BALSDON, Roman History, 58-56 B.C.- Three Ciceronian Problems

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ROMAN HISTORY, 58-56 B.C.: THREE CICERONIAN PROBLEMS'

By J. P. V. D. BALSDON

I

Clodius' ' repeal ' of the lex Aelia Fufia

Est postridie decretum in curia, populi ipsius Romani, et eorum qui ex municipiisconvenerant admonitu, ne quis de caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret.

Pro Sestio, I29.

Time and again Cicero abused Clodius for having, in his tribunate, both rescindedthe lex Aelia Fufia of 153 B.C.2 and also destroyed the censorship.3 The ' destruction ofthe censorship ' was, in fact, a seemingly just and reasonable bill to the effect that forthe future no senator might be expelled from the Senate unless, after he had been giventhe opportunity of answering the charges against him, both censors were in agreementover his expulsion.4 It would, therefore, be reasonable to suppose that the ' rescindingof the lex Aelia Fufia ', too, was far less drastic a measure than Cicero's vituperativelanguage implies, even if there was not, as there is, abundant evidence in the years.

following Clodius' tribunate that the lex Aelia Fufia remained on the statute book.In legislating to check irresponsible obnuntiatio, Clodius was evidently looking back

over his shoulder at the conduct of Bibulus in 59 ; and it is a reasonable hypothesis thatthe effect of Clodius' law, which Cicero distorts so grossly, was to render illegal theparticular abuse of obnuntiatio which Bibulus had practised. A. H. Greenidge thereforesuggested 5 that he ' abrogated at least that portion of the law which bolstered up themisuse of the spectio '-in fact, the patrician obnuntiatio-but that, in the matter ofobnuntiatio, he did not disturb the legal rights of augurs or of plebeian magistrates.6

W. F. McDonald 7 proposed an alternative hypothesis: that Clodius left untouchednot only the rights of augurs and of plebeian magistrates (as Greenidge had suggested)but also the right of patrician magistrates to practise spectio when they presided overelections. What on this theory he abolished was (in addition to the ban on legislationon dies fasti non comitiales) the right of patrician magistrates to practise spectio in thecase of legislative assemblies.

On Greenidge's hypothesis it is not easy to explain why, in early 44 B.C., Antonywas evidently not legally debarred from stopping by obnuntiatio the consular election at.which he was, as consul, presiding.8 On both hypotheses it is impossible to explainCicero's statement in Pro Sestio 78 (if the text is sound) that a praetor might haveemployed obnuntiatio to prevent his return from exile in 57: ' Si obnuntiasset Fabriciois praetor qui se servasse de caelo dixerat .' 9

Faced with this conflict of evidence, S. Weinstock 10 proposed a more drastichypothesis still, suggesting that Clodius did in fact cancel the whole of the lex Aelia Fufia,as Cicero says, but that during Cicero's exile the Senate decided that Clodius' adoptionhad been illegal and his legislation was therefore held to be invalid. But it is difficult-to conceive that, if this had happened, Cicero should have said nothing about it when,

1 In paying, however inadequately, my tribute ofgratitude and respect to Dr. Last, I have chosen towrite on Cicero, and in particular on Cicero's Letters,for it is to Dr. Last that I owe my earliest interest inCicero's Letters ; in particular, the second of thesenotes not only relies in part on what he has writtenbut also derives from an enjoyable conversation aboutMessius some time ago, in which he persuaded meto change my mind.

2 Post red. in sen. ii ; Pro Sest. 33 and 56; InVat. i8; De har. resp. 58; De prov. cons. 46; InPis. g f.; Phil. 2, 8I; cf. Asc., In Pison. 8C; Cass.Dio 38, 13, 4.

3 De har. resp. 58; De prov. cons. 46; In Pis. 9 f.4 Asc., In Pison. 8C; Dio 38, 13, 2.5 ' The Repeal of the lex Aelia Fufia,' CR vii

(1893), I58-i6i ; and R.P.L. 172 f.6 Obnuntiatio by tribunes after 58: Pro Sest. 79;

Ad Att. 4, 3, 3 f. (Tyrrell and Purser 2, 92); Ad

Att. 4, 9, I (T.P. 2, I22); Ad Q.F. 3, 3, 2 (T.P. 2y,151); Ad Att. 4, i6, 5 (T.P. 2, 144); Phil. 2, 99.Obnuntiatio by augurs, Plut., Cato mi. 42, 4; Phil..2, 80f.

7 ' Clodius and the lex Aelia Fufia,' JRS xix.(I929), I64-179.

8 Phil. 2, 81-3 ; on which see Macdonald I.c.,.i68 ff.

9 Macdonald l.c., 174 f., recognizes the difficulty-and thinks that either the text is wrong, the praetorwas bluffing, or Cicero, through error or prejudice,is inaccurate. The text is convincingly defended by'Weinstock (n. IO below), 2I9.

10 S. Weinstock, ' Clodius and the lex Aelia Fufia,'JRS xxvii (I937), 2I5-22 (with, on pp. 2I5 ff., avery good account of the origin and history of-obnuntiatio in the Republic). He thinks (p. 22I) thatthe lex Clodia was reintroduced by Julius Caesarlater.



i6 J. P. V. D. BALSDON

in the months following his recall, he delivered speech after speech in abuse of Clodius;and indeed his language in De provinciis consularibus 46 carries the clearest possibleimplication that Clodius' legislation was still held to be valid two years after it was passed.

Since there is an apparently insuperable objection to every one of these hypotheses,one more suggestion may be made, however tentatively: that Clodius' bill was to the

effect that, if faced with a repetition of Bibulus' obstructive tactics, it should be open onany occasion to the Comitia, or to the Concilium Plebis, to vote that obnuntiatio, ifattempted, should be disallowed.

That is exactly what was done before Cicero's recall: ' Est decretum . . . ne quisde caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret.' The decree was passed, however, notby the people but in the Senate. In which case, ironically, Clodius' law was not merelyused but abused in Cicero's interest, to facilitate his recall.11 That may be the reasonwhy Cicero went out of his way to claim that the Senate's decree was tantamount to adecision of the people: ' Est decretum in curia populi ipsius Romani et eorum qui exmunicipiis convenerant admonitu, ne quis de caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret.'

IIA proposal to give Pompey maius imperiumn n September, 57

Legem consules conscripserunt qua Pompeio per quinquennium omnis potestas reifrumentariae oto orbe terrarum daretur, alteram Messius qui omnis pecuniae dat potestatemet adiungit classem et exercitum et maius imperium in provinciis quam sit eorum qui easobtineant.

AdAtticum 4, I, 7.

On 7th September, 57, two days after Cicero gave thanks for his recall, the Senatedebated the corn crisis. Of the twenty or so consulares who, as far as we know, were inItaly at the time-we do not know how many were in Rome-only three, M. Valerius

Messalla, consul in 6i, Pompey's old officer L. Afranius, consul in 6o, and Cicerohimself, attended; the others were absent, no doubt because they did not wish tocommit themselves openly by speaking, though their excuse was that it would not besafe for them to attend. Cicero, therefore, was senior consular present, and had thehonour of proposing the resolution which the House adopted, that Pompey should beappointed Corn Commissioner with special powers.12 The Senate was summoned tomeet again on the following day, the 8th,13 and on this occasion all the consulares werepresent. The tribune Messius then made a proposal defining Pompey's new powers inone way, and the consuls made a proposal which defined them in another. The consularbill was passed. Cicero, who could have given us the details of both proposals, has givenus the details of neither. ' Omnis potestas rei frumentariae,' together with-presumably-the fifteen legati for whom Pompey had already asked,14 is the vaguest possible description

of powers which, in the consular bill, must have been defined with some measure ofprecision. What provision was made for financing Pompey's activities ? Was he grantedno ships at all, and no soldiers ? Was ' omnis pecuniae potestas ', proposed by Messius,anything more than a repetition of the sensible and practical clause of the lex Gabiniawhich in 67 had allowed Pompey to distrain on provincial treasuries and on publicanifor ready cash ? 15 And if the 'maius imperiumr' proposed by Messius was objectionable,how exactly was the imperium granted by the consular bill defined ? 16

11 Weinstock l.c., though his view differs frommine, has himself made the point (p. 2zo) that' Cicero owed his restoration, inter alia, to a senatusconsultum which, word for word, agreed with thelex Clodia'.

12 Ad Att. 4, i, 6 (T.P. 2, 90).

13 It was a 'senatus frequens' ; whether sum-moned as such, we cannot say. See, on this, p. I9below.

14 Ad Att. 4, I, 7 (T.P. 2, 90).15 Plut., Pomp. 25, 6 ; Appian Mith. 94.

16 Dio 39, 9, 3, says he was made proconsulfor five years 'KYa ?V T7n 'ITaNia Kai 9tc', PlutarchPomp. 49, 6, vaguely, that he became ' Tp6OTcr)I-rIVi r tv )y'fS Kml Oa&rTTflS bOflV EK?KTflVTO 'PcpclaoiKiopios'. Appian, BC 2, i 8, 67, says that he waselected -ris &yopas aCrroKp&-rcop'. To write of thiscommand, 'Pompey regarded it as an opportunity toacquire once more the military imperium,' asA. E. R. Boak did ('The extraordinary commandsfrom 80 to 48 B.C.: a study of the origins of thePrincipate', Am. Hist. Rev. xxiv (I9I8-I9), I9 f.) isto go some way beyond what the evidence warrants.



ROMAN HISTORY, 58-56 B.C. : THREE CICERONIAN PROBLEMS I7

We do not know the full scope of the Commission. As far as the city of Rome wasconcerned, it had two immediate and urgent purposes: first to restore the regular supplyof corn to the city and, as a consequence, to put an end to food scares and the danger ofrioting to which food scares led, and secondly to regularize the frumentatio, the distributionof the corn ration in Rome which, since Clodius' tribunate, was free.'7 There was need

for an official list of bona fide residents in the city, who were entitled to avail themselvesof the frumentatio; and this may be a reason why there seems to have been a provisionin the consular bill (which, for obvious reasons, had not been a part of the lex Gabiniaof 67 and was not to be repeated when, after 55, Pompey was allowed to govern hisSpanish provinces from Italy) that Pompey might enter the pomoerium at will withoutforfeiting his imperium.18 An important part of his work had to be done in Rome.

The Commission no doubt embraced more than the supply and distribution of thefrumentatio; it may well have included, for instance, the safeguarding of regular cornsupplies for the armies.

Pompey must have had ships under his command, and cannot have been dependenton the good offices of others for the voyages which he undertook to Sardinia, Sicily, andAfrica in the middle of the winter '9 and to Sardinia and Africa in the following spring; 20

and it is difficult to suppose that he was given no soldiers at all.Though others must have been stationed in other provinces,21 Q. Cicero in Sardinia

is the only one of Pompey's fifteen legati whose posting is known to us. He went toSardinia in December, 57, was based on Olbia, and did not leave the island until June, 56.22His dispatch in early winter-the calendar was about nineteen days wrong at this time-when for some months corn could neither be sown nor shipped, shows that there wasevidently an amount of fact-finding and organizational work to be done. Sardinia, then,in early 56, had a governor, Appius Claudius, who arrived, presumably, soon after Lucain April,23 and he had the normal provincial governor's staff, a quaestor and legati;while at Olbia, with imperium independent of his and derivative from Pompey's, andanswerable to Pompey alone, was Q. Cicero. If Appius or one of his legati had interferedin any act of Q. Cicero, there would have been a deadlock. We may assume the samesituation in Sicily and in Africa.

It was the thought of such a deadlock (for which the conflict of Pompey with theconsul C. Calpurnius Piso and with Metellus Creticus in 67 gave warning 24) that ledMessius to make the sensible proposal that Pompey's imperium should be ' maius ',intending that, if such a conflict arose in any matter directly concerned with the cornsupply, the decision of Pompey (or his lieutenant) should prevail.

To this proposal (to which, in Roman history, there was no precedent) the Senatehad reasonable grounds for objecting. The particular problem of the corn supply, seriousthough it was, did not warrant the grant to Pompey of all the latent, but potential, powersnormally held only by a consul-those powers which, in an article of fundamentalimportance, H. M. Last has (under the heading ' a maijus-minus relation, type A') soclearly defined.25

Whether either by the consular bill in 57 or by the lex Gabinia ten years earlierPompey's imperium was explicitly described as ' imperium aequum infinitum ', is extremelydoubtful. Velleius Paterculus 2, 31, 2, speaks of his imperium under the lex Gabinia of 67as ' aequum in omnibus provinciis cum proconsulibus usque ad quinquagesimum miliariuma mari ', but, if the Thesaurus LL. is a safe guide, the expression ' aequum imperium'does not occur elsewhere. Moreover, grave doubts have been cast by J. Beranger on thecommon assumption that the expression 'imperium infinitum' (commoner, in the few

17 Dio 39, 24, I, as interpreted by D. Van Berchem,Les distributions de bH et d'argent a' la plebe romainesous l'empire (Geneva, I939), 20 f.

18 See W. W. How, Cicero Select Letters (Oxford,I926) ii, I94 (note on Ad Q.F. 2, 3, 3).

19 Plut., Pomp. 40, I. These were 'haec triafrumentaria subsidia rei publicae ', Cic., De imp. Cn.PomP 34.

20 Ad Fam. i, 9, 9 (T.P. 2, I53).21 Plut., Pomp. 50, I: TroAAcay,'f &TrEO-E1?E TrpECYPEUT&S

Kai qpiAouv.

22 P-W viiA, I294; Ad Q.F. 2, i-6. If onlyCicero had had the smallest interest in provincialadministration, we might have learnt something fromthese letters of what Quintus was doing.

23 He made the arrangements for Luca (Ad Q.F.2, 4, 6; T.P. 2, 105), and attended the conferencethere in April (Plut., Caesar I, 5).

24 Piso, Dio 36, 37, 2 ; Metellus, Plut. Pomp. 29,

3 ff. See H. M. Last (n. 25 below), i6i.25 ' Imperiurm Maius: a note,' YRS xxxvii (I947),

157-I64; esp. I58-I62.



I 8 J. P. V. D. BALSDON

instances of its appearance, in the form ' infinitum imperium ') was ever used in atechnical sense. He claims that in Cicero, our only source, ' infinitum ' is merely a strongepithet, placed before or after ' imperium ', as the rhythm of the sentence demands.26

The imperium of conlegae was, of course, aequum: one could veto the other. Andin every province every year there was the possibility of a conflict of imperia in the short

period in which the outgoing governor was still functioning in one part of a province,unaware that his successor had already arrived and was already functioning in another.The take-over of Cicero from Appius Claudius in Cilicia in 5I illustrates this clearly.26aIn such cases the difficulty was not substantial because, once the outgoing governor hadleft for home, his successor might reverse any decision that he had taken, and the out-going governor had no legal ground of complaint.

Where one ' provincia' cut across another, the case was not so simple; and in 67it could reasonably be claimed that Pompey's ' provincia' of exterminating piracy cutacross Metellus' ' provincia ', which was to administer Crete in such a way as to guaranteepublic security in the island. In such a conflict it was only in cases where the questionat issue was determined by a lex that one of the two parties was certainly in the right;for instance, if the lex Gabinia, as we think, empowered Pompey to take money fromprovincial exchequers and from publicani, any provincial governor who interposed hisimperium to stop him from doing this within his province would have been breakingthe law.

III

Cicero and the lex Campana in 56; also a technical use of ' frequens senatus'

Quin etiam Marcellino et Philippo consulibus Nonis Aprilibus mihi est senatus adsensus,ut de agro Campano frequenti senatu Idibus Maiis referretur. Num potui magis in arcemillius causae invadere ?

Ad Fam. i,9, 8.

In the Perioche of Livy, in Velleius Paterculus and in Cassius Dio the conference ofLuca goes unmentioned. Suetonius, Plutarch, and Appian mention it, Plutarch suggestingin his Crassus that it was Crassus' anxiety for a military command which helped to provokethe meeting, Suetonius that it was Caesar's fear of what Domitius Ahenobarbus mightaccomplish if he was allowed to become consul in 55.27 While no other historian is asexplicit in this sense as Suetonius, yet Plutarch, Cassius Dio,28 and Appian all emphasizethe intrepidity of Domitius' candidature.

None of these historians has a word to say in this connection about Cicero and thelex Campana. Plutarch, indeed, who describes the Conference of Luca in his lives ofCaesar, Pompey, Crassus, and Cato, does not refer to it at all in his life of Cicero. The'evidence ' of Ad Familiares i, 9, 8, was not taken very seriously.

This is the last of the nine letters to Lentulus Spinther which, with one intrusion,constitute the first book of the letters Ad Familiares, and it was written, in December, 54,for a wider circle of readers than Spinther, already packing his bags to return fromCilicia, to whom it was formally addressed. It was written with the utmost care, and,in passages, with studied ambiguity; 29 it was Cicero's apologia pro vita recenti sua, his

25 Imperium aequum infinitum: Mommsen,Staatsr. ir, i3, 654 f., 672 f. Imperium Infinitum:J. BWranger, A propos d'un Imperium Infinitum,'Melanges .7. Marouzeau (Paris, I 948) 19-27. ' Infini-tum imperium 'is used in Verr. II, 2, 8, and II, 3, 213(Ps. Asconius ad loc.-259 Stangl-speaks of' curatio infinita totius orae maritimae ') and De dom.55 (of Gabinius and Piso, consuls of 58, in Syriaand Macedonia); 'imperium infinitum' appearsonly in De dom. 23 (of Gabinius and Piso).

26a Ad Fam. 3, 6, 4 (T.P. 3, 2I3), 'Qui te forumTarsi agere, statuere multa, decernere, iudicaredicerent, cum posses iam suspicari tibi essesuccessum.' I am grateful to my pupil Fr. J. Igalfor drawing my attention to this interesting point.

27 Suet., Divus Iulius 24, I ; Plut., Caesar 2I;Pomp. 5I; Crassus 14 f.; Cato mi. 4I; Appian,BC 2, 17, 6I-4.

239 3I, 1.

29 In particular in its references to Pompey.W. W. How (II, 2zi, o.c., n. I8 above, p. I7) must beright against Tyrrell that the violent reference in para.2 to 'ille perennis inimicus amicorum suorum qui tuismaximis beneficiis ornatus in te potissimum fractamillam et debilitatam vim suam contulit ' cannot bemeant to be an outspoken and unmistakable referenceto Pompey, but must refer to somebody else,probably the tribune C. Cato. But every con-temporary reader must have paused, as every modernreader pauses, to ask whether the reference could



ROMAN HISTORY, 58-56 B.C. : THREE CICERONIAN PROBLEMS I9

explanation of why he had come to terms with the Potentates in the spring of 56, afterSpinther left Rome; of why, in his political and forensic life, what followed, followed.Had Spinther (or any other reader) had no other evidence in front of him, he must havethought that it was because of the fright which Cicero had given Caesar that the Potentatesmet at Luca. Their combined strength was too much for him, and so he had capitulated

perforce; but he had gone down fighting: 'num potui magis in arcem illius causaeinvadere ? ' For on sth April he had proposed-so he told Lentulus-and the Senatehad agreed, that Caesar's lex Campana of 59 should be discussed in the Senate oni5th May. This proposal of his-an attack on Caesar's dignitas 30-had set the cat amongthe pigeons. Without any intimation to Cicero when he saw him on the night of7th April,31 Pompey had gone off to meet Caesar at Luca. Caesar, already incensed byCrassus, had protested. Pompey had written to tell Cicero to think again.32

That the Senate had agreed on 5th April to discuss the Campanian land (a questionwhich had been raised by the tribune Lupus at the end of 57 33) on I5th May is certain;also that on I5th May the matter was not discussed after all. But had Cicero in thismatter in fact taken the prominent part which in his letter more than two years later toSpinther he claimed to have taken ?

We have two letters written by him to his brother Quintus in Sardinia at the time.In the first,34 written on 8th April, he said that, because of current difficulties of theTreasury and shortage of corn, the question of the Campanian land had been hotlydebated on the fifth. He said nothing of any part which he had himself played in thediscussion. After I5th May he wrote 35 'Ante quod Idibus et postridie fuerat dictumde agro Campano actum iri, non est actum. In hac causa mihi aqua haeret'. That is all.

Where Cicero's description of his own doings is concerned, evidence from silence isvery strong evidence indeed; so that we may reasonably doubt whether he spoke at allin the debate on 5th April. He was evidently proposing to speak on I5th May, and outof this single fact he has constructed, after an interval of over two years, an episode farmore heroic than in fact it ever was. Historians are credulous indeed who, against thecontemporary evidence of his letters to Quintus, take the later evidence of Ad Fam. i, 9,au pied de la lettre.36

Apart from this question, which is one of historical fact, there is interest for theconstitutional historian in Cicero's words, ' Mihi est senatus adsensus ut de agro Campanofrequenti senatu Idibus Maiis referretur.

'Frequens senatus ' was a phrase used frequently by Republican writers, meaninga well-attended meeting of the Senate '.A There are a very small number of occasions,

however, on which, as we are informed, the consuls summoned a ' frequens senatus '.The consuls did this directly after the battle of the Metaurus in 207, ' praemisso edictout triduo post frequens senatus ad aedem Bellonae adesset.'38 The two praetors Brutusand Cassius issued such an edict in July, 44, according to a rumour, which afterwardsproved false; 39 and so later in the same year did the consul Antony.40 In these cases'

frequens senatus'

must havea technical

sense;it must mean ' a meeting when some

kind of sanction is liable to be imposed on senators present in Rome who do notattend' 41 or, alternatively, ' a meeting which cannot proceed to business unless thereis a quorum present'.

possibly be to Pompey. The answer was to be foundlater, in para. 6; it could not. But then, as now, thedoubt remained. Pompey was criticized obliquely atthe beginning of para. 9 ('Pompeius cum mihi nihilostendisset se esse offensum ') and what (para. 13) ofthose who did not come to Cicero's aid in 58, notbecause they were afraid, but because ' se timeresimularunt' ? What (para. I4) of the 'hominesfortiores in me restituendo quam fuerant idem in

tenendo ' ? ' Simulatio' occurs again at the end ofpara. 17. Had Cicero not written from exile earlierto Quintus (Ad Q.F. I, 3, 9; T.P. I, 66), ' Pompeiumetiam simulatorem puto ' ?

30 Ad Fam. r, 9, 9 (T.P. z, 153).31 Ad Q.F. 2, 5, 3 (T.P. 2, io6).32 Ad Fam. i, 9, 9 (T.P. 2, I53).

33 Ad Q.F. 2, 1, I (T.P. 2, 93).3 Ad Q.F. 2, 5, I (T.P. 2 Io6).35 Ad QE. 2, 6 (T.P. 2, II7).3 e.g. M. Cary in CAH IX, 533 f.3 Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 592 if.; Cic., Ad Fam.

8, 5, 3 ; 8, I3, z (T.P. ZIc; 27I) ; IO, 2, 3 (T.P. 6,838); Pro Murena 51 ; Sall., Cat. 50, 3 ; Hirtius,B.G. 8, 53, I, etc.

38 Livy 28, 9, 5 ; cf. 26, I0, 2 (of 21 I B.C.);

35, 7, I (of 193 B.C.),' ad

frequentiores consultatiodilata est' and Perioche 13. cf. Plautus, MilesGloriosus 592 ff.

39 Ad Att. I6, 7, I (T.P. 5, 783) ; cf. Phil. I, I I.40 Phil. 3, 19.4 cf. Phil. I sI f.



20 ROMAN HISTORY, 58-56 B.C. : THREE CICERONIAN PROBLEMS

It is certain that at the end of the Republic a quorum was necessary for three kindsof business: the granting of dispensations to individual senators,42 matters concerningthe conduct of the elections,43 the voting of supplicationes.44 Whether a quorum wasnecessary-at least by law, if not always in practice-for other business is uncertain;Mommsen thought it was,45 Willems 46 thought it was not.

Since the few summons of a 'frequens senatus ' of which we know are of considerableurgency, it might be thought that the debate on the land bill planned for i5th May, 56,was of similar urgency. This is not necessarily the case, however. The meeting on5th April was evidently the last meeting before the Senate adjourned for its normal springrecess and it looks as if I5th May was fixed as the date of the first meeting after the Senatereassembled. At that meeting the discussion of the Campanian land was not the first itemon the order paper; for Cicero later, in describing the meeting, starts not by sheddingtears over the cancellation of the discussion on the ager Campanus but with a whoop ofjoy: ' Idibus Maiis senatus frequens divinus fuit in supplicatione Gabinio deneganda.' 47

Gabinius' application for a supplicatio, therefore, was first item on the order paper. This,we know, was a subject which could not be debated without a quorum present. All thatthe consuls may have been doing, therefore, when they intimated on 5th April that thenext meeting would be on 15th May and would be a ' frequens senatus ', may have beento state for the benefit of senators who might be inclined to prolong their spring holidaysin Campania that there was business on the agenda of that meeting (Gabinius' applicationfor a supplicatio) which would require the presence of a quorum (probably of two hundredmembers 48).

42 By the lex Cornelia of 67: Asc. In Cornelian.59C; Cassius Dio 36, 39, 4.

43 Cassius Dio 39, 30, 3.44 Ad Fam. 8, II1, 2 (T.P. 3, 267) ; cf. Phil. I, 12 ;

5, 19. Possibly also by the lex Pompeia de provinciisof 52, a quorum was required for discussion ofprovincial appointments: Ad Att. 5, 4, 2 (T.P. 3,

187); Ad Fam. 8, 5, 3 ; 8, 9, 2 (T.P. 3, 2IO, 21I).

45 Staatsr. III, 23, 989 f. (D.p.r. VII, 179-8I).46 Le Se'nat et la Re'publique romaine iI, I65-171.

On p. I69, n. 3, he used Ad Fam. i, 9, 8, in favourof his view.

47 Ad Q.F. 2, 6, i (T.P. 2, 117).48 cf. Asc., In Cornelian. 59C for the number.

Documents

BALSDON, Roman History, 58-56 B.C.- Three Ciceronian Problems