34 Frederick Warren Sanford 



The verb attulit is an epistolary perfect. In prioribus litteris we 

 have a reference to no other than Fmn. VIII, 14. Both that letter 

 and Fam. VIII, 12, were carried by Acastus. Caelius wrote 

 Fam. VIII, 14, in August and entrusted it to Acastus with the 

 understanding that the latter would start soon. For some un- 

 known reason Acastus lingered in Rome more than forty days. 

 His delay in starting may account in part for the quick trip that 

 he made eventually to the Piraeus.^^*^ Fam. VIII, 12, may have 

 been written as late as September 2t„ or as early as the 19th. 

 In dies qnadraginta Caelius employs a round number ; aniplius dies 

 quadraginta imply less than fifty days, at most forty-nine, and 

 necessarily at least 41. If Fam. VIII, 12, be given its latest pos- 

 sible date, September 23, and if the more than forty days be taken 

 as forty-one, the latest date at which Acastus can have received 

 Fam. VIII, 14, is August 12. The earliest date lies forty-nine 

 days back from September 19, i. e., July 31. General probability 

 is against either extreme. July 31 is improbable for the following 

 reasons also. The earliest possible date of the augural election 

 was July 20, leaving only eleven days to July 31 inclusive. The 

 criminal process directed against Peducaeus probably required 

 jnore than this amount of time.^^^ In Fam. VIII, 14, i, also, the 

 manner in which Caelius cites Peducaeus's acquittal as a reason 

 for hope in the case of Saturninus indicates that Caelius is not 

 writing the very day of the acquittal. To give Fam. VIII, 14, the 

 date July 31 would not leave time for the criminal process and 

 for the probable interval between its conclusion and the writing 

 of the letter. The comitial days in July after the 20th were the 

 22d and the 26th to the 31st inclusive. If the augural election 

 occurred on the 26th, there remained seventeen days between that 

 date and August 12, inclusive, probably sufficient to include the 

 criminal process and to allow several days before Caelius wrote 

 Fam. VIII, 14. But this places the writing of the letter and its 

 delivery to Acastus on the latest possible date. As remarked, 

 general probability is against either extreme. It is most likely. 



'21 days, Fam. XIV, 5, i. 

 ' P. 307. 



326 



