This meeting took place on the third day after Caesar's death.
4
[Greek: Mae mnaesikakin].
1
Dolabella had been married to Cicero's daughter Tullia, but was divorced from her.
2
The name was given them early. Juvenal, who wrote within a hundred years of Cicero's time, calls them "divina Philippica."
3
This meeting took place on the third day after Caesar's death.
4
[Greek: Mae mnaesikakin].
5
The hook was to drag his carcass along the streets to throw it into the Tiber. So Juvenal says—
"Sejanus ducitur unco Spectandus."—x. 66.6
This refers to a pillar that was raised in the forum in honour of Caesar, with the inscription, "To the Father of his Country."
8
This was the name of a legion raised by Caesar in Gaul, and called so, probably, from the ornament worn on their helmet.
9
He meant to insinuate that Antonius had been forging
Caesar's handwriting and signature
10
Fulvia, who had been the wife of Clodius, and afterwards of Curio, was now the wife of Antonius.
11
These were the names of slaves.
12
Ityra was a town at the foot of Mount Taurus.
13
Brutus was the Praetor urbanus this year, and that officer's duty confined him to the city; and he was forbidden by law to be absent more than ten days at a time during his year of office.
14
I have translated jugerum "an acre," because it is usually so translated, but in point of fact it was not quite two-thirds of an English acre. At the same time it was nearly three times as large as the Greek [Greek: plethros] such by the fault of fortune and not by his own. You assumed the manly gown, which you soon made a womanly one: at first a public prostitute, with a regular price for your wickedness, and that not a low one. But very soon Curio stepped in, who carried you off from your public trade, and, as if he had bestowed a matron's robe upon you, settled you in a steady and durable wedlock. No boy bought for the gratification of passion was ever so wholly in the power of his master as you were in Curio's. How often has his father turned you out of his house? How often has he placed guards to prevent you from entering? while you, with night for your accomplice, lust for your encourager, and wages for your compeller, were let down through the roof. That house could no longer endure your wickedness. Do you not know that I am speaking of matters with which I am thoroughly acquainted? Remember that time when Curio, the father, lay weeping in his bed; his son throwing himself at my feet with tears recommended to me you; he entreated me to defend you against his own father, if he demanded six millions of sesterces of you; for that he had been bail for you to that amount. And he himself, burning with love, declared positively that because he was unable to bear the misery of being separated from you, he should go into banishment. And at that time what misery of that most nourishing family did I allay, or rather did I remove! I persuaded the father to pay the son's debts; to release the young man, endowed as he was with great promise of courage and ability, by the sacrifice of part of his family estate; and to use his privileges and authority as a father to prohibit him not only from all intimacy with, but from every opportunity of meeting you. When you recollected that all this was done by me, would you have dared to provoke me by abuse if you had not been trusting to those swords which we behold?
15
Sisapo was a town in Spain, celebrated for some mines of vermilion, which were farmed by a company.
16
She was a courtesan who had been enfranchised by her master Volumnius. The name of Volumnia was dear to the Romans as that of the wife of Coriolanus, to whose entreaties he had yielded when he drew off his army from the neighbourhood of Rome.
17
This is a play on the name Hippia, as derived from
[Greek: hippos], a horse.
18
The custom of erecting a spear wherever an auction was held is well known, it is said to have arisen from the ancient practice of selling under a spear the booty acquired in war.
19
There seems some corruption here. Orellius apparently thinks the case hopeless.
20
The Latin is, "non solum de die, sed etiam in diem, vivere;" which the commentators explain, "De die is to feast every day and all day. Banquets de die are those which begin before the regular hour." (Like Horace's Partem solido demere de die.) "To live in diem is to live so as to have no thought for the future."—Graevius.
21
This accidental resemblance to the incident in the
"Forty Thieves" in the "Arabian Nights" is curious.
22
The septemviri, at full length septemviri epulones or epulonum, were originally triumviri. They were first created BC. 198, to attend to the epulum Jovis, and the banquets given in honour of the other gods, which duty had originally belonged to the pontifices. Julius Caesar added three more, but that alteration did not last. They formed a collegium, and were one of the four great religious corporations at Rome with the pontifices, the augures, and the quindecemviri. Smith, Diet, Ant. v. Epulones.
23
It had been explained before that Fulvia had been the widow of Clodius and of Curio, before she married Antonius.
24
Riddle (Dict. Lat. in voce) says, that this was the regular punishment for deserters, and was inflicted by their comrades.
25
Cnaeus Octavius, the real father of Octavius Caesar, had been praetor and governor of Macedonia, and was intending to stand for the consulship when he died.
26
Bambalio is derived from the Greek word [Greek: bambala] to lisp.
27
Julia, the mother of Antonius and sister of Lucius
Caesar, was also a native of Aricia.
then desire that which is impossible: and beware, I entreat you by the immortal gods, O conscript fathers, that out of hope of present peace you do not lose perpetual peace.