11. Tranquillitās Vestra: ‘Your Serene Highness’; Valens, Emperor of the East, 364-378 A.D. “Other titles used of the emperors were Aeternitās Tua, Clēmentia Tua, Serēnitās Tua, Māgnitūdō Tua, Māiestās Tua.”
Vestra: in Latin of the classical period tua would have been used, as only one person is referred to. In late Latin the pronouns of the second person plural take the place of the singular, just as ‘you’ has taken the place of ‘thou.’
13. sub dictātūrae nōmine: in 45 B.C. Caesar was made perpetual dictator.
Ch. 13.
17. populus ＝ plebs here. Populus is a collective noun, and so takes a singular verb.
tamquam: ‘on the ground that’; a late meaning.
18. tribūnōs plēbis: these magistrates, elected by the plebeians in an assembly of their own (Comitia Tributa), were invested with the right of ‘intercession,’ by which they could stop all legislation that they judged to be harmful to the plebeians. To make their intercession effective they were declared to be sacrosancti, i.e. ‘inviolable,’ and the curse of outlawry was pronounced against any one who harmed them. The First Secession of the Plebeians, as this was called, was the beginning of a long struggle between the orders, and terminated in the complete political equality of the plebeians. Ihne, Ch. XIII; Creighton, p. 12; Tighe, p. 91.
19. per quōs ＝ ut per eōs.