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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

THIS book is sent forth as the best attempt at an Edition of the Pro Murena that with short time and pressing College engagements I can make. Being familiar with the speech from frequent reading, and having collected matter upon many passages myself, I have taken the best authorities as guides in the writing of notes, and striven to give brief but full acknowledgment for what I have borrowed from them. At the same time I have done more than borrow; the Introduction, with the exception of B §i, is all my own work; and in the notes, where a passage seemed to me to require fuller explanation than had been already offered, I have tried to supply the needful matter, while on the other hand I have freely rejected such notes of former Editors as appeared superfluous. It is to be understood that I address myself to University students and to the head forms of Schools.

The speech though fully commented on in Germany has been so neglected in England that I venture to hope for much indulgence from any critical scholar who may glance into my notes. If I have in any degree fulfilled the duty of a rough pioneer, it is as much as I can look for.

The works principally used in preparing the notes have been

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B. Grammars, Lexicons, &c.

6. Madvig's Latin grammar, English translation, ed 4.

7. Nizolii lexicon Ciceronianum.

8. Ernesti's clavis Ciceroniana.

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13. C G Zumpt's Annales veterum regnorum et populorum. 14. Mommsen's History of Rome, English translation.

15. Huschke's iurisprudentiae anteiustinianae quae supersunt. 16. Lord Mackenzie's Roman Law.

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One source of help must be noticed apart; namely a valuable set of MS notes (the first beginnings of a once contemplated edition), kindly lent me by the

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Rev John E B Mayor, Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge. These I have laid under contribution for such extra matter as suited the pretensions of my book.

To Mr J E Sandys, Fellow and Tutor of St John's College, Cambridge, my thanks are due for much friendly assistance in various ways. The Index has been made by my good friends and pupils, T E Raven of Gonville and Caius College, H W Simpkinson and R F Winch of St John's, whom I thank heartily for their help.

WE HEITLAND.

ISLE OF MAN,

Aug 13, 1874.

INTRODUCTION.

A. The Text.

NONE of the existing MSS of the speech for Murena are of earlier date than the 15th century of our era. In fact at the beginning of that century no copy of it was known to have survived. About the year 1414 the great scholar Poggio found somewhere in southern France a manuscript containing it, but in a tattered state, and with the writing much defaced by ill keeping and the effect of time. This he either took into Italy or copied on the spot: certain it is that, while the speech was at once circulated among the learned, the old MS found by Poggio has perished. The existing MSS are universally admitted to be of little value; and a careful examination of the various readings which they present (in the full collation of A W Zumpt) has convinced me that the comparative method is alone safe in deciding textual questions. It is true that A W Zumpt is devoted to one MS (Lag 9) and relies almost wholly upon it for the formation of a text; but he stands alone in this opinion and-I now think— deservedly. Since my first edition I have read Halm's paper 'über die handschriften zu Cicero's rede pro Murena' (München 1861), kindly sent me by Professor Halm himself. I have managed also to wade through nearly all the furious controversy between that eminent scholar and A W Zumpt in the zeitschrift für das gymnasialwesen (15th and 16th years), and to read a valuable article by Dr G Sorof (ib 15th year) on Tischer's edition. The last paper together with a small Latin pamphlet by the same author (1861), forms a valuable contribution to the criticism of the speech, which as Halm says has given birth to 'eine kleine literatur' of its own. Starting then as before from Halm's text of 1868 I have revised the whole speech: in a few cases strong reasons have led me to accept

emendations which from want of the necessary information and time I had been previously compelled to ignore: but I have on the whole returned still more to the MSS readings than in the former edition. In one case (§ 62) I have ventured to restore the MSS reading on my own responsibility: on all much contested points I have given my full reasons for the view I have taken.

B. i. Murena and his family [adapted from Halm].

Our knowledge of L Licinius Murena rests almost entirely upon the notices of his life preserved to us by his defender Cicero. The plebeian family of which he was a member came from Lanuvium and belonged to the new Nobility (§§ 15, 90); as yet it counted no consulars in its ranks; the first member of it who gained the praetorship was our Murena's great-grandfather (§§15, 86). The town too had never as yet produced a consul (§ 86). The most celebrated of the family was the father, who after having held the praetorship served with distinction as Sulla's legatus in Greece and Asia. After the treaty with Mithridates in BC 84 that general entrusted him with the command of the two legions left behind in Asia. In this position Murena got into fresh complications with Mithridates; his successes were not conspicuous, and were more than reversed by a marked defeat which he suffered in the passage of the Halys (§ 32, where the affair is grossly misrepresented, see Appian Mithr 64). Sulla put an end to the quarrel by the recall of Murena, granting him however the honour of a triumph as though he had won notable victories (§§ 11, 15, App Mithr 66). In this, usually called the Second Mithridatic war, the son served his military apprenticeship under the command of his father (§ 11). According to the assertions of his accusers, the young officer gave himself up wholly to a life of Asiatic luxury and lowered the dignity of Rome so far as to dance like a harlequin in the company of his dissolute young companions, charges which it is true his defender repels as utterly unfounded (§§ 11, 12, 13).

On his return from Asia, L Murena became, along with his subsequent accuser Servius Sulpicius, a candidate for the quaestorship; but in the tenure of this office found no chance of specially distinguishing himself (§ 18). The fresh outbreak of the war with

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