TO THE READER. 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 13. C. T. Zumpt's Annales veterum regnorum et populorum. 14. Mommsen's History of Rome, Eng. tr. 15. Huschke's iurisprudentiae anteiustinianae quae supersunt. 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 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. W. E. H. 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 for the most part of little value; but there are three to which considerable weight has been attached by the German critics of the speech. These are: In the laborious edition of A. W. Zumpt a full collation of the MSS. readings will be found, due in great part to the labours of his uncle the well-known C. T. Zumpt. In the formation of his text he relies almost entirely upon Lag. 9, stating in the introduction that his uncle held a similar opinion of its merits, and likewise the historian B. G. Niebuhr. From a pamphlet by G. Sorof, I learn that Halm attaches much weight to G, while it has been generally observed that M agrees more nearly than any other MS. with Lag. 9. I have then taken Halm's text of 1868 as a convenient starting-point, deviating from it chiefly in passages where he inserts conjectural emendations into the text, or condemns the reading of the better MSS. on what seem to me insufficient grounds. I have endeavoured to make use of the labours of others in a free spirit, and balance to the best of my power the claims of sense, authority, and grammar in each case. No doubt blunders will be found by old and experienced scholars, but this I cannot help. I have tried to avoid emendations as much as possible, even Halm's own: and must take the consequences. Zumpt's devotion to Lag. 9 seems to me unjustifiable, and in many cases perverse: in many others however by its help (to quote Sorof's words) egregiam medelam attulit. 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 B. C. 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, cf. 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 Ser. Sulpicius, a candidate for the quaestorship; but in the tenure of this office found no chance of specially dis |