Volume 2 — NOTES TO THE ROMAN TRAITOR.
Reading edition
It is perhaps hardly necessary to state, that the oration of Cicero in the 37th page of the second volume, those of Cæsar and Cato in the 137th and 142d pages, and that of Catiline in the 217th page of the same, are all literal translations from the actual speeches delivered on those occasions, and recorded by Cicero and Sallust.
It was absolutely necessary for the truth and spirit of the romance, that these speeches should be inserted; and the author considered that it would be equally vain and absurd to attempt fictitious orations, when these master-pieces of ancient eloquence were extant.
This brief explanation made, no farther notes will, I believe, be found necessary; as the few Latin words which occur in the body of the work are explained therein; and the costumes and customs are described so much in detail, that they will be readily comprehended even by the unclassical reader.
A table is appended, containing the Roman and English Calendars of the three months during which all the events of the conspiracy occurred, illustrating the complicated and awkward mode of Roman computation; and this, I believe, is all that is needful in the way of simplifying or elucidating the narrative.
[pg 245]