[Footnote 633: The object of the existing consuls in making such a bargain was to get to their provinces without difficulty, with _imperium_, which had to be bestowed by a formal meeting of the old _comitia curiata_. But that formality could be stopped by tribunes or other magistrates "watching the sky," or declaring evil omens: and just as these means were being resorted to to put off the elections, so they were also likely to be used in this matter. If it was thus put off into the next year, Domitius and Appius, not being any longer consuls, would have still greater difficulty. Corrupt as the arrangement was, it seems not to have come under any existing law, and both escaped punishment. Appius went as proconsul to Cilicia, in spite of the _lex curiata_ not being passed, but Domitius Ahenobarbus seems not to have had a province. The object of Domitius Calvinus and Memmius in making the compact was to secure their own election, which the existing consuls had many means of assisting, but it is not clear what Memmius's object in disclosing it was. Perhaps anger on finding his hopes gone, and an idea that anything that humiliated Ahenobarbus would be pleasing to Cæsar. He also seems to have quarrelled with Calvinus. Gaius Memmius Gemellus is not to be confounded with Gaius Memmius the tribune mentioned in the next letter.] [Footnote 634: There is considerable uncertainty as to the exact nature of _iudicium tacitum_, here rendered "a trial with closed doors," on the analogy of the _senatus consultum tacitum_ described by Capitolinus, _in Gordian_. ch. xii. It is not, I think, mentioned elsewhere (_iudiciis tacitis_ of 2 _Off._ § 24, is a general expression for "anonymous expressions of opinion"), and the passage in Plutarch (_Cato min._ 44) introduces a new difficulty, for it indicates a court in which candidates _after_ election are to purge themselves. Again, _quæ erant omnibus sortita_ is very difficult. Cicero nowhere else, I believe, uses the passive _sortitus_. But, passing that, what are the _consilia_ meant? The tense and mood shew, I think, that the words are explanatory by the writer, not part of the decree. I venture, contrary to all editors, to take _omnibus_ as dative, and to suppose that the _consilia_ meant are those of the _album iudicum_ who had been selected to try cases of _ambitus_, of which many were expected. There is no proof that the _iudices_ in a _iudicium tacitum_ had to be senators, and the names in the next sentence point the other way. The senate proposed that the law should allow this selection from the _album_ to form the _iudicium tacitum_, which would give no public verdict, but on whose report they could afterwards act.]