[Footnote 699:  He returned B.C. 62.  The consuls who were elected for the year B.C. 61, were M. Pupius Piso, who had been a legatus of Pompeius in Asia, and M. Valerius Messalla.  See the Life of Pompeius, c. 44.]

[Footnote 700:  Probably Munatius Rufus, who is mentioned again in c. 36.  Drumann (Porcii, p. 162) says it was Munatius Plancus.]

[Footnote 701:  This was in B.C. 61, at the election of the consuls L. Afranius and Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer, the consuls of B.C. 60.  See the Life of Pompeius, c. 44.]

[Footnote 702:  Caesar returned B.C. 60, and was consul B.C. 59.  See the Life of Caesar, c. 13, 14, for the events alluded to in this 31st chapter; and the Life of Pompeius, c. 47.]

[Footnote 703:  See the Life of Caesar, c. 14.]

[Footnote 704:  Numidicus.  The story is told in the Life of Marius, c. 29.  The matters referred to in this and the following chapter are told circumstantially by Dion Cassius (38, c. 1-7).  See Life of Caesar, c. 14.]

[Footnote 705:  L. Calpurnius Piso, the father of Calpurnia the wife of Caesar, and Aulus Gabinius were consuls B.C. 58.  Aulus Gabinius, when Tribunus Plebis B.C. 67, proposed the law which gave Pompeius the command against the pirates.  The meaning of the obscure allusion at the end of the chapter, which is literally rendered, may be collected from the context; and still more plainly from the abuse which Cicero heaps on Gabinius for his dissolute life after he had been banished in the consulship of Gabinius (Drumann, Gabinii, p. 60).]

[Footnote 706:  This Ptolemaeus, the brother of Ptolemaeus Auletes, King of Egypt, was now in possession of Cyprus, and the mission of Cato, which could not be to his taste, was to take possession of the island for the Romans.  When Clodius had been made prisoner by the pirates nine years before, Ptolemaeus was asked to contribute to his ransom but he only sent two talents, for which ill-timed saving he was mulcted in his whole kingdom by this unprincipled tribune (Drumann, Claudii, p. 263).]

[Footnote 707:  He is called Caninius in the Life of Brutus, c. 3.]

[Footnote 708:  The feeble king had not spirit to attempt a resistance, which indeed would have been useless.  He put an end to himself by poison (c. 36), and the Romans took the island.  A more unjustifiable act of aggression than the occupation of Cyprus, hardly occurs even in the history of Rome.]

[Footnote 709:  The priesthood of such temples as Paphos was a valuable thing.  These temples had lands and slaves.]

[Footnote 710:  This was Auletes, the father of Cleopatra.  He was restored to his kingdom by A. Gabinius B.C. 55, while he was governor of Syria.]

[Footnote 711:  This is the meaning of the passage.  The interview was ludicrous enough, but Dacier makes it still more so, by seating Cato on a close-stool; and Kind and Schirach, two German translators, make him receive the king in the same way (Kaltwasser’s note).]