hostem: the proposition seems to have studiously omitted calling Antony's troops enemies: this Cicero objects to. vero, forsooth, marks the irony. civium: if not hostes, they were, of course, cives, whom it would be impious to kill. improbis (sc. civibus), criminals. inquit: the mover of the proposition which Cicero is combating is supposed to retort that, though citizens, these are criminals, and that Cicero's sarcasm therefore misses fire. clarissimus vir: P. Servilius Vatia, the proposer of the supplicatio, Caesar's colleague in his second consulship, B.C. 48. quae, etc.: i.e. these words are appropriate not to soldiers in arms against the state but to civil offenders.
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Select Orations of. Cicero. Allen and Greenough's Edition. Revised by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, with a special vocabulary by J. B. Greenough.
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