[Footnote 9: He meant to insinuate that Antonius had been forging
Caesar's handwriting and signature]
[Footnote 10: Fulvia, who had been the wife of Clodius, and afterwards of Curio, was now the wife of Antonius.]
[Footnote 11: These were the names of slaves.]
[Footnote 12: Ityra was a town at the foot of Mount Taurus.]
[Footnote 13: Brutus was the Praetor urbanus this year, and that officer's duty confined him to the city; and he was forbidden by law to be absent more than ten days at a time during his year of office.]
[Footnote 14: I have translated jugerum "an acre," because it is usually so translated, but in point of fact it was not quite two-thirds of an English acre. At the same time it was nearly three times as large as the Greek [Greek: plethros] such by the fault of fortune and not by his own. You assumed the manly gown, which you soon made a womanly one: at first a public prostitute, with a regular price for your wickedness, and that not a low one. But very soon Curio stepped in, who carried you off from your public trade, and, as if he had bestowed a matron's robe upon you, settled you in a steady and durable wedlock. No boy bought for the gratification of passion was ever so wholly in the power of his master as you were in Curio's. How often has his father turned you out of his house? How often has he placed guards to prevent you from entering? while you, with night for your accomplice, lust for your encourager, and wages for your compeller, were let down through the roof. That house could no longer endure your wickedness. Do you not know that I am speaking of matters with which I am thoroughly acquainted? Remember that time when Curio, the father, lay weeping in his bed; his son throwing himself at my feet with tears recommended to me you; he entreated me to defend you against his own father, if he demanded six millions of sesterces of you; for that he had been bail for you to that amount. And he himself, burning with love, declared positively that because he was unable to bear the misery of being separated from you, he should go into banishment. And at that time what misery of that most nourishing family did I allay, or rather did I remove! I persuaded the father to pay the son's debts; to release the young man, endowed as he was with great promise of courage and ability, by the sacrifice of part of his family estate; and to use his privileges and authority as a father to prohibit him not only from all intimacy with, but from every opportunity of meeting you. When you recollected that all this was done by me, would you have dared to provoke me by abuse if you had not been trusting to those swords which we behold?]
[Footnote 15: Sisapo was a town in Spain, celebrated for some mines of vermilion, which were farmed by a company.]
[Footnote 16: She was a courtesan who had been enfranchised by her master Volumnius. The name of Volumnia was dear to the Romans as that of the wife of Coriolanus, to whose entreaties he had yielded when he drew off his army from the neighbourhood of Rome.]
[Footnote 17: This is a play on the name Hippia, as derived from
[Greek: hippos], a horse.]
[Footnote 18: The custom of erecting a spear wherever an auction was held is well known, it is said to have arisen from the ancient practice of selling under a spear the booty acquired in war.]