Arguerint, licet ipse neges.”
Sat. i. 103, and the note of Heinrichs.
[210] Publius Sextius or Sestius was the name of a tribunus plebis who exerted himself to accomplish the recall of Cicero. There is extant an oration of Cicero entitled Pro P. Sestio, in defence of Publius, who was tried in the year after Cicero’s return on a charge of raising a tumult (de vi) at the popular meeting in which Cicero’s recall was proposed. Cicero speaks of the acquittal of Publius in a letter to his brother Quintus (ii. 4).
[211] This obscure man’s name is also incorrectly written.
[212] See the Life of Cato, c. 29.
[213] Kaltwasser conjectures that the name should be Manius Aquilius, who acted as Proconsul in the Servile war in Sicily B.C. 100. In B.C. 88 he conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia. He fell into the hands of Mithridates, who put him to death.
But this cannot be the person meant by Plutarch, who evidently means a person who may be called a contemporary of Cicero. A certain M. Aquinius is mentioned in the Book on the African War (De Bell. Afric. 57).
[214] Adrastus, king of Argos, gave his two daughters in marriage to Tydeus and Polynices, both of whom were exiles from their native country.
[215] L. Aurelius Cotta was consul B.C. 65, and censor B.C. 64, the year in which Cicero was elected consul. In his prætorship, B.C. 70, he proposed the Lex Aurelia, which determined that the judices for public trials should be chosen from the Senators, Equites and Tribuni Ærarii. Notwithstanding this joke, Cotta was a friend of Cicero, and Cicero often speaks in high terms of praise of him.
[216] It is uncertain who this Voconius was. The verse, which is apparently from some Greek tragedian, is conjectured to allude to Laius, who begat Œdipus contrary to the advice of the oracle of Apollo.