Note 327 — LXVIII (A III, 12)

The speech in the senate in Curionem et Clodium, i.e., against the elder C. Curio, who had been Clodius's advocate in B.C. 61 on the charge de incesto. Fragments only of it are preserved. They are sufficiently violent. Cicero suggests repudiating the authorship, because the speech had never been delivered, and therefore was not necessarily intended for publication. There is no special reason for abusing Cicero's character on this account. If some enemy had got hold of the MS. and published it without his consent, it was not really the expression of his deliberate sentiments.