wed by M. Livius after the
battle of the Metaurus (B.C. 207), and dedicated in B.C. 191 by C.
Licinius Lucullus, games being established on the anniversary of its
dedication (Livy, xxi. 62; xxxvi. 36). It is suggested, therefore, that
some of the Luculli usually presided at these games, but on this
occasion refused, because of the injury done by C. Memmius, who was
curule aedile.]

[Footnote 117: By Agamemnon and Menelaus Cicero means Lucius and Marcus
Lucullus; the former Memmius had, as tribune in B.C. 66-65, opposed in
his demand for a triumph, the latter he has now injured in the person of
his wife.]

[Footnote 118: A man who was _sui iuris_ was properly adopted before the
_commitia curiata_, now represented by thirty lictors. What Herennius
proposed was that it should take place by a regular _lex_, passed by the
_comitia tributa_. The object apparently was to avoid the necessity of
the presence of a pontifex and augur, which was required at the _comitia
curiata_. The concurrent law by the consul would come before the
_comitia centuriata_. The adopter was P. Fonteius, a very young man.]

[Footnote 119: L. Afranius, the other consul.]

[Footnote 120: M. Lollius Palicanus, "a mere mob orator" (_Brutus_,
Sec.223).]

[Footnote 121: The _toga picta_ of a triumphator, which Pompey, by
special law, was authorized to wear at the games. Cicero uses the
contemptuous diminutive, _togula_.]

[Footnote 122: To be absent from the census without excuse rendered a
man liable to penalties. Cicero will therefore put up notices in
Atticus's various places of business or residence of his intention to
appear in due course. To appear just at the end of the period was, it
seems, in the case of a man of business, advisable, that he might be
rated at the actual amount of his property, no more or less.]

XXIV (A I, 19)

TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)

ROME, 15 MARCH

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, AET. 46]

It is not only if I had as much leisure as you, but also if I chose to
send letters as short as yours usually are, should I easily beat you and
be much the more regular in writing. But, in fact, it is only one more
item in an immense and inconceivable amount of business, that I allow no
letter to reach you from me without its containing some definite sketch
of events and the reflexions arising from it. And in writing to you, as
a lover of your country, my first subject will naturally be the state of
the Republic; next, as I am the nea