[326] Clodius was not re-elected, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos, who had as tribune (B.C. 63-62) been hostile to Cicero, now as consul supported Pompey in befriending Cicero.
[327] The speech in the senate in Curionem et Clodium, i.e., against the elder C. Curio, who had been Clodius's advocate in B.C. 61 on the charge de incesto. Fragments only of it are preserved. They are sufficiently violent. Cicero suggests repudiating the authorship, because the speech had never been delivered, and therefore was not necessarily intended for publication. There is no special reason for abusing Cicero's character on this account. If some enemy had got hold of the MS. and published it without his consent, it was not really the expression of his deliberate sentiments.
[328] Reading nunc tamen intellego for si donatam ut intellego, which is meaningless. There may be latent in si donatam some proper name, as Dodonam or Macedoniam, but it is not possible to extract it now. Istic, as usual, means "where you are," i.e., at Rome.
[329] The via Egnatia, the road across Macedonia, which was one of the great channels of communication between Rome and the East, and which terminated at Thessalonica.
[330] The probable split among the triumvirs, alluded to in Letter [LXIII].
[331] Reading defuit for fuit.
[332] Or, as Prof. Tyrrell suggests, "does not quote Curio to that effect." I think, however, that Cicero does not use laudo in this sense except in connexion with auctorem, auctores, and even then generally with a subsense, at least, of commendation. The speech was composed to be delivered against the elder Curio and Clodius (see p. [155]), but was never delivered. Its personal tone made it dangerous now.
[333] Cicero means that Atticus acted with the emotion spontaneously arising from his affection, but not with the caution which he would have shewn in doing a thing which he was under some obligation to do.
[334] The ancient "colleges" or "clubs" had been gradually increasing, and a decree of the senate in B.C. 64 had declared certain of them unlawful. But Clodius had overridden this decree by a lex early in B.C. 58, and many new ones were formed, which he used for his political purposes (pro Sest. § 55; Dio, xxxviii. 13).
[335] That he could do nothing against the wishes of Cæsar (Att. x. 4, § 3; cp. in Pis. § 77). According to Plutarch, Pompey avoided a personal interview (Cic. 31).