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[186] It was
in such a thin senate, we may be sure, that the virtuous Brutus was
dispensed from the law which forbade lending to foreign borrowers in
Rome, and thus was enabled to lend to the miserable Salaminians of
Cyprus at 48 per cent, and to recover his money under the bond.[187]
Writing to his brother in December 57, Cicero speaks of business done
in a senate full for the time of year, which was midwinter, just
before the Saturnalia, when only two hundred were present out of about
six hundred. In February 54, a month when the senate had always much
business to get through, it was so cold one day that the few members
present clamoured for dismissal and obtained it.[188] And when the
senate did meet there was a constant tendency to let things go. No
reform of procedure is mentioned as even thought of, at a time when
it was far more necessary than in our Parliament; business was talked
about, postponed obstructed, and personal animosities and private
interests seem, so far as we can judge from the correspondence of the
time, to have been predominant.


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