Eur. Phœn. 393.
"Follies of those in power we needs must bear."
[284] L. Valerius Flaccus, as prætor in B.C. 63, had assisted Cicero in the Catiline conspiracy. He was now being tried for embezzlement in Asia, and was defended by the famous Q. Hortensius (Hortalus) and Cicero—the only extant speech of this year.
[285] ἀλλ' αἰεί τινα φῶτα μέγαν καὶ καλὸν ἐδέγμην, "but I ever expected some big and handsome man" (Hom. Odyss. ix. 513). Statius had been manumitted by Quintus Cicero, and there had been much talk about it, as we have already heard. See [XLIV], p. [109], and [XLV], p. [111].
[286] Reading quam pro civitate sua for prope quam civitatem suam. I think prope and pro (pr) might easily have been mistaken for each other, and if the order of quam and pro (mistaken for prope) were once changed, the case of civitate would follow. Prof. Tyrrell, who writes the town Blandus, would read molliorem for nobiliorem, and imagines a pun on the meaning of Blandus. But the name of the town seems certainly Blaundus, Βλαῦνδος, or Μλαῦνδος (Stephanus, Βλαῦδος); see Head, Hist. Num. p. 559: and Cicero, though generally punning on names, would hardly do so here, where he is making a grave excuse.
[287] Whom he called (Letter [XXIX]) "a madman and a knave."
[288] C. Vergilius Balbus, proprætor in Sicily (pro Planc. § 95; Letter [XXIX]). C. Octavius (father of Augustus), in Macedonia (see p. [78]). L. Marcius Philippus was proprætor of Syria B.C. 61-59. The governor of Cilicia in the same period is not known; probably some one left in charge by Pompey.
[289] I have endeavoured to leave the English as ambiguous as the Latin. Cicero may mean that he has done some good, for at the end of Letter [XXIX] he says that Quintus has improved in these points, and had been better in his second than in his first year. On the other hand, the context here seems rather to point to the meaning "how little good I have done!"—impatiently dismissing the subject of temper.
[290] These "requisitionary letters" were granted by a provincial governor to certain persons requiring supplies, payment of debts, or legal decisions in their favour in the provinces, or other privileges, and, if carelessly granted, were open to much abuse. Cicero, in his own government of Cilicia, boasted that he had signed none such in six months. The ill-wishers of Quintus had apparently got hold of a number of these letters signed by him (having been first written out by the suitors themselves and scarcely glanced at by him), and a selection of them published to prove his injustice or carelessness.
[291] The governor of a province would stand in such a matter in the place of the prætor in Rome, i.e., he would decide on questions of law, not of fact, as, whether a debt was due or not. However, Quintus perhaps only erred in the form of his injunction. He might forbid the deceased's estate being touched till the question of Fundanius's debt was decided; but in his letter he assumed (as he had no right to do) that the claim was good. Substantially it seems to me that Quintus was right, and certainly in his appeal to him Cicero does not follow his own injunction to disregard personal feelings.