=25-28.= The first action of the new consul was to take auspices at his home and to assume the consular toga: compare Livy XXI 63 10 (217 BC; Flaminius has entered his consulship while absent from Rome) 'magis pro maiestate uidelicet imperii Arimini quam Romae magistratum initurum et in deuersorio hospitali quam apud penates suos praetextam sumpturum' (Mommsen _Staatsrecht_ I3 615-17). =26. NE TITVLIS QVICQVAM DEBEAT ILLE SVIS.= There are two possible ways of understanding this line. One way is to take _titulis_ as referring to Pompeius' earlier magistracies, 'as if the series of offices were a score which Pompey would pay in full when he became consul' (Wheeler). A similar use at _Her_ IX 1 'Gratulor Oechaliam titulis accedere nostris'. _Titulis_ does not have to be taken as a strict reference to the offices Pompeius had already held, but can have the wider sense of 'reputation, honour'. Compare the opening line of _Her_ IX quoted above; Professor R. J. Tarrant cites _Met_ XV 855 'sic magnus cedit _titulis_ Agamemnonis Atreus' and Juvenal VIII 241. The second way to take the passage is, with Némethy, to understand _titulis ... suis_ as being equivalent to _maioribus suis, qui magnos titulos habent_, the _tituli_ being the inscriptions below the _imagines_ of Pompeius' ancestors. A parallel for the sense at _EP_ III i 75-76 'hoc domui _debes_ de qua censeris, ut illam / non magis officiis quam probitate colas'. Professor E. Fantham suggests a refinement: _titulis ... suis_ should be taken in the sense 'achievements of his ancestors'. Compare Prop IV xi 32 'et domus est titulis utraque fulta suis'. =27. PAENE ATRIA.= Heinsius preferred PENETRALIA, the reading of _I_ and _F2_ ('sed ne sic quidem locus mihi uidetur plane in integrum restitutus'), apparently objecting to _paene_. The word seems weak enough, especially in view of Virgil _G_ I 49 'illius immensae _ruperunt_ horrea messes', but Professor R. J. Tarrant points out to me a similarly weak _paene_ at _Tr_ III xi 13-14 'sic ego belligeris a gentibus undique saeptus / terreor, hoste meum paene premente latus'. Burman conjectured LAETA and PLENA; neither seems very convincing. For _atria_ compare _Her_ XVI 185-86 'occurrent denso tibi Troades agmine matres, / nec capient Phrygias _atria_ nostra nurus'. _Penetralia_, although poorly attested, is in itself appropriate enough, since the new consul began his magistracy in front of his _penates_: Festus (Mueller 208; Lindsay 231) defined the _penetralia_ as the 'penatium deorum sacraria'. =28. ET POPVLVM LAEDI DEFICIENTE LOCO.= The jostling of a crowd similarly described at _Am_ III ii 21-22 'tu tamen a dextra, quicumque es, parce puellae; / contactu lateris laeditur ista tui'.