[258] Pompey was in Campania acting as one of the twenty land commissioners.
[259] The lex Roscia theatralis (B.C. 67), which gave fourteen rows of seats to the equites.
[260] That is, the law for distribution of corn among poorer citizens. There were many such. Perhaps the most recent was the lex Cassia Terentia (B.C. 73). Cæsar, who, when in later years he became supreme, restricted this privilege, may have threatened to do so now.
[261] I.e., as one of the twenty land commissioners. The next clause seems to refer to some proverbial expression, "to be invited to a place at Pluto's table," or some such sentence. Cicero means that his acceptance would be equivalent to political extinction, either from the obscurity of Cosconius or the inconsistency of the proceeding.
[262] The uncle of Atticus. See p. [15].
[263] After the scene of violence in which Bibulus, on attempting to prevent the agrarian law being passed, was driven from the rostra, with his lictors' fasces broken, he shut himself up in his house and published edicts declaring Cæsar's acts invalid, and denouncing the conduct of Pompey (Suet. Cæs. 20; Dio, xxxviii. 6).
[264] M. Terentius Varro, "the most learned of the Romans," and author of very large numbers of books. He was afterwards one of Pompey's legati in Spain. He survived most of the men of the revolutionary era.
[265] See Letter [XXIV], p. [56].
[266] I.e., in biting language. Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo (Hor. A. P. 79).
[267] The Cosmographia of Alexander of Ephesus. See Letter [XLVIII], p. [120].