[506] Cicero says elsewhere that he supported this (pro Balbo, §61; de Prov. Cons. §28; cp. Dio, xxxix. 25).
[507] The law of Gaius Gracchus (B.C. 123) enacting that the senate should name before the elections the provinces to be held by the next consuls.
[508] Paludatum, lit. dressed in the paludamentum, the military dress in which provincial governors left Rome with imperium.
[509] Notam, some cipher, which he had agreed upon with Valerius to indicate that the commendatio was not to be looked upon as a mere matter of course.
[510] One of the tribunes. He was convicted of vis in B.C., 54. Gabinius was governor of Syria B.C. 57-54. He had been engaged in some warlike affairs in Iudæa, for which, or for some successes over the Arabs, he claimed the supplicatio.
[511] εἰλικρινές, "pure," "clear."
[512] Mihi aqua hæret, "there's a stoppage in my water course."
[513] The letter appears to be from Tusculum, because Cicero asks for a letter every day, which he could hardly expect if he were farther off. This year Cicero was much away from Rome, and yet his correspondence is meagre compared with other years. So far as this is not due to accident in the preservation of his letters, it may be accounted for by the fact that he was working at his de Oratore—so hard, that even his brother Quintus had scruples in breaking in upon him.
[514] This may refer to the laws of Trebonius, giving Pompey and Crassus Spain and Syria respectively, and Cæsar an additional five years in Gaul, or to some of Pompey's own legislation.
[515] L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a candidate for the consulship of B.C. 55, but whose election had never come off. By various contrivances the comitia were prevented, so that the new year opened with an interregnum; and Pompey and Crassus were elected under the presidency of an interrex (Dio, xxxix. 31).