The present commentary will be found exhaustive, as I have taken account of every word and phrase in the speech likely to create difficulty and left none unexplained; and, though perhaps to critics some of my notes may appear unnecessarily ample or too elementary, teachers will not think them so who know how much assistance students require, especially when they have not the opportunity of consulting good books of reference or the inclination to appeal to original authorities. My guides throughout have been the editions of Wunder and of Köpke: the former, produced at the expense of seven years' labour, is especially valuable for illustration, and I acknowledge once for all my great obligations to it: the Introduction is mainly taken from the latter. Frequent references have been made to the best Grammars in use; for experience has taught me that this is the surest means of fixing the important principles of syntax in the mind. The principal variations of reading have been given in an Appendix on the text, and full Indexes have been added (1) of proper names and (2) of all the words and phrases which have been commented on in the notes. The Chronological Table of the principal events in the life of Cicero with especial indications of names mentioned in this speech, and a list of his other extant speeches, will be found useful to students preparing for an examination.

In short, I have spared no pains to make the edition as complete and trustworthy as a book should be which appears under the auspices of a great University.

ATHENAEUM CLUB,

January 26, 1881.

INTRODUCTION

(a) Circumstances which led to the exile of Cicero and events which followed immediately upon it

§ 1. WHEN in B. C. 58 Gaius Julius Caesar, afraid of the reversal of his acts, had procured the election to the consulship of two of his own creatures, Aulus Gabinius and L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus1, whose daughter Calpurnia he had recently married, P. Clodius, who had gained his tribunate in December of the preceding year, in order to execute his projected plan of revenge against Cicero, secured their countenance and assistance in his design. Cicero asserts that they concluded a regular compact with the Tribune on the understanding that, while they should obtain through his agency the provinces they most coveted, they were to abandon the Commonwealth to his discretion; and this compact they agreed to ratify mutually by Cicero's ruin. Besides the personal pique Clodius had against Cicero, and the desire to gratify his revenge against an adversary who had given evidence to upset his alibi in his trial for an offence against religion in invading the mysteries of the Bona Dea, the removal of such a man as Cicero was necessary to the success of the revolutionary designs which he had formed, similar to those of Catiline and Caesar, for the

destruction of the established social order. Clodius' first object was to gain the favour of the people, which he did by enacting laws3 that flattered them and by appearing in the light of their benefactor. He then began his attack on Cicero by proposing a rogatio, that if any man had caused a Roman citizen to be put to death without a regular hearing and formal sentence he should be outlawed; and introduced into his bill a prohibitive clause to prevent either the senate or the people from repealing the law. - This rogatio, which without expressly naming him was clearly aimed at Cicero, so overwhelmed him with surprise and grief, that he immediately laid aside his senatorial dress and went about in the equestrian habit, soliciting all who had influence, both friends and enemies. The equites sent a deputation to the consuls and the senate on his behalf; the senate passed a resolution to put on mourning, as an expression of their sorrow for him, but were forbidden by an edict of the consuls to do so. Abandoned by the nobles and by the party chiefs who had it in their power to aid him-by Caesar, who spared no pains to attach him to himself in spite of all rebuffs, and by Pompeius who had so often pledged his word to him, and by the cautious Crassus who would not support an unpopular cause, Cicero took counsel whether to oppose force to force, or to quit Rome and withdraw himself from the coming storm. But his nature was little suited to deeds of strife and violence: accordingly he succumbed to his enemies and quitted Rome, before sentence was pronounced against him, at the end of March. On the same day Clodius carried his bill, having filled the forum with his gang of armed slaves and mercenaries. The edict was so far modified that the ban was to extend only to a distance of four hundred miles. Cicero's object was to repair to Sicily or Malta, for these islands, Sicily in particular, had been long devoted to