Marcus Cicero - The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1

Cicero had defended Archias, and Thyillus seems also to have been intimate with him: but he says Archias, after complimenting the Luculli by a poem, is now doing the same to the Cæcilii Metelli. The "Cæcilian drama" is a reference to the old dramatist, Cæcilius Statius ( ob. b.c. 168).

Of Amaltheia, nurse of Zeus in Crete, there were plenty of legends. Atticus is making in his house something like what Cicero had made in his, and called his academia or gymnasium. That of Atticus was probably also a summer house or study, with garden, fountains, etc., and a shrine or statue of Amaltheia.

Cicero is evidently very anxious as to the misunderstanding between Quintus and his brother-in-law Atticus, caused, as he hints, or at any rate not allayed, by Pomponia. The letter is very carefully written, without the familiar tone and mixture of jest and earnest common to most of the letters to Atticus.

At the end of the via Egnatia , which started from Dyrrachium.

The election in question is that to be held in b.c. 60 for the consulship of b.c. 59. Cæsar and Bibulus were elected, and apparently were the only two candidates declared as yet. They were, of course, extremists, and Lucceius seems to reckon on getting in by forming a coalition with either one or the other, and so getting the support of one of the extreme parties, with the moderates, for himself. The bargain eventually made was between Lucceius and Cæsar, the former finding the money. But the Optimates found more, and carried Bibulus. Arrius is Q. Arrius the orator (see Index). C. Piso is the consul of b.c. 67.

Reading (mainly with Schutz) animus præsens et voluntas, tamen etiam atque etiam ipsa medicinam refugit . The verb refugit is very doubtful, but it gives nearly the sense required. Cicero is ready to be as brave and active as before, but the state will not do its part. It has, for instance, blundered in the matter of the law against judicial corruption. The senate offended the equites by proposing it, and yet did not carry the law. I think animus and voluntas must refer to Cicero, not the state, to which in his present humour he would not attribute them.

The temple of Iuventas was vowed by M. Livius after the battle of the Metaurus (b.c. 207), and dedicated in b.c. 191 by C. Licinius Lucullus, games being established on the anniversary of its dedication (Livy, xxi. 62; xxxvi. 36). It is suggested, therefore, that some of the Luculli usually presided at these games, but on this occasion refused, because of the injury done by C. Memmius, who was curule ædile.

By Agamemnon and Menelaus Cicero means Lucius and Marcus Lucullus; the former Memmius had, as tribune in b.c. 66-65, opposed in his demand for a triumph, the latter he has now injured in the person of his wife.

A man who was sui iuris was properly adopted before the commitia curiata , now represented by thirty lictors. What Herennius proposed was that it should take place by a regular lex , passed by the comitia tributa . The object apparently was to avoid the necessity of the presence of a pontifex and augur, which was required at the comitia curiata . The concurrent law by the consul would come before the comitia centuriata . The adopter was P. Fonteius, a very young man.

L. Afranius, the other consul.

M. Lollius Palicanus, "a mere mob orator" ( Brutus , §223).

The toga picta of a triumphator, which Pompey, by special law, was authorized to wear at the games. Cicero uses the contemptuous diminutive, togula .

To be absent from the census without excuse rendered a man liable to penalties. Cicero will therefore put up notices in Atticus's various places of business or residence of his intention to appear in due course. To appear just at the end of the period was, it seems, in the case of a man of business, advisable, that he might be rated at the actual amount of his property, no more or less.

A special title given to the Ædui on their application for alliance. Cæsar, B. G. i. 33.

The migration of the Helvetii did not actually begin till b.c. 58. Cæsar tells us in the first book of his Commentaries how he stopped it.

Consul b.c. 69, superseded in Crete by Pompey b.c. 65. Triumphed b.c. 62.

Prætor b.c. 63, defended by Cicero in an extant oration.

Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, consul in b.c. 72. Cicero puns on the name Lentulus from lens (pulse, φακή), and quotes a Greek proverb for things incongruous. See Athenæus, 160 (from the Necuia of Sopater):

b.c. 133, the year before the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus. The law of Gracchus had not touched the public land in Campania (the old territory of Capua). The object of this clause (which appears repeatedly in those of b.c. 120 and 111, see Bruns, Fontes Iuris , p. 72) is to confine the allotment of ager publicus to such land as had become so subsequently, i.e. , to land made "public" principally by the confiscations of Sulla.

That is, he proposed to hypothecate the vectigalia from the new provinces formed by Pompey in the East for five years.

The consulship. The bribery at Afranius's election is asserted in Letter XXI.

The day of the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators.

Epicharmus, twice quoted by Polybius, xviii. 40; xxxi. 21. νᾶφε καὶ μέμνας' ἀπιστεῖν, ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν.

Pedarii were probably those senators who had not held curule office. They were not different from the other senators in point of legal rights, but as ex-magistrates were asked for their sententia first, they seldom had time to do anything but signify by word their assent to one or other motion, or to cross over to the person whom they intended to support.

P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, son of the conqueror of the Isaurians. As he had not yet been a prætor, he would be called on after the consulares and prætorii . He then moved a new clause to the decree, and carried it.

The decree apparently prevented the recovery of debts from a libera civitas in the Roman courts. Atticus would therefore have to trust to the regard of the Sicyonians for their credit.

A son must be hard up for something to say for himself if he is always harping on his father's reputation; and so must I, if I have nothing but my consulship. That seems the only point in the quotation. I do not feel that there is any reference to praise of his father in Cicero's own poem. There are two versions of the proverb: