Note 264 — LIFE OF CICERO.

An “oblivion” or “non-remembrance” is a declaration of those who have the sovereign power in a state, that certain persons shall be excused for their political acts. It implies that those who grant the amnesty have the power, and that those to whom it is granted are in subjection to them, or have not the political power which the authors of the amnesty assume. After Thrasybulus at Athens had overthrown the Thirty Tyrants as they are called, an amnesty was declared, but the Thirty and some few others were excluded from it (Xenophon, Hellen. ii. 4, 38).

Cicero in his first Philippic (c. 1) alludes to his attempt to bring about a settlement. The senate met on the eighteenth of March in the temple of Tellus: “In quo templo quantum in me fuit jeci fundamenta pacis, Atheniensiumque renovavi vetus exemplum: Græcum etiam verbum usurpavi quo tum in sedandis discordiis erat usa civitas illa, atque omnem memoriam discordiarum oblivione sempiterna delendam censui.”