lib. ii., 18: "A Caesare valde liberaliter
invitor in legationem illam, sibi ut sim legatus; atque
etiam libera legatio voti causa datur."

[262] De Legibus, lib. iii., ca. viii.: "Jam illud apertum
prefecto est nihil esse turpius, quam quenquam legari
nisi republica causa."

[263] It may be seen from this how anxious Caesar was to
secure his silence, and yet how determined not to screen
him unless he could secure his silence.

[264] Ad Quintum, lib. i., 2.

[265] Of this last sentence I have taken a translation
given by Mr. Tyrrell, who has introduced a special
reading of the original which the sense seems to
justify.

[266] Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. ii., ca. i.: We are told
that Cicero had been called the consular buffoon. "And
I," says Macrobius, "if it would not be too long, could
relate how by his jokes he has brought off the most
guilty criminals." Then he tells the story of Lucius
Flaccus.

[267] See the evidence of Asconius on this point, as to
which Cicero's conduct has been much mistaken. We shall
come to Milo's trial before long.

[268] The statement is made by Mr. Tyrrell in his
biographical introduction to the Epistles.

[269] The 600 years, or anni DC., is used to signify
unlimited futurity.

[270] Mommsen's History, book v., ca. v.

[271] [Greek: Automalos onomazeto] is the phrase of
Dio Cassius. "Levissume transfuga" is the translation
made by the author of the "Declamatio in Ciceronem." If
I might venture on a slang phrase, I should say that
[Greek: automalos] was a man who "went off on his own
hook." But no man was ever more loyal as a political
adherent than Cicero.

[272] Ad Att., ii., 25.

[273] We do not know when the marriage took place, or
any of the circumstances; but we are aware that when
Tullia came, in the following year, B.C. 57, to meet her
father at Brundisium, she was a widow.

[274] Suetonius, Julius Caesar, xii.: "Subornavit etiam
qui C. Rabirio perduellionis diem diceret."

[275] "Qui civem Romanum indemnatum perimisset, ei aqua
at igni interdiceretur."

[276] Plutarch tells us of this sobriquet, but gives
another reason for it, equally injurious to the lady's
reputation.

[277] Ad Att., lib. iii., 15.

[278] In Pisonem, vi.

[279] Ad Att., lib. x., 4.

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