[248] Another nickname of Pompey, from the title of the head of the Thebais in Egypt. Like Sampsiceramus and the others, it is meant as a scornful allusion to Pompey's achievements in the East, and perhaps his known wish to have the direction of affairs in Egypt.
[249] See Letter [XIX], p. [35].
[250] I.e., Cæsar's agrarian law, by which some of the Campanian ager publicus was to be divided.
[251] M. Iuventius Laterensis. See Letter [L], p. [123].
[252] Pulchellus, i.e., P. Clodius Pulcher. The diminutive is used to express contempt. Cicero, since his return to Rome, is beginning to realize his danger.
[253] A libera legatio was really a colourable method of a senator travelling with the right of exacting certain payments for his expenses from the Italian or provincial towns. Sometimes it was simply a legatio libera, a sinecure without any pretence of purpose, sometimes it was voti causa, enabling a man to fulfil some vow he was supposed to have made. It was naturally open to much abuse, and Cicero as consul had passed a law for limiting it in time. Clodius would become tribune on 10 December, and this libera legatio would protect Cicero as long as it lasted, but it would not, he thinks, last long enough to outstay the tribuneship: if he went as legatus to Cæsar in Gaul, he would be safe, and might choose his own time for resigning and returning to Rome.
[254] Statius, a slave of Quintus, was unpopular in the province. See p. [125].
[255] Terence, Phorm. 232.
[256] ἅλις δρυός, i.e., feeding on acorns is a thing of the past, it is out of date, like the golden age when they fed on wild fruit et quæ deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes (Ovid, Met. i. 106); and so is dignity, it is a question of safety now.
[257] Ennius on Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator.