[227] LXXXV. Its interests ought to be managed, etc.—Majore curâ illam administrari quàm haec peti debere. Cortius injudiciously omits the word illam. No one has followed him but Allen.
[228] Hostile—Occursantis. Thwarting, opposing.
[229] That you may not be deceived in me—Ut neque vos capiamini. "This verb is undoubtedly used in this passage for decipere. Compare Tibull. Eleg. iii. 6, 45: Nec vos aut capiant pendentia brachia collo, Aut fallat blandâ sordida tingua prece. Cic. Acad. iv. 20: Sapientis vim maximam esse cavere, ne capiatur." Gerlach.
[230] To secure their election—Per ambitionem. Ambire is to canvass for votes; to court the favor of the people.
[231] Of yonder crowd of nobles—ex illo globo nobilitatis. Illo, [Greek: deiktikos].
[232] I know some—who after they have been elected, etc.—"At whom Marina directs this observation, it is impossible to tell. Gerlach referring to Cic. Quest. Acad. ii. 1, 2, thinks that Lucullus is meant. But if he supposes that Lucullus was present to the mind of Marius when he spoke, he is egregiously deceived, for Marius was forty years antecedent to Lucullus. It is possible, however, that Sallust, thinking of Lucullus when he wrote Marius's speech, may have fallen into an anachronism, and have attributed to Marius, whose character he had assumed, an observation which might justly have been made in his own day." Kritzius.
[233] Persons who invert the order of things—Homines Praeposteri. Men who do that last which should be done first.
[234] For though to discharge the duties of the office, etc.—Nam gerere, quam fieri, tempore posterius, re atque usu prius est. With gerere is to be understood consulatum; with fieri, consulem. This is imitated from Demosthenes, Olynth. iii.: [Greek: To gar prattein ton legein kai cheirotonein, usteron on tae taxei, proteron tae dynamei kai kreitton esti.] "Acting is posterior in order to speaking and voting, but prior and superior in effect."
[235] With those haughty nobles—Cum illorum superbui. Virtus Scipiades et mitis sapientia Laeli.
[236] My condition Mihi fortuna. "That is, my lot, or condition, in which I was born, in which I had no hand in producing." Dietsch.