[65] All were called Patres conscripti. Scil. Patres et Conscripti, the conjunction being omitted. Nieb. i. p. 517.
[66] Collatinus is supposed to have earned the odium of the people, and his consequent expulsion from Rome, by his endeavours to save his nephews, the Aquillii, from punishment.
[67] Niebuhr will have it that Brutus punished his children by his authority as a father, and that there was no appeal to the people from the father. See Nieb. i. p. 488.
[68] Animo patris, the strength of his mind, though that of a father, being even more conspicuous, &c. So Drakenborch understands the passage,—this sternness of mind, he says, though he was their father, was a more remarkable spectacle than his stern countenance. This character of Brutus, as inferrible from the words thus interpreted, coincides with that given of him by Dionysius and others. I prefer understanding the passage with Crevier, scil. symptoms of paternal affection to his children displaying themselves during the discharge of his duty in superintending the public punishment inflicted on them.
[69] Previously, by the institution of Servius, only such manumitted slaves were admitted to the rights of citizenship as were registered by their masters in the census.
[70] Uno plus Tuscorum. Ὡς ἑνὶ πλείους ἐν τῇ μάχῃ τεθνήκασι Τυῤῥηνῶν ἢ Ῥωμαίων.
[71] A year, scil. of ten months.
[72] The Horatii being of the minores patres. Nieb. i. p. 533.
[73] Funesta familia, as having in it an unburied corpse. Thus Misenus, whilst unburied, incestat funere classem. Virg. Æn. vi. 150.
[74] He here rejected the omen. Cic. i. 7, 14.; auguria aut oblativa sunt, quæ non poscuntur, aut impetrativa, quæ optata veniunt. The latter could not be rejected.