NOTES

1 Early in January 58, Clodius had passed a rapid succession of laws that ingratiated him with the urban mob (MRR 2.196). Among these laws was a bill providing for the distribution of free grain to Roman citizens and another that overturned the senate’s ban on collegia (trade guilds or mutual-aid societies), which had been suppressed in 64 to prevent their use to influence the vote in assemblies or to promote violence for the disruption of assemblies and courts (Asc. 7C).

2  At the time of the elections (14 or 18 July, see Kaster 2006: 398) Caesar was in a lull between his two major campaigns in 58 and so able to turn his attention to affairs in Rome, the Helvetians having been defeated at Bibracte in late June (BG 1.23-6; Dio 38.33.3-5), while the victory over Ariovistus fell sometime in September, before the 25th (BG 1.50-3; Dio 38.4-50).

3  Ibid. §6. The trouble is to be explained, no doubt, as having been caused, in part, by Clodius’ grain law of 58 (see above, n. 1), which placed a severe strain upon the treasury, as well as on the infrastructure for the transport, storage, and distribution of grain.

4  Such a set of understandings between Appius and Caesar will help to explain the dramatic switch in allegiance on the part of Clodius. After he reconciled his differences with Pompey (Cic. Mil. 21, 79; Schol. Bob. 170St), Clodius began to praise Pompey (Cic. Har. resp. 50-2) and aid his bid for the consulship of 55 (Dio 39.29), while helping block the rival candidacy of L. Domitius (Cic. Att. 4.8a.2). Part of the basis for the good relations between Clodius and Pompey may lie in the marriage of Clodius’ niece, the daughter of App. Claudius, to Pompey’s son Gnaeus, if that marriage occurred in 56, as Tatum (1991) argues.

5  Suet. (Iul. 24.3) alone claims that the senate sent out legati (a commission) to investigate the charges, apparently confusing with a special commission the senate’s authorization of Caesar’s ten legates in the spring of 56 (see above, p. 42). Dio (39.25.1) likewise mistakenly connects these ten legati of Caesar with the senate’s usual practice of sending a commission of ten to regulate affairs after the conquest of new territory. Stanton (2003: 88) accepts the commission of inquiry as fact.

6  Caesar’s aim, of course, was to win popular acclaim by rivaling the magnificence of Pompey’s recently completed stone theatre in the Campus Martius (dedicated 55 BC).

7  The tradition that Pompey out of forgetfulness (per oblivionem) failed at first to recognize Caesar’s recently won privilege, only to restore it by the dubious means of adding a codicil to his law after it had already been inscribed and filed in the Record Office (Suet. Iul. 28.3; Dio 40.56.3), almost certainly rests on anti-Pompeian propaganda. The fact that Pompey’s bill is not known to have met with resistance from any of the tribunes, as it surely would have if it had been perceived as canceling Caesar’s privilege outright, is proof that Pompey bore in mind the interests of his political partner Caesar (Balsdon 1962: 141).

8 App. B Civ. 1.100; cf. Caes. BC 1.32.2. However, when pressure grew in the senate for Caesar to hand over his provinces at the earliest possible date, there was speculation in October 51 that he might stand at the elections in 50 for the consulship of 49 (Cael. Fam. 8.8.9). To do so would have required a dispensation from Sulla’s ten-year rule, but the third consulship of Pompey in 52, a mere two years after his second consulship in 55, demonstrates how easily such a statute could be waived.

9  The stakes were high because to have earned the credit for extending the Roman franchise to the region north of the Po would have added enormously to Caesar’s clientela and greatly enhanced his clout in Roman voting assemblies. His enemies in the senate could not stand still for this.

10 The later sources show some confusion over the status of Marcellus’ victim, Plutarch (Caes. 29. 2) making him a member of the town council, while Appian (B Civ. 2.26) identifies him as an ex-magistrate. Appian (ibid.) is surely mistaken in asserting that Caesar founded a Latin, not a citizen, colony at Novum Comum. The lex Vatinia of 59 had clearly empowered Caesar to confer full Roman citizenship on his new colonists (Suet. lul. 28.3; Strabo 213C, with Cic. Fam. 13.35.1).

11  Pompey’s interests were affected because his father, Pompey Strabo (consul 89), had founded a colony at Comum in the previous generation (Strabo 213C) and had conferred Latin rights on the whole Transpadane region by a law passed in his consulship (Asc. 3C). Possibly, too, some of Caesar’s colonists were drawn from Pompey’s veterans (How 1926: 244).

12  Marcellus’ demand appears to have been made as early as the beginning of March 51 (Cic. Att. 8.3.3); see Giovannini 1983: 139-41 for the correct interpretation of that passage.

13  Said to have ranged anywhere from a few million (Schol. Lucan 4.820; Serv. Aen. 6.621) to as high as ten (Vell. 2.48.3-4) or even 60 million sesterces (Val. Max. 9.1.6). No contemporary source, however, reports such a cash transaction, and it is tempting to follow Lacey (1961: 324-9) in viewing Curio as changing sides out of political considerations, much as Cicero’s friend M. Caelius did in December 50 (Cic. Att. 7.3.6).

14  Balsdon 1939: 67 points out that the Ides November may have been the traditional date for consuls to set out from Rome to assume command of their provinces.

15  This was not done without some justification since pay for that legion had continued to be drawn from Pompey’s account even while it was serving under Caesar in Gaul (Cael. Fam. 8.4.4).

16  The language in Hirtius (BG 8.50.4) suggests that undue influence was used by Caesar’s enemies to block Galba: see Girardet 2000: 704.

17  Said to have been uttered in Greek (Plut. Pomp. 60.2, cf. Caes. 32.6), it being a well-attested proverb, not confined to Menander (fr. 59, ed. Korte). I thank E. Badian for spurring me to ponder why Asinius Pollio, Caesar’s companion at the crossing of the Rubicon and clearly the origin of ‘‘let the die be cast’’ tradition, caused this colorful detail to be added to the story of Caesar’s invasion of Italy, while Caesar himself gives it no place in BC 1.8. It seems that the aim in Caesar’s account was to portray the conqueror of Gaul as the victim of circumstances, forced to go to war as the only alternative to surrendering to his enemies. Pollio, by contrast, chose to introduce an element of anguished hesitation and dramatic hand-wringing on the part of Caesar before he took such a momentous and irrevocable step. In that context, the proverbial expression ‘‘let the die be cast’’ provides ideal closure.