.
This letter is Cicero's most elaborate apology for his change of policy
in favour of the triumvirs.]

[Footnote 653: Cicero has been variously supposed to refer to C. Cato
(who proposed the recall of Lentulus), to Appius the consul, and finally
to Pompey. The last seems on the whole most likely, though the
explanation is not without difficulties. In that case the "disclosure"
will refer to Pompey's intrigues as to the restoration of Ptolemy
Auletes, of which he wished to have the management.]

[Footnote 654: _I.e._, to keep in with the Optimates, who were at this
time suspicious of, and hostile to Pompey.]

[Footnote 655: At the trial of Sestius.]

[Footnote 656: B.C. 59, when Vatinius proposed the law for Caesar's five
years' rule in Gaul.]

[Footnote 657: B.C. 56.]

[Footnote 658: Pompey is only speaking metaphorically. Quintus had
guaranteed Cicero's support. Pompey half-jestingly speaks as though he
had gone bail for him for a sum of money.]

[Footnote 659: Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidius, expelled from the senate
and banished B.C. 100 for refusing the oath to the agrarian law of
Saturninus, but recalled in the following year. Cicero is fond of
comparing himself with him. See Letter CXLVII.]

[Footnote 660: M. AEmilius Scaurus, consul B.C. 115 and 108, censor 109,
and long _princeps senatus_. Cicero comments elsewhere on his
_severitas_ (_de Off._ Sec. 108).]

[Footnote 661: Plato, _Crit._ xii.]

[Footnote 662: Like the character in the play (Terence, _Eun._ 440), if
the nobles annoyed Cicero by their attentions to P. Clodius, he would
annoy them by his compliments to Publius Vatinius.]

CLIII (A IV, 18)

TO ATTICUS (IN ASIA)

ROME, OCTOBER

[Sidenote: B.C. 54, AET. 52]

... As it is,[663] to tell you my opinion of affairs, we must put up
with it. You ask me how I have behaved. With firmness and dignity. "What
about Pompey," you will say, "how did he take it?" With great
consideration, and with the conviction that he must have some regard for
my position, until a satisfactory atonement had been made to me. "How,
then," you will say, "was the acquittal secured?" It was a case of mere
dummies,[664] and incredible incompetence on the part of the
accusers--that is to say, of L. Lentulus, son of Lucius, who, according
to the universal murmur, acted collusively. In the next place, Pompey
was extraordinarily urgent; and the jurors were a mean set of fellows.
Yet, in spite of everything, there