Narrative in Eighth Book of the " Gallic War " 1 5 



other opponents of Caesar, reveal a conservative up to the time 

 of the augural contest. Although at the date of Fam. VIII, 14 

 {cf. §§2, 3) Caelius had not definitely committed himself to 

 Caesar's cause, his support of Antonius was a plain advertisement 

 of his openness to conviction and could not but anger Pompeius. 

 Unless Fam. VIII, 14, was written before VIII, 12, Cicero might 

 have been at a loss to understand ewn velle hoc muniisculum de- 

 ferre Cn. Pompeio. The same alternative hypothesis of a lost 

 letter or a commentarium applies in this case as in the case of 

 Domitius and Caelius. 



From Fam. VIII, 14, i, we learn that Domitius after his defeat 

 at the polls invoked the aid of the courts to vent his anger at 

 various supporters of Antonius, enlisting his son Gnaeus as pros- 

 ecutor in at least one case, that of Saturninus. In the closing 

 sentence of § i Caelius alleges the acquittal of Sex. Peducaeus as 

 a ground for hope in the case of Saturninus : Nam Cn. Saturni- 

 num adnlesccntem ipse Cn. Domitius reum fecit sane quant supe- 

 riore a vita invidiosiim; quod indicium nunc in exspectatione est,, 

 etiam in bona spe post Sex. Peducaei ahsolutionem. Caelius does 

 not say that Peducaeus was prosecuted for an offense committed 

 in support of Antonius's election to the augurate. But it must- 

 have been so, in order that the citation of his case should be to 

 the point. Peducaeus's support of Antonius here assumed finds 

 some confirmation in the fact that he took sides with Caesar in 

 the Civil War.^^ The nature of the charge against Peducaeus is 

 not stated. The most natural charges incidental to an election 

 were ambitus and vis. Cicero, in alluding to this election, Phil. 

 II, 2, 4, says: Cuius (Curionis) etiam familiares de vi condemnati 

 sunt, quod tui nimis studiosi fuissent. That all cases resulted in 

 conviction is not probable. It was not to Cicero's purpose to note 

 exceptions. A criminal process involved the postulatio, followed 

 by the nominis delatio, at which the praetor set the hearing of the 

 case not less than ten days later. "" If postulatio and nouiinis 

 delatio in the case of Peducaeus occurred on successive days, if 

 the ten days be taken by inclusive reckoning, and if one day only^ 



' App., B. C, 11, 48. 



' Greenidge, Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time, p. 459 flf. 



