Note 135 — TRANSLATION

Between the sections 27 and 28 the excerptor has perhaps omitted a portion of his original material. Much of what is told by Nicolaus in section 27 is given in far greater detail than is the case with the other historians. The events related in this chapter, especially the interchange of messengers between Antony and Lepidus and Brutus and Cassius, have been thought to have had a very close connection with the circumstances which occasioned the writing of Cic., Fam., 11, 1, a letter from D. Brutus to M. Brutus and Cassius. O. E. Schmidt, Neue Jahrb. für Philol. und Paed., 129, wishes therefore to date the letter in the morning of March 17; P. Gröbe, Drumann-Gröbe Geschichte Roms, 12, p. 411 ff., would place the letter still earlier, on March 16. E. T. Merrill, Class. Philol. 10, p. 241 ff., has now shown that D. Brutus’ allusions to the disposition of Antony and Hirtius toward him may well have been relevant to a later period, and hence he would set the date of the letter as late as April 10, thus approximating Schmidt’s original view, which gave April 5 as the probable time of writing (Die Correspondenz Ciceros in den Jahren 44 und 43, Marburg 1883). It follows therefore that chapter 27 of Nicolaus should not be employed as a criterion on the date of Cic., Fam., 11, 1.