[54] Reading eius ἀνάθημα, and taking the latter word in the common sense of "ornament": the Hermathena is so placed that the whole gymnasium is as it were an ornament to it, designed to set it off, instead of its being a mere ornament to the gymnasium. Professor Tyrrell, however, will not admit that the words can have this or any meaning, and reads, ἡλίου ἄναμμα, "sun light"—"the whole gymnasium seems as bright as the sun"—a curious effect, after all, for one statue to have.
[55] Asconius assigns this to the accusation of embezzlement in Africa. But that seems to have been tried in the previous year, or earlier in this year. The new impeachment threatened seems to have been connected with his crimes in the proscriptions of Sulla (Dio, xxxvii, 10). Cicero may have thought of defending him on a charge relating to so distant a period, just as he did Rabirius on the charge of murdering Saturninus (B.C. 100), though he had regarded his guilt in the case of extortion in Africa as glaring.
[56] The essay on the duties of a candidate attributed to Quintus is hardly a letter, and there is some doubt as to its authenticity. I have therefore relegated it to an appendix.
[57] Q. Metellus Celer had been prætor in B.C. 63 and was now (B.C. 62), as proconsul in Gallia Cisalpina, engaged against the remains of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Meanwhile his brother (or cousin) Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, a tribune, after trying in vain to bring Cicero to trial for the execution of the conspirators, at last proposed to summon Pompey to Rome to prevent danger to the lives of citizens. This attempt led to riots and contests with Cato, and Nepos finally fled from Rome to Pompey. By leaving Rome he broke the law as to the tribunes, and the senate declared his office vacant, and this letter would even seem to shew that the senate declared him a public enemy. This letter of remonstrance is peremptory, if not insolent, in tone, and the reader will observe that the formal sentences, dropped in more familiar letters, are carefully used.
[58] Metellus had been employed with Antonius against the camp at Fæsulæ, but was now engaged against some Alpine tribes.
[59] When Metellus was commanding against Catiline, it is suggested that he marched towards Rome to support his brother, but this is conjecture.
[60] Sister of P. Clodius. Of this famous woman we shall hear often again. She is believed to be the Lesbia of Catullus, and she is the "Palatine Medea" of the speech pro Cælio. Yet, in spite of Cicero's denunciations of her, he seems at one time to have been so fond of her society as to rouse Terentia's jealousy.
[61] Wife of Pompey—divorced by him on his return from the East.
[62] On the next meeting of the senate. The second was a dies comitialis on which the senate usually did not meet (Cæs. B. Civ. i. I).
[63] For the riots caused by his contests with Cato (on which the senate seems to have passed the senatus consultum ultimum), and for his having left Rome while tribune.