dipped in pitch or oil. -- SIBI ... SUMPSERAT: Cic. seems to think that
Duillius assumed these honors on his own authority. This was probably not
the case; they were most likely conferred on him by a vote of the _comitia
tributa_. Cf. Liv. epit. 17 _C. Duillius primus omnium Romanorum ducum
navalis victoriae duxit triumphum, ob quam causam ei perpetuus quoque honos
habitus est, ut revertenti a cena tibicine canente funale praeferretur_. No
other instance is known where these particular distinctions were decreed;
the nearest parallel lies in the right accorded to Paulus Macedonicus and
to Pompeius to wear the triumphal _toga picta_ for life on each occasion of
the _ludi_. It may be conjectured that the music and the torch were part of
the ceremony on the evening of a triumph when the _triumphator_ was
escorted home. Cf. Florus 1, 18, 10, ed. Halm. -- NULLO EXEMPLO: 'without
any precedent'. -- PRIVATUS: any person is _privatus_ who is not actually
in office at the moment referred to, whether he has led a public life or
not. -- LICENTIAE: a strong word is used to mark the heinousness of
Duillius' supposed offence against ancestral custom.

45. ALIOS: _sc. nomino_. -- PRIMUM: the corresponding _deinde_ is omitted,
as often. -- SODALIS: the _sodalitates_ or _sodalitia_, brotherhoods for
the perpetuation of certain rites accompanied with feasting, were
immemorial institutions at Rome. The clause _sodalitates ... acceptis_ must
not be taken to mean that Cicero supposed these brotherhoods to have been
first instituted in the time of Cato; it is only introduced to show that
Cato, so far from being averse to good living, assisted officially in the
establishment of new clubs. Most of the _sodalitates_ were closely
connected with the _gens_; all members of a _gens_ were _sodales_ and met
together to keep up the old _sacra_, but in historical times fictitious
kinship largely took the place of real kinship, and feasting became almost
the sole raison d'être of these clubs. [See Mommsen's treatise _De
collegiis et sodaliciis Romanis_] The parallel of the London City Companies