B.C. 83 he attached himself to Sulla after his return
from Asia and was pardoned. After Sulla's death he had great influence
at Rome, though he never was consul. Cicero (_Brutus_, c. 48), speaks
of him as thoroughly acquainted with all the public business and as
having great weight in the Senate.]

[Footnote 339: He is commemorated by Cicero (_Brutus_, c. 62) as a man
well fitted for speaking in noisy assemblies. He was a tribune in the
year of the consulship of Lucullus.]

[Footnote 340: This was L. Octavius, who was consul with C. Aurelius
Cotta B.C. 75.]

[Footnote 341: Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius. See the Life of Sertorius.]

[Footnote 342: This is the closed sea that lies between the two
channels, by one of which, the Thracian Bosporus or the channel of
Constantinople, it is connected with the Euxine or Black Sea, and by
the other, the Hellespontus or Dardanelles, it is connected with the
AEgean Sea or the Archipelago. This is now the Sea of Marmora. Part of
the southern and eastern coast belonged to Bithynia. The city of
Kyzikus was within the Propontis.]

[Footnote 343: See the Life of Sulla, c. 25.]

[Footnote 344: The sophists of Plutarch's time were rhetoricians, who
affected to declaim on any subject, which they set off with words and
phrases and little more. One of the noted masters of this art,
Aristides of Bithynia, might have been known to Plutarch, though he
was younger than Plutarch. Many of his unsubstantial declamations are
extant. Plutarch in his Life of Lucullus, c. 22, has mentioned another
of this class.]

[Footnote 345: The Romans carried on a thriving trade in this way in
the provinces. In Cicero's period we find that many men of rank did
not scruple to enrich themselves in this manner; and they were
unsparing creditors.]

[Footnote 346: The word ([Greek: telonai]) which I have elsewhere
translated by the Roman word Publicani, means the men who farmed the
taxes in the provences. The Publicani at this period belonged to the
order of the Equites. A number of them associated themselves in a
partnership (societas) for the farming of the taxes of some particular
province. These associations had their agents in the provinces and a
chief manager (magister) at Rome. The collection of the taxes gave
employment to a great number of persons; and thus the Publicani had at
their disposal numerous places in the provinces, which gave them great
influence at Rome. (Cicero, _Pro Cn. Plancio_, c. 19.) T