i. 9 Kritz), although he too wrote as a partisan
of Caesar. Further proofs are furnished by the coins.
52. Thus we read on a -semis- which a Vergobretus of the Lexovii
(Lisieux, dep. Calvados) caused to be struck, the following
inscription: -Cisiambos Cattos vercobreto; simissos (sic) publicos
Lixovio-. The often scarcely legible writing and the incredibly
wretched stamping of these coins are in excellent harmony with
their stammering Latin.
53. V. VII. Caesar and Ariovistus
54. V. VII. The Helvetii Sent Back to Their Original Abodes
55. V. VII. Beginning of the Struggle
56. IV. V. Taurisci
Notes for Chapter VIII
1. This is the meaning of -cantorum convitio contiones celebrare-
(Cic. pro Sest. 55, 118).
2. V. VI. Clodius
3. IV. V. The Victory and the Parties
4. Cato was not yet in Rome when Cicero spoke on 11th March 698 in
favour of Sestius (Pro Sest. 28, 60) and when the discussion took
place in the senate in consequence of the resolutions of Luca
respecting Caesar's legions (Plut. Caes. 21); it is not till
the discussions at the beginning of 699 that we find him once more
busy, and, as he travelled in winter (Plut. Cato Min. 38), he thus
returned to Rome in the end of 698. He cannot therefore, as has
been mistakenly inferred from Asconius (p. 35, 53), have defended
Milo in Feb. 698.
5. -Me asinum germanum fuisse- (Ad Att. iv. 5, 3).
6. This palinode is the still extant oration on the Provinces to
be assigned to the consuls of 699. It was delivered in the end of
May 698. The pieces contrasting with it are the orations for
Sestius and against Vatinius and that upon the opinion of
the Etruscan soothsayers, dating from the months of March and April,
in which the aristocratic regime is glorified to the best of his
ability and Caesar in particular is treated in a very cavalier
tone. It was but reasonable that Cicero should, as he himself
confesses (Ad Att. iv. 5, 1), be ashamed to transmit even to
intimate friends that attestation of his resumed allegiance.
7. This is not stated by our authorities. But the view that
Caesar levied no soldiers at all from the Latin communities, that
is to say from by far the greater part of his province, is in
itself utterly incredible, and is directly refuted by the fact that
the opposition-party slightingly designates the force levied by
Caesar as "for the most part natives of the Transpadane colonies"
(Caes. B. C. iii. 87); for her
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