I, 16, 12. sed senatus consulta duo iam facta sunt, odiosa, quod in consulem facta putantur, Catone et Domitio postulante, unum, ut apud magistratus inquiri liceret, alterum, cuius domi diuisores habitarent, aduersus rem publicam.

odiosa to whom? To the magistrates and the consul's satellites and Pompey? That is Billerbeck's explanation, more respectable than the silence of modern commentators. But odiosa, without qualification, can only mean generally unpopular, i.e. in the senate, among the boni. But how, asked Malaspina four centuries ago, should those decrees have been unpopular because they were directed against a highly unpopular consul? ‘consul odiosissimus’ to Cicero and his boni M. Pupius Piso, Pompey's legate and tool, assuredly was. Witness among other passages I, 13, 2 (esp. seiunctus ab optimatibus) and I, 14, 6 (esp. mirum in modum omnis a se bonos alienauit). And Malaspina might further have enquired why stringent, intrusive measures against bribery should have been welcome per se in an assembly composed largely of persons who had bribed, were bribing, or expected to bribe their way to office. Modern apparatus do not even mention quae for quod, a once popular reading cited from a MS. belonging to Faernus. It seems no more than a palliative. For a cure I suggest ‹ideo minus› odiosa.