1 Livy now records the events in Rome of the year 199 B.C.
2 The censors could determine also a citizen's classification on the census lists, and so could degrade an individual by placing him in a lower classification. This was accomplished by placing a particular mark (nota) opposite his name on the rolls. But in Livy here, this reference is to membership of the Senate only.
3 Capua was not a port, and portoria venalicium can not then refer to customs-duties, but must mean some other form of tax on merchandise, most probably a sales-tax of some kind. The town meant in the next clause cannot be identified, but it has been conjectured that it was a town which grew out of one of Hannibal's semi-permanent camps (Pliny, N.H. III. 95). If so, it may have been a harbour, and potorium would have its ordinary meaning of a “port-tax.” My translation takes it thus, and regards Castrum as the shorter genitive of Castra. Possibly we should read Castrum Portorium (cf. Castrum Novum in XXXVI. iii. 6), but this leaves fruendum with no obvious construction. There is corruption in the text of the earlier part of the sentence, and perhaps it extends into this clause; in this case certainty as to the meaning is probably unattainable.
4 B.C. 199
5 Manlius, like Lentulus (XXXI. xx.), had commanded in Spain after the return of Scipio (XXVIII. xxxviii. 1), and the situations of the two men, with respect to a triumph, were similar. The opposition of Laeca is more successful than that of Sempronius in the other case.
6 Until the enactment of the lex Villia annalis in 180 B.C. (XL. xliv. 1), custom alone controlled the sequence in which the offices were held, though sect. 11 below suggests that there were certain legal conditions of eligibility. However, the later legislation that created the cursus honorum merely gave legal form to the prevailing practice, which was that the offices of quaestor, aedile, praetor, and consul should normally be held in that order.
7 B.C. 199
8 The centuriate assembly met in the Campus Martius: hence campestri.
9 The phrase per leges liceret may be rather negative in force: “it was not expressly forbidden.” No legislation fixing eligibility qualifications is known to us antedating the lex Villia (see note to sect. 9 above), and had there been age limits, Flamininus, who was about thirty years of age (XXXIII. xxxiii. 3), would probably have been excluded by them. The phrase then may refer to restrictions such as that which limited the tribunate to plebeians.
10 The clause refers to Cato and Helvius alone.
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