[Footnote 125: Consul B.C. 69, superseded in Crete by Pompey B.C. 65. Triumphed B.C. 62.] [Footnote 126: Prætor B.C. 63, defended by Cicero in an extant oration.] [Footnote 127: Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, consul in B.C. 72. Cicero puns on the name Lentulus from _lens_ (pulse, φακή), and quotes a Greek proverb for things incongruous. See Athenæus, 160 (from the _Necuia_ of Sopater): Ἴθακος Ὀδυσσεὺς, τὸ ἐκὶ τῇ φακῇ μύρον πάρεστι· θάρσει, θυμέ. ] [Footnote 128: B.C. 133, the year before the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus. The law of Gracchus had not touched the public land in Campania (the old territory of Capua). The object of this clause (which appears repeatedly in those of B.C. 120 and 111, see Bruns, _Fontes Iuris_, p. 72) is to confine the allotment of _ager publicus_ to such land as had become so subsequently, _i.e._, to land made "public" principally by the confiscations of Sulla.] [Footnote 129: That is, he proposed to hypothecate the _vectigalia_ from the new provinces formed by Pompey in the East for five years.] [Footnote 130: The consulship. The bribery at Afranius's election is asserted in Letter XXI.] [Footnote 131: The day of the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators.] [Footnote 132: Epicharmus, twice quoted by Polybius, xviii. 40; xxxi. 21. νᾶφε καὶ μέμνας' ἀπιστεῖν, ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν.] [Footnote 133: _Pedarii_ were probably those senators who had not held curule office. They were not different from the other senators in point of legal rights, but as ex-magistrates were asked for their _sententia_ first, they seldom had time to do anything but signify by word their assent to one or other motion, or to cross over to the person whom they intended to support.] [Footnote 134: P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, son of the conqueror of the Isaurians. As he had not yet been a prætor, he would be called on after the _consulares_ and _prætorii_. He then moved a new clause to the decree, and carried it.] [Footnote 135: The decree apparently prevented the recovery of debts from a _libera civitas_ in the Roman courts. Atticus would therefore have to trust to the regard of the Sicyonians for their credit.] [Footnote 136: A son must be hard up for something to say for himself if he is always harping on his father's reputation; and so must I, if I have nothing but my consulship. That seems the only point in the quotation. I do not feel that there is any reference to praise of his father in Cicero's own poem. There are two versions of the proverb: τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί and τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ εὐδαίμονες υἱοί. ] XXV (A I, 20) TO ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS) ROME, 13 MAY [Sidenote: B.C. 60, ÆT. 46]