aw,
Caesar expelled his colleague, Bibulus, by force of arms from the Forum
when trying to stop proceedings by announcing bad omens ... and finally
reduced him to such despair that for the rest of his year of office he
confined himself to his house and only announced his bad omens by means
of edicts." Bibulus appears to have been hustled by the mob also.]

[Footnote 242: [Greek: prosthe leon opithen de ----]. Cicero leaves
Atticus, as he often does, to fill up the rest of the line, [Greek:
drakon, messe de chimaira] (Hom. _Il._ vi. 181). He means, of course,
that Quintus is inconsistent.]

[Footnote 243: The question seems to be as to goods brought to a port
and paying duty, and then, not finding a sale, being transferred to
another port in the same province. The _publicani_ at the second port
demanded the payment of a duty again, which Cicero decides against
them.]

[Footnote 244: Schutz takes this to mean, "Are the quaestors now doubting
as to paying _even cistophori_?" _i.e._, are they, so far from paying in
Roman _denarii_, even hesitating to pay in Asiatic? But if so, what is
the _extremum_ which Cicero advises Quintus to accept? Prof. Tyrrell,
besides, points out that the quaestors could hardly refuse to pay
anything for provincial expenses. It is a question between _cistophori_
and _denarii_. See p. 92.]

XLIII (A II, 17)

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

FORMIAE, MAY

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, AET. 47]

I quite agree with your letter. Sampsiceramus is getting up a
disturbance. We have everything to fear. He is preparing a despotism and
no mistake about it. For what else is the meaning of that sudden
marriage union,[245] the Campanian land affair, the lavish expenditure
of money? If these measures were final, even then the mischief had been
very great; but the nature of the case makes finality impossible. For
how could these measures possibly give them any pleasure in themselves?
They would never have gone so far as this unless they had been paving
the way for other fatal steps. Immortal Gods!--But, as you say, at
Arpinum about the 10th of May we will not weep over these questions,
lest the hard work and midnight oil I have spent over my studies shall
turn out to have been wasted, but discuss them together calmly. For I am
not so much consoled by a sanguine disposition as by philosophic
"indifference,"[246] which I call to my aid in nothing so much as in our
civil and political business. Nay, more, whatever van