human
Ille Jugurthino clarus Cimbroque triumpho. ) It is here applied ironically to Lucius Opimius, who so notoriously received bribes from Jugurtha, when he went over, as chief of the ten commissioners, to arrange the division of the kingdom between Jugurtha and Adherbal, B.C. 117. (Sall., Bell. Jug., xvi.) He had been before honorably distinguished by the taking of Fregellæ, when in rebellion against Rome, while he was prætor. The safety of the Roman state had also been committed to him when consul (B.C. 121) during the riots of Caius Gracchus, which by his prompt measures he was the main instrument in quelling. (Hence Cicero styles him
gpt
Brut., 34.) For this he was accused by the democratic party, but was acquitted; his defense being conducted by the same Papirius Carbo who had assailed Scipio Africanus after the death of Tiberius Gracchus (
human
Cic., de Or., ii., 25). The partisans of Gracchus, however, afterward crushed him by means of the Mamilian law, along with many other excellent men. Cic., Brut., _u. s._ Sall., Bell. Jug., 40. He was consul with Q. Fabius Maximus, who that year overthrew the Allobroges and Arverni. His consulship was long remembered as having been a splendid year for wine, hence called Opimianum. Cic., Brut., 83. Of his father Quintus, Cicero speaks in nearly the same terms as Lucilius does here:
gpt
Q. Opimius, consularis, qui adolescentulus malè audisset.
human
Sector Zonarius, i. e., Crumeniseca, βαλαντιοτόμος. Trinum., IV., ii., 20. It is applied by Cicero to a mean fellow, who buys at auction the confiscated goods of proscribed persons to retail again. Cic., Rosc. Am., 29. Ascon. in Verr., II., i., 20. Cf. Nonius, _s. v._ Secare. _Damnare_, i. e.,
gpt
and that this name was given him by way of irony. He would be most justly entitled to the epithet of Crassus,
human
which was probably given for the same reason. (Crassus not being the regular cognomen of the Aurelian gens, to which Cotta belonged, but of the Licinian.) Valerius Maximus gives a story of the sordid avarice of the father, which illustrates what Lucilius says, that when tribune of the Plebs he took advantage of the
gpt
character of his office to refuse paying his creditors their just claims, but was compelled to do so by his colleagues. (Pighius assigns this event to B.C. 155.) He was afterward accused by P. Corn. Scipio Africanus minor; but being defended by Q. Metellus Macedonicus, was acquitted. Cf. Cic., Brut., 21, where he gives him the epithet
human
Cum Asellus omnes provincias stipendia merentem se peragrâsse gloriaretur, '_Agas Asellum_,'