ny confidential secrets that I do not as
a rule trust them even to an amanuensis, for fear of some jest leaking
out in some direction or another.

The consuls are in a blaze of infamy because Gaius Memmius, one of the
candidates, read out in the senate a compact which he and his fellow
candidate, Domitius Calvinus, had made with the consuls--that both were
to forfeit to the consuls 40 sestertia apiece (in case they were
themselves elected consuls), if they did not produce three augurs to
depose that they had been present at the passing of a _lex curiata_,
which, in fact, had not been passed; and two consulars to depose to
having helped to draft a decree for furnishing the consular provinces,
though there had not even been a meeting of the senate at all.[633] As
this compact was alleged not to have been a mere verbal one, but to
have been drawn up with the sums to be paid duly entered, formal orders
for payment, and written attestations of many persons, it was, on the
suggestion of Pompey, produced by Memmius, but with the names
obliterated. It has made no difference to Appius--he had no character to
lose! To the other consul it was a real knock-down blow, and he is, I
assure you, a ruined man. Memmius, however, having thus dissolved the
coalition, has lost all chance of election, and is by this time in a
worse position than ever, because we are now informed that his
revelation is strongly disapproved of by Caesar. Our friend Messalla and
his fellow candidate, Domitius Calvinus, have been very liberal to the
people. Nothing can exceed their popularity. They are certain to be
consuls. But the senate has passed a decree that a "trial with closed
doors" should be held before the elections in respect to each of the
candidates severally by the panels already allotted to them all. The
candidates are in a great fright. But certain jurors--among them
Opimius, Veiento, and Rantius--appealed to the tribunes to prevent their
being called upon to act as jurors without an order of the people[634].
The business goes on. The _comitia_ are postponed by a decree of the
senate till such time as the law for the "trial with closed doors" is
carried. The day for passing the law arrived. Terentius vetoed it. The
consuls, having all along conducted this business in a half-hearted kind
of way, referred the matter back to the senate. Hereupon--Bedlam! my
voice being heard with the rest. "Aren't you wise enough to keep quiet,
after all?" you will