[6] De Imperio Cn. Pompei.
[7] Ad Att. i. 4; Plut. Cic. 9.
[8] Pro Corn. ed. Stengl. p. 57.
[9] Hardy (Jour. Phil. XXXIV, 16) denies that the question of the senate’s auctoritas was at stake in this trial, since Sallust’s Catiline and Caesar’s Bell. Civ. admit the constitutionality of the Sen. Cons. Ult. But Sallust and Caesar wrote almost twenty years later, after Caesar had packed the senate for use in any measure he chose. The question was then no longer of any importance. Cicero’s speech, Pro Rabirio, definitely says that the issue at stake was the senate’s authority.
[10] E. Meyer, Caesars Monarchie: a thesis questioned by Heinze. Sabine and Smith, Cicero on the Commonwealth (1929), keep their attention too closely to the Greek sources.
[11] Ad. Att. viii. 11.
[12] He does, however, not use those terms: cf. Fam. xi. 6: adpetam huius rei principatum; Fam. xii, 24, 2 (Jan. 43): me principem senatui populoque Romano professus sum; Fam. x. 28: totem rem publicam sum amplexus.
[13] De Prov. Proc. 38 ff.
[14] See C. W. Keyes, “Original Elements in Cicero’s Ideal Constitution,” Am. Jour. Phil., 1921, 309 ff. A part of the De Leg. was written before Pompey’s death.
[15] The senate, though not a representative body, had voted all tax bills before the tribute was abandoned in 167 B.C. There is little doubt that the Gracchi would have altered this illogical procedure if the tribute had remained in their day. In 43 Cicero probably followed the only ancient precedent there was without considerations of political theory.