¹ I am most grateful to Dr T. J. Cadoux for a sight of his own unpublished paper ‘Catiline and the Vestal Virgins’ on the trials of 73 B.C., which sharpened my focus on certain details. Some of these matters are also discussed by (among others) E. S. Gruen, Athenaeum 49 (1971), 59–61; B. A. Marshall, Historical Commentary on Asconius (Colombia, MO, 1985), 309–10; id., Crassus, A Political Biography (Amsterdam, 1976). Professor John Richardson, as so often, stirred me to think more precisely about certain aspects of the legel questions, and I had mush pleasure and profit from T. J. Cornell, ‘Some observations on the crimen incesti’ in Le Délit religieux dans la cité antique (Collection de l’école française de Rome 48 [1981] , 27–37). I also have to thank the anonymous referee for certain items of modern bibliography and for incentive in places to adjust the course of the argument. Naturally none of these scholars is to blame for any shortcomings of mine.