[489] Vigilat refers to Cicero's own words, "Jam intelliges multo me vigilare acrius ad salutem, quam te ad pernicem reipublicæ."
[490] Novus. Cicero was the first of the Tullia gens that held a curule magistracy. Arpinum, his birthplace, now Arpino, was a small town of the Volsci. The Municipia had their three grades, of patricians, knights, and plebeians, as Rome had; they lived under their own laws, but their citizens were eligible to all offices at Rome.
[491] Leucas, i. e., "Actium." Thessaliæ, "Philippi." The words following probably refer to the brutal cruelty of Augustus after the battle.
[492] Libera. "When Rome could utter her free unfettered sentiments" (as sup., "Libera si dentur populo suffragia"). Not in the spirit of servile adulation, with which she bestowed the same title on her emperors.
[493] Vitem. The centurion's baton of office as well as instrument of punishment. Cf. xiv., 193; Mart., x., Ep. xxvi., 1. See the story of Lucilius, nicknamed Cedo alteram, in Tac., Ann., i., 23.
[494] Majora cadavera. Besides their fierce gray eyes (xiii., 164), the Germans were conspicuous for their stature and red hair. "Truces et cærulei oculi, rutilæ comæ, magnum corpora et tantum ad impetum valida." Tac., Germ., iv. "Cimbri præ Italis ingentes." Flor., iii.,3.
[495] Lauro secundâ. A double triumph was decreed to Marius; he gave up the second to Q. Lutatius Catulus, his noble colleague, to satisfy his soldiers, who knew, better than Juvenal, that the nobleman's services did not fall short of those of the plebeian. Marius afterward barbarously murdered him.
[496] Deciorum. Alluding to the three immolations of the Decii, father, son, and grandson, in the wars with the Latins, Gauls, and Pyrrhus. All three bore the name of Publius Decius Mus. Juvenal comes very near the formula of self-devotion given in Liv., viii., 6, seq. "Exercitum Diis Manibus matrique terræ deberi."
[497] Ancilla natus. Servius Tullius (Cf. vii., 199) was the sen of Ocrisia, or Ocriculana, a captive from Corniculum. Liv., i., 39. The Trabea was a white robe with a border and broad stripes (trabes) of purple, worn afterward by consuls and augurs: cf. x., 35; the diadema of the ancient kings was a fillet or ribbon, not a crown.
"And he who graced the purple which he wore,
The last good king of Rome, a bondmaid bore." Gifford.