Marcus Cicero - The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

"The man who did not so much as raise me up, when I threw myself at his feet."— Att. x. 4 (vol. ii., p. 362). Similar allusions to Pompey's conduct to him on the occasion often occur.

See vol. i., p. 190.

See vol. i., pp. 129, 138; cp. pro Planc. §§ 95-96.

Fam. i. 9, 15 (vol. i., p. 316).

Letter CVII, vol. i., pp. 219, 220.

Ever since its capture in the second Punic War, Capua had ceased to have any corporate existence, and its territory had been ager publicus , let out to tenants ( aratores ). Cæsar had restored its corporate existence by making it a colonia , and much of the land had been allotted to veterans of his own and Pompey's armies. The state thus lost the rent of the land, one of the few sources of revenue from Italy now drawn by the exchequer of Rome.

Letter CLII, vol. i., pp. 310-324.

Quoted by Flavius Charisius, Ars Gramm. i., p. 126 (ed. Kiel).

Vol. ii., p. 204.

Vol. i., p. 357.

CLXXVIII- CLXXXI. The date of the letter to P. Sittius ( CLXXVIII) is not certain.

Vol. i., p. 366.

Letter DXXXIII ( Fam. iv. 14), about October, B.C. 46.

Vol. i., p. 226; Pliny, Ep. , vii. 33.

Pomponia, married to Cicero's younger brother Quintus. We shall frequently hear of this unfortunate marriage. Quintus was four years younger than his brother, who had apparently arranged the match, and felt therefore perhaps somewhat responsible for the result (Nep. Att. 5).

Atticus had estates and a villa near Buthrotum in Epirus,— Butrinto in Albania, opposite Corfu.

This is probably Sext. Peducæus the younger, an intimate friend of Atticus (Nep. Att. 21); his father had been prætor in Sicily when Cicero was quæstor (b.c. 76-75), the son was afterwards a partisan of Cæsar in the Civil War, governor of Sardinia, b.c. 48, and proprætor in Spain, b.c. 39.

The person alluded to is L. Lucceius, of whom we shall hear again. See Letters V, VII, VIII, CVIII. What his quarrel with Atticus was about, we do not know.

Prescriptive right to property was acquired by possession ( usus ) of two years. But no such right could be acquired to the property of a girl under guardianship ( pro Flacco , § 84).

C. Rabirius, whom Cicero defended in b.c. 63, when prosecuted by Cæsar for his share in the murder of Saturninus (b.c. 100). He lived, we know, in Campania, for his neighbours came to give evidence in his favour at the trial.

M. Fonteius made a fortune in the province of Gaul beyond the Alps, of which he was proprætor, b.c. 77-74. In b.c. 69 he had been accused of malversation, and defended by Cicero. After his acquittal he seems to be buying a seaside residence in Campania, as so many of the men of fashion did.

Cicero's "gymnasium" was some arrangement of buildings and plantations more or less on the model of the Greek gymnasia, at his Tusculan villa.

The mother of Atticus lived to be ninety, dying in b.c. 33, not long before Atticus himself, who at her funeral declared that "he had never been reconciled to her, for he had never had a word of dispute with her" (Nep. Att. 17).

This sum (about £163) is for the works of art purchased for the writer by Atticus.

Thyillus (sometimes written Chilius), a Greek poet living at Rome. See Letters XVIand XXI. The Eumolpidæ were a family of priests at Athens who had charge of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. The πάτρια Εὐμολπιδῶν (the phrase used by Cicero here) may be either books of ritual or records such as priests usually kept: πάτρια is an appropriate word for such rituals or records handed down by priests of one race or family.

Lucceius, as in the first letter and the next.

The comitia were twice postponed this year. Apparently the voting for Cicero had in each case been completed, so that he is able to say that he was "thrice returned at the head of the poll by an unanimous vote" ( de Imp. Pomp. § 2). The postponement of the elections was probably connected with the struggles of the senate to hinder the legislation (as to bribery) of the Tribune, Gaius Cornelius (Dio, 36, 38-39).

The first allusion in these letters to the disturbed position of public affairs. See the passage of Dio quoted in the previous note. There were so many riots in the interval between the proclamation and the holding of the elections, not without bloodshed, that the senate voted the consuls a guard.

The point of this frigid joke is not clear. Was the grandmother really dead? What was she to do with the Latin feriæ ? Mr. Strachan Davidson's explanation is perhaps the best, that Cicero means that the old lady was thinking of the Social War in b.c. 89, when the loyalty of the Latin towns must have been a subject of anxiety. She is in her dotage and only remembers old scares. This is understanding civitates with Latinæ . Others understand feriæ or mulieres . Saufeius, a Roman eques, was an Epicurean, who would hold death to be no evil. He was a close friend of Atticus, who afterwards saved his property from confiscation by the Triumvirs (Nep. Att. 12).

Cneius Sallustius, a learned friend of Cicero's, of whom we shall often hear again.

C. Calpurnius Piso, quæstor b.c. 58, died in b.c. 57. The marriage took place in b.c. 63.

The annalist C. Licinius Macer was impeached de repetundis (he was prætor about b.c. 70 or 69, and afterwards had a province), and finding that he was going to be condemned, committed suicide. He was never therefore condemned regularly (Val. Max. ix. 127; Plut. Cic. 9). Cicero presided at the court as prætor.

The books must have been a very valuable collection, or Cicero would hardly have made so much of being able to buy them, considering his lavish orders for statues or antiques.

One of the judices rejected by Verres on his trial, a pontifex and augur.

Agent of Atticus.

C. Antonius (uncle of M. Antonius) was elected with Cicero. Q. Cornificius had been tr. pl. in b.c. 69. See Letter XVIII.

M. Cæsonius, Cicero's colleague in the ædileship. He had lost credit as one of the Iunianum concilium in the trial of Oppianicus.

Aufidius Lurco, tr. pl. b.c. 61. M. Lollius Palicanus, tr. pl. some years previously.

L. Iulius Cæsar, actually consul in b.c. 64, brother-in-law of Lentulus the Catilinarian conspirator, was afterwards legatus to his distant kinsman, Iulius Cæsar, in Gaul. A. Minucius Thermus, defended by Cicero in b.c. 59, but the identification is not certain. D. Iunius Silanus got the consulship in the year after Cicero (b.c. 62), and as consul-designate spoke in favour of executing the Catilinarian conspirators.