[426] The formula whereby the senate declared its opinion that so and so was guilty of treason. It had no legal force, but the magistrates might, and sometimes did, act on it.
[427] C. Porcius Cato, distant relation of Cato Uticensis, one of the new tribunes.
[428] I.e., Marcellinus (Cn. Cornelius Lentulus).
[429] The senators not in office only spoke when called on (rogati). The consuls-designate (if there were any) were always called first, and then the consulars in order. To be called first was a subject of ambition, and an opportunity for the presiding magistrate to pay a compliment or the reverse.
[430] They went and sat or stood near the speaker they wished to support. It was not, however, a formal division till the speeches ended, and the presiding magistrate counted. Still, it made the division easier.
[431] A platform outside the senate-house, where representatives originally of Greek and then of other states were placed. It was apparently possible to hear, or partly hear, the debates from it. It was a locus substructus (Varro, L. L. v. 155). There is no evidence that it was a building to lodge ambassadors in, as Prof. Tyrrell says.
[432] The year of this letter has been inferred from the mention of Lentulus's augural banquet. For P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, son of the consul of B.C. 57, was in this year elected into the college of augurs. Yet as we know that Cicero's Tusculan villa was dismantled by Clodius, and was advertised for sale (though not sold), it seems rather extraordinary that Cicero should have gone there for his health. The Fadii Galli were a family of Cicero's native place, Arpinum.
[433] There were several sumptuary laws. Those which may possibly be referred to here are (1) the lex Licinia (? B.C. 103), which defined certain foods as illegal at banquets, but excepted quod ex terra vite arbore ve sit natum (Macrobius, Sat. iii. 17, 9; Gell. ii. 24, 7); (2) the lex Æmilia (B.C. 68), which also defined both the quantity and quality of food allowable at banquets (Gell. ii. 24, 12).
[434] C. Anicius, a senator and intimate friend of Cicero's.
[435] Consul of B.C. 57, who had gone at the end of his consulship to be governor of Cilicia.