1 Cf. the similar contest at the preceding election of 189 B.C. (XXXVII. lvii. 9 —lviii. 2).
2 B.C. 184
3 All the candidates were ex-consuls, as usual. Publius Scipio is Nasica, Lucius Scipio was striving for rehabilitation after his trial, but the outcome of the election suggests that the glory of the Scipios had, at least for a time, departed.
4 That is, battles in which he took part as a private.
5 Plutarch (Cato Major, xv.) says that Cato was put on trial about fifty times.
6 The play on the verb is so clumsy that it may have been preserved from Livy's source.
7 B.C. 184
8 According to Per. XLIX, L. Scribonius and not Cato prosecuted Galba for his treacherous treatment of the Lusitanians. Cato, however, spoke against him (Cicero. de oratore I. 227; Brutus 89, etc.).
This characterization raises once more the question of a special source dealing with Cato which Livy used (cf. XXXIV. xxi. 8; XXXVI. xxi. 4-6 and the notes). [11??] I see no reason — least of all the play on words mentioned in the preceding note — why this passage and the account of the censorship in the' following chapters should not have been derived from the same source. [12??] There seems to be nothing in this passage which Cato would not have regarded as a compliment and would not have been willing to say about himself.
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