magnae deliberationis: genitive of quality.

11. quae ratio sit ineunda: the whole clause is appositional to the subject of est.

SELECTION XVIII.

The growing appearance of Caesar's tyranny led some of the nobles who regarded themselves as patriots to conspire along with some men of meaner motive for his murder, which they brought to pass on March 15th, 44 B.C. Cicero had not been taken into their counsels, and knew nothing of the plot until its dénouement; but in Caesar's fall he saw the death of the tyranny and the resurrection of his own patriotic hopes, and in this letter to one of the conspirators we see his outburst of joy. Why he should have written this to Basilus, who was not a leader of the conspirators, we should have little means of knowing, except that the style of greeting in the letter shows him to be an intimate friend of Cicero.

13. tibi gratulor: this is a common expression, mihi gaudeo very uncommon; but the mihi balances the tibi and the gaudeo the gratulor so strikingly that in Cicero's feeling of exhilaration the unusual phrase was just the thing to occur to his mind. mihi: dative of reference.

SELECTION XIX.

Cicero's cares for the state had not ruined his appetite, nor his interest in his personal friends, nor in small points of the law.

Trebatio: the same Trebatius Testa addressed in Selections IV and V. Having returned from his campaigning with Caesar a rich man, as Boissier thinks, and no questions asked, he built a fine house and lived well. Cicero was fond of going to dinner with him, for he seems to have found spice and salt in his conversation as well as in his viands.

15. inluseras: made fun.

inter scyphos: over the glasses.

16. antea: i.e. before he became the heir.

PAGE 21. 1. furti agere: bring an action for theft. Of course a man who had been robbed would have a right to sue, but

the question is, could the heir properly claim any legal title to property which the testator did not actually possess at the time of his death.

bene potus: well primed.

2. seroque: almost any time after sundown was a late hour. caput chapter.

4. sensisse sentio is to hold as a view or opinion.

:

6. Testae: that is, Trebatius himself.

SELECTION XX.

After the murder of Caesar the liberatores, as they called themselves, knew scarcely what next to do. Antony had rallied a portion of Caesar's party, and now strove to assume Caesar's rôle. He was consul and managed to secure the control of affairs for a time in the city. His chief opponents, including Cicero, Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius, thought best to leave Rome. The senate presently appointed duties for M. Brutus and Cassius which took them to Greece and Asia. D. Brutus went to his province, Cisalpine Gaul. At the end of August, Cicero returned to the city from his retreat, and assumed open defiance of Antony.

Antony's opponents looked to Cicero as their best counselor. He seemed to gain the powerful allegiance of Octavian, who had returned to Rome as the heir of his uncle, Julius Caesar, and had raised a strong personal following. He kept in touch with all the republican leaders in the provinces.

Antony, when his term as consul was to expire, secured the allotment of Cisalpine Gaul as his province. Cicero is statesman enough to see the importance of keeping Antony from his province, and in this letter to D. Brutus he urges that aim.

S. D. D. . . . desig. i.e. salutem dicit Decimo Bruto Imperatori Consuli designato.

7. Lupus familiaris noster: our good friend Lupus.

8. quosdam dies: accusative of extent of time, for several days. eis locis: Cicero had gone away to Puteoli.

9. tuto adverb; used in familiar style as a predicate with

esse.

eo factum whence it happened.

11. curasset: provided for.

12. antiquius: of deeper claim.

15. illa. . . re: i.e. the dispatching of the tyrant.

19. illud. significandum videtur: I think I ought, however, to point out, briefly, this.

20. omnem spem: Cicero is putting it strongly in saying that all the hope of recovering liberty rested upon D. Brutus, yet his army was at this time the chief bulwark against Antony.

PAGE 22. 1. quod . . . certo scio: as I'm sure you do. The phrase certo scio, I know for certain, came to be very much weakened in force through very common use, and seems often to mean no more than our colloquial I'm sure.

obliviscere: fut. indic.

3. iste. Antony.

nactus: gained possession of.

8. in perpetuum: for ever.

ut principiis: so that the end (of your effort and undertaking) may match the beginning.

14. ut tibi. pertinebunt: substantive clause expressing the fuller sense of illud.

officia, studia, curas, cogitationes: due services, eager efforts, careful attention, study of the situation.

16. me subject of defuturum.

The Mss. have another me

before tuis optimis, but that would be superfluous.

17. vita mea est carior: Either this is exaggeration or else it is true. As a matter of fact, Cicero did stake his life on the cause of the republic more than once.

18. faveam, velim: subjunctive in quod causal clause in indirect discourse.

SELECTION XXI.

Antony besieged Decimus Brutus in Mutina. While the outcome was still uncertain, Cicero writes to inform and instruct Trebonius. Trebonio Caius Trebonius had been Caesar's legate in Gaul and his personal friend. He felt with the others, however, that

:

Caesar's tyranny was unbearable to patriots, and he was intrusted for his part in the conspirators' undertaking, with the task of keeping Antony away from the scene in the senate house on the Ides of March.

21. epulas the joke of calling that gathering at which Caesar's life was consumed a banquet and Antony the leavings was perhaps original with Cicero. At any rate he seems fond of it, for he repeats it prominently in another letter (to Cassius, Fam. XII, 4).

22. Reliquiarum: Cicero thinks he would have had the foresight to have counseled the death of Antony as well as Caesar. He does not seem, however, to have suggested in the first letters after the murder the advisability of having pursued that course.

PAGE 23. 1. eis: sc. reliquiis: i.e. Antony.

3. quod vero: with regard to the fact.

4. quod: as.

9. in ore et amore habuisti: have ever spoken of and approved.

11. pl. i.e. plebis.

deque alia re referrent: were bringing forward for discussion another matter.

12. egique acerrime: went on very vigorously.

15. contentio atque actio: effort and deed.

17. tempus

...

agendi: opportunity of doing something. 19. actaque: A bulletin of public news was issued daily at Rome. Citizens made copies to send to their friends abroad, and it was common for prominent men to arrange for receiving the acta regularly.

23. consularis: i.e. senators who have been consuls.

male sentientes: ill disposed.

24. Servio: Servius Sulpicius Rufus (see note p. 16, heading), who had been sent on an embassy to Antony and had died. 25. avunculus: he was the uncle of Antony.

27. puer Caesar : Octavianus, heir by adoption of Julius Caesar. spero reliqua : Others as well as Cicero had at this time very great hope in Octavian, though later it was shattered.

hoc... habeto: and at least be certain of this.

PAGE 24. 3. is . . . terror: i.e. the fear afforded by the success of Octavian in winning over the two legions here referred to.

VOCABULARY.

Containing those words in the text of this edition which are not found in
D'Ooge's "Select Orations of Cicero."

ab-solvō, -ere, -solvī, -solū- | become quiet; to find rest; to be tus, 3. v. a., to slack away, let comforted, be satisfied; to agree yo; release, set free, declare not with. guilty; send away, help to go; complete.