Letter coll=F:book=15:letter=6 Letter XXXVIII: ad familiares 15.6
Tarsus, July, 50 B.C.
Cicero's reply to Ep. XXXVII.1
laetus sum: for Cicero's real opinion of Cato's course, cf. Ep. XXXVII. introd. note.
Hector, opinor, etc.: cf. Ep. XVIII.7n.
aps te: archaic for abs te (=a te).
sententiae dictae: sc. in the senate.
te [gap in text] dedisse: Cicero was gratified that Cato's statement of the case in the senate was the free-will offering of a friend.
currum, lauream: these were among the insignia of a triumph.
ad meum sensum, etc., as far as my feelings go and resting one's opinion upoit a really honest and keen judgment.
[sect. 2]
superioribus litteris : cf. idem post iniuriam, etc., Ep. XXXIV. 13 (end).
honos: not the supplicatio, but the triumphus.
usitato praesertim: possibly a thrust at Cato himself, who secured a thanksgiving of twenty days for his son-in-law Bibulus (Att. 7.2. 7), although Cicero says of him: ego, nisi Bibulus qui, dum unus hostis in Syria fuit, pedem porta non plus extulit quam domo sua, 288 adniteretur de triumpho, aequo animo essem. Att. 6.8.5.
ex te: the Letters have not only the regular construction aliquid abs te peto, but also aliquid ex te peto and aliquid te peto. Cf. Ep. XXVI.1n.; Ep. LII.2n.
quod amicissime scribis: cf. existimes [gap in text] quod [gap in text] gaudere, Ep. XXXVII. 3.
id quod maluero: i.e. a triumph. The expression contains a thrust at Cato for his presumption in trying to secure for Cicero a resolution complimenting him upon the uprightness of his administration (cf. Ep. XXXVII.1) for which he had not asked, instead of a thanksgiving and a possible future triumph, which he did desire.
scribendo adfuisti: i.e. when the bill was drawn up in legal form; cf. legem conscripserun4 Ep. XV.7n.
re publica meliore: the violent discussions in the senate concerning a successor to Caesar were at their height.
