3.A REIGN THAT IS CRUEL IS STORMY
6. WILL YOU TAKE A WOMAN’S ADVICE
because the crime is committed with the gods present as witnesses and also the pure and holy sacrificial victims are bespattered with human blood.
TO ATTACK
According to the proper meaning of the word. For the word adoriri [to spring forth, i.e., attack] as Donatus on Andria [4.1.46.670] states means:
to rush in suddenly from an ambush, from the fact that the bodies of the invaders loom up suddenly and grow large. Also on Adelph. [3.3.50.404]:
Aggredimur means, we attack from a distance; adorimur, we attack from an ambush. Cicero, Pro Mil. [10.29] Clodius’ party… partly ran to the coach intending to attack Milo in the rear… Livy [7.36.11f]:… they are led onwards to the enemy by a more open path. Having unexpectedly attacked the enemy when off their guard… Livy [21.27.3]:… that when the occasion required he might attack the enemy in the rear. Curtius [8.1.5]: When he was passing through a forest, those who were lurking there together, attacked without warning and killed him with all his companions. Yet this distinction is not maintained everywhere.
keeping secrets is concerned. But, O Brutus, my disposition possesses a certain power derived from a good upbringing and excellent traditions, also from the fact that I am the daughter of Cato, and was given to Brutus as wife. Livy in Cato’s discourse [34.2.11]: Our ancestors thought it not proper that women should perform any, even private business, without a director, but that they should be ever under the control of parents, brothers or husbands. For this reason Jupiter strongly reprimands Juno because she boldly intruded upon the serious deliberations of the gods. Iliad., [1.545-550].
SALVIDIENUS WAS FOLLOWED BY LEPIDUS He is Q. Salvidienus, to whom Augustus, when about to attack Sextus Pompey on land and sea, entrusted the fleet; he was held in great honor, and advanced as far as the consulate through Augustus’ liberality:
Antony/aid bare by his own disclosure this man’s wicked plot against Caesar. Finally condemned, he committed suicide. Livy [127], as stated by L. Florus, Epitome and Eusebius, Chron. The commentators on Suetonius are dreaming who think Cornelius Gallus was delivered over to the senate for condemnation [Suet., Aug. 66.2] and Salvidienus was only denied access to the provinces. Suetonius’ words [Aug., 66.2] are, One of these, being engaged in plotting a rebellion, he delivered over to the senate, for condemnation; and the other, on account of his.., malicious temper, he denied access to his house, and to his provinces. But when, however, Gallus was, by his accusers’ denunciations and senatorial decrees, driven to death, he commended, indeed, the attachment to his person of those who manifested so much indignation. But he shed tears, and lamented his unhappy condition, because to him alone was it not permitted to become angry at friends, as he should have liked. LEPIDUS, not the Pontflex Maximus and colleague of Augustus in the triumvirate, but his son, whom Suetonius calls the younger Lepidus [Aug., 19.1]. L. Florus [Livy, Epit., 133]: When he had put an end to the civil wars, in the thirty-first year, M.
Lepidus, son of the Triumvir Lepidus, when a conspiracy was made against Caesar, meditating war, was overwhelmed and killed. Muraena and Coepio were brothers of Proculeius, if we are to believe Porphyrion.
Muraena’s treachery was discovered through information given by Castritius. See Suetonius [Aug., 56.4]; the same also [Tib., 8]: He
prosecuted Fannius Coepio, who had been engaged in a conspiracy with Varro Muraena against Augustus, and procured sentence of condemnation against him. Seneca, On Brevity of Life [4.5] While he was extending its boundaries beyond the Rhine, the Euphrates, and the Danube, at Rome itself the swords of Muraena, Coepio, Lepidus, Egnatius, and others were being sharpened to slay him. Livia therefore means: Lepidus was not frightened by the punishment of Salvidienus, nor Muraena by the torment of Lepidus, nor Coepio by that of Muraena. Note the rhetorical scheme, called “climax”, an example of which is that well-known line [Fasti., 3.21]:
Mars sees this girl; desires the sight, gains his desire.
TO SAY NOTHING OF THOSE OTHERS Namely, Plautus Rufus, L. Audactius, L. Paulus, Varro, Telephus, Aridasius, Epicadius. [Suet., Aug., 19].
PARDON CINNA HE HAS BEEN ARRESTED The sense is: if you pardon L. Cinna, your leniency will become an example and it will redound to your credit. Namely, it will be great proof of your clemency. And now you need not fear his plot. Once arrested he can no longer harm you. DEPREHENSUS (arrested) is, properly speaking, a nautical term, as Servius informs us. Statius, Thebaid., [1.370]:
And just as the sailor, arrested by the winter seas...
Ovid, Heroid. Epist. [7.65f]:
Imagine, pray, yourself arrested by the fury of the storm — A puny human bung — what will you think of then?
But it is transferred to other things when we wish to express that someone is so constrained in a narrow place, that no way lies open to flee. Curtius [7.4.4.]: In so many mountain lairs, among which the enemy, being attacked, would have occasion not even for flight not yet for resistance.
Quintilian [12.2.14]: Just as certain small creatures, mobile enough in a narrow space, are easily arrested in an open field. Truly then Cinna had been arrested because his plot was disclosed and where, when, and how he proposed to attack.