Note 128 — TRANSLATION

27.[128] This is the ‘contio Capitolina prima’ which was held on March 15, late in the day, and at which Cicero was present. He endeavored to secure a convocation of the senate, to be summoned by Brutus and Cassius on their authority as praetors, so that they might be legally confirmed as tyrannicides, thus forestalling any attempt on the part of the Caesarians and the Antonians to have them proclaimed murderers (Cic., Att. 14, 10, 1, ‘meministine me clamare illo ipso primo Capitolino die debere senatum in Capitolium a praetoribus vocari,’ etc. Also Cic., Phil., 2, 89). This meeting on the Capitoline should not be confused with a second ‘contio Capitolina’ referred to by Cicero (Att., 15, 1 b, 2), and which seems to have been subsequent to the meeting of the senate in the temple of Tellus on March 17, when Cicero was able to secure only a rather unsatisfactory compromise for the members of the republican faction. See the note of Tyrrell and Purser, The Correspondence of Cicero, vol. 5, p. 307.