18. NISI FORTE: ironical, used to introduce a possible, but absurd objection to something which has gone before. The verb that follows is always in the indicative. -- MILES etc.: 'as common soldier'; see n. on 10. -- IN VARIO GENERE: we use the plural, 'in different kinds'. Cf. Acad. 2, 3 _in omni genere belli_; Deiot. 12 _in omni genere bellorum_. -- CESSARE: cf. n. on 13. -- AT SENATUI etc.: exactly the same ideas are expressed, with the same mention of Cato's activity in Off. 1, 79. -- MALE COGITANTI: 'which has now for a long time been plotting mischief'; A. 290, _a_; G. 671, 221; H. 549, 4; 467, III. 2. Cf. pro Sulla 70 _nefarie cogitare_; for the use of the adverb see n. on 16 _sic_. On Cato's attitude toward Carthage see Introd. -- VERERI: the construction is unusual. _Vereor_ regularly takes after it an accusative, or else a clause with _ne_ or _ut_. A passage much resembling this is Rab. Post. 10 _omnes qui aliquid de se verebantur_; cf. also Att. 10, 4, 6 _de vita sua metuere_; Verg. Aen. 9, 207 _de te nil tale verebar_; in all these examples the ablative with _de_ denotes the quarter threatened, not, as here, the quarter from which the threat comes. -- EXSCISAM: from _exscindo_; most edd. _excisam_, but to raze a city is _urbem exscindere_ not _excidere_; _e.g._ Rep. 6, 11 _Numantiam exscindes_. 19. QUAM PALMAM etc.: a prophecy after the event, like that in Rep. 6, 11 _avi relliquias_, the finishing up of the Punic wars. For the use of _relliquias_ cf. Verg. Aen. 11, 30 _Troas relliquias Danaum atque immitis Achilli_; ib. 598; ib. 3, 87. -- TERTIUS: so all our MSS. This places the elder Scipio's death in 183, which agrees with Livy's account in 39, 50, 10. But the year before Cato's censorship was 185 not 183, hence some edd. read _quintus_ and some _sextus_ in place of _tertius_.