[556] An ornamental leg or stand for table or sideboard (abacus). See picture in Rich's Dictionary of Antiquities.
[557] On the via Appia, where the canal across the marshes began. Cicero stops there a night between Formiæ and Pomptina Summa (Att. vii. 5).
[558] One who professes to be an amateur of art like Damasippus.
[559] As in Letter [CVI], Tullia, not Terentia, seems to be in Cicero's confidence and presiding in his house. Terentia must already have been on bad terms with him, and perhaps was residing on her own property.
[560] Half-sister of Gaius Cassius.
[561] Communis, which is not satisfactory. But neither is the emendation proposed, cominus. For communis, "common," "vulgar," see de Off. ii. § 45.
[562] Whom Pompey employed to select the plays to be exhibited in his new theatre.
[563] Pliny (N. H. viii. § 21) says that the people were so moved that they loudly cursed Pompey.
[564] L. Caninius Gallus (see p. [210]). What he was accused of does not appear.
[565] I do not like to think this letter a mere rhetorical exercise, as has been suggested, rather than a true account of Cicero's feelings as to the theatre and amphitheatre. He often expresses his want of interest in the latter. The vulgar display in the theatre, unlike the severe simplicity of Greek art, was an old evil (see Polyb. xxx. 14).