_nequiverit_. A person could not be a candidate for the consulship,
unless he could declare himself free from accusation within a certain
number of days before the time of holding the _comitia centuriata_.
That number of days was _trinundinum spatium_, that is, the time
occupied by three market-days, _tres nundinae_, with seven days
intervening between the first and second, and between the second and
third; or _seventeen days_. The _nundinae_ (from _novem_ and _dies_)
were held, as it is commonly expressed, every ninth day; whence
Cortius and others considered _trinundinum spatium_ to be twenty-seven,
or even thirty days; but this way of reckoning was not that of the
Romans, who made the last day of _the first ennead_ to be also the first
day _of the second_. Concerning the _nundinae_ see Macrob., Sat. i. 16.
"Muller and Longius most erroneously supposed the _trinundinum_ to be
about thirty days; for that it embraced only seventeen days has been
fully shown by Ernesti. Clav. Cic., sub voce; by Scheller in Lex. Ampl.,
p. 11, 669; by Nitschius Antiquitt. Romm. i. p. 623: and by Drachenborch
(cited by Gerlach) ad Liv. iii. 35." _Kritzius_.

[113] Cneius Piso--Of the Calpurnian gens. Suetonius (Vit. Caes., c. 9)
mentions three authors who related that Crassus and Caesar were both
concerned in this plot; and that, if it had succeeded, Crassus was to
have assumed the dictatorship, and made Caesar his master of the horse.
The conspiracy, as these writers state, failed through the remorse or
irresolution of Crassus.

[114] Catiline and Autronius--After these two names, in Havercamp's
and many other editions, follow the words _circiter nonas Decembres_,
_i.e._, about the fifth of December.

[115] On the first of January--_Kalendis Januariis_. On this day the