19. QUAM PALMAM etc.: a prophecy after the event, like that in Rep. 6, 11
_avi relliquias_, the finishing up of the Punic wars. For the use of
_relliquias_ cf. Verg. Aen. 11, 30 _Troas relliquias Danaum atque immitis
Achilli_; ib. 598; ib. 3, 87. -- TERTIUS: so all our MSS. This places the
elder Scipio's death in 183, which agrees with Livy's account in 39, 50,
10. But the year before Cato's censorship was 185 not 183, hence some edd.
read _quintus_ and some _sextus_ in place of _tertius_.

P. 9. -- NOVEM ANNIS: as Cato's consulship was in 195 these words also
apparently disagree with _tertius_ above. _Novem annis post_ means nine
_full_ years after, _i.e._ 185 not 186; cf. 42 _septem annis post_. --
ENIM: implies that the answer 'no' has been given to the question and
proceeds to account for that answer. -- EXCURSIONE: a military term =
'skirmishing'; Cf. Div. 2, 26 _prima orationis excursio_. -- HASTIS:
loosely used for _pilis_. The long old Roman _hasta_, whence the name
_hastati_, had long before Cato's time been discarded for the _pilum_ or
short javelin, which was thrown at the enemy from a distance before the
troops closed and used the sword. -- CONSILIUM: the repetition of consilium
in a different sense from that which it had in the sentence before seems to
us awkward; but many such repetitions are found in Cicero. _Consilium_
corresponds to both 'counsel' and 'council'; the senate was originally
_regium consilium_, the king's body of advisers. Here translate _summum
consilium_ 'the supreme deliberative body'. -- SENATUM: 'assembly of
elders'. Cf. 56 _senatores, id est senes_. _Senatus_ implies a lost verb
_sen[=a]-re_, to be or grow old from the stem of which both _sen[=a]-tus_
and _sen[=a]-tor_ are derived. This stem again implies a lost noun or
adjective _senus_, old. The word _senatus_ was collective, like
_comitatus_, a body of companions, _exercitus_, a trained band etc.