[89] Pompey was fighting in a distant part of the world--_In extremis
terris_. Pompey was then conducting the war against Mithridates and
Tigranes, in Pontus and Armenia.

[90] The senate was wholly off its guard--_Senatus nihil sane intentus_.
The senate was _regardless_, and unsuspicious of any danger.

[91] XVII. Lucius Caesar--He was a relation of Julius Caesar; and his
sister was the wife of M. Antonius, the orator, and mother of Mark
Antony, the triumvir.

[92] Publius Lentulus Sura--He was of the same family with Sylla,
that of the Cornelii. He had filled the office of consul, but his
conduct had been afterward so profligate, that the censors expelled
him from the senate. To enable him to resume his seat, he had
obtained, as a qualification, the office of praetor, which he held at
the time of the conspiracy. He was called Sura, because, when he had
squandered the public money in his quaestorship, and was called to
account by Sylla for his dishonesty, he declined to make any defense,
but said, "I present you the calf of my leg (_sura_);" alluding to a
custom among boys playing at ball, of inflicting a certain number of
strokes on the leg of an unsuccessful player. Plutarch, Life of
Cicero, c.17.

[93] Publius Autronius--He had been a companion of Cicero in his
boyhood, and his colleague in the quaestorship. He was banished in the
year after the conspiracy, together with Cassius, Laeca, Vargunteius,
Servius Sylla, and Caius Cornelius, under the Plautian law. _De
Brosses_.