aut fortuna miseri, etc., 'so poverty-stricken or so disaffected.'

immo vero corrects the preceding. 'The greater part, nay the whole'; see [on 1. 2]. A large part of the retail trade at Rome was in the hands of slaves.

instrumentum, 'means of trade.'

futurum fuit, 'was about to happen,' i.e. 'would have happened'; incensis represents the protasis, 'si incensae essent.' Cf. Livy 2. 1 'Quid enim futurum fuit, si illa plebs agitari coepta esset tribuniciis procellis?'

[§18].

ignem illum Vestae, pointing perhaps to the Temple of Vesta in the Forum below him.

[§19].

in civili causa, 'on a political question.'

cogitate, etc. A short form of expression combining two really distinct indirect questions, (1) 'cogitate quantis laboribus imperium fundatum sit,' and (2) 'cogitate ut una nox paene (imperium) delerit.' In English, 'Think by what toil was the empire established, which one night nearly destroyed.'

una nox, the night of the arrest of the Allobroges. See pro Flacco §102 'O nox illa, quae paene aeternas huic urbi tenebras attulisti, cum Galli ad bellum, Catilina ad urbem, coniurati ad ferrum et flammam vocabantur.'