Mamurra of Formiae, Caesar’s favourite and for a time during the Gallic wars an officer in his army, had, presumably a short time before the composition of this poem, returned to the capital and was in all likelihood then occupied with the building of his much-talked-of marble palace furnished with lavish magnificence on the Caelian hill.  The Iberian booty mentioned in the poem must have reference to Caesar’s governorship of Further Spain, and Mamurra must even then, as certainly afterwards in Gaul, have been found at Caesar’s headquarters; the Pontic booty presumably has reference to the war of Pompeius against Mithradates, especially as according to the hint of the poet it was not merely Caesar that enriched Mamurra.

More innocent than this virulent invective, which was bitterly felt by Caesar (Suet.  Caes. 73), is another nearly contemporary poem of the same author (xi.) to which we may here refer, because with its pathetic introduction to an anything but pathetic commission it very cleverly quizzes the general staff of the new regents—­the Gabiniuses, Antoniuses, and such like, suddenly advanced from the lowest haunts to headquarters.  Let it be remembered that it was written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation.  The poet, as if he too expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives to two of his clients their last instructions before departure: 

-Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli-, etc.

11.  V. VIII.  Clodius

12.  In this year the January with 29 and the February with 23 days were followed by the intercalary month with 28, and then by March.

13. -Consul- signifies “colleague” (i. 318), and a consul who is at the same time proconsul is at once an actual consul and a consul’s substitute.

14.  II.  III.  Military Tribunes with Consular Powers

Notes for Chapter IX

1. iv. 434

2.  Tigranes was still living in February 698 (Cic. pro Sest. 27, 59); on the other hand Artavasdes was already reigning before 700 (Justin, xlii. 2, 4; Plut.  Crass. 49).

3.  V. IV.  Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects

4.  V. IV.  Military Pacification of Syria

5.  V. VII.  Repulse of the Helvetii, V. VII.  Expeditions against the Maritime Cantons

6.  V. VII.  Cassivellaunus

7.  V. VII.  The Carnutes ff.

8.  V. II.  Renewal of the War

9.  V. IV.  Difficulty with the Parthians

10.  IV.  I. War against Aristonicus

11.  V. VII.  Insurrection

12.  V. VIII.  Humiliation of the Republicans

13.  V. VIII.  Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System

14.  V. VIII.  Humiliation of the Republicans