[626] Maiestas. He would be liable to this charge, under a law of Sulla's, for having left his province to interfere in Egypt.
[628] Apparently referring to the death of his daughter Iulia.
[629] δευτέρας φροντίδας from Eurip. Hipp. 436, αἱ δευτέραι πως φροντίδες σοφωτέραι.
[630] Or, "as kindly and critical at once as Aristophanes (of Byzantium)," as though Quintus had written a Caxtonian criticism of his son's style.
[631] γυῶθι πῶς ἄλλω κέχρηται.
[632] Of his poem "On his own Times." Piso in Macedonia, where he had been unsuccessful with border tribes: Gabinius in going to Egypt to support Ptolemy. He left many of his soldiers there.
[633] The object of the existing consuls in making such a bargain was to get to their provinces without difficulty, with imperium, which had to be bestowed by a formal meeting of the old comitia curiata. But that formality could be stopped by tribunes or other magistrates "watching the sky," or declaring evil omens: and just as these means were being resorted to to put off the elections, so they were also likely to be used in this matter. If it was thus put off into the next year, Domitius and Appius, not being any longer consuls, would have still greater difficulty. Corrupt as the arrangement was, it seems not to have come under any existing law, and both escaped punishment. Appius went as proconsul to Cilicia, in spite of the lex curiata not being passed, but Domitius Ahenobarbus seems not to have had a province. The object of Domitius Calvinus and Memmius in making the compact was to secure their own election, which the existing consuls had many means of assisting, but it is not clear what Memmius's object in disclosing it was. Perhaps anger on finding his hopes gone, and an idea that anything that humiliated Ahenobarbus would be pleasing to Cæsar. He also seems to have quarrelled with Calvinus. Gaius Memmius Gemellus is not to be confounded with Gaius Memmius the tribune mentioned in the next letter.
[634] There is considerable uncertainty as to the exact nature of iudicium tacitum, here rendered "a trial with closed doors," on the analogy of the senatus consultum tacitum described by Capitolinus, in Gordian. ch. xii. It is not, I think, mentioned elsewhere (iudiciis tacitis of 2 Off. § 24, is a general expression for "anonymous expressions of opinion"), and the passage in Plutarch (Cato min. 44) introduces a new difficulty, for it indicates a court in which candidates after election are to purge themselves. Again, quæ erant omnibus sortita is very difficult. Cicero nowhere else, I believe, uses the passive sortitus. But, passing that, what are the consilia meant? The tense and mood shew, I think, that the words are explanatory by the writer, not part of the decree. I venture, contrary to all editors, to take omnibus as dative, and to suppose that the consilia meant are those of the album iudicum who had been selected to try cases of ambitus, of which many were expected. There is no proof that the iudices in a iudicium tacitum had to be senators, and the names in the next sentence point the other way. The senate proposed that the law should allow this selection from the album to form the iudicium tacitum, which would give no public verdict, but on whose report they could afterwards act.
[635] M. Æmilius Scaurus was acquitted on the 2nd of September on a charge of extortion in Sardinia. The trial had been hurried on lest he should use the Sardinian money in bribing for the consulship. Hence he could not begin distributing his gifts to the electors till after September 2nd, and his rivals Domitius and Messalla got the start of him. See Asconius, 131 seq.