Note 809 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.

P. Servilius, who was consul in 675, took possession of his province a short time after he entered upon his duties as consul; he returned in 679. Cicero (Orat. III. in Verrem, 90) says that he held the command during five years. This number can only be explained by admitting that the years 675 and 679 were reckoned as complete. L. Piso, who was consul in 696, quitted Rome at the end of his consulship, and returned thither in the summer of 699. Now, he was considered as having exercised the command during three years. (Cicero, In Pisonem, 35, 40.) They must, therefore, have counted as one year of the proconsulship the few months of 695. (See Mommsen, The Question of Right between Cæsar and the Senate, p. 28.)