The Life of Cicero. Volume II.

89

Ibid., iii., 8.

90

Ad Div., lib. viii., 8.

91

Ad Div., lib. viii., 10.

92

Ibid., ii., 10.

93

This mode of greeting a victorious general had no doubt become absurd in the time of Cicero, when any body of soldiers would be only too willing to curry favor with the officer over them by this acclamation. Cicero ridicules this; but is at the same time open to the seduction – as a man with us will laugh at the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases who are seated around him, but still, when his time comes, will be pleased that his wife shall be called "My Lady" like the rest of them.

94

Ad Div., lib. ii., 7.

95

Ad Att., lib. v., 2.

96

Ad Div., lib. xv., 4.

97

Ibid., xv., 10, and lib. xv., 13: "Ut quam honorificentissimum senatus consultum de meis rebus gestis faciendum cures."

98

Ad Div., lib. viii., 6.

99

Ibid., 7.

100

Ibid., iii., 7.

101

Ibid., 9.

102

The amount seems so incredible that I cannot but suspect an error in the MS. The sum named is two hundred Attic talents. The Attic talent, according to Smith's dictionary, was worth £243 13s. It may be that this large amount had been collected over a series of years.

103

Ad Att., lib. v., 21.

104

Ibid., vi., 1. This is the second letter to Atticus on the transaction, and in this he asserts, as though apologizing for his conduct to Brutus, that he had not before known that the money belonged to Brutus himself: "Nunquam enim ex illo audivi illam pecuniam esse suam."

105

In the letter last quoted, "Flens mihi meam famam commendasti." "Believe," he says, "that I cling to the doctrines which you yourself have taught me. They are fixed in my very heartstrings."

106

See the former of the two letters, Ad. Att., lib. v., 21: "Quod enim prætori dare consuessent, quoniam ego non acceperam, se a me quodam modo dare."

107

Ad Att., vi., 1: "Tricesimo quoque die talenta Attica xxxiii., et hoc ex tributis." On every thirteenth day he gets thirty three talents from the taxes, the talent being about £243. Of the poverty of Ariobarzanes we have heard much, and of the number of slaves which reached Rome from his country. It was thus, probably, that the king paid Pompey his interest.

Mancipiis locuples eget æris Cappadonum rex. – Hor. Epis., lib. i., vi.

Persius tells us how the Roman slave-dealer was wont to slap the fat Cappadocian on the thigh to show how sound he was as he was selling him, Sat. vi., 77. "Cappadocis eques catastis" is a phrase used by Martial, lib. x., 76, to describe from how low an origin a Roman knight might descend, telling us also that there were platforms erected for the express purpose of selling slaves from Cappadocia. Juvenal speaks also of "Equites Cappadoces" in the same strain, Sat. vii., 15. The descendant even of a slave from Cappadocia might rise to be a knight. From all this we may learn what was the source of the £8000 a month which Pompey condescended to take, and which Cicero describes as being "ex tributis."

108

Ad Att., lib. vi., 2.

109

Ad Att., lib. vi., 3.

110

Ad Div., lib. viii., 11.

111

Ad Att., lib. vi., 4, 5.

112

Ad Div., lib. ii., 15: "Scito me sperare ea quæ sequuntur."