place
Ulubrae
also: Ulubris, Ulubrano
A nearly deserted small town in the Pomptine marshes of Latium, proverbial for desolation; Cicero jokes that its 'constituents' are the croaking frogs of the marsh (Fam. 7.18.3) and worries over the 'people of Ulubrae' should Trebatius forsake public life (Fam. 7.12.2).
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 7.12 §2 the people of Ulubrae
Ulubrae was a byword for a tiny, all-but-abandoned town in the Pomptine marshes. Cicero turns Trebatius's Epicurean withdrawal from politics into a comic crisis for these notional 'constituents,' picking up the frog joke of Fam. 7.18.
- Ad Familiares 7.18 §3 the buzzing of my own constituents
An elaborate joke: Cicero pretends the croaking frogs of the marshes around the near-deserted town of Ulubrae are his loyal voters turning out to honour him. Trebatius had apparently helped 'procure' him this imaginary constituency.