Note 1748 — BOOK XI.

παναίθου (cf. Horn., Il. xiv., 372) is an epithet applied to a helmet. Why it was given to this Cotta is not known. Gerlach supposes him to be the L. Cotta mentioned by Cicero (de Orat., iii., 11) as affecting a coarse and rustic style of speaking, "gaudere videtur gravitate linguæ, sonoque vocis agresti," and that this name was given him by way of irony. He would be most justly entitled to the epithet of Crassus, "the coarse," which was probably given for the same reason. (Crassus not being the regular cognomen of the Aurelian gens, to which Cotta belonged, but of the Licinian.) Valerius Maximus gives a story of the sordid avarice of the father, which illustrates what Lucilius says, that when tribune of the Plebs he took advantage of the "sacrosanct" character of his office to refuse paying his creditors their just claims, but was compelled to do so by his colleagues. (Pighius assigns this event to B.C. 155.) He was afterward accused by P. Corn. Scipio Africanus minor; but being defended by Q. Metellus Macedonicus, was acquitted. Cf. Cic., Brut., 21, where he gives him the epithet "veterator." He was one of the partisans of the Gracchi.