[Footnote 256: ἅλις δρυός, _i.e._, feeding on acorns is a thing of the past, it is out of date, like the golden age when they fed on wild fruit _et quæ deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes_ (Ovid, _Met._ i. 106); and so is dignity, it is a question of _safety_ now.] [Footnote 257: Ennius on Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator.] [Footnote 258: Pompey was in Campania acting as one of the twenty land commissioners.] [Footnote 259: The _lex Roscia theatralis_ (B.C. 67), which gave fourteen rows of seats to the equites.] [Footnote 260: That is, the law for distribution of corn among poorer citizens. There were many such. Perhaps the most recent was the _lex Cassia Terentia_ (B.C. 73). Cæsar, who, when in later years he became supreme, restricted this privilege, may have threatened to do so now.] [Footnote 261: _I.e._, as one of the twenty land commissioners. The next clause seems to refer to some proverbial expression, "to be invited to a place at Pluto's table," or some such sentence. Cicero means that his acceptance would be equivalent to political extinction, either from the obscurity of Cosconius or the inconsistency of the proceeding.] [Footnote 262: The uncle of Atticus. See p. 15.] [Footnote 263: After the scene of violence in which Bibulus, on attempting to prevent the agrarian law being passed, was driven from the rostra, with his lictors' fasces broken, he shut himself up in his house and published edicts declaring Cæsar's acts invalid, and denouncing the conduct of Pompey (Suet. _Cæs._ 20; Dio, xxxviii. 6).] XLVI (A II, 20) TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) ROME (JULY) [Sidenote: B.C. 59, ÆT. 47]