elective assembly, said to his mother, 'To-day you shall see your
son either as pontifex, or you shall never see him again.' Caesar,
however, is here called an _adolescentulus_ only in comparison
with the aged Catulus, for he was at that time thirty-six years old.
[239] 'In public life by the greatest exhibitions;' for _munera_ are
exhibitions by means of which a private person, and still oftener a
magistrate, endeavoured to win the favour of the people. As regards
Caesar, that which is said here refers to the brilliant exhibitions
in his aedileship, and the games which he gave while invested with
that office. But he had thereby got so deeply into debt, that when,
after his praetorship--with which he was invested in B. C. 62, the
year after the Catilinarian conspiracy--he wanted to leave Rome to go
to his province of Spain, he was kept back by his creditors; and
he was not allowed to depart until M. Crassus had given security
for him.
[240] _Dicerent_. Respecting this subjunctive, see Zumpt, S 551.
[241] _Mobilitas animi_, 'irritability,' or that state of mind which is
easily excited, or upon which it is easy to make an impression.
_Clarius esset_ is an explanation of _gladio minitarentur_.

50. Dum haec in senatu aguntur et dum legatis Allobrogum et T. Volturcio,
comprobato eorum indicio, praemia decernuntur, liberti et pauci ex
clientibus Lentuli diversis itineribus opifices atque servitia in
vicis ad eum eripiundum sollicitabant, partim exquirebant duces
multitudinum,[242] qui pretio rem publicam vexare soliti erant. Cethegus
autem per nuntios familiam atque libertos suos, lectos et exercitatos in
audaciam, orabat, ut grege facto cum telis ad sese irrumperent. Consul,
ubi ea parari cognovit, dispositis praesidiis, ut res atque tempus
monebat, convocato senatu refert, quid de his fieri placeat, qui in
custodiam traditi erant. Sed eos paulo ante frequens senatus judicaverat