1192] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 20, 21.

[1193] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 11.

[1194] Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 24.

[1195] Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, II.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 9.

[1196] Scholiast of Bobbio, On Cicero’s Oration against Vatinius, p. 330, edit. Orelli.—Appian, Civil Wars, II. 2 and 12.

[1197] Appian, Civil Wars, II. 12.

[1198] Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

[1199] “He (Ariovistus) knows, by his messengers, that in causing Cæsar’s death he would gratify a number of great persons at Rome; his death would win to him their favour and friendship.” (Cæsar, War in Gaul, I. 44.)

[1200] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 12.

[1201] Cicero, Letters to Quintus, I. 2.

[1202] Suetonius, Cæsar, 23; Nero, 2.

[1203] Suetonius, Cæsar, 23.—Valerius Maximus, III. 7, 9.

[1204] “At the gates of Rome there was a general invested with authority for many years, and at the head of a great army (cum magno exercitu). Was he my enemy? I do not say he was; but I knew that when people said so, he was silent.” (Cicero, Oration after his return in the Senate, 13.)—“Oppressos, vos, inquit, tenebo exercitu Cæsaris.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 16.)—“Clodius said he would invade the curia at the head of Cæsar’s army.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 22.)—“Cæsar had already gone out of Rome with his army.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.)

[1205] In several passages of Cicero’s letters, Cæsar is represented as being at the gates of Rome at the head of his army; and yet we know from his Commentaries that at the beginning of the war in Gaul he had only four legions, of which one was stationed on the banks of the Rhine, and the three others at Aquileia, in Illyria. It is, therefore, difficult to understand how he could have had troops at the gates of Rome, of which no further mention is made in the course of his campaign. The only way to reconcile the letters of Cicero with the Commentaries is to allow that Cæsar, independently of the legions which he found beyond the frontiers of Italy, summoned to his standard the volunteers and Roman veterans who were desirous of following him. Mustering at the gate of Rome, they joined him subsequently in Gaul, and were merged in the legions. This supposition is the more probable, as in 700, when the question of re-electing Pompey and Crassus to the consulship was brought forward, Cæsar sent to Rome a great number of soldiers to vote in the comitia. Hence, as all the legions had been recruited in Cisalpine Gaul, the inhabitants of which did not possess the right of Roman city, he must have had other Roman citizens in his army. Besides, if Cæsar appealed to the veterans, he only followed the example of nearly all the Roman generals, and among others of Scipio, Flamininus, and Marius. In fact, when Cornelius Scipio departed for the war against Antiochus, there were five thousand volunteers at the gates of Rome—citizens as well as allies—who had served in all the campaigns of his brother, Scipio Africanus. (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 4.)—“When Flamininus left to join the legions in Macedonia, he took with him three thousand veterans who had fought against Hannibal and Hasdrubal.” (Plutarch, Flamininus, III.)—“Marius, before leaving for the war against Jugurtha, appealed to all the bravest soldiers of Latium. He knew most of them for having served under his eyes, and the rest by reputation. By force of solicitation, he obliged even the veterans to go with him.” (Sallust, War of Jugurtha, LXXXIV.)

[1206] “At the present moment he (Clodius) is agitating and raging; he knows not what he wants; he makes hostile demonstrations on this side and on that, and seems to intend to leave to chance where he shall strike. When he gives a thought to the unpopularity of the present state of things, you would say he was going to fly at the authors of it; but when he sees on which side are the means of action and the armed force, he turns round against us.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 22.)

[1207] These clubs (collegia compitalitia) had an organisation which was almost military, divided into districts, and composed exclusively of the proletaries. (See Mommsen, Roman History, III. 290.)—“The slaves enrolled under pretence of forming corporations.” (Cicero, Oration after his return in the Senate, 13.)

[1208] An exception, however, was made in 690, in favour of the corporations of artisans. (Asconius, In Pisone, IV. p. 7; In Corneliana, p. 75, edit. Orelli.)

[1209] Cicero, Oration against Piso, 4.—Asconius, On the Oration of Cicero against Piso, pp. 7, 8, edit. Orelli.—Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.

[1210] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.

[1211] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.

[1212] “I receive from Cæsar the most flattering invitations, asking me to join him as lieutenant.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 17.)—“He has got my enemy (Clodius) transferred to the plebeian order: either because he was irritated to see that even his kindness could not persuade me to join his side, or because he yielded to the urgency of others. My refusal could not have been regarded as an insult, for subsequently to it he advised me, nay, even entreated me, to serve him as lieutenant. I did not accept this office, not because I thought it beneath me, but because I was far from suspecting that the State could possibly have, after Cæsar, any consuls so infamous as these (Piso and Gabinius).” (Cicero, Oration about the Consular Provinces, 17.)

[1213] “Thanks to the pains I take, my popularity and my strength increase daily. I do not meddle with politics in any way—not the least. My house is crowded; my friends gather round me when I go abroad; my consulate seems to be beginning afresh. It rains protestations of attachment; and my confidence is such that at times I long for the strife, which I ought always to dread.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 22.)—“Let Clodius bring his accusation. Italy will rise as one man.” (Cicero, Letters to Quintus, I. 2.)

[1214] Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, 16.

[1215] Plutarch, Pompey, 48.

[1216] Plutarch, Cicero, 41.

[1217] Velleius Paterculus, II. 45.

[1218] Suetonius, XXIII.

[1219] “The rumours which preceded Pompey had caused great consternation there, because it had been said that he meant to enter the city with his army.” (Plutarch, Pompey, 45.)—“However, every one dreaded Pompey in the greatest degree; no one knew whether he would disband his army or not.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44.)