He was Publius Popillius Laenas, consul 132 B.C., the year after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and it became his duty to prosecute the accomplices of Gracchus, for which he was afterward attacked by Caius Gracchus with such animosity that he withdrew into voluntary exile.

Cicero pays a tribute to the energy of Opimius in the first Oration against Catiline, c.

iii.
[296] This phenomenon of the parhelion, or mock sun, which so puzzled Cicero's interlocutors, has been very satisfactorily explained by modern science.

The parhelia are formed by the reflection of the sunbeams on a cloud properly situated.

They usually accompany the coronae, or luminous circles, and are placed in the same circumference, and at the same height.