1 (return)
[ Plin. Epist. i. 18, 24, iii. 8, v. 11, ix. 34, x. 95.]

2 (return)
[ Lycee, part I. liv. III. c. i.]

3 (return)
[ Julius Caesar Divus. Romulus, the founder of Rome, had the honour of an apotheosis conferred on him by the senate, under the title of Quirinus, to obviate the people’s suspicion of his having been taken off by a conspiracy of the patrician order. Political circumstances again concurred with popular superstition to revive this posthumous adulation in favour of Julius Caesar, the founder of the empire, who also fell by the hands of conspirators. It is remarkable in the history of a nation so jealous of public liberty, that, in both instances, they bestowed the highest mark of human homage upon men who owed their fate to the introduction of arbitrary power.]

4 (return)
[ Pliny informs us that Caius Julius, the father of Julius Caesar, a man of pretorian rank, died suddenly at Pisa.]

5 (return)
[ A.U.C. (in the year from the foundation of Rome) 670; A.C. (before Christ) about 92.]

6 (return)
[ Flamen Dialis. This was an office of great dignity, but subjected the holder to many restrictions. He was not allowed to ride on horseback, nor to absent himself from the city for a single night. His wife was also under particular restraints, and could not be divorced. If she died, the flamen resigned his office, because there were certain sacred rites which he could not perform without her assistance. Besides other marks of distinction, he wore a purple robe called laena, and a conical mitre called apex.]

7 (return)
[ Two powerful parties were contending at Rome for the supremacy; Sylla being at the head of the faction of the nobles, while Marius espoused the cause of the people. Sylla suspected Julius Caesar of belonging to the Marian party, because Marius had married his aunt Julia.]

8 (return)
[ He wandered about for some time in the Sabine territory.]

9 (return)
[ Bithynia, in Asia Minor, was bounded on the south by Phrygia, on the west by the Bosphorus and Propontis; and on the north by the Euxine sea. Its boundaries towards the east are not clearly ascertained, Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy differing from each other on the subject.]

10 (return)
[ Mitylene was a city in the island of Lesbos, famous for the study of philosophy and eloquence. According to Pliny, it remained a free city and in power one thousand five hundred years. It suffered much in the Peloponnesian war from the Athenians, and in the Mithridatic from the Romans, by whom it was taken and destroyed. But it soon rose again, having recovered its ancient liberty by the favour of Pomnpey; and was afterwards much embellished by Trajan, who added to it the splendour of his own name. This was the country of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, as well as of Alcaeus and Sappho. The natives showed a particular taste for poetry, and had, as Plutarch informs us, stated times for the celebration of poetical contests.]

11 (return)
[ The civic crown was made of oak-leaves, and given to him who had saved the life of a citizen. The person thus decorated, wore it at public spectacles, and sat next the senators. When he entered, the audience rose up, as a mark of respect.]

12 (return)
[ A very extensive country of Hither Asia; lying between Pamphylia to the west, Mount Taurus and Amanus to the north, Syria to the east, and the Mediterranean to the south. It was anciently famous for saffron; and hair-cloth, called by the Romans ciliciun, was the manufacture of this country.]

13 (return)
[ A city and an island, near the coast of Caria famous for the huge statue of the Sun, called the Colossus. The Rhodians were celebrated not only for skill in naval affairs, but for learning, philosophy, and eloquence. During the latter periods of the Roman republic, and under some of the emperors, numbers resorted there to prosecute their studies; and it also became a place of retreat to discontented Romans.]

14 (return)
[ Pharmacusa, an island lying off the coast of Asia, near Miletus. It is now called Parmosa.]

15 (return)
[ The ransom, too large for Caesar’s private means, was raised by the voluntary contributions of the cities in the Asiatic province, who were equally liberal from their public funds in the case of other Romans who fell into the hands of pirates at that period.]

16 (return)
[ From Miletus, as we are informed by Plutarch.]

17 (return)
[ Who commanded in Spain.]

18 (return)
[ Rex, it will be easily understood, was not a title of dignity in a Roman family, but the surname of the Marcii.]

19 (return)
[ The rites of the Bona Dea, called also Fauna, which were performed in the night, and by women only.]

20 (return)
[ Hispania Boetica; the Hither province being called Hispania Tarraconensis.]

21 (return)
[ Alexander the Great was only thirty-three years at the time of his death.]

22 (return)
[ The proper office of the master of the horse was to command the knights, and execute the orders of the dictator. He was usually nominated from amongst persons of consular and praetorian dignity; and had the use of a horse, which the dictator had not, without the order of the people.]

23 (return)
[ Seneca compares the annals of Tanusius to the life of a fool, which, though it may be long, is worthless; while that of a wise man, like a good book, is valuable, however short.—Epist. 94.]

24 (return)
[ Bibulus was Caesar’s colleague, both as edile and consul. Cicero calls his edicts “Archilochian,” that is, as full of spite as the verses of Archilochus.—Ad. Attic. b. 7. ep. 24.]

25 (return)
[ A.U.C. 689. Cicero holds both the Curio’s, father and son, very cheap.—Brut. c. 60.]

26 (return)
[ Regnum, the kingly power, which the Roman people considered an insupportable tyranny.]

27 (return)
[ An honourable banishment.]

28 (return)
[ The assemblies of the people were at first held in the open Forum. Afterwards, a covered building, called the Comitium, was erected for that purpose. There are no remains of it, but Lumisden thinks that it probably stood on the south side of the Forum, on the site of the present church of The Consolation.—Antiq. of Rome, p. 357.]

29 (return)
[ Basilicas, from Basileus; a king. They were, indeed, the palaces of the sovereign people; stately and spacious buildings, with halls, which served the purpose of exchanges, council chambers, and courts of justice. Some of the Basilicas were afterwards converted into Christian churches. “The form was oblong; the middle was an open space to walk in, called Testudo, and which we now call the nave. On each side of this were rows of pillars, which formed what we should call the side-aisles, and which the ancients called Porticus. The end of the Testudo was curved, like the apse of some of our churches, and was called Tribunal, from causes being heard there. Hence the term Tribune is applied to that part of the Roman churches which is behind the high altar.”—Burton’s Antiq. of Rome, p. 204.]

30 (return)
[ Such as statues and pictures, the works of Greek artists.]

31 (return)
[ It appears to have stood at the foot of the Capitoline hill. Piranesi thinks that the two beautiful columns of white marble, which are commonly described as belonging to the portico of the temple of Jupiter Stator, are the remains of the temple of Castor and Pollux.]

32 (return)
[ Ptolemy Auletes, the son of Cleopatra.]

33 (return)
[ Lentulus, Cethegus, and others.]

34 (return)
[ The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was commenced and completed by the Tarquins, kings of Rome, but not dedicated till the year after their expulsion, when that honour devolved on M. Horatius Fulvillus, the first of the consuls. Having been burnt down during the civil wars, A.U.C. 670, Sylla restored it on the same foundations, but did not live to consecrate it.]

35 (return)
[ Meaning Pompey; not so much for the sake of the office, as having his name inserted in the inscription recording the repairs of the Capitol, instead of Catulus. The latter, however, secured the honour, and his name is still seen inscribed in an apartment at the Capitol, as its restorer.]

36 (return)
[ It being the calends of January, the first day of the year, on which the magistrates solemnly entered on their offices, surrounded by their friends.]

37 (return)
[ Among others, one for recalling Pompey from Asia, under the pretext that the commonwealth was in danger. Cato was one of the colleagues who saw through the design and opposed the decree.]

38 (return)
[ See before, p. 5. This was in A.U.C. 693.]

39 (return)
[ Plutarch informs us, that Caesar, before he came into office, owed his creditors 1300 talents, somewhat more than 565,000 pounds of our money. But his debts increased so much after this period, if we may believe Appian, that upon his departure for Spain, at the expiration of his praetorship, he is reported to have said, Bis millies et quingenties centena minis sibi adesse oportere, ut nihil haberet: i. e. That he was 2,000,000 and nearly 20,000 sesterces worse than penniless. Crassus became his security for 830 talents, about 871,500 pounds.]

40 (return)
[ For his victories in Gallicia and Lusitania, having led his army to the shores of the ocean, which had not before been reduced to submission.]

41 (return)
[ Caesar was placed in this dilemma, that if he aspired to a triumph, he must remain outside the walls until it took place, while as a candidate for the consulship, he must be resident in the city.]

42 (return)
[ Even the severe censor was biassed by political expediency to sanction a system, under which what little remained of public virtue, and the love of liberty at Rome, were fast decaying. The strict laws against bribery at elections were disregarded, and it was practised openly, and accepted without a blush. Sallust says that everything was venal, and that Rome itself might be bought, if any one was rich enough to purchase it. Jugurth, viii. 20, 3.]

43 (return)
[ A.U.C. 695.]

44 (return)
[ The proceedings of the senate were reported in short notes taken by one of their own order, “strangers” not being admitted at their sittings. These notes included speeches as well as acts. These and the proceedings of the assemblies of the people, were daily published in journals [Footnote diurna: which contained also accounts of the trials at law, with miscellaneous intelligence of births and deaths, marriages and divorces. The practice of publishing the proceedings of the senate, introduced by Julius Caesar, was discontinued by Augustus.]

45 (return)
[ Within the city, the lictors walked before only one of the consuls, and that commonly for a month alternately. A public officer, called Accensus, preceded the other consul, and the lictors followed. This custom had long been disused, but was now restored by Caesar.]

46 (return)
[ In order that he might be a candidate for the tribuneship of the people; it was done late in the evening, at an unusual hour for public business.]

47 (return)
[ Gaul was divided into two provinces, Transalpine, or Gallia Ulterior, and Cisalpina, or Citerior. The Citerior, having nearly the same limits as Lombardy in after times, was properly a part of Italy, occupied by colonists from Gaul, and, having the Rubicon, the ancient boundary of Italy, on the south. It was also called Gallia Togata, from the use of the Roman toga; the inhabitants being, after the social war, admitted to the right of citizens. The Gallia Transalpina, or Ulterior, was called Comata, from the people wearing their hair long, while the Romans wore it short; and the southern part, afterwards called Narbonensis, came to have the epithet Braccata, from the use of the braccae, which were no part of the Roman dress. Some writers suppose the braccae to have been breeches, but Aldus, in a short disquisition on the subject, affirms that they were a kind of upper dress. And this opinion seems to be countenanced by the name braccan being applied by the modern Celtic nations, the descendants of the Gallic Celts, to signify their upper garment, or plaid.]

48 (return)
[ Alluding, probably, to certain scandals of a gross character which were rife against Caesar. See before, c. ii. (p. 2) and see also c. xlix.]

49 (return)
[ So called from the feathers on their helmets, resembling the crest of a lark; Alauda, Fr. Alouette.]

50 (return)
[ Days appointed by the senate for public thanksgiving in the temples in the name of a victorious general, who had in the decrees the title of emperor, by which they were saluted by the legions.]

51 (return)
[ A.U.C. 702.]

52 (return)
[ Aurelia.]

53 (return)
[ Julia, the wife of Pompey, who died in childbirth.]

54 (return)
[ Conquest had so multiplied business at Rome, that the Roman Forum became too little for transacting it, and could not be enlarged without clearing away the buildings with which it was surrounded. Hence the enormous sum which its site is said to have cost, amounting, it is calculated, to 809,291 pounds of our money. It stood near the old forum, behind the temple of Romulus and Remus, but not a vestige of it remains.]

55 (return)
[ Comum was a town of the Orobii, of ancient standing, and formerly powerful. Julius Caesar added to it five thousand new colonists; whence it was generally called Novocomum. But in time it recovered its ancient name, Comum; Pliny the younger, who was a native of this place, calling it by no other name.]

56 (return)
[ A.U.C. 705.]

57 (return)
[ Eiper gar adikein chrae, tyrannidos peri Kalliston adikein talla de eusebein chreon. —Eurip. Phoeniss. Act II, where Eteocles aspires to become the tyrant of Thebes.]

58
[ Now the Pisatello; near Rimini. There was a very ancient law of the republic, forbidding any general, returning from the wars, to cross the Rubicon with his troops under arms.]

59
[ The ring was worn on the finger next to the little finger of the left hand.]

60 (return)
[ Suetonius here accounts for the mistake of the soldiers with great probability. The class to which they imagined they were to be promoted, was that of the equites, or knights, who wore a gold ring, and were possessed of property to the amount stated in the text. Great as was the liberality of Caesar to his legions, the performance of this imaginary promise was beyond all reasonable expectation.]

61 (return)
[ A.U.C. 706.]

62 (return)
[ Elephants were first introduced at Rome by Pompey the Great, in his African triumph.]

63 (return)
[ VENI, VIDI, VICI.]

64 (return)
[ A.U.C. 708.]

65 (return)
[ Gladiators were first publicly exhibited at Rome by two brothers called Bruti, at the funeral of their father, A.U.C. 490; and for some time they were exhibited only on such occasions. But afterwards they were also employed by the magistrates, to entertain the people, particularly at the Saturnalia, and feasts of Minerva. These cruel spectacles were prohibited by Constantine, but not entirely suppressed until the time of Honorius.]

66 (return)
[ The Circensian games were shews exhibited in the Circus Maximus, and consisted of various kinds: first, chariot and horse-races, of which the Romans were extravagantly fond. The charioteers were distributed into four parties, distinguished by the colour of their dress. The spectators, without regarding the speed of the horses, or the skill of the men, were attracted merely by one or the other of the colours, as caprice inclined them. In the time of Justinian, no less than thirty thousand men lost their lives at Constantinople, in a tumult raised by a contention amongst the partizans of the several colours. Secondly, contests of agility and strength; of which there were five kinds, hence called Pentathlum. These were, running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, and throwing the discus or quoit. Thirdly, Ludus Trojae, a mock-fight, performed by young noblemen on horseback, revived by Julius Caesar, and frequently celebrated by the succeeding emperors. We meet with a description of it in the fifth book of the Aeneid, beginning with the following lines: Incedunt pueri, pariterque ante ora parentum Fraenatis lucent in equis: quos omnis euntes Trinacriae mirata fremit Trojaeque juventus. Fourthly, Venatio, which was the fighting of wild beasts with one another, or with men called Bestiarii, who were either forced to the combat by way of punishment, as the primitive Christians were, or fought voluntarily, either from a natural ferocity of disposition, or induced by hire. An incredible number of animals of various kinds were brought from all quarters, at a prodigious expense, for the entertainment of the people. Pompey, in his second consulship, exhibited at once five hundred lions, which were all dispatched in five days; also eighteen elephants. Fifthly the representation of a horse and foot battle, with that of an encampment or a siege. Sixthly, the representation of a sea-fight (Naumachia), which was at first made in the Circus Maximus, but afterwards elsewhere. The combatants were usually captives or condemned malefactors, who fought to death, unless saved by the clemency of the emperor. If any thing unlucky happened at the games, they were renewed, and often more than once.]

67 (return)
[ A meadow beyond the Tiber, in which an excavation was made, supplied with water from the river.]

68 (return)
[ Julius Caesar was assisted by Sosigenes, an Egyptian philosopher, in correcting the calendar. For this purpose he introduced an additional day every fourth year, making February to consist of twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight, and, of course, the whole year to consist of three hundred and sixty-six days. The fourth year was denominated Bissextile, or leap year, because the sixth day before the calends, or first of March, was reckoned twice. The Julian year was introduced throughout the Roman empire, and continued in general use till the year 1582. But the true correction was not six hours, but five hours, forty-nine minutes; hence the addition was too great by eleven minutes. This small fraction would amount in one hundred years to three-fourths of a day, and in a thousand years to more than seven days. It had, in fact, amounted, since the Julian correction, in 1582, to more than seven days. Pope Gregory XIII., therefore, again reformed the calendar, first bringing forward the year ten days, by reckoning the 5th of October the 15th, and then prescribing the rule which has gradually been adopted throughout Christendom, except in Russia, and the Greek church generally.]

69 (return)
[ Principally Carthage and Corinth.]

70 (return)
[ The Latus Clavus was a broad stripe of purple, on the front of the toga. Its width distinguished it from that of the knights, who wore it narrow.]

71 (return)
[ The Suburra lay between the Celian and Esquiline hills. It was one of the most frequented quarters of Rome.]

72 (return)
[ Bede, quoting Solinus, we believe, says that excellent pearls were found in the British seas, and that they were of all colours, but principally white. Eccl. Hist. b. i. c. 1.]

73 (return)
[ ————Bithynia quicquid Et predicator Caesaris unquam habuit.]

74 (return)
[ Gallias Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem; Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias: Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Caesarem.]

75 (return)
[ Aegisthus, who, like Caesar, was a pontiff, debauched Clytemnestra while Agamemnon was engaged in the Trojan war, as Caesar did Mucia, the wife of Pompey, while absent in the war against Mithridates.]

76 (return)
[ A double entendre; Tertia signifying the third of the value of the farm, as well as being the name of the girl, for whose favours the deduction was made.]

77 (return)
[ Urbani, servate uxores; moechum calvum adducimus: Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.]

78 (return)
[ Plutarch tells us that the oil was used in a dish of asparagus. Every traveller knows that in those climates oil takes the place of butter as an ingredient in cookery, and it needs no experience to fancy what it is when rancid.]

79 (return)
[ Meritoria rheda; a light four-wheeled carriage, apparently hired either for the journey or from town to town. They were tolerably commodious, for Cicero writes to Atticus, (v. 17.) Hanc epistolam dictavi sedens in rheda, cum in castra proficiscerer.]

80 (return)
[ Plutarch informs us that Caesar travelled with such expedition, that he reached the Rhone on the eighth day after he left Rome.]

81 (return)
[ Caesar tells us himself that he employed C. Volusenus to reconnoitre the coast of Britain, sending him forward in a long ship, with orders to return and make his report before the expedition sailed.]

82 (return)
[ Religione; that is, the omens being unfavourable.]

83 (return)
[ The standard of the Roman legions was an eagle fixed on the head of a spear. It was silver, small in size, with expanded wings, and clutching a golden thunderbolt in its claw.]

84 (return)
[ To save them from the torture of a lingering death.]

85 (return)
[ Now Lerida, in Catalonia.]

86 (return)
[ The title of emperor was not new in Roman history; 1. It was sometimes given by the acclamations of the soldiers to those who commanded them. 2. It was synonymous with conqueror, and the troops hailed him by that title after a victory. In both these cases it was merely titular, and not permanent, and was generally written after the proper name, as Cicero imperator, Lentulo imperatore. 3. It assumed a permanent and royal character first in the person of Julius Caesar, and was then generally prefixed to the emperor’s name in inscriptions, as IMP. CAESAR. DIVI. etc.]

87 (return)
[ Cicero was the first who received the honour of being called “Pater patriae.”]

88 (return)
[ Statues were placed in the Capitol of each of the seven kings of Rome, to which an eighth was added in honour of Brutus, who expelled the last. The statue of Julius Caesar was afterwards raised near them.]

89 (return)
[ The white fillet was one of the insignia of royalty. Plutarch, on this occasion, uses the expression, diadaemati basiliko, a royal diadem.]

90 (return)
[ The Lupercalia was a festival, celebrated in a place called the Lupercal, in the month of February, in honour of Pan. During the solemnity, the Luperci, or priests of that god, ran up and down the city naked, with only a girdle of goat’s skin round their waist, and thongs of the same in their hands; with which they struck those they met, particularly married women, who were thence supposed to be rendered prolific.]

91 (return)
[ Persons appointed to inspect and expound the Sibylline books.]

92 (return)
[ A.U.C. 709.]

93 (return)
[ See before, c. xxii.]

94 (return)
[ This senate-house stood in that part of the Campus Martius which is now the Campo di Fiore, and was attached by Pompey, “spoliis Orientis Onustus,” to the magnificent theatre, which he built A.U.C. 698, in his second consulship. His statue, at the foot of which Caesar fell, as Plutarch tells us, was placed in it. We shall find that Augustus caused it to be removed.]

95 (return)
[ The stylus, or graphium, was an iron pen, broad at one end, with a sharp point at the other, used for writing upon waxen tables, the leaves or bark of trees, plates of brass, or lead, etc. For writing upon paper or parchment, the Romans employed a reed, sharpened and split in the point like our pens, called calamus, arundo, or canna. This they dipped in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for ink.]

96 (return)
[ It was customary among the ancients, in great extremities to shroud the face, in order to conceal any symptoms of horror or alarm which the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was drawn round the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in falling, as the Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and legs.]

97 (return)
[ Caesar’s dying apostrophe to Brutus is represented in all the editions of Suetonius as uttered in Greek, but with some variations. The words, as here translated, are Kai su ei ekeinon; kai su teknon. The Salmasian manuscript omits the latter clause. Some commentators suppose that the words “my son,” were not merely expressive of the difference of age, or former familiarity between them, but an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia, mentioned before (see p. 33). But it appears very improbable that Caesar, who had never before acknowledged Brutus to be his son, should make so unnecessary an avowal, at the moment of his death. Exclusively of this objection, the apostrophe seems too verbose, both for the suddenness and urgency of the occasion. But this is not all. Can we suppose that Caesar, though a perfect master of Greek, would at such a time have expressed himself in that language, rather than in Latin, his familiar tongue, and in which he spoke with peculiar elegance? Upon the whole, the probability is, that the words uttered by Caesar were, Et tu Brute! which, while equally expressive of astonishment with the other version, and even of tenderness, are both more natural, and more emphatic.]

98 (return)
[ Men’ me servasse, ut essent qui me perderent?]

99 (return)
[ The Bulla, generally made of gold, was a hollow globe, which boys wore upon their breast, pendant from a string or ribbon put round the neck. The sons of freedmen and poor citizens used globes of leather.]

100 (return)
[ Josephus frequently mentions the benefits conferred on his countrymen by Julius Caesar. Antiq. Jud. xiv. 14, 15, 16.]

101 (return)
[ Appian informs us that it was burnt by the people in their fury, B. c. xi. p. 521.]

102 (return)
[ Suetonius particularly refers to the conspirators, who perished at the battle of Philippi, or in the three years which intervened. The survivors were included in the reconciliation of Augustus, Antony, and Pompey, A.U.C. 715.]

103 (return)
[ Suetonius alludes to Brutus and Cassius, of whom this is related by Plutarch and Dio.]

104 (return)
[ For observations on Dr. Thomson’s Essays appended to Suetonius’s History of Julius Caesar, and the succeeding Emperors, see the Preface to this volume.]

105 (return)
[ He who has a devoted admiration of Cicero, may be sure that he has made no slight proficiency himself.]

106 (return)
[ A town in the ancient Volscian territory, now called Veletra. It stands on the verge of the Pontine Marshes, on the road to Naples.]

107 (return)
[ Thurium was a territory in Magna Graecia, on the coast, near Tarentum.]

108 (return)
[ Argentarius; a banker, one who dealt in exchanging money, as well as lent his own funds at interest to borrowers. As a class, they possessed great wealth, and were persons of consideration in Rome at this period.]

109 (return)
[ Now Laricia, or Riccia, a town of the Campagna di Roma, on the Appian Way, about ten miles from Rome.]

110 (return)
[ A.U.C. 691. A.C. (before Christ) 61.]

111 (return)
[ The Palatine hill was not only the first seat of the colony of Romulus, but gave its name to the first and principal of the four regions into which the city was divided, from the time of Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, to that of Augustus; the others being the Suburra, Esquilina, and Collina.]

112 (return)
[ There were seven streets or quarters in the Palatine region, one of which was called “Ad Capita Bubula,” either from the butchers’ stalls at which ox-heads are hung up for sale, or from their being sculptured on some edifice. Thus the remains of a fortification near the tomb of Cecilia Metella are now called Capo di Bove, from the arms of the Gaetani family over the gate.]

113 (return)
[ Adrian, to whom Suetonius was secretary.]

114 (return)
[ Augusto augurio postquam inclyta condita Roma est.]

115 (return)
[ A.U.C. 711.]

116 (return)
[ A.U.C. 712.]

117 (return)
[ After being defeated in the second engagement, Brutus retired to a hill, and slew himself in the night.]

118 (return)
[ The triumvir. There were three distinguished brothers of the name of Antony; Mark, the consul; Caius, who was praetor; and Lucius, a tribune of the people.]

119 (return)
[ Virgil was one of the fugitives, having narrowly escaped being killed by the centurion Ario; and being ejected from his farm. Eclog. i.]

120 (return)
[ A.U.C. 714.]

121 (return)
[ The anniversary of Julius Caesar’s death.]

122 (return)
[ A.U.C. 712-718-]

123 (return)
[ The Romans employed slaves in their wars only in cases of great emergency, and with much reluctance. After the great slaughter at the battle of Cannae, eight thousand were bought and armed by the republic. Augustus was the first who manumitted them, and employed them as rowers in his gallies.]

124 (return)
[ In the triumvirate, consisting of Augustus, Mark Antony, and Lepidus.]

125
[ A.U.C. 723.]

126 (return)
[ There is no other authority for Augustus having viewed Antony’s corpse. Plutarch informs us, that on hearing his death, Augustus retired into the interior of his tent, and wept over the fate of his colleague and friend, his associate in so many former struggles, both in war and the administration of affairs.]

127 (return)
[ The poison proved fatal, as every one knows, see Velleius, ii. 27; Florus, iv. 11. The Psylli were a people of Africa, celebrated for sucking the poison from wounds inflicted by serpents, with which that country anciently abounded. They pretended to be endowed with an antidote, which rendered their bodies insensible to the virulence of that species of poison; and the ignorance of those times gave credit to the physical immunity which they arrogated. But Celsus, who flourished about fifty years after the period we speak of, has exploded the vulgar prejudice which prevailed in their favour. He justly observes, that the venom of serpents, like some other kinds of poison, proves noxious only when applied to the naked fibre; and that, provided there is no ulcer in the gums or palate, the poison may be received into the mouth with perfect safety.]

128 (return)
[ Strabo informs us that Ptolemy caused it to be deposited in a golden sarcophagus, which was afterwards exchanged for one of glass, in which probably Augustus saw the remains.]

129 (return)
[ A custom of all ages and of people the most remote from each other.]

130 (return)
[ Meaning the degenerate race of the Ptolomean kings.]

131 (return)
[ The naval trophies were formed of the prows of ships.]

132 (return)
[ A.U.C. 721.]

133 (return)
[ Because his father was a Roman and his mother of the race of the Parthini, an Illyrian tribe.]

134 (return)
[ It was usual at Rome, before the elections, for the candidates to endeavour to gain popularity by the usual arts. They would therefore go to the houses of the citizens, shake hands with those they met, and address them in a kindly manner. It being of great consequence, upon those occasions, to know the names of persons, they were commonly attended by a nomenclator, who whispered into their ears that information, wherever it was wanted. Though this kind of officer was generally an attendant on men, we meet with instances of their having been likewise employed in the service of ladies; either with the view of serving candidates to whom they were allied, or of gaining the affections of the people.]

135 (return)
[ Not a bridge over a river, but a military engine used for gaining admittance into a fortress.]

136 (return)
[ Cantabria, in the north of Spain, now the Basque province.]

137 (return)
[ The ancient Pannonia includes Hungary and part of Austria, Styria and Carniola.]

138 (return)
[ The Rhaetian Alps are that part of the chain bordering on the Tyrol.]

139 (return)
[ The Vindelici principally occupied the country which is now the kingdom of Bavaria; and the Salassii, that part of Piedmont which includes the valley of Aost.]

140 (return)
[ The temple of Mars Ultor was erected by Augustus in fulfilment of a vow made by him at the battle of Philippi. It stood in the Forum which he built, mentioned in chap. xxxix. There are no remains of either.]

141 (return)
[ “The Ovatio was an inferior kind of Triumph, granted in cases where the victory was not of great importance, or had been obtained without difficulty. The general entered the city on foot or on horseback, crowned with myrtle, not with laurel; and instead of bullocks, the sacrifice was performed with a sheep, whence this procession acquired its name.”—Thomson.]

142 (return)
[ “The greater Triumph, in which the victorious general and his army advanced in solemn procession through the city to the Capitol, was the highest military honour which could be obtained in the Roman state. Foremost in the procession went musicians of various kinds, singing and playing triumphal songs. Next were led the oxen to be sacrificed, having their horns gilt, and their heads adorned with fillets and garlands. Then in carriages were brought the spoils taken from the enemy, statues, pictures, plate, armour, gold and silver, and brass; with golden crowns, and other gifts, sent by the allied and tributary states. The captive princes and generals followed in chains, with their children and attendants. After them came the lictors, having their fasces wreathed with laurel, followed by a great company of musicians and dancers dressed like Satyrs, and wearing crowns of gold; in the midst of whom was one in a female dress, whose business it was, with his looks and gestures, to insult the vanquished. Next followed a long train of persons carrying perfumes. Then came the victorious general, dressed in purple embroidered with gold, with a crown of laurel on his head, a branch of laurel in his right hand, and in his left an ivory sceptre, with an eagle on the top; having his face painted with vermilion, in the same manner as the statue of Jupiter on festival days, and a golden Bulla hanging on his breast, and containing some amulet, or magical preservative against envy. He stood in a gilded chariot, adorned with ivory, and drawn by four white horses, sometimes by elephants, attended by his relations, and a great crowd of citizens, all in white. His children used to ride in the chariot with him; and that he might not be too much elated, a slave, carrying a golden crown sparkling with gems, stood behind him, and frequently whispered in his ear, ‘Remember that thou art a man!’ After the general, followed the consuls and senators on foot, at least according to the appointment of Augustus; for they formerly used to go before him. His Legati and military Tribunes commonly rode by his side. The victorious army, horse and foot, came last, crowned with laurel, and decorated with the gifts which they had received for their valour, singing their own and their general’s praises, but sometimes throwing out railleries against him; and often exclaiming, ‘Io Triumphe!’ in which they were joined by all the citizens, as they passed along. The oxen having been sacrificed, the general gave a magnificent entertainment in the Capitol to his friends and the chief men of the city; after which he was conducted home by the people, with music and a great number of lamps and torches.”—Thomson.]

143 (return)
[ “The Sella Curulis was a chair on which the principal magistrates sat in the tribunal upon solemn occasions. It had no back, but stood on four crooked feet, fixed to the extremities of cross pieces of wood, joined by a common axis, somewhat in the form of the letter X; was covered with leather, and inlaid with ivory. From its construction, it might be occasionally folded together for the convenience of carriage, and set down where the magistrate chose to use it.”—Thomson.]

144 (return)
[ Now Saragossa.]

145 (return)
[ A great and wise man, if he is the same person to whom Cicero’s letters on the calamities of the times were addressed. Fam. Epist. c. vi, 20, 21.]

146 (return)
[ A.U.C. 731.]

147 (return)
[ The Lustrum was a period of five years, at the end of which the census of the people was taken. It was first made by the Roman kings, then by the consuls, but after the year 310 from the building of the city, by the censors, who were magistrates created for that purpose. It appears, however, that the census was not always held at stated periods, and sometimes long intervals intervened.]

148 (return)
[ Augustus appears to have been in earnest on these occasions, at least, in his desire to retire into private life and release himself from the cares of government, if we may believe Seneca. De Brev. Vit. c. 5. Of his two intimate advisers, Agrippa gave this counsel, while Mecaenas was for continuing his career of ambition.—Eutrop. 1. 53.]

149 (return)
[ The Tiber has been always remarkable for the frequency of its inundations and the ravages they occasioned, as remarked by Pliny, iii. 5. Livy mentions several such occurrences, as well as one extensive fire, which destroyed great part of the city.]

150 (return)
[ The well-known saying of Augustus, recorded by Suetonius, that he found a city of bricks, but left it of marble, has another version given it by Dio, who applies it to his consolidation of the government, to the following effect: “That Rome, which I found built of mud, I shall leave you firm as a rock.”—Dio. lvi. p. 589.]

151 (return)
[ The same motive which engaged Julius Caesar to build a new forum, induced Augustus to erect another. See his life c. xx. It stood behind the present churches of St. Adrian and St. Luke, and was almost parallel with the public forum, but there are no traces of it remaining. The temple of Mars Ultor, adjoining, has been mentioned before, p. 84.]

152 (return)
[ The temple of the Palatine Apollo stood, according to Bianchini, a little beyond the triumphal arch of Titus. It appears, from the reverse of a medal of Augustus, to have been a rotondo, with an open portico, something like the temple of Vesta. The statues of the fifty daughters of Danae surrounded the portico; and opposite to them were their husbands on horseback. In this temple were preserved some of the finest works of the Greek artists, both in sculpture and painting. Here, in the presence of Augustus, Horace’s Carmen Seculare was sung by twenty-seven noble youths and as many virgins. And here, as our author informs us, Augustus, towards the end of his reign, often assembled the senate.]

153 (return)
[ The library adjoined the temple, and was under the protection of Apollo. Caius Julius Hegenus, a freedman of Augustus, and an eminent grammarian, was the librarian.]

154 (return)
[ The three fluted Corinthian columns of white marble, which stand on the declivity of the Capitoline hill, are commonly supposed to be the remains of the temple of Jupiter Tonans, erected by Augustus. Part of the frieze and cornice are attached to them, which with the capitals of the columns are finely wrought. Suetonius tells us on what occasion this temple was erected. Of all the epithets given to Jupiter, none conveyed more terror to superstitious minds than that of the Thunderer—

We shall find this temple mentioned again in c. xci. of the life of Augustus.]

155 (return)
[ The Portico of Octavia stood between the Flaminian circus and the theatre of Marcellus, enclosing the temples of Jupiter and Juno, said to have been built in the time of the republic. Several remains of them exist, in the Pescheria or fish-market; they were of the Corinthian order, and have been traced and engraved by Piranesi.]

156 (return)
[ The magnificent theatre of Marcellus was built on the site where Suetonius has before informed us that Julius Caesar intended to erect one (p. 30). It stood between the portico of Octavia and the hill of the Capitol. Augustus gave it the name of his nephew Marcellus, though he was then dead. Its ruins are still to be seen in the Piazza Montanara, where the Orsini family have a palace erected on the site.]

157 (return)
[ The theatre of Balbus was the third of the three permanent theatres of Rome. Those of Pompey and Marcellus have been already mentioned.]

158 (return)
[ Among these were, at least, the noble portico, if not the whole, of the Pantheon, still the pride of Rome, under the name of the Rotondo, on the frieze of which may be seen the inscription,

Agrippa also built the temple of Neptune, and the portico of the Argonauts.]

159 (return)
[ To whatever extent Augustus may have cleared out the bed of the Tiber, the process of its being encumbered with an alluvium of ruins and mud has been constantly going on. Not many years ago, a scheme was set on foot for clearing it by private enterprise, principally for the sake of the valuable remains of art which it is supposed to contain.]

160 (return)
[ The Via Flaminia was probably undertaken by the censor Caius Flaminius, and finished by his son of the same name, who was consul A.U.C. 566, and employed his soldiers in forming it after subduing the Ligurians. It led from the Flumentan gate, now the Porta del Popolo, through Etruria and Umbria into the Cisalpine Gaul, ending at Ariminum, the frontier town of the territories of the republic, now Rimini, on the Adriatic; and is travelled by every tourist who takes the route, north of the Appenines, through the States of the Church, to Rome. Every one knows that the great highways, not only in Italy but in the provinces, were among the most magnificent and enduring works of the Roman people.]

161 (return)
[ It had formed a sort of honourable retirement in which Lepidus was shelved, to use a familiar expression, when Augustus got rid of him quietly from the Triumvirate. Augustus assumed it A.U.C. 740, thus centring the last of all the great offices of the state in his own person; that of Pontifex Maximus, being of high importance, from the sanctity attached to it, and the influence it gave him over the whole system of religion.]

162 (return)
[ In the thirty-six years since the calendar was corrected by Julius Caesar, the priests had erroneously intercalated eleven days instead of nine. See JULIUS, c. xl.]

163 (return)
[ Sextilis, the sixth month, reckoning from March, in which the year of Romulus commenced.]

164 (return)
[ So Cicero called the day on which he returned from exile, the day of his “nativity” and his “new birth,” paligennesian, a word which had afterwards a theological sense, from its use in the New Testament.]

165 (return)
[ Capi. There is a peculiar force in the word here adopted by Suetonius; the form used by the Pontifex Maximus, when he took the novice from the hand of her father, being Te capio amata, “I have you, my dear,” implying the forcible breach of former ties, as in the case of a captive taken in war.]

166 (return)
[ At times when the temple of Janus was shut, and then only, certain divinations were made, preparatory to solemn supplication for the public health, “as if,” says Dio, “even that could not be implored from the gods, unless the signs were propitious.” It would be an inquiry of some interest, now that the care of the public health is becoming a department of the state, with what sanatory measures these becoming solemnities were attended.]

167 (return)
[ Theophrastus mentions the spring and summer flowers most suited for these chaplets. Among the former, were hyacinths, roses, and white violets; among the latter, lychinis, amaryllis, iris, and some species of lilies.]

168 (return)
[ Ergastulis. These were subterranean strong rooms, with narrow windows, like dungeons, in the country houses, where incorrigible slaves were confined in fetters, in the intervals of the severe tasks in grinding at the hand-mills, quarrying stones, drawing water, and other hard agricultural labour in which they were employed.]

169 (return)
[ These months were not only “the Long Vacation” of the lawyers, but during them there was a general cessation of business at Rome; the calendar exhibiting a constant succession of festivals. The month of December, in particular, was devoted to pleasure and relaxation.]

170 (return)
[ Causes are mentioned, the hearing of which was so protracted that lights were required in the court; and sometimes they lasted, we are told, as long as eleven or twelve days.]

171 (return)
[ Orcini. They were also called Charonites, the point of the sarcasm being, that they owed their elevation to a dead man, one who was gone to Orcus, namely Julius Caesar, after whose death Mark Antony introduced into the senate many persons of low rank who were designated for that honour in a document left by the deceased emperor.]

172 (return)
[ Cordus Cremutius wrote a History of the Civil Wars, and the Times of Augustus, as we are informed by Dio, 6, 52.]

173 (return)
[ In front of the orchestra.]

174 (return)
[ The senate usually assembled in one of the temples, and there was an altar consecrated to some god in the curia, where they otherwise met, as that to Victory in the Julian Curia.]

175 (return)
[ To allow of their absence during the vintage, always an important season in rural affairs in wine-growing countries. In the middle and south of Italy, it begins in September, and, in the worst aspects, the grapes are generally cleared before the end of October. In elevated districts they hung on the trees, as we have witnessed, till the month of November.]

176 (return)
[ Julius Caesar had introduced the contrary practice. See JULIUS, c. xx.]

177 (return)
[ A.U.C. 312, two magistrates were created, under the name of Censors, whose office, at first, was to take an account of the number of the people, and the value of their estates. Power was afterwards granted them to inspect the morals of the people; and from this period the office became of great importance. After Sylla, the election of censors was intermitted for about seventeen years. Under the emperors, the office of censor was abolished; but the chief functions of it were exercised by the emperors themselves, and frequently both with caprice and severity.]

178 (return)
[ Young men until they were seventeen years of age, and young women until they were married, wore a white robe bordered with purple, called Toga Praetexta. The former, when they had completed this period, laid aside the dress of minority, and assumed the Toga Virilis, or manly habit. The ceremony of changing the Toga was performed with great solemnity before the images of the Lares, to whom the Bulla was consecrated. On this occasion, they went either to the Capitol, or to some temple, to pay their devotions to the Gods.]

179 (return)
[ Transvectio: a procession of the equestrian order, which they made with great splendour through the city, every year, on the fifteenth of July. They rode on horseback from the temple of Honour, or of Mars, without the city, to the Capitol, with wreaths of olive on their heads, dressed in robes of scarlet, and bearing in their hands the military ornaments which they had received from their general, as a reward of their valour. The knights rode up to the censor, seated on his curule chair in front of the Capitol, and dismounting, led their horses in review before him. If any of the knights was corrupt in his morals, had diminished his fortune below the legal standard, or even had not taken proper care of his horse, the censor ordered him to sell his horse, by which he was considered as degraded from the equestrian order.]

180 (return)
[ Pugillaria were a kind of pocket book, so called, because memorandums were written or impinged by the styli, on their waxed surface. They appear to have been of very ancient origin, for we read of them in Homer under the name of pinokes.—II. z. 169.

181 (return)
[ Pullatorum; dusky, either from their dark colour, or their being soiled. The toga was white, and was the distinguishing costume of the sovereign people of Rome, without which, they were not to appear in public; as members of an university are forbidden to do so, without the academical dress, or officers in garrisons out of their regimentals.]

182 (return)
[ Aen. i. 186.]

183 (return)
[ It is hardly necessary to direct the careful reader’s attention to views of political economy so worthy of an enlightened prince. But it was easier to make the Roman people wear the toga, than to forego the cry of “Panem et Circenses.”]

184 (return)
[ Septa were enclosures made with boards, commonly for the purpose of distributing the people into distinct classes, and erected occasionally like our hustings.]

185 (return)
[ The Thensa was a splendid carriage with four wheels, and four horses, adorned with ivory and silver, in which, at the Circensian games, the images of the gods were drawn in solemn procession from their shrines, to a place in the circus, called the Pulvinar, where couches were prepared for their reception. It received its name from thongs (lora tensa) stretched before it; and was attended in the procession by persons of the first rank, in their most magnificent apparel. The attendants took delight in putting their hands to the traces: and if a boy happened to let go the thong which he held, it was an indispensable rule that the procession should be renewed.]

186 (return)
[ The Cavea was the name of the whole of that part of the theatre where the spectators sat. The foremost rows were called cavea prima, of cavea; the last, cavea ultima, or summa; and the middle, cavea media.]

187 (return)
[ A.U.C. 726.]

188 (return)
[ As in the case of Herod, Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xv. 10.]

189 (return)
[ The Adriatic and the Tuscan.]

190 (return)
[ It was first established by Tiberius. See c. xxxvii.]

191 (return)
[ Tertullian, in his Apology, c. 34, makes the same remark. The word seems to have conveyed then, as it does in its theological sense now, the idea of Divinity, for it is coupled with Deus, God; nunquum se dominum vel deum appellare voluerit.]

192 (return)
[ An inclosure in the middle of the Forum, marking the spot where Curtius leapt into the lake, which had been long since filled up.]

193 (return)
[ Sandalarium, Tragoedum; names of streets, in which temples of tame gouts stood, as we now say St. Peter, Cornhill, etc.]

194 (return)
[ A coin, in value about 8 3/4 d. of our money.]

195 (return)
[ The senate, as instituted by Romulus, consisted of one hundred members, who were called Patres, i. e. Fathers, either upon account of their age, or their paternal care of the state. The number received some augmentation under Tullus Hostilius; and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, added a hundred more, who were called Patres minorum gentium; those created by Romulus being distinguished by the name of Patres majorum gentium. Those who were chosen into the senate by Brutus, after the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, to supply the place of those whom that king had slain, were called Conscripti, i. e. persons written or enrolled among the old senators, who alone were properly styled Patres. Hence arose the custom of summoning to the senate those who were Patres, and those who were Conscripti; and hence also was applied to the senators in general the designation of Patres Conscripti, the particle et, and, being understood to connect the two classes of senators. In the time of Julius Caesar, the number of senators was increased to nine hundred, and after his death to a thousand; many worthless persons having been admitted into the senate during the civil wars. Augustus afterwards reduced the number to six hundred.]

196 (return)
[ Antonius Musa was a freedman, and had acquired his knowledge of medicine while a domestic slave; a very common occurrence.]

197 (return)
[ A.U.C. 711.]

198 (return)
[ See cc. x. xi. xii. and xiii.]

199 (return)
[ One of them was Scipio, the father of Cornelia, whose death is lamented by Propertius, iv. 12. The other is unknown.]

200 (return)
[ A.U.C. 715.]

201 (return)
[ He is mentioned by Horace:

Most probably Antony knew the imputation to be unfounded, and made it for the purpose of excusing his own marriage with Cleopatra.]

202 (return)
[ This form of adoption consisted in a fictitious sale. See Cicero, Topic. iii.]

203 (return)
[ Curiae. Romulus divided the people of Rome into three tribes; and each tribe into ten Curiae. The number of tribes was afterwards increased by degrees to thirty-five; but that of the Curiae always remained the same.]

204 (return)
[ She was removed to Reggio in Calabria.]

205 (return)
[ Agrippa was first banished to the little desolate island of Planasia, now Pianosa. It is one of the group in the Tuscan sea, between Elba and Corsica.]

206 (return)
[ A quotation from the Iliad, 40, iii.; where Hector is venting his rage on Paris. The inflexion is slightly changed, the line in the original commencing, “Aith’ opheles, etc., would thou wert, etc.”]

207 (return)
[ Women called ustriculae, the barbers, were employed in thin delicate operation. It is alluded to by Juvenal, ix. 4, and Martial, v. 61.]

208 (return)
[ Cybele.—Gallus was either the name of a river in Phrygia, supposed to cause a certain frenzy in those who drank of its waters, or the proper name of the first priest of Cybele.]

209 (return)
[ A small drum, beat by the finger or thumb, was used by the priests of Cybele in their lascivious rites and in other orgies of a similar description, These drums were made of inflated skin, circular in shape, so that they had some resemblance to the orb which, in the statues of the emperor, he is represented as holding in his hand. The populace, with the coarse humour which was permitted to vent itself freely at the spectacles, did not hesitate to apply what was said in the play of the lewd priest of Cybele, to Augustus, in reference to the scandals attached to his private character. The word cinaedus, translated “wanton,” might have been rendered by a word in vulgar use, the coarsest in the English language, and there is probably still more in the allusion too indelicate to be dwelt upon.]

210 (return)
[ Mark Antony makes use of fondling diminutives of the names of Tertia, Terentia, and Rufa, some of Augustus’s favourites.]

211 (return)
[ Dodekatheos; the twelve Dii Majores; they are enumerated in two verses by Ennius:—

212 (return)
[ Probably in the Suburra, where Martial informs us that torturing scourges were sold:

213 (return)
[ Like the gold and silver-smiths of the middle ages, the Roman money-lenders united both trades. See afterwards, NERO, c. 5. It is hardly necessary to remark that vases or vessels of the compound metal which went by the name of Corinthian brass, or bronze, were esteemed even more valuable than silver plate.]

214 (return)
[ See c. xxxii. and note.]

215 (return)
[ The Romans, at their feasts, during the intervals of drinking, often played at dice, of which there were two kinds, the tesserae and tali. The former had six sides, like the modern dice; the latter, four oblong sides, for the two ends were not regarded. In playing, they used three tesserae and four tali, which were all put into a box wider below than above, and being shaken, were thrown out upon the gaming-board or table.]

216 (return)
[ The highest cast was so called.]

217 (return)
[ Enlarged by Tiberius and succeeding emperors. The ruins of the palace of the Caesars are still seen on the Palatine.]

218 (return)
[ Probably travertine, a soft limestone, from the Alban Mount, which was, therefore, cheaply procured and easily worked.]

219 (return)
[ It was usual among the Romans to have separate sets of apartments for summer and winter use, according to their exposure to the sun.]

220 (return)
[ This word may be interpreted the Cabinet of Arts. It was common, in the houses of the great, among the Romans, to have an apartment called the Study, or Museum. Pliny says, beautifully, “O mare! O littus! verum secretumque mouseion, quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis?” O sea! O shore! Thou real and secluded museum; what treasures of science do you not discover to us, how much do you teach us!—Epist. i. 9.]

221 (return)
[ Mecaenas had a house and gardens on the Esquiline Hill, celebrated for their salubrity—] Nunc licet Esquiliis habitore salubribus.—Hor. Sat. i. 3, 14.]

222 (return)
[ Such as Baiae, and the islands of Ischia, Procida, Capri, and others; the resorts of the opulent nobles, where they had magnificent marine villas.]

223 (return)
[ Now Tivoli, a delicious spot, where Horace had a villa, in which he hoped to spend his declining years.

Adrian also had a magnificent villa near Tibur.]

224 (return)
[ The Toga was a loose woollen robe, which covered the whole body, close at the bottom, but open at the top down to the girdle, and without sleeves. The right arm was thus at liberty, and the left supported a flap of the toga, which was drawn up, and thrown back over the left shoulder; forming what is called the Sinus, a fold or cavity upon the breast, in which things might be carried, and with which the face or head might be occasionally covered. When a person did any work, he tucked up his toga, and girt it round him. The toga of the rich and noble was finer and larger than that of others; and a new toga was called Pexa. None but Roman citizens were permitted to wear the toga; and banished persons were prohibited the use of it. The colour of the toga was white. The clavus was a purple border, by which the senators, and other orders, with the magistrates, were distinguished; the breadth of the stripe corresponding with their rank.]

225 (return)
[ In which the whole humour of the thing consisted either in the uses to which these articles were applied, or in their names having in Latin a double signification; matters which cannot be explained with any decency.]

226 (return)
[ Casum bubulum manu pressum; probably soft cheese, not reduced to solid consistence in the cheese-press.]

227 (return)
[ A species of fig tree, known in some places as Adam’s fig. We have gathered them, in those climates, of the latter crop, as late as the month of November.]

228 (return)
[ Sabbatis Jejunium. Augustus might have been better informed of the Jewish rites, from his familiarity with Herod and others; for it is certain that their sabbath was not a day of fasting. Justin, however, fell into the same error: he says, that Moses appointed the sabbath-day to be kept for ever by the Jews as a fast, in memory of their fasting for seven days in the deserts of Arabia, xxxvi. 2. 14. But we find that there was a weekly fast among the Jews, which is perhaps what is here meant; the Sabbatis Jejunium being equivalent to the Naesteuo dis tou sabbatou, ‘I fast twice in the week’ of the Pharisee, in St. Luke xviii. 12.]

229 (return)
[ The Rhaetian wines had a great reputation; Virgil says,

The vineyards lay at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps; their produce, we have reason to believe, was not a very generous liquor.]

230 (return)
[ A custom in all warm countries; the siesta of the Italians in later times.]

231 (return)
[ The strigil was used in the baths for scraping the body when in a state of perspiration. It was sometimes made of gold or silver, and not unlike in form the instrument used by grooms about horses when profusely sweating or splashed with mud.]

232 (return)
[ His physician, mentioned c. lix.]

233 (return)
[ Sept. 21st, a sickly season at Rome.]

234 (return)
[ Feminalibus et tibialibus: Neither the ancient Romans or the Greeks wore breeches, trews, or trowsers, which they despised as barbarian articles of dress. The coverings here mentioned were swathings for the legs and thighs, used mostly in cases of sickness or infirmity, and when otherwise worn, reckoned effeminate. But soon after the Romans became acquainted with the German and Celtic nations, the habit of covering the lower extremities, barbarous as it had been held, was generally adopted.]

235 (return)
[ Albula. On the left of the road to Tivoli, near the ruins of Adrian’s villa. The waters are sulphureous, and the deposit from them causes incrustations on twigs and other matters plunged in the springs. See a curious account of this stream in Gell’s Topography, published by Bohn, p 40.]

236 (return)
[ In spongam incubuisse, literally has fallen upon a sponge, as Ajax is said to have perished by falling on his own sword.]

237 (return)
[ Myrobrecheis. Suetonius often preserves expressive Greek phrases which Augustus was in the habit of using. This compound word meant literally, myrrh-scented, perfumed.]

238 (return)
[ These are variations of language of small importance, which can only be understood in the original language.]

239 (return)
[ It may create a smile to hear that, to prevent danger to the public, Augustus decreed that no new buildings erected in a public thoroughfare should exceed in height seventy feet. Trajan reduced it to sixty.]

240 (return)
[ Virgil is said to have recited before him the whole of the second, fourth, and sixth books of the Aeneid; and Octavia, being present, when the poet came to the passage referring to her son, commencing, “Tu Marcellus eris,” was so much affected that she was carried out fainting.]

241 (return)
[ Chap. xix.]

242 (return)
[ Perhaps the point of the reply lay in the temple of Jupiter Tonans being placed at the approach to the Capitol from the Forum? See c. xxix. and c. xv., with the note.]

243 (return)
[ If these trees flourished at Rome in the time of Augustus, the winters there must have been much milder than they now are. There was one solitary palm standing in the garden of a convent some years ago, but it was of very stunted growth.]

244 (return)
[ The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns.]

245 (return)
[ “The Nundinae occurred every ninth day, when a market was held at Rome, and the people came to it from the country. The practice was not then introduced amongst the Romans, of dividing their time into weeks, as we do, in imitation of the Jews. Dio, who flourished under Severus, says that it first took place a little before his time, and was derived from the Egyptians.”—Thomson. A fact, if well founded, of some importance.]

246 (return)
[ “The Romans divided their months into calends, nones, and ides. The first day of the month was the calends of that month; whence they reckoned backwards, distinguishing the time by the day before the calends, the second day before the calends, and so on, to the ides of the preceding month. In eight months of the year, the nones were the fifth day, and the ides the thirteenth: but in March, May, July, and October, the nones fell on the seventh, and the ides on the fifteenth. From the nones they reckoned backwards to the calends, as they also did from the ides to the nones.”—Ib.]

247 (return)
[ The early Christians shared with the Jews the aversion of the Romans to their religion, more than that of others, arising probably from its monotheistic and exclusive character. But we find from Josephus and Philo that Augustus was in other respects favourable to the Jews.]

248 (return)
[ Strabo tells us that Mendes was a city of Egypt near Lycopolis. Asclepias wrote a book in Greek with the idea of theologoumenon, in defence of some very strange religious rites, of which the example in the text is a specimen.]

249 (return)
[ Velletri stands on very high ground, commanding extensive views of the Pontine marshes and the sea.]

250 (return)
[ Munda was a city in the Hispania Boetica, where Julius Caesar fought a battle. See c. lvi.]

251 (return)
[ The good omen, in this instance, was founded upon the etymology of the names of the ass and its driver; the former of which, in Greek, signifies fortunate, and the latter, victorious.]

252 (return)
[ Aesar is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination; aisa signifying fate.]

253 (return)
[ Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples. Augustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast.]

254 (return)
[ “Puteoli”—“A ship of Alexandria.” Words which bring to our recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13. Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and not only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of corn and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east.]

255 (return)
[ The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxiii. The Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and women, freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers.]

256 (return)
[ Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.]

257 (return)
[ A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that emperor.]

258 (return)
[ Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.]

259 (return)
[ Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman citizens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but not that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained their own laws and customs; nor were they obliged to receive the Roman laws unless they chose it.]

260 (return)
[ Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles from Rome, now called Frattochio.]

261 (return)
[ Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in this pious office, which occupied them during five days.]

262 (return)
[ For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 94, note. The superb monument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by a dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first who was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present Porta del Popolo; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor and his family were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the church of the Madonna of that name.]

263 (return)
[ The distinction between the Roman people and the tribes, is also observed by Tacitus, who substitutes the word plebs, meaning, the lowest class of the populace.]

264 (return)
[ Those of his father Octavius, and his father by adoption, Julius Caesar.]

265 (return)
[ See before, c. 65. But he bequeathed a legacy to his daughter, Livia.]

266 (return)
[ Virgil.]

267 (return)
[ Ibid.]

268 (return)
[ Ibid.]

269 (return)
[ Geor. ii.]

270 (return)
[ I am prevented from entering into greater details, both by the size of my volume, and my anxiety to complete the undertaking.]

271 (return)
[ After performing these immortal achievements, while he was holding an assembly of the people for reviewing his army in the plain near the lake of Capra, a storm suddenly rose, attended with great thunder and lightning, and enveloped the king in so dense a mist, that it took all sight of him from the assembly. Nor was Romulus after this seen on earth. The consternation being at length over, and fine clear weather succeeding so turbulent a day, when the Roman youth saw the royal seat empty, though they readily believed the Fathers who had stood nearest him, that he was carried aloft by the storm, yet struck with the dread as it were of orphanage, they preserved a sorrowful silence for a considerable time. Then a commencement having been made by a few, the whole multitude salute Romulus a god, son of a god, the king and parent of the Roman city; they implore his favour with prayers, that he would be pleased always propitiously to preserve his own offspring. I believe that even then there were some who silently surmised that the king had been torn in pieces by the hands of the Fathers; for this rumour also spread, but was not credited; their admiration of the man and the consternation felt at the moment, attached importance to the other report. By the contrivance also of one individual, additional credit is said to have been gained to the matter. For Proculus Julius, whilst the state was still troubled with regret for the king, and felt incensed against the senators, a person of weight, as we are told, in any matter, however important, comes forward to the assembly. “Romans,” he said, “Romulus, the father of this city, suddenly descending from heaven, appeared to me this day at day-break. While I stood covered with awe, and filled with a religious dread, beseeching him to allow me to see him face to face, he said; ‘Go tell the Romans, that the gods do will, that my Rome should become the capital of the world. Therefore let them cultivate the art of war, and let them know and hand down to posterity, that no human power shall be able to withstand the Roman arms.’ Having said this, he ascended up to heaven.” It is surprising what credit was given to the man on his making this announcement, and how much the regret of the common people and army for the loss of Romulus, was assuaged upon the assurance of his immortality.]

272 (return)
[ Padua.]

273 (return)
[ Commentators seem to have given an erroneous and unbecoming sense to Cicero’s exclamation, when they suppose that the object understood, as connected with altera, related to himself. Hope is never applied in this signification, but to a young person, of whom something good or great is expected; and accordingly, Virgil, who adopted the expression, has very properly applied it to Ascanius:

Cicero, at the time when he could have heard a specimen of Virgil’s Eclogues, must have been near his grand climacteric; besides that, his virtues and talents had long been conspicuous, and were past the state of hope. It is probable, therefore, that altera referred to some third person, spoken of immediately before, as one who promised to do honour to his country. It might refer to Octavius, of whom Cicero at this time, entertained a high opinion; or it may have been spoken in an absolute manner, without reference to any person.]

274 (return)
[ I was born at Mantua, died in Calabria, and my tomb is at Parthenope: pastures, rural affairs, and heroes are the themes of my poems.]

275 (return)
[ The last members of these two lines, from the commas to the end are said to have been supplied by Erotes, Virgil’s librarian.]

276 (return)
[ Carm. i. 17.]

277 (return)
[ “The Medea of Ovid proves, in my opinion, how surpassing would have been his success, if he had allowed his genius free scope, instead of setting bounds to it.”]

278 (return)
[ Two faults have ruined me; my verse, and my mistake.]

279 (return)
[ These lines are thus rendered in the quaint version of Zachary Catlin.

280 (return)
[ “I myself employed you as ready agents in love, when my early youth sported in numbers adapted to it.”—Riley’s Ovid.]

281 (return)
[ “I long since erred by one composition; a fault that is not recent endures a punishment inflicted thus late. I had already published my poems, when, according to my privilege, I passed in review so many times unmolested as one of the equestrian order, before you the enquirer into criminal charges. Is it then possible that the writings which, in my want of confidence, I supposed would not have injured me when young, have now been my ruin in my old age?”—Riley’s Ovid.]

282 (return)
[ This place, now called Temisvar, or Tomisvar, stands on one of the mouths of the Danube, about sixty-five miles E.N.E. from Silistria. The neighbouring bay of the Black Sea is still called the Gulf of Baba.]

283 (return)
[ “It appears to me, therefore, more reasonable to pursue glory by means of the intellect, than of bodily strength; and, since the life we enjoy is short to make the remembrance of it as lasting as possible.”]

284 (return)
[ Intramural interments were prohibited at Rome by the laws of the Twelve Tables, notwithstanding the practice of reducing to ashes the bodies of the dead. It was only by special privilege that individuals who had deserved well of the state, and certain distinguished families were permitted to have tombs within the city.]

285 (return)
[ Among the Romans, all the descendants from one common stock were called Gentiles, being of the same race or kindred, however remote. The Gens, as they termed this general relation or clanship, was subdivided into families, in Familias vel Stirpes; and those of the same family were called Agnati. Relations by the father’s side were also called Agnati, to distinguish them from Cognati, relations only by the mother’s side. An Agnatus might also be called Cognatus, but not the contrary.] To mark the different gentes and familiae, and to distinguish the individuals of the same family, the Romans had commonly three names, the Praenomen, Nomen, and Cognomen. The praenomen was put first, and marked the individual. It was usually written with one letter; as A. for Aulus; C. Caius; D. Decimus: sometimes with two letters; as Ap. for Appius; Cn. Cneius; and sometimes with three; as Mam. for Mamercus.] The Nomen was put after the Praenomen, and marked the gens. It commonly ended in ius; as Julius, Tullius, Cornelius. The Cognomen was put last, and marked the familia; as Cicero, Caesar, etc.] Some gentes appear to have had no surname, as the Marian; and gens and familia seem sometimes to be put one for the other; as the Fabia gens, or Fabia familia.] Sometimes there was a fourth name, properly called the Agnomen, but sometimes likewise Cognomen, which was added on account of some illustrious action or remarkable event. Thus Scipio was named Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, from the conquest of Carthage. In the same manner, his brother was called Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. Thus also, Quintus Fabius Maximus received the Agnomen of Cunctator, from his checking the victorious career of Hannibal by avoiding a battle.]

286 (return)
[ A.U.C. 474.]

287 (return)
[ A.U.C. 490.]

288 (return)
[ A.U.C. 547.]

289 (return)
[ A.U.C. 304.]

290 (return)
[ An ancient Latin town on the Via Appia, the present road to Naples, mentioned by St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 15, and Horace, Sat. i. 5, 3, in giving an account of their travels.]

291 (return)
[ A.U.C. 505.]

292 (return)
[ Cybele; first worshipped in Phrygia, about Mount Ida, from whence a sacred stone, the symbol of her divinity, probably an aerolite, was transported to Rome, in consequence of the panic occasioned by Hannibal’s invasion, A.U.C. 508.]

293 (return)
[ A.U.C. 695.]

294 (return)
[ A.U.C. 611.]

295 (return)
[ A.U.C. 550.]

296 (return)
[ A.U.C. 663.]

297 (return)
[ A.U.C. 707.]

298 (return)
[ These, and other towns in the south of France, became, and long continued, the chief seats of Roman civilization among the Gauls; which is marked by the magnificent remains of ancient art still to be seen. Arles, in particular, is a place of great interest.]

299 (return)
[ A.U.C. 710.]

300 (return)
[ A.U.C. 713.]

301 (return)
[ A.U.C. 712. Before Christ about 39.]

302 (return)
[ A.U.C. 744.]

303 (return)
[ A.U.C. 735.]

304 (return)
[ See before, in the reign of AUGUSTUS, c. xxxii.]

305 (return)
[ A.U.C. 728.]

306 (return)
[ A.U.C. 734.]

307 (return)
[ A.U.C. 737.]

308 (return)
[ A.U.C. 741.]

309 (return)
[ A.U.C. 747.]

310 (return)
[ A.U.C. 748.]

311 (return)
[ Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, about thirteen miles from the city, was founded by Ancus Martius. Being the port of a city like Rome, it could not fail to become opulent; and it was a place of much resort, ornamented with fine edifices, and the environs “never failing of pasture in the summer time, and in the winter covered with roses and other flowers.” The port having been filled up with the depositions of the Tiber, it became deserted, and is now abandoned to misery and malaria. The bishopric of Ostia being the oldest in the Roman church, its bishop has always retained some peculiar privileges.]

312 (return)
[ The Gymnasia were places of exercise, and received their name from the Greek word signifying naked, because the contending parties wore nothing but drawers.]

313 (return)
[ A.U.C. 752.]

314 (return)
[ The cloak and slippers, as distinguished from the Roman toga and shoes.]

315 (return)
[ A.U.C. 755.]

316 (return)
[ This fountain, in the Euganian hills, near Padua, famous for its mineral waters, is celebrated by Claudian in one of his elegies.]

317 (return)
[ The street called Carinae, at Rome, has been mentioned before; AUGUSTUS, c. v.; and also Mecaenas’ house on the Esquiline, ib. c. lxxii. The gardens were formed on ground without the walls, and before used as a cemetery for malefactors, and the lower classes. Horace says—

318 (return)
[ A.U.C. 757.]

319 (return)
[ A.U.C. 760.]

320 (return)
[ A.U.C. 762.]

321 (return)
[ Reviving the simple habits of the times of the republic; “nec fortuitum cernere cespitem,” as Horace describes it.—Ode 15.]

322 (return)
[ A.U.C. 765.]

323 (return)
[ The portico of the temple of Concord is still standing on the side of the Forum nearest the Capitol. It consists of six Ionic columns, each of one piece, and of a light-coloured granite, with bases and capitals of white marble, and two columns at the angles. The temple of Castor and Pollux has been mentioned before: JUL. c. x.]

324 (return)
[ A.U.C. 766.]

325 (return)
[ A.U.C. 767.]

326 (return)
[ Augustus interlards this epistle, and that subsequently quoted, with Greek sentences and phrases, of which this is one. It is so obscure, that commentators suppose that it is a mis-reading, but are not agreed on its drift.]

327 (return)
[ A verse in which the word in italics is substituted for cunctando, quoted from Ennius, who applied it to Fabius Maximus.]

328 (return)
[ Iliad, B. x. Diomede is speaking of Ulysses, where he asks that he may accompany him as a spy into the Trojan camp.]

329 (return)
[ Tiberius had adopted Germanicus. See before, c. xv. See also CALIGULA, c. i.]

330 (return)
[ In this he imitated Augustus. See c. liii. of his life.]

331 (return)
[ Si hanc fenestram aperueritis, if you open that window, equivalent to our phrase, “if you open the door.”]

332 (return)
[ Princeps, principatus, are the terms generally used by Suetonius to describe the supreme authority vested in the Caesars, as before at the beginning of chap. xxiv., distinguished from any terms which conveyed of kingly power, the forms of the republic, as we have lately seen, still subsisting.]

333 (return)
[ Strenas; the French etrennes.]

334 (return)
[ “Tiberius pulled down the temple of Isis, caused her image to be thrown into the Tiber, and crucified her priests.”—Joseph. Ant. Jud. xviii. 4.]

335 (return)
[ Similia sectantes. We are strongly inclined to think that the words might be rendered “similar sects,” conveying an allusion to the small and obscure body of Christians, who were at this period generally confounded with the Jews, and supposed only to differ from them in some peculiarities of their institutions, which Roman historians and magistrates did not trouble themselves to distinguish. How little even the well-informed Suetonius knew of the real facts, we shall find in the only direct notice of the Christians contained in his works (CLAUDIUS c. xxv., NERO, c. xvi.); but that little confirms our conjecture. All the commentators, however, give the passage the turn retained in the text. Josephus informs us of the particular occurrence which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Tiberius.—Ant. xviii. 5.]

336 (return)
[ Varro tells us that the Roman people “were more actively employed (manus movere) in the theatre and circus, than in the corn-fields and vineyards.”—De Re Rustic. ii. And Juvenal, in his satires, frequently alludes to their passion for public spectacles, particularly in the well-known lines—

337 (return)
[ The Cottian Alps derived their name from this king. They include that part of the chain which divides Dauphiny from Piedmont, and are crossed by the pass of the Mont Cenis.]

338 (return)
[ Antium, mentioned before, (AUG. c. lviii.) once a flourishing city of the Volscians, standing on the sea-coast, about thirty-eight miles from Rome, was a favourite resort of the emperors and persons of wealth. The Apollo Belvidere was found among the ruins of its temples and other edifices.]

339 (return)
[ A.U.C. 779.]

340 (return)
[ Terracina, standing at the southern extremity of the Pontine Marshes, on the shore of the Mediterranean. It is surrounded by high calcareous cliffs, in which there are caverns, affording, as Strabo informs us, cool retreats, attached to the Roman villas built round.]

341 (return)
[ Augustus died at Nola, a city in Campania. See c. lviii. of his life.]

342 (return)
[ Fidenae stood in a bend of the Tiber, near its junction with the Anio. There are few traces of it remaining.]

343 (return)
[ That any man could drink an amphora of wine at a draught, is beyond all credibility; for the amphora was nearly equal to nine gallons, English measure. The probability is, that the man had emptied a large vessel, which was shaped like an amphora.]

344 (return)
[ Capri, the luxurious retreat and scene of the debaucheries of the Roman emperors, is an island off the southern point of the bay of Naples, about twelve miles in circumference.]

345 (return)
[ Pan, the god of the shepherds, and inventor of the flute, was said to be the son of Mercury and Penelope. He was worshipped chiefly in Arcadia, and represented with the horns and feet of a goat. The Nymphs, as well as the Graces, were represented naked.]

346 (return)
[ The name of the island having a double meaning, and signifying also a goat.]

347 (return)
[ “Quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos ‘pisciculos’ vocabat, institueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina versarentur, ac luderent: lingua morsuque sensim appetentes; atque etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini ceu papillae admoveret: pronior sane ad id genus libidinis, et natura et aetate.”]

348 (return)
[ “Foeminarum capitibus solitus illudere.”]

349 (return)
[ “Obscoenitate oris hirsuto atque olido.”]

350 (return)
[ “Hircum vetulum capreis naturam ligurire”]

351 (return)
[ The Temple of Vesta, like that dedicated to the same goddess at Tivoli, is round. There was probably one on the same site, and in the same circular form, erected by Numa Pompilius; the present edifice is far too elegant for that age, but there is no record of its erection, but it is known to have been repaired by Vespasian or Domitian after being injured by Nero’s fire. Its situation, near the Tiber, exposed it to floods, from which we find it suffered, from Horace’s lines—

This beautiful temple is still in good preservation. It is surrounded by twenty columns of white marble, and the wall of the cell, or interior (which is very small, its diameter being only the length of one of the columns), is also built of blocks of the same material, so nicely joined, that it seems to be formed of one solid mass.]

352 (return)
[ Antlia; a machine for drawing up water in a series of connected buckets, which was worked by the feet, nisu pedum.]

353 (return)
[ The elder Livia was banished to this island by Augustus. See c. lxv. of his life.]

354 (return)
[ An island in the Archipelago.]

355 (return)
[ This Theodore is noticed by Quintilian, Instit. iii. 1. Gadara was in Syria.]

356 (return)
[ It mattered not that the head substituted was Tiberius’s own.]

357 (return)
[ The verses were probably anonymous.]

358 (return)
[ Oderint dum probent: Caligula used a similar expression; Oderint dum metuant.]

359 (return)
[ A.U.C. 778. Tacit. Annal. iv. The historian’s name was A. Cremutius Cordo. Dio has preserved the passage, xlvii. p. 619. Brutus had already called Cassius “The last of the Romans,” in his lamentation over his dead body.]

360 (return)
[ She was the sister of Germanicus, and Tacitus calls her Livia; but Suetonius is in the habit of giving a fondling or diminutive term to the names of women, as Claudilla, for Claudia, Plautilla, etc.]

361 (return)
[ Priam is said to have had no less than fifty sons and daughters; some of the latter, however, survived him, as Hecuba, Helena, Polyxena, and others.]

362 (return)
[ There were oracles at Antium and Tibur. The “Praenestine Lots” are described by Cicero, De Divin. xi. 41.]

363 (return)
[ Agrippina, and Nero and Drusus.]

364 (return)
[ He is mentioned before in the Life of AUGUSTUS, c. xc.; and also by Horace, Cicero, and Tacitus.]

365 (return)
[ Obscure Greek poets, whose writings were either full of fabulous stories, or of an amatory kind.]

366 (return)
[ It is suggested that the text should be amended, so that the sentence should read—“A Greek soldier;” for of what use could it have been to examine a man in Greek, and not allow him to give his replies in the same language?]

367 (return)
[ So called from Appius Claudius, the Censor, one of Tiberius’s ancestors, who constructed it. It took a direction southward of Rome, through Campania to Brundusium, starting from what is the present Porta di San Sebastiano, from which the road to Naples takes its departure.]

368 (return)
[ A small town on the coast of Latium, not far from Antium, and the present Nettuno. It was here that Cicero was slain by the satellites of Antony.]

369 (return)
[ A town on a promontory of the same dreary coast, between Antium and Terracina, built on a promontory surrounded by the sea and the marsh, still called Circello.]

370 (return)
[ Misenum, a promontory to which Aeneas is said to have given its name from one of his followers. (Aen. ii. 234.) It is now called Capo di Miseno, and shelters the harbour of Mola di Gaieta, belonging to Naples. This was one of the stations of the Roman fleet.]

371 (return)
[ Tacitus agrees with Suetonius as to the age of Tiberius at the time of his death. Dio states it more precisely, as being seventy-seven years, four months, and nine days.]

372 (return)
[ Caius Caligula, who became his successor.]

373 (return)
[ Tacitus and Dio add that he was smothered under a heap of heavy clothes.]

374 (return)
[ In the temple of the Palatine Apollo. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix.]

375 (return)
[ Atella, a town between Capua and Naples, now called San Arpino, where there was an amphitheatre. The people seemed to have raised the shout in derision, referring, perhaps, to the Atellan fables, mentioned in c. xiv.; and in their fury they proposed that his body should only be grilled, as those of malefactors were, instead of being reduced to ashes.]

376 (return)
[ Tacit. Annal. lib. ii.]

377 (return)
[ A.U.C. 757.]

378 (return)
[ A.U.C. 765.]

379 (return)
[ A.U.C. 770.]

380 (return)
[ A.U.C. 767.]

381 (return)
[ A.U.C. 771.]

382 (return)
[ This opinion, like some others which occur in Suetonius, may justly be considered as a vulgar error; and if the heart was found entire, it must have been owing to the weakness of the fire, rather than to any quality communicated to the organ, of resisting the power of that element.]

383 (return)
[ The magnificent title of King of Kings has been assumed, at different times, by various potentates. The person to whom it is here applied, is the king of Parthia. Under the kings of Persia, and even under the Syro-Macedonian kings, this country was of no consideration, and reckoned a part of Hyrcania. But upon the revolt of the East from the Syro-Macedonians, at the instigation of Arsaces, the Parthians are said to have conquered eighteen kingdoms.]

384 (return)
[ A.U.C. 765.]

385 (return)
[ It does not appear that Gaetulicus wrote any historical work, but Martial, Pliny, and others, describe him as a respectable poet.]

386 (return)
[ Supra Confluentes. The German tribe here mentioned occupied the country between the Rhine and the Meuse, and gave their name to Treves (Treviri), its chief town. Coblentz had its ancient name of Confluentes, from its standing at the junction of the two rivers. The exact site of the village in which Caligula was born is not known. Cluverius conjectures that it may be Capelle.]

387 (return)
[ Chap. vii.]

388 (return)
[ The name was derived from Caliga, a kind of boot, studded with nails, used by the common soldiers in the Roman army.]

389 (return)
[ According to Tacitus, who gives an interesting account of these occurrences, Treves was the place of refuge to which the young Caius was conveyed.—Annal. i.]

390 (return)
[ In c. liv. of TIBERIUS, we have seen that his brothers Drusus and Nero fell a sacrifice to these artifices.]

391 (return)
[ Tiberius, who was the adopted father of Germanicus.]

392 (return)
[ Natriceus, a water-snake, so called from nato, to swim. The allusion is probably to Caligula’s being reared in the island of Capri.]

393 (return)
[ As Phaeton is said to have set the world on fire.]

394 (return)
[ See the Life of TIBERIUS, c. lxxiii.]

395 (return)
[ His name also was Tiberius. See before, TIBERIUS, c. lxxvi.]

396 (return)
[ Procida, Ischia, Capri, etc.]

397 (return)
[ The eagle was the standard of the legion, each cohort of which had its own ensign, with different devices; and there were also little images of the emperors, to which divine honours were paid.]

398 (return)
[ See before, cc. liii. liv.]

399 (return)
[ See TIBERIUS, c. x.; and note.]

400 (return)
[ The mausoleum built by Augustus, mentioned before in his Life, c. C.]

401 (return)
[ The Carpentum was a carriage, commonly with two wheels, and an arched covering, but sometimes without a covering; used chiefly by matrons, and named, according to Ovid, from Carmenta, the mother of Evander. Women were prohibited the use of it in the second Punic war, by the Oppian law, which, however, was soon after repealed. This chariot was also used to convey the images of the illustrious women to whom divine honours were paid, in solemn processions after their death, as in the present instance. It is represented on some of the sestertii.]

402 (return)
[ See cc. xiv. and xxiii. of the present History.]

403 (return)
[ Ib. cc. vii. and xxiv.]

404 (return)
[ Life of TIBERIUS, c. xliii.]

405 (return)
[ See the Life of AUGUSTUS, cc. xxviii. and ci.]

406 (return)
[ Julius Caesar had shared it with them (c. xli.). Augustus had only kept up the form (c. xl.). Tiberius deprived the Roman people of the last remains of the freedom of suffrage.]

407 (return)
[ The city of Rome was founded on the twenty-first day of April, which was called Palilia, from Pales, the goddess of shepherds, and ever afterwards kept as a festival.]

408 (return)
[ A.U.C. 790.]

409 (return)
[ A.U.C. 791.]

410 (return)
[ A.U.C. 793.]

411
[ A.U.C. 794.]

412 (return)
[ The Saturnalia, held in honour of Saturn, was, amongst the Romans, the most celebrated festival of the whole year, and held in the month of December. All orders of the people then devoted themselves to mirth and feasting; friends sent presents to one another; and masters treated their slaves upon a footing of equality. At first it was held only for one day, afterwards for three days, and was now prolonged by Caligula’s orders.]

413 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, cc. xxix and xliii. The amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus is supposed to have stood in the Campus Martius, and the elevation now called the Monte Citorio, to have been formed by its ruins.]

414 (return)
[ Supposed to be a house, so called, adjoining the Circus, in which some of the emperor’s attendants resided.]

415 (return)
[ Now Puzzuoli, on the shore of the bay of Naples. Every one knows what wealth was lavished here and at Baiae, on public works and the marine villas of the luxurious Romans, in the times of the emperors.]

416 (return)
[ The original terminus of the Appian Way was at Brundusium. This mole formed what we should call a nearer station to Rome, on the same road, the ruins of which are still to be seen. St. Paul landed there.]

417 (return)
[ Essedis: they were light cars, on two wheels, constructed to carry only one person; invented, it is supposed, by the Belgians, and by them introduced into Britain, where they were used in war. The Romans, after their expeditions in Gaul and Britain, adopted this useful vehicle instead of their more cumbrous RHEDA, not only for journeys where dispatch was required, but in solemn processions, and for ordinary purposes. They seem to have become the fashion, for Ovid tells us that these little carriages were driven by young ladies, themselves holding the reins, Amor. xi. 16. 49.]

418 (return)
[ Suetonius flourished about seventy years after this, in the reign of Adrian, and derived many of the anecdotes which give interest to his history from cotemporary persons. See CLAUDIUS, c. xv. etc.]

419 (return)
[ See TIBERIUS, c. xlvii. and AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi.]

420 (return)
[ This aqueduct, commenced by Caligula and completed by Claudian, a truly imperial work, conveyed the waters of two streams to Rome, following the valley of the Anio from above Tivoli. The course of one of these rivulets was forty miles, and it was carried on arches, immediately after quitting its source, for a distance of three miles. The other, the Anio Novus, also began on arches, which continued for upwards of twelve miles. After this, both were conveyed under ground; but at the distance of six miles from the city, they were united, and carried upon arches all the rest of the way. This is the most perfect of all the ancient aqueducts; and it has been repaired, so as to convey the Acqua Felice, one of the three streams which now supply Rome. See CLAUDIUS, c. xx.]

421 (return)
[ By Septa, Suetonius here means the huts or barracks of the pretorian camp, which was a permanent and fortified station. It stood to the east of the Viminal and Quirinal hills, between the present Porta Pia and S. Lorenzo, where there is a quadrangular projection in the city walls marking the site. The remains of the Amphitheatrum Castrense stand between the Porta Maggiore and S. Giovanni, formerly without the ancient walls, but now included in the line. It is all of brick, even the Corinthian pillars, and seems to have been but a rude structure, suited to the purpose for which it was built, the amusement of the soldiers, and gymnastic exercises. For this purpose they were used to construct temporary amphitheatres near the stations in the distant provinces, which were not built of stone or brick, but hollow circular spots dug in the ground, round which the spectators sat on the declivity, on ranges of seats cut in the sod. Many vestiges of this kind have been traced in Britain.]

422 (return)
[ The Isthmus of Corinth; an enterprize which had formerly been attempted by Demetrius, and which was also projected by Julius Caesar, c. xliv., and Nero, c. xix.; but they all failed of accomplishing it.]

423 (return)
[ On the authority of Dio Cassius and the Salmatian manuscript, this verse from Homer is substituted for the common reading, which is,

424 (return)
[ Alluding, in the case of Romulus, to the rape of the Sabines; and in that of Augustus to his having taken Livia from her husband.—AUGUSTUS, c. lxii.]

425 (return)
[ Selene was the daughter of Mark Antony by Cleopatra.]

426 (return)
[ See c. xii.]

427 (return)
[ The vast area of the Roman amphitheatres had no roof, but the audience were protected against the sun and bad weather by temporary hangings stretched over it.]

428 (return)
[ A proverbial expression, meaning, without distinction.]

429 (return)
[ The islands off the coast of Italy, in the Tuscan sea and in the Archipelago, were the usual places of banishment. See before, c. xv.; and in TIBERIUS, c. liv., etc.]

430 (return)
[ Anticyra, an island in the Archipelago, was famous for the growth of hellebore. This plant being considered a remedy for insanity, the proverb arose—Naviga in Anticyram, as much as to say, “You are mad.”]

431 (return)
[ Meaning the province in Asia, called Galatia, from the Gauls who conquered it, and occupied it jointly with the Greek colonists.]

432 (return)
[ A quotation from the tragedy of Atreus, by L. Attius, mentioned by Cicero. Off. i. 28.]

433 (return)
[ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxxi.]

434 (return)
[ These celebrated words are generally attributed to Nero; but Dio and Seneca agree with Suetonius in ascribing them to Caligula.]

435 (return)
[ Gladiators were distinguished by their armour and manner of fighting. Some were called Secutores, whose arms were a helmet, a shield, a sword, or a leaden ball. Others, the usual antagonists of the former, were named Retiarii. A combatant of this class was dressed in a short tunic, but wore nothing on his head. He carried in his left hand a three-pointed lance, called Tridens or Fuscina, and in his right, a net, with which he attempted to entangle his adversary, by casting it over his head, and suddenly drawing it together; when with his trident he usually slew him. But if he missed his aim, by throwing the net either too short or too far, he instantly betook himself to flight, and endeavoured to prepare his net for a second cast. His antagonist, in the mean time, pursued, to prevent his design, by dispatching him.]

436 (return)
[ AUGUSTUS, c. xxiii.]

437 (return)
[ TIBERIUS, c. xl.]

438 (return)
[ See before, c. xix.]

439 (return)
[ Popae were persons who, at public sacrifices, led the victim to the altar. They had their clothes tucked up, and were naked to the waist. The victim was led with a slack rope, that it might not seem to be brought by force, which was reckoned a bad omen. For the same reason, it was allowed to stand loose before the altar, and it was thought a very unfavourable sign if it got away.]

440 (return)
[ Plato de Repub. xi.; and Cicero and Tull. xlviii.]

441 (return)
[ The collar of gold, taken from the gigantic Gaul who was killed in single combat by Titus Manlius, called afterwards Torquatus, was worn by the lineal male descendants of the Manlian family. But that illustrious race becoming extinct, the badge of honour, as well as the cognomen of Torquatus, was revived by Augustus, in the person of Caius Nonius Asprenas, who perhaps claimed descent by the female line from the family of Manlius.]

442 (return)
[ Cincinnatus signifies one who has curled or crisped hair, from which Livy informs us that Lucius Quintus derived his cognomen. But of what badge of distinction Caligula deprived the family of the Cincinnati, unless the natural feature was hereditary, and he had them all shaved—a practice we find mentioned just below—history does not inform us, nor are we able to conjecture.]

443 (return)
[ The priest of Diana Nemorensis obtained and held his office by his prowess in arms, having to slay his competitors, and offer human sacrifices, and was called Rex from his reigning paramount in the adjacent forest. The temple of this goddess of the chase stood among the deep woods which clothe the declivities of the Alban Mount, at a short distance from Rome—nemus signifying a grove. Julius Caesar had a residence there. See his Life, c. lxxi. The venerable woods are still standing, and among them chestnut-trees, which, from their enormous girth and vast apparent age, we may suppose to have survived from the era of the Caesars. The melancholy and sequestered lake of Nemi, deep set in a hollow of the surrounding woods, with the village on its brink, still preserve the name of Nemi.]

444 (return)
[ An Essedarian was one who fought from an Esseda, the light carriage described in a former note, p. 264.]

445 (return)
[ See before, JULIUS, c. x., and note.]

446 (return)
[ Particularly at Baiae, see before, c. xix. The practice of encroaching on the sea on this coast, commenced before,—

447 (return)
[ Most of the gladiators were slaves.]

448 (return)
[ The part of the Palatium built or occupied by Augustus and Tiberius.]

449 (return)
[ Mevania, a town of Umbria. Its present name is Bevagna. The Clitumnus is a river in the same country, celebrated for the breed of white cattle, which feed in the neighbouring pastures.]

450 (return)
[ Caligula appears to have meditated an expedition to Britain at the time of his pompous ovation at Puteoli, mentioned in c. xiii.; but if Julius Caesar could gain no permanent footing in this island, it was very improbable that a prince of Caligula’s character would ever seriously attempt it, and we shall presently see that the whole affair turned out a farce.]

451 (return)
[ It seems generally agreed, that the point of the coast which was signalized by the ridiculous bravado of Caligula, somewhat redeemed by the erection of a lighthouse, was Itium, afterwards called Gessoriacum, and Bononia (Boulogne), a town belonging to the Gaulish tribe of the Morini; where Julius Caesar embarked on his expedition, and which became the usual place of departure for the transit to Britain.]

452 (return)
[ The denarius was worth at this time about seven pence or eight pence of our money.]

453 (return)
[ Probably to Anticyra. See before, c. xxix. note]

454 (return)
[ The Cimbri were German tribes on the Elbe, who invaded Italy A.U.C. 640, and were defeated by Metellus.]

455 (return)
[ The Senones were a tribe of Cis-Alpine Gauls, settled in Umbria, who sacked and pillaged Rome A.U.C. 363.]

456 (return)
[ By the transmarine provinces, Asia, Egypt, etc., are meant; so that we find Caligula entertaining visions of an eastern empire, and removing the seat of government, which were long afterwards realized in the time of Constantine.]

457 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xviii.]

458 (return)
[ About midnight, the watches being divided into four.]

459 (return)
[ Scabella: commentators are undecided as to the nature of this instrument. Some of them suppose it to have been either a sort of cymbal or castanet, but Pitiscus in his note gives a figure of an ancient statue preserved at Florence, in which a dancer is represented with cymbals in his hands, and a kind of wind instrument attached to the toe of his left foot, by which it is worked by pressure, something in the way of an accordion.]

460 (return)
[ The port of Rome.]

461 (return)
[ The Romans, in their passionate devotion to the amusements of the circus and the theatre, were divided into factions, who had their favourites among the racers and actors, the former being distinguished by the colour of the party to which they belonged. See before, c. xviii., and TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

462 (return)
[ In the slang of the turf, the name of Caligula’s celebrated horse might, perhaps, be translated “Go a-head.”]

463 (return)
[ Josephus, who supplies us with minute details of the assassination of Caligula, says that he made no outcry, either disdaining it, or because an alarm would have been useless; but that he attempted to make his escape through a corridor which led to some baths behind the palace. Among the ruins on the Palatine hill, these baths still attract attention, some of the frescos being in good preservation. See the account in Josephus, xix. 1, 2.]

464 (return)
[ The Lamian was an ancient family, the founders of Formiae. They had gardens on the Esquiline mount.]

465 (return)
[ A.U.C. 714.]

466 (return)
[ Pliny describes Drusus as having in this voyage circumnavigated Germany, and reached the Cimbrian Chersonese, and the Scythian shores, reeking with constant fogs.]

467 (return)
[ Tacitus, Annal. xi. 8, 1, mentions this fosse, and says that Drusus sailed up the Meuse and the Waal. Cluverius places it between the village of Iselvort and the town of Doesborg.]

468 (return)
[ The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy’s king, or chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general. They were always hung up in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Those spoils had been obtained only thrice since the foundation of Rome; the first by Romulus, who slew Acron, king of the Caeninenses; the next by A. Cornelius Cossus, who slew Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, A.U. 318; and the third by M. Claudius Marcellus, who slew Viridomarus, king of the Gauls, A.U. 330.]

469 (return)
[ A.U.C. 744.]

470 (return)
[ This epistle, as it was the habit of Augustus, is interspersed with Greek phrases.]

471 (return)
[ The Alban Mount is the most interesting feature of the scenery of the Campagna about Rome, Monti Cavo, the summit, rising above an amphitheatre of magnificent woods, to an elevation of 2965 French feet. The view is very extensive: below is the lake of Albano, the finest of the volcanic lakes in Italy, and the modern town of the same name. Few traces remain of Alba Longa, the ancient capital of Latium.]

472
[ On the summit of the Alban Mount, on the site of the present convent, stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the Latin tribes assembled annually, and renewed their league, during the Feriae Latinae, instituted by Tarquinus Superbus. It was here, also, that Roman generals, who were refused the honours of a full triumph, performed the ovation, and sacrificed to Jupiter Latialis. Part of the triumphal way by which the mountain was ascended, formed of vast blocks of lava, is still in good preservation, leading through groves of chestnut trees of vast size and age. Spanning them with extended arms—none of the shortest—the operation was repeated five times in compassing their girth.]

473 (return)
[ CALIGULA. See c. v. of his life.]

474 (return)
[ A.U.C. 793. Life of CALIGULA, cc. xliv., xlv., etc.]

475 (return)
[ A.U.C. 794.]

476 (return)
[ The chamber of Mercury; the names of deities being given to different apartments, as those “of Isis,” “of the Muses,” etc.]

477 (return)
[ See the note, p. 265.]

478 (return)
[ The attentive reader will have marked the gradual growth of the power of the pretorian guard, who now, and on so many future occasions, ruled the destinies of the empire.]

479 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, cc. xliii., xlv.]

480 (return)
[ Ib. c. ci.]

481 (return)
[ Germanicus.]

482 (return)
[ Naples and other cities on that coast were Greek colonies.]

483 (return)
[ This arch was erected in memory of the standards (the eagles) lost by Varus, in Germany, having been recovered by Germanicus under the auspices of Tiberius. See his Life, c. xlvii.; and Tacit. Annal. ii. 41. It seems to have stood at the foot of the Capitol, on the side of the Forum, near the temple of Concord; but there are no remains of it.]

484 (return)
[ Tacitus informs us that the same application had been made by Tiberius. Annal. iii. The prefect of the pretorian guards, high and important as his office had now become, was not allowed to enter the senate-house, unless he belonged to the equestrian order.]

485 (return)
[ The procurators had the administration of some of the less important provinces, with rank and authority inferior to that of the pro-consuls and prefects. Frequent mention of these officers is made by Josephus; and Pontius Pilate, who sentenced our Lord to crucifixion, held that office in Judaea, under Tiberius.]

486 (return)
[ Pollio and Messala were distinguished orators, who flourished under the Caesars Julius and Augustus.]

487 (return)
[ A.U.C. 795, 796.]

488 (return)
[ A.U.C. 800, 804.]

489 (return)
[ “Ad bestias” had become a new and frequent sentence for malefactors. It will be recollected, that it was the most usual form of martyrdom for the primitive Christians. Polycarp was brought all the way from Smyrna to be exposed to it in the amphitheatre at Rome.]

490 (return)
[ This reminds us of the decision of Solomon in the case of the two mothers, who each claimed a child as their own, 1 Kings iii. 22-27.]

491 (return)
[ A most absurd judicial conclusion, the business of the judge or court being to decide, on weighing the evidence, on which side the truth preponderated.]

492 (return)
[ See the note in CALIGULA, c. xix., as to Suetonius’s sources of information from persons cotemporary with the occurrences he relates.]

493 (return)
[ The insult was conveyed in Greek, which seems, from Suetonius, to have been in very common use at Rome: kai su geron ei, kai moros.]

494 (return)
[ A.U.C. 798, or 800.]

495 (return)
[ There was a proverb to the same effect: “Si non caste, saltem caute.”]

496 (return)
[ Ptolemy appointed him to an office which led him to assume a foreign dress. Rabirius was defended by Cicero in one of his orations, which is extant.]

497 (return)
[ The Sigillaria was a street in Rome, where a fair was held after the Saturnalia, which lasted seven days; and toys, consisting of little images and dolls, which gave their name to the street and festival, were sold. It appears from the text, that other articles were exposed for sale in this street. Among these were included elegant vases of silver and bronze. There appears also to have been a bookseller’s shop, for an ancient writer tells us that a friend of his showed him a copy of the Second Book of the Aeneid, which he had purchased there.]

498 (return)
[ Opposed to this statement there is a passage in Servius Georgius, iii. 37, asserting that he had heard (accipimus) that Augustus, besides his victories in the east, triumphed over the Britons in the west; and Horace says:—

Strabo likewise informs us, that in his time, the petty British kings sent embassies to cultivate the alliance of Augustus, and make offerings in the Capitol: and that nearly the whole island was on terms of amity with the Romans, and, as well as the Gauls, paid a light tribute.—Strabo, B. iv. p. 138. That Augustus contemplated a descent on the island, but was prevented from attempting it by his being recalled from Gaul by the disturbances in Dalmatia, is very probable. Horace offers his vows for its success:

But the word iturus shews that the scheme was only projected, and the lines previously quoted are mere poetical flattery. Strabo’s statement of the communications kept up with the petty kings of Britain, who were perhaps divided by intestine wars, are, to a certain extent, probably correct, as such a policy would be a prelude to the intended expedition.]

499 (return)
[ Circius. Aulus Gellius, Seneca, and Pliny, mention under this name the strong southerly gales which prevail in the gulf of Genoa and the neighbouring seas.]

500 (return)
[ The Stoechades were the islands now called Hieres, off Toulon.]

501 (return)
[ Claudius must have expended more time in his march from Marseilles to Gessoriacum, as Boulogne was then called, than in his vaunted conquest of Britain.]

502 (return)
[ In point of fact, he was only sixteen days in the island, receiving the submission of some tribes in the south-eastern districts. But the way had been prepared for him by his able general, Aulus Plautius, who defeated Cunobeline, and made himself master of his capital, Camulodunum, or Colchester. These successes were followed up by Ostorius, who conquered Caractacus and sent him to Rome. It is singular that Suetonius has supplied us with no particulars of these events. Some account of them is given in the disquisition appended to this life of CLAUDIUS. The expedition of Plautius took place A.U.C. 796., A.D. 44.]

503 (return)
[ Carpentum: see note in CALIGULA, c. xv.]

504 (return)
[ The Aemiliana, so called because it contained the monuments of the family of that name, was a suburb of Rome, on the Via Lata, outside the gate.]

505 (return)
[ The Diribitorium was a house in the Flaminian Circus, begun by Agrippa, and finished by Augustus, in which soldiers were mustered and their pay distributed; from whence it derived its name. When the Romans went to give their votes at the election of magistrates, they were conducted by officers named Diribitores. It is possible that one and the same building may have been used for both purposes.] The Flaminian Circus was without the city walls, in the Campus Martius. The Roman college now stands on its site.]

506 (return)
[ A law brought in by the consuls Papius Mutilus and Quintus Poppaeus; respecting which, see AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

507 (return)
[ The Fucine Lake is now called Lago di Celano, in the Farther Abruzzi. It is very extensive, but shallow, so that the difficulty of constructing the Claudian emissary, can scarcely be compared to that encountered in a similar work for lowering the level of the waters in the Alban lake, completed A.U.C. 359.]

508 (return)
[ Respecting the Claudian aqueduct, see CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

509 (return)
[ Ostia is referred to in a note, TIBERIUS, c. xi.]

510 (return)
[ Suetonius calls this “the great obelisk” in comparison with those which Augustus had placed in the Circus Maximus and Campus Martius. The one here mentioned was erected by Caligula in his Circus, afterwards called the Circus of Nero. It stood at Heliopolis, having been dedicated to the sun, as Herodotus informs us, by Phero, son of Sesostris, in acknowledgment of his recovery from blindness. It was removed by Pope Sixtus V. in 1586, under the celebrated architect, Fontana, to the centre of the area before St. Peter’s, in the Vatican, not far from its former position. This obelisk is a solid piece of red granite, without hieroglyphics, and, with the pedestal and ornaments at the top, is 182 feet high. The height of the obelisk itself is 113 palms, or 84 feet.]

511 (return)
[ Pliny relates some curious particulars of this ship: “A fir tree of prodigious size was used in the vessel which, by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with their arms.”—B. xvi. c. 76.]

512 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi. It appears to have been often a prey to the flames, TIBERIUS, c. xli.; CALIGULA, c. xx.]

513 (return)
[ Contrary to the usual custom of rising and saluting the emperor without acclamations.]

514 (return)
[ A.U.C. 800.]

515 (return)
[ The Secular Games had been celebrated by Augustus, A.U.C. 736. See c. xxxi. of his life, and the Epode of Horace written on the occasion.]

516 (return)
[ In the circus which he had himself built.]

517 (return)
[ Tophina; Tuffo, a porous stone of volcanic origin, which abounds in the neighbourhood of Rome, and, with the Travertino, is employed in all common buildings.]

518 (return)
[ In compliment to the troops to whom he owed his elevation: see before, c. xi.]

519 (return)
[ Palumbus was a gladiator: and Claudius condescended to pun upon his name, which signifies a wood-pigeon.]

520 (return)
[ See before, c. xvii. Described is c. xx and note.]

521 (return)
[ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

522 (return)
[ To reward his able services as commander of the army in Britain. See before, c. xvii.]

523 (return)
[ German tribes between the Elbe and the Weser, whose chief seat was at Bremen, and others about Ems or Lueneburg.]

524 (return)
[ This island in the Tiber, opposite the Campus Martius, is said to have been formed by the corn sown by Tarquin the Proud on that consecrated field, and cut down and thrown by order of the consuls into the river. The water being low, it lodged in the bed of the stream, and gradual deposits of mud raising it above the level of the water, it was in course of time covered with buildings. Among these was the temple of Aesculapius, erected A.U.C. 462, to receive the serpent, the emblem of that deity which was brought to Rome in the time of a plague. There is a coin of Antoninus Pius recording this event, and Lumisdus has preserved copies of some curious votive inscriptions in acknowledgment of cures which were found in its ruins, Antiquities of Rome, p. 379. It was common for the patient after having been exposed some nights in the temple, without being cured, to depart and put an end to his life. Suetonius here informs us that slaves so exposed, at least obtained their freedom.]

525 (return)
[ Which were carried on the shoulders of slaves. This prohibition had for its object either to save the wear and tear in the narrow streets, or to pay respect to the liberties of the town.]

526 (return)
[ See the note in c. i. of this life of CLAUDIUS.]

527 (return)
[ Seleucus Philopater, son of Antiochus the Great, who being conquered by the Romans, the succeeding kings of Syria acknowledged the supremacy of Rome.]

528 (return)
[ Suetonius has already, in TIBERIUS, c. xxxvi., mentioned the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, and this passage confirms the conjecture, offered in the note, that the Christians were obscurely alluded to in the former notice. The antagonism between Christianity and Judaism appears to have given rise to the tumults which first led the authorities to interfere. Thus much we seem to learn from both passages: but the most enlightened men of that age were singularly ill-informed on the stupendous events which had recently occurred in Judaea, and we find Suetonius, although he lived at the commencement of the first century of the Christian aera, when the memory of these occurrences was still fresh, and it might be supposed, by that time, widely diffused, transplanting Christ from Jerusalem to Rome, and placing him in the time of Claudius, although the crucifixion took place during the reign of Tiberius. St. Luke, Acts xviii. 2, mentions the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the emperor Claudius: Dio, however, says that he did not expel them, but only forbad their religious assemblies. It was very natural for Suetonius to write Chrestus instead of Christus, as the former was a name in use among the Greeks and Romans. Among others, Cicero mentions a person of that name in his Fam. Ep. 11. 8.]

529 (return)
[ Pliny tells us that Druidism had its origin in Gaul, and was transplanted into Britain, xxi. 1. Julius Caesar asserts just the contrary, Bell. Gall. vi. 13, 11. The edict of Claudius was not carried into effect; at least, we find vestiges of Druidism in Gaul, during the reigns of Nero and Alexander Severus.]

530 (return)
[ The Eleusinian mysteries were never transferred from Athens to Rome, notwithstanding this attempt of Claudius, and although Aurelius Victor says that Adrian effected it.]

531 (return)
[ A.U.C. 801.]

532 (return)
[ A.U.C. 773.]

533 (return)
[ It would seem from this passage, that the cognomen of “the Great,” had now been restored to the descendants of Cneius Pompey, on whom it was first conferred.]

534 (return)
[ A.U.C. 806.]

535 (return)
[ A.U.C. 803.]

536 (return)
[ This is the Felix mentioned in the Acts, cc. xxiii. and xxiv., before whom St. Paul pleaded. He is mentioned by Josephus; and Tacitus, who calls him Felix Antonius, gives his character: Annal. v, 9. 6.]

537 (return)
[ It appears that two of these wives of Felix were named Drusilla. One, mentioned Acts xxiv. 24, and there called a Jewess, was the sister of king Agrippa, and had married before, Azizus, king of the Emessenes. The other Drusilla, though not a queen, was of royal birth, being the granddaughter of Cleopatra by Mark Antony. Who the third wife of Felix was, is unknown.]

538 (return)
[ Tacitus and Josephus mention that Pallas was the brother of Felix, and the younger Pliny ridicules the pompous inscription on his tomb.]

539 (return)
[ A.U.C. 802.]

540 (return)
[ The Salii, the priests of Mars, twelve in number, were instituted by Numa. Their dress was an embroidered tunic, bound with a girdle ornamented with brass. They wore on their head a conical cap, of a considerable height; carried a sword by their side; in their right hand a spear or rod, and in their left, one of the Ancilia, or shields of Mars. On solemn occasions, they used to go to the Capitol, through the Forum and other public parts of the city, dancing and singing sacred songs, said to have been composed by Numa; which, in the time of Horace, could hardly be understood by any one, even the priests themselves. The most solemn procession of the Salii was on the first of March, in commemoration of the time when the sacred shield was believed to have fallen from heaven, in the reign of Numa. After their procession, they had a splendid entertainment, the luxury of which was proverbial.]

541 (return)
[ Scaliger and Casauhon give Teleggenius as the reading of the best manuscripts. Whoever he was, his name seems to have been a bye-word for a notorious fool.]

542 (return)
[ Titus Livius, the prince of Roman historians, died in the fourth year of the reign of Tiberius, A.U.C. 771; at which time Claudius was about twenty-seven years old, having been born A.U.C. 744.]

543 (return)
[ Asinius Gallus was the son of Asinius Pollio, the famous orator, and had written a hook comparing his father with Cicero, and giving the former the preference.]

544 (return)
[ Quintilian informs us, that one of the three new letters the emperor Claudius attempted to introduce, was the Aeolic digamma, which had the same force as v consonant. Priscian calls another anti-signs, and says that the character proposed was two Greek sigmas, back to back, and that it was substituted for the Greek ps. The other letter is not known, and all three soon fell into disuse.]

545 (return)
[ Caesar by birth, not by adoption, as the preceding emperors had been, and as Nero would be, if he succeeded.]

546 (return)
[ Tacitus informs us, that the poison was prepared by Locusta, of whom we shall hear, NERO, c. xxxiii. etc.]

547 (return)
[ A.U.C. 806; A.D. 54.]

548 (return)
[ A.U.C. 593, 632, 658, 660, 700, 722, 785.]

549 (return)
[ A.U.C. 632.]

550 (return)
[ A.U.C. 639, 663.]

551 (return)
[ For the distinction between the praenomen and cognomen, see note, p. 192.]

552 (return)
[ A.U.C. 632.]

553 (return)
[ The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and Savoy; the Arverni have left their name in Auvergne.]

554 (return)
[ A.U.C. 695.]

555 (return)
[ A.U.C. 700.]

556 (return)
[ A.U.C. 711.]

557 (return)
[ A.U.C. 723.]

558 (return)
[ Nais seems to have been a freedwoman, who had been allowed to adopt the family name of her master.]

559 (return)
[ By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the testator’s life-time.]

560 (return)
[ The suggestion offered (note, p. 123), that the Argentarii, like the goldsmiths of the middle ages, combined the business of bankers, or money-changers, with dealings in gold and silver plate, is confirmed by this passage. It does not, however, appear that they were artificers of the precious metals, though they dealt in old and current coins, sculptured vessels, gems, and precious stones.]

561 (return)
[ Pyrgi was a town of the ancient Etruria, near Antium, on the sea-coast, but it has long been destroyed.]

562 (return)
[ A.U.C. 791; A.D. 39.]

563 (return)
[ The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Romans, in the case of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. The customs of the Judaical law were similar. See Matt. i. 59-63; Luke iii. 21. 22.]

564 (return)
[ A.U.C. 806.]

565 (return)
[ Seneca, the celebrated philosophical writer, had been released from exile in Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards fell a sacrifice to the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero.]

566 (return)
[ Caligula.]

567 (return)
[ A.U.C. 809—A.D. 57.]

568 (return)
[ Antium, the birth-place of Nero, an ancient city of the Volscians, stood on a rocky promontory of the coast, now called Capo d’ Anzo, about thirty-eight miles from Rome. Though always a place of some naval importance, it was indebted to Nero for its noble harbour. The ruins of the moles yet remain; and there are vestiges of the temples and villas of the town, which was the resort of the wealthy Romans, it being a most delightful winter residence. The Apollo Belvidere was discovered among these ruins.]

569 (return)
[ A.U.C. 810.]

570 (return)
[ The Podium was part of the amphitheatre, near the orchestra, allotted to the senators, and the ambassadors of foreign nations; and where also was the seat of the emperor, of the person who exhibited the games, and of the Vestal Virgins. It projected over the wall which surrounded the area of the amphitheatre, and was raised between twelve and fifteen feet above it; secured with a breast-work or parapet against the irruption of wild beasts.]

571 (return)
[ A.U.C. 813.]

572 (return)
[ The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, probably, incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander Severus; but no vestige of them remains. That the former were magnificent, we may infer from the verses of Martial:

573 (return)
[ Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the beard was marked with particular ceremony. It was usually in their twenty-first year, but the period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved at twenty; Augustus at twenty-five.]

574 (return)
[ A.U.C. 819. See afterwards, c. xxx.]

575 (return)
[ A.U.C. 808, 810, 811, 813.]

576 (return)
[ The Sportulae were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money were carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public entertainments at which food was distributed, or money given in lieu of it.]

577 (return)
[ “Superstitionis novae et maleficae,” are the words of Suetonius; the latter conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas relates that a certain martyr cried out from his dungeon—“Ye have loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer and profane person.” Tacitus calls the Christian religion “a foreign and deadly [Footnote exitiabilis: superstition,” Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, “a depraved, wicked (or prava), and outrageous superstition.” Epist. x. 97.] Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the Roman Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the derision of the people; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn to pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were crucified, or condemned to be burnt; and at night-fall served in place of lamps to lighten the darkness, Nero’s own gardens being used for the spectacle. Annal. xv. 44. Traditions of the church place the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, under the reign of Nero. The legends are given by Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 206, etc., with the notes and reference to the apocryphal works on which they are founded.]

578 (return)
[ Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. See c. xvii. of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius Paulinus, attacked Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and extirpated them with great cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who inhabited Derbyshire, were probably the cause of Nero’s wishing to withdraw the legions; she having reduced London, Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy thousand of the Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length defeated by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit. Agric. xv. 1, xvi. 1; and Annal. xiv. 29.]

579 (return)
[ The dominions of Cottius embraced the vallies in the chain of the Alps extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Romans the Cottian Alps. See TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

580 (return)
[ It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the circumnavigation of the southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan, which, even in our days, has its perils. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xliv. and CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

581 (return)
[ Caspiae Portae; so called from the difficulties opposed by the narrow and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the country washed by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between the Caspian and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of Teflis, and is frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and the Circassian tribes.]

582 (return)
[ Citharoedus: the word signifies a vocalist, who with his singing gave an accompaniment on the harp.]

583 (return)
[ It has been already observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue.]

584 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xcviii.]

585 (return)
[ Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees; the second from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs; and the third from the tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together.]

586 (return)
[ Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous intercourse with her brother having been detected, in consequence of the cries of the infant of which she was delivered, she killed herself. It was a joke at Rome, that some one asking, when Nero was performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied. “He is labouring in child-birth.”]

587 (return)
[ A town in Corcyra, now Corfu. There was a sea-port of the same name in Epirus.]

588 (return)
[ The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by Suetonius, was so called because it was the largest of all the circuses in and about Rome. Rudely constructed of timber by Tarquinius Drusus, and enlarged and improved with the growing fortunes of the republic, under the emperors it became a most superb building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, and surrounded it with a canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to protect the spectators against danger from the chariots during the races. Claudius (c. xxi.) rebuilt the carceres with marble, and gilded the metae. This vast centre of attraction to the Roman people, in the games of which religion, politics, and amusement, were combined, was, according to Pliny, three stadia (of 625 feet) long, and one broad, and held 260,000 spectators; so that Juvenal says,

This poetical exaggeration is applied by Addison to the Colosseum.

The area of the Circus Maximus occupied the hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills, so that it was overlooked by the imperial palace, from which the emperors had so full a view of it, that they could from that height give the signals for commencing the races. Few fragments of it remain; but from the circus of Caracalla, which is better preserved, a tolerably good idea of the ancient circus may be formed. For details of its parts, and the mode in which the sports were conducted, see Burton’s Antiquities, p. 309, etc.]

589 (return)
[ The Velabrum was a street in Rome. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xxxvii.]

590 (return)
[ Acte was a slave who had been bought in Asia, whose beauty so captivated Nero that he redeemed her, and became greatly attached to her. She is supposed to be the concubine of Nero mentioned by St. Chrysostom, as having been converted by St. Paul during his residence at Rome. The Apostle speaks of the “Saints in Caesar’s household.”—Phil. iv. 22.]

591 (return)
[ See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 37.]

592 (return)
[ A much-frequented street in Rome. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvi.]

593 (return)
[ It is said that the advances were made by Agrippina, with flagrant indecency, to secure her power over him. See Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 2, 3.]

594 (return)
[ Olim etiam, quoties lectica cum matre veheretur, libidinatum inceste, ac maculis vestis proditum, affirmant.]

595 (return)
[ Tacitus calls him Pythagoras, which was probably the freedman’s proper name; Doryphorus being a name of office somewhat equivalent to almoner. See Annal. B. xv.]

596 (return)
[ The emperor Caligula, who was the brother of Nero’s mother, Agrippina.]

597 (return)
[ See before, c. xiii. Tiridates was nine months in Rome or the neighbourhood, and was entertained the whole time at the emperor’s expense.]

598 (return)
[ Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of the river Aufidus, celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by Pliny, and retained its reputation for the manufacture in the middle ages, as we find in Ordericus Vitalis.]

599 (return)
[ The Mazacans were an African tribe from the deserts in the interior, famous for their spirited barbs, their powers of endurance, and their skill in throwing the dart.]

600 (return)
[ The Palace of the Caesars, on the Palatine hill, was enlarged by Augustus from the dimensions of a private house (see AUGUSTUS, cc. xxix., lvii.). Tiberius made some additions to it, and Caligula extended it to the Forum (CALIGULA, c. xxxi.). Tacitus gives a similar account with that of our author of the extent and splendour of the works of Nero. Annal. xv. c. xlii. Reaching from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, it covered all the intermediate space, where the Colosseum now stands. We shall find that it was still further enlarged by Domitian, c. xv. of his life is the present work.]

601 (return)
[ The penates were worshipped in the innermost part of the house, which was called penetralia. There were likewise publici penates, worshipped in the Capitol, and supposed to be the guardians of the city and temples. Some have thought that the lares and penates were the same; and they appear to be sometimes confounded. They were, however, different. The penates were reputed to be of divine origin; the lares, of human. Certain persons were admitted to the worship of the lares, who were not to that of the penates. The latter, as has been already said, were worshipped only in the innermost part of the house, but the former also in the public roads, in the camp, and on sea.]

602 (return)
[ A play upon the Greek word moros, signifying a fool, while the Latin morari, from moror, means “to dwell,” or “continue.”]

603 (return)
[ A small port between the gulf of Baiae and cape Misenum.]

604 (return)
[ From whence the “Procul, O procul este profani!” of the poet; a warning which was transferred to the Christian mysteries.]

605 (return)
[ See before, c. xii.]

606 (return)
[ Statilius Taurus; who lived in the time of Augustus, and built the amphitheatre called after his name. AUGUSTUS, c. xxiv. He is mentioned by Horace, Epist. i. v. 4.]

607 (return)
[ Octavia was first sent away to Campania, under a guard of soldiers, and after being recalled, in consequence of the remonstrances of the people, by whom she was beloved, Nero banished her to the island of Pandataria.]

608 (return)
[ A.U.C. 813.]

609 (return)
[ Seneca was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Caius Piso. Tacitus furnishes some interesting details of the circumstances under which the philosopher calmly submitted to his fate, which was announced to him when at supper with his friends, at his villa, near Rome.—Tacitus, b. xiv. xv.]

610 (return)
[ This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which Claudius died, is described by Seneca, Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and xix. and by Pliny, II. c. xxv.]

611 (return)
[ See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 49-55.]

612 (return)
[ The sixteenth book of Tacitus, which would probably have given an account of the Vinician conspiracy, is lost. It is shortly noticed by Plutarch.]

613 (return)
[ See before, c. xix.]

614 (return)
[ This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the beginning of August, A.U.C. 816, A.D. 64. It was imputed to the Christians, and drew on them the persecutions mentioned in c. xvi., and the note.]

615 (return)
[ The revolt in Britain broke out A.U.C. 813. Xiphilinus (lxii. p. 701) attributes it to the severity of the confiscations with which the repayment of large sums of money advanced to the Britons by the emperor Claudius, and also by Seneca, was exacted. Tacitus adds another cause, the insupportable tyranny and avarice of the centurions and soldiers. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had named the emperor his heir. His widow Boadicea and her daughters were shamefully used, his kinsmen reduced to slavery, and his whole territory ravaged; upon which the Britons flew to arms. See c. xviii., and the note.]

616 (return)
[ Neonymphon; alluding to Nero’s unnatural nuptials with Sporus or Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be neonymphos.]

617 (return)
[ “Sustulit” has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away, and put out of the way.]

618 (return)
[ The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean; as the god of war, Ekataebaletaes.]

619 (return)
[ Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up all Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from Rome, was originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs us, (lib. ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate survey of the ruins of Veii, in Gell’s admirable TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS VICINITY, p. 436, of Bohn’s Edition.]

620 (return)
[ Suetonius calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription as AURELIUS ANTONINUS PIUS AUG. BRIT. (his latest title). On the reverse is the organ; an oblong chest with the pipes above, and a draped figure on each side.]

621 (return)
[ A fine sand from the Nile, similar to puzzuclano, which was strewed on the stadium; the wrestlers also rolled in it, when their bodies were slippery with oil or perspiration.]

622 (return)
[ The words on the ticket about the emperor’s neck, are supposed, by a prosopopea, to be spoken by him. The reply is Agrippina’s, or the people’s. It alludes to the punishment due to him for his parricide. By the Roman law, a person who had murdered a parent or any near relation, after being severely scourged, was sewed up in a sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then thrown into the sea, or a deep river.]

623 (return)
[ Gallos, which signifies both cocks and Gauls.]

624 (return)
[ Vindex, it need hardly be observed, was the name of the propraetor who had set up the standard of rebellion in Gaul. The word also signifies an avenger of wrongs, redresser of grievances; hence vindicate, vindictive, etc.]

625 (return)
[ Aen. xii. 646.]

626 (return)
[ The Via Salaria was so called from the Sabines using it to fetch salt from the coast. It led from Rome to the northward, near the gardens of Sallust, by a gate of the same name, called also Quirinalis, Agonalis, and Collina. It was here that Alaric entered.]

627 (return)
[ The Via Nomentana, so named because it led to the Sabine town of Nomentum, joined the Via Salara at Heretum on the Tiber. It was also called Ficulnensis. It entered Rome by the Porta Viminalis, now called Porta Pia. It was by this road that Hannibal approached the walls of Rome. The country-house of Nero’s freedman, where he ended his days, stood near the Anio, beyond the present church of St. Agnese, where there was a villa of the Spada family, belonging now, we believe, to Torlonia.]

628 (return)
[ This description is no less exact than vivid. It was easy for Nero to gain the nearest gate, the Nomentan, from the Esquiline quarter of the palace, without much observation; and on issuing from it (after midnight, it appears), the fugitives would have the pretorian camp so close on their right hand, that they might well hear the shouts of the soldiers.]

629 (return)
[ Decocta. Pliny informs us that Nero had the water he drank, boiled, to clear it from impurities, and then cooled with ice.]

630 (return)
[ Wood, to warm the water for washing the corpse, and for the funeral pile,]

631 (return)
[ This burst of passion was uttered in Greek, the rest was spoken in Latin. Both were in familiar use. The mixture, perhaps, betrays the disturbed state of Nero’s mind.]

632 (return)
[ II. x. 535.]

633 (return)
[ Collis Hortulorum; which was afterwards called the Pincian Hill, from a family of that name, who flourished under the lower empire. In the time of the Caesars it was occupied by the gardens and villas of the wealthy and luxurious; among which those of Sallust are celebrated. Some of the finest statues have been found in the ruins; among others, that of the “Dying Gladiator.” The situation was airy and healthful, commanding fine views, and it is still the most agreeable neighbourhood in Rome.]

634 (return)
[ Antiquarians suppose that some relics of the sepulchre of the Domitian family, in which the ashes of Nero were deposited, are preserved in the city wall which Aurelian, when he extended its circuit, carried across the “Collis Hortulorum.” Those ancient remains, declining from the perpendicular, are called the Muro Torto.—The Lunan marble was brought from quarries near a town of that name, in Etruria. It no longer exists, but stood on the coast of what is now called the gulf of Spezzia.—Thasos, an island in the Archipelago, was one of the Cyclades. It produced a grey marble, much veined, but not in great repute.]

635 (return)
[ See c. x1i.]

636 (return)
[ The Syrian Goddess is supposed to have been Semiramis deified. Her rites are mentioned by Florus, Apuleius, and Lucian.]

637 (return)
[ A.U.C. 821—A.D. 69.]

638 (return)
[ We have here one of the incidental notices which are so valuable in an historian, as connecting him with the times of which he writes. See also just before, c. lii.]

639 (return)
[ Veii; see the note, NERO, c. xxxix.]

640 (return)
[ The conventional term for what is most commonly known as,

is retained throughout the translation. But the tree or shrub which had this distinction among the ancients, the Laurus nobilis of botany, the Daphne of the Greeks, is the bay-tree, indigenous in Italy, Greece, and the East, and introduced into England about 1562. Our laurel is a plant of a very different tribe, the Prunes lauro-cerasus, a native of the Levant and the Crimea, acclimated in England at a later period than the bay.]

641 (return)
[ The Temple of the Caesars is generally supposed to be that dedicated by Julius Caesar to Venus genitrix, from whom the Julian family pretended to derive their descent. See JULIUS, c. lxi.; AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]

642 (return)
[ A.U.C. 821.]

643 (return)
[ The Atrium, or Aula, was the court or hall of a house, the entrance to which was by the principal door. It appears to have been a large oblong square, surrounded with covered or arched galleries. Three sides of the Atrium were supported by pillars, which, in later times, were marble. The side opposite to the gate was called Tablinum; and the other two sides, Alae. The Tablinum contained books, and the records of what each member of the family had done in his magistracy. In the Atrium the nuptial couch was erected; and here the mistress of the family, with her maid-servants, wrought at spinning and weaving, which, in the time of the ancient Romans, was their principal employment.]

644 (return)
[ He was consul with L. Aurelius Cotta, A.U.C. 610.]

645 (return)
[ A.U.C. 604.]

646 (return)
[ A.U.C. 710.]

647 (return)
[ A.U.C 775.]

648 (return)
[ A.U.C. 608.]

649 (return)
[ Caius Sulpicius Galba, the emperor’s brother, had been consul A.U.C. 774.]

650
[ A.U.C. 751.]

651 (return)
[ Now Fondi, which, with Terracina, still bearing its original name, lie on the road to Naples. See TIBERIUS, cc. v. and xxxix.]

652 (return)
[ Livia Ocellina, mentioned just before.]

653 (return)
[ A.U.C. 751.]

654 (return)
[ The widow of the emperor Augustus.]

655 (return)
[ Suetonius seems to have forgotten, that, according to his own testimony, this legacy, as well as those left by Tiberius, was paid by Caligula. “Legata ex testamento Tiberii; quamquam abolito, sed et Juliae Augustae, quod Tiberius suppresserat, cum fide, ac sine calumnia repraesentate persolvit.” CALIG. c. xvi.]

656 (return)
[ A.U.C. 786.]

657
[ Caius Caesar Caligula. He gave the command of the legions in Germany to Galba.]

658 (return)
[ “Scuto moderatus;” another reading in the parallel passage of Tacitus is scuto immodice oneratus, burdened with the heavy weight of a shield.]

659 (return)
[ It would appear that Galba was to have accompanied Claudius in his expedition to Britain; which is related before, CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]

660 (return)
[ It has been remarked before, that the Cantabria of the ancients is now the province of Biscay.]

661 (return)
[ Now Carthagena.]

662 (return)
[ A.U.C. 821.]

663 (return)
[ Now Corunna.]

664 (return)
[ Tortosa, on the Ebro.]

665 (return)
[ “Simus,” literally, fiat-nosed, was a cant word, used for a clown; Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long retirement. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain his farm.]

666 (return)
[ The command of the pretorian guards.]

667 (return)
[ In the Forum. See AUGUSTUS, c. lvii.]

668 (return)
[ II. v. 254.]

669 (return)
[ A.U.C. 822.]

670 (return)
[ On the esplanade, where the standards, objects of religious reverence, were planted. See note to c. vi. Criminals were usually executed outside the Vallum, and in the presence of a centurion.]

671 (return)
[ Probably one of the two mentioned in CLAUDIUS, c. xiii.]

672 (return)
[ A.U.C. 784 or 785.]

673 (return)
[ “Distento sago impositum in sublime jactare.”]

674 (return)
[ See NERO, c. xxxv.]

675 (return)
[ The Milliare Aureum was a pillar of stone set up at the top of the Forum, from which all the great military roads throughout Italy started, the distances to the principal towns being marked upon it. Dio (lib. liv.) says that it was erected by the emperor Augustus, when he was curator of the roads.]

676 (return)
[ Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur, denoted any person who foretold futurity, or interpreted omens. There was at Rome a body of priests, or college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell future events, chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and from other appearances. They were of the greatest authority in the Roman state; for nothing of importance was done in public affairs, either at home or abroad, in peace or war, without consulting them. The Romans derived the practice of augury chiefly from the Tuscans; and anciently their youth used to be instructed as carefully in this art, as afterwards they were in the Greek literature. For this purpose, by a decree of the senate, a certain number of the sons of the leading men at Rome was sent to the twelve states of Etruria for instruction.]

677 (return)
[ See before, note, c. i. The Principia was a broad open space, which separated the lower part of the Roman camp from the upper, and extended the whole breadth of the camp. In this place was erected the tribunal of the general, when he either administered justice or harangued the army. Here likewise the tribunes held their courts, and punishments were inflicted. The principal standards of the army, as it has been already mentioned, were deposited in the Principia; and in it also stood the altars of the gods, and the images of the Emperors, by which the soldiers swore.]

678 (return)
[ See NERO, c. xxxi. The sum estimated as requisite for its completion amounted to 2,187,500 pounds of our money.]

679 (return)
[ The two last words, literally translated, mean “long trumpets;” such as were used at sacrifices. The sense is, therefore, “What have I to do, my hands stained with blood, with performing religious ceremonies!”]

680 (return)
[ The Ancile was a round shield, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of Mars. It was kept with great care in the sanctuary of his temple, as a symbol of the perpetuity of the Roman empire; and that it might not be stolen, eleven others were made exactly similar to it.]

681 (return)
[ This ideal personage, who has been mentioned before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxviii., was the goddess Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called also Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna, Mater, etc. She was painted as a matron, crowned with towers, sitting in a chariot drawn by lions. A statue of her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome, in the time of the second Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests, called the Galli and Corybantes, were castrated; and worshipped her with the sound of drums, tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were disgraced by great indecencies.]

682 (return)
[ Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, Jupiter Infernus, and Stygnis. He was the brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions. His wife was Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she was gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, in Sicily. The victims offered to the infernal gods were black: they were killed with their faces bent downwards; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was poured into a ditch.]

683 (return)
[ A town between Mantua and Cremona.]

684 (return)
[ The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from Cremona. Tacitus gives some details of this action. Hist. ii. 243.]

685 (return)
[ Both Greek and Latin authors differ in the mode of spelling the name of this place, the first syllable being written Beb, Bet, and Bret. It is now a small village called Labino, between Cremona and Verona.]

686 (return)
[ Lenis was a name of similar signification with that of Tranquillus, borne by his son, the author of the present work. We find from Tacitus, that there was, among Otho’s generals, in this battle, another person of the name of Suetonius, whose cognomen was Paulinus; with whom our author’s father must not be confounded. Lenis was only a tribune of the thirteenth legion, the position of which in the battle is mentioned by Tacitus, Hist. xi. 24, and was angusticlavius, wearing only the narrow stripe, as not being of the senatorial order; while Paulinus was a general, commanding a legion, at least, and a consular man; having filled that Office A.U.C. 818. There seems no doubt that Suetonius Paulinus was the same general who distinguished himself by his successes and cruelties in Britain. NERO, c. xviii., and note.] Not to extend the present note, we may shortly refer to our author’s having already mentioned his grandfather (CALIGULA, c. xix.); besides other sources from which he drew his information. He tells us that he himself was then a boy. We have now arrived at the times in which his father bore a part. Such incidental notices, dropped by historical writers, have a certain value in enabling us to form a judgment on the genuineness of their narratives as to contemporaneous, or recent, events.]

687 (return)
[ A.U.C. 823.]

688 (return)
[ Jupiter, to prevent the discovery of his amour with Io, the daughter of the river Inachus, transformed her into a heifer, in which metamorphosis she was placed by Juno under the watchful inspection of Argus; but flying into Egypt, and her keeper being killed by Mercury, she recovered her human shape, and was married to Osiris. Her husband afterwards became a god of the Egyptians, and she a goddess, under the name of Isis. She was represented with a mural crown on her head, a cornucopia in one hand, and a sistrum (a musical instrument) in the other.]

689 (return)
[ Faunus was supposed to be the third king who reigned over the original inhabitants of the central parts of Italy, Saturn being the first. Virgil makes his wife’s name Marica—

Her name may have been changed after her deification; but we have no other accounts than those preserved by Suetonius, of several of the traditions handed down from the fabulous ages respecting the Vitellian family.]

690 (return)
[ The Aequicolae were probably a tribe inhabiting the heights in the neighbourhood of Rome. Virgil describes them, Aen. vii. 746.]

691 (return)
[ Nuceria, now Nocera, is a town near Mantua; but Livy, in treating of the war with the Samnites, always speaks of Luceria, which Strabo calls a town in Apulia.]

692 (return)
[ Cassius Severus is mentioned before, in AUGUSTUS, c. lvi.; CALIGULA, c. xvi., etc.]

693 (return)
[ A.U.C. 785.]

694 (return)
[ A.U.C. 787.]

695 (return)
[ He is frequently commended by Josephus for his kindness to the Jews. See, particularly, Antiq. VI. xviii.]

696 (return)
[ A.U.C. 796, 800.]

697 (return)
[ A.U.C. 801.]

698 (return)
[ A.U.C. 797. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]

699 (return)
[ A.U.C. 801.]

700 (return)
[ A.U.C. 767; being the year after the death of the emperor Augustus; from whence it appears that Vitellius was seventeen years older than Otho, both being at an advanced age when they were raised to the imperial dignity.]

701 (return)
[ He was sent to Germany by Galba.]

702 (return)
[ See TIBERIUS, c. xliii.]

703 (return)
[ Julius Caesar, also, was said to have exchanged brass for gold in the Capitol, Junius, c. liv. The tin which we here find in use at Rome, was probably brought from the Cassiterides, now the Scilly islands. whence it had been an article of commerce by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians from a very early period.]

704 (return)
[ A.U.C. 821.]

705 (return)
[ A.U.C. 822.]

706 (return)
[ Vienne was a very ancient city of the province of Narbonne, famous in ecclesiastical history as the early seat of a bishopric in Gaul.]

707 (return)
[ See OTHO, c. ix.]

708 (return)
[ See OTHO, c. ix.]

709 (return)
[ Agrippina, the wife of Nero and mother of Germanicus, founded a colony on the Rhine at the place of her birth. Tacit. Annal. b. xii. It became a flourishing city, and its origin may be traced in its modern name, Cologne.]

710 (return)
[ A dies non fastus, an unlucky day in the Roman calendar, being the anniversary of their great defeat by the Gauls on the river Allia, which joins the Tiber about five miles from Rome. This disaster happened on the 16th of the calends of August (17th July).

711 (return)
[ Posca was sour wine or vinegar mixed with water, which was used by the Roman soldiery as their common drink. It has been found beneficial in the cure of putrid diseases.]

712 (return)
[ Upwards of 4000 pounds sterling. See note, p. 487.]

713 (return)
[ In imitation of the form of the public edicts, which began with the words, BONUM FACTUM.]

714 (return)
[ Catta muliere: The Catti were a German tribe who inhabited the present countries of Hesse or Baden. Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., informs us that the Germans placed great confidence in the prophetical inspirations which they attributed to their women.]

715 (return)
[ Suetonius does not supply any account of the part added by Tiberius to the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine, although, as it will be recollected, he has mentioned or described the works of Augustus, Caligula, and Nero. The banquetting-room here mentioned would easily command a view of the Capitol, across the narrow intervening valley. Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, was prefect of the city.]

716 (return)
[ Caligula.]

717 (return)
[ Lucius and Germanicus, the brother and son of Vitellius, were slain near Terracina; the former was marching to his brother’s relief.]

718 (return)
[ A.U.C. 822.]

719 (return)
[ c. ix.]

720 (return)
[ Becco, from whence the French bec, and English beak; with, probably, the family names of Bec or Bek. This distinguished provincial, under his Latin name of Antoninus Primus, commanded the seventh legion in Gaul. His character is well drawn by Tacitus, in his usual terse style, Hist. XI. 86. 2.]

721 (return)
[ Reate, the original seat of the Flavian family, was a city of the Sabines. Its present name is Rieti.]

722 (return)
[ It does not very clearly appear what rank in the Roman armies was held by the evocati. They are mentioned on three occasions by Suetonius, without affording us much assistance. Caesar, like our author, joins them with the centurions. See, in particular, De Bell. Civil. I. xvii. 4.]

723 (return)
[ The inscription was in Greek, kalos telothaesanti.]

724 (return)
[ In the ancient Umbria, afterwards the duchy of Spoleto; its modern name being Norcia.]

725 (return)
[ Gaul beyond, north of the Po, now Lombardy.]

726 (return)
[ We find the annual migration of labourers in husbandry a very common practice in ancient as well as in modern times. At present, several thousand industrious labourers cross over every summer from the duchies of Parma and Modena, bordering on the district mentioned by Suetonius, to the island of Corsica; returning to the continent when the harvest is got in.]

727 (return)
[ A.U.C. 762, A.D. 10.]

728 (return)
[ Cosa was a place in the Volscian territory; of which Anagni was probably the chief town. It lies about forty miles to the north-east of Rome.]

729 (return)
[ Caligula.]

730 (return)
[ These games were extraordinary, as being out of the usual course of those given by praetors.]

731 (return)
[ “Revocavit in contubernium.” From the difference of our habits, there is no word in the English language which exactly conveys the meaning of contubernium; a word which, in a military sense, the Romans applied to the intimate fellowship between comrades in war who messed together, and lived in close fellowship in the same tent. Thence they transferred it to a union with one woman who was in a higher position than a concubine, but, for some reason, could not acquire the legal rights of a wife, as in the case of slaves of either sex. A man of rank, also, could not marry a slave or a freedwoman, however much he might be attached to her.]

732 (return)
[ Nearly the same phrases are applied by Suetonius to Drusilla, see CALIGULA, c. xxiv., and to Marcella, the concubine of Commodus, by Herodian, I. xvi. 9., where he says that she had all the honours of an empress, except that the incense was not offered to her. These connections resembled the left-hand marriages of the German princes.]

733 (return)
[ This expedition to Britain has been mentioned before, CLAUDIUS, c. xvii. and note; and see ib. xxiv.] Valerius Flaccus, i. 8, and Silius Italicus, iii. 598, celebrate the triumphs of Vespasian in Britain. In representing him, however, as carrying his arms among the Caledonian tribes, their flattery transferred to the emperor the glory of the victories gained by his lieutenant, Agricola. Vespasian’s own conquests, while he served in Britain, were principally in the territories of the Brigantes, lying north of the Humber, and including the present counties of York and Durham.]

734 (return)
[ A.U.C. 804.]

735 (return)
[ Tacitus, Hist. V. xiii. 3., mentions this ancient prediction, and its currency through the East, in nearly the same terms as Suetonius. The coming power is in both instances described in the plural number, profecti; “those shall come forth;” and Tacitus applies it to Titus as well as Vespasian. The prophecy is commonly supposed to have reference to a passage in Micah, v. 2, “Out of thee (Bethlehem-Ephrata) shall He come forth, to be ruler in Israel.” Earlier prophetic intimations of a similar character, and pointing to a more extended dominion, have been traced in the sacred records of the Jews; and there is reason to believe that these books were at this time not unknown in the heathen world, particularly at Alexandria, and through the Septuagint version. These predictions, in their literal sense, point to the establishment of a universal monarchy, which should take its rise in Judaea. The Jews looked for their accomplishment in the person of one of their own nation, the expected Messiah, to which character there were many pretenders in those times. The first disciples of Christ, during the whole period of his ministry, supposed that they were to be fulfilled in him. The Romans thought that the conditions were answered by Vespasian, and Titus having been called from Judaea to the seat of empire. The expectations entertained by the Jews, and naturally participated in and appropriated by the first converts to Christianity, having proved groundless, the prophecies were subsequently interpreted in a spiritual sense.]

736 (return)
[ Gessius Florus was at that time governor of Judaea, with the title and rank of prepositus, it not being a proconsular province, as the native princes still held some parts of it, under the protection and with the alliance of the Romans. Gessius succeeded Florus Albinus, the successor of Felix.]

737 (return)
[ Cestius Gallus was consular lieutenant in Syria.]

738 (return)
[ See note to c. vii.]

739 (return)
[ A right hand was the sign of sovereign power, and, as every one knows, borne upon a staff among the standards of the armies.]

740 (return)
[ Tacitus says, “Carmel is the name both of a god and a mountain; but there is neither image nor temple of the god; such are the ancient traditions; we find there only an altar and religious awe.”—Hist. xi. 78, 4. It also appears, from his account, that Vespasian offered sacrifice on Mount Carmel, where Basilides, mentioned hereafter, c. vii., predicted his success from an inspection of the entrails.]

741 (return)
[ Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, who was engaged in these wars, having been taken prisoner, was confined in the dungeon at Jotapata, the castle referred to in the preceding chapter, before which Vespasian was wounded.—De Bell. cxi. 14.]

742 (return)
[ The prediction of Josephus was founded on the Jewish prophecies mentioned in the note to c. iv., which he, like others, applied to Vespasian.]

743 (return)
[ Julius Caesar is always called by our author after his apotheosis, Divus Julius.]

744 (return)
[ The battle at Bedriacum secured the Empire for Vitellius. See OTHO, c. ix; VITELLIUS, c. x.]

745 (return)
[ Alexandria may well be called the key, claustra, of Egypt, which was the granary of Rome. It was of the first importance that Vespasian should secure it at this juncture.]

746 (return)
[ Tacitus describes Basilides as a man of rank among the Egyptians, and he appears also to have been a priest, as we find him officiating at Mount Carmel, c. v. This is so incompatible with his being a Roman freedman, that commentators concur in supposing that the word “libertus.” although found in all the copies now extant, has crept into the text by some inadvertence of an early transcriber. Basilides appears, like Philo Judaeus, who lived about the same period, to have been half-Greek, half-Jew, and to have belonged to the celebrated Platonic school of Alexandria.]

747 (return)
[ Tacitus informs us that Vespasian himself believed Basilides to have been at this time not only in an infirm state of health, but at the distance of several days’ journey from Alexandria. But (for his greater satisfaction) he strictly examined the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple on that day: he made inquiries of all he met, whether he had been seen in the city; nay, further, he dispatched messengers on horseback, who ascertained that at the time specified, Basilides was more than eighty miles from Alexandria. Then Vespasian comprehended that the appearance of Basilides, and the answer to his prayers given through him, were by divine interposition. Tacit. Hist. iv. 82. 2.]

748 (return)
[ The account given by Tacitus of the miracles of Vespasian is fuller than that of Suetonius, but does not materially vary in the details, except that, in his version of the story, he describes the impotent man to be lame in the hand, instead of the leg or the knee, and adds an important circumstance in the case of the blind man, that he was “notus tabe occulorum,” notorious for the disease in his eyes. He also winds up the narrative with the following statement: “They who were present, relate both these cures, even at this time, when there is nothing to be gained by lying.” Both the historians lived within a few years of the occurrence, but their works were not published until advanced periods of their lives. The closing remark of Tacitus seems to indicate that, at least, he did not entirely discredit the account; and as for Suetonius, his pages are as full of prodigies of all descriptions, related apparently in all good faith, as a monkish chronicle of the Middle Ages. The story has the more interest, as it is one of the examples of successful imposture, selected by Hume in his Essay on Miracles; with the reply to which by Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, most readers are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in considering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the patients, and, probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the reader as most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with the accounts given of several of the miracles of Christ; whence it has been supposed, that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did not fall within the scope of Dr. Paley’s argument to advert to this; and our own brief illustration must be strictly confined within the limits of historical disquisition. Adhering to this principle, we may point out that if the idea of plagiarism be accepted, it receives some confirmation from the incident related by our author in a preceding paragraph, forming, it may be considered, another scene of the same drama, where we find Basilides appearing to Vespasian in the temple of Serapis, under circumstances which cannot fail to remind us of Christ’s suddenly standing in the midst of his disciples, “when the doors were shut.” This incident, also, has very much the appearance of a parody on the evangelical history. But if the striking similarity of the two narratives be thus accounted for, it is remarkable that while the priests of Alexandria, or, perhaps, Vespasian himself from his residence in Judaea, were in possession of such exact details of two of Christ’s miracles—if not of a third striking incident in his history—we should find not the most distant allusion in the works of such cotemporary writers as Tacitus and Suetonius, to any one of the still more stupendous occurrences which had recently taken place in a part of the world with which the Romans had now very intimate relations. The character of these authors induces us to hesitate in adopting the notion, that either contempt or disbelief would have led them to pass over such events, as altogether unworthy of notice; and the only other inference from their silence is, that they had never heard of them. But as this can scarcely be reconciled with the plagiarism attributed to Vespasian or the Egyptian priests, it is safer to conclude that the coincidence, however singular, was merely fortuitous. It may be added that Spartianus, who wrote the lives of Adrian and succeeding emperors, gives an account of a similar miracle performed by that prince in healing a blind man.]

749 (return)
[ A.U.C. 823-833, excepting 826 and 831.]

750 (return)
[ The temple of Peace, erected A.D. 71, on the conclusion of the wars with the Germans and the Jews, was the largest temple in Rome. Vespasian and Titus deposited in it the sacred vessels and other spoils which were carried in their triumph after the conquest of Jerusalem. They were consumed, and the temple much damaged, if not destroyed, by fire, towards the end of the reign of Commodus, in the year 191. It stood in the Forum, where some ruins on a prodigious scale, still remaining, were traditionally considered to be those of the Temple of Peace, until Piranesi contended that they are part of Nero’s Golden House. Others suppose that they are the remains of a Basilica. A beautiful fluted Corinthian column, forty-seven feet high, which was removed from this spot, and now stands before the church of S. Maria Maggiore, gives a great idea of the splendour of the original structure.]

751 (return)
[ This temple, converted into a Christian church by pope Simplicius, who flourished, A.D. 464-483, preserves much of its ancient character. It is now, called San Stefano in Rotondo, from its circular form; the thirty-four pillars, with arches springing from one to the other and intended to support the cupola, still remaining to prove its former magnificence.]

752 (return)
[ This amphitheatre is the famous Colosseum begun by Trajan, and finished by Titus. It is needless to go into details respecting a building the gigantic ruins of which are so well known.]

753 (return)
[ Hercules is said, after conquering Geryon in Spain, to have come into this part of Italy. One of his companions, the supposed founder of Reate, may have had the name of Flavus.]

754 (return)
[ Vespasian and his son Titus had a joint triumph for the conquest of Judaea, which is described at length by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 16. The coins of Vespasian exhibiting the captive Judaea (Judaea capta), are probably familiar to the reader. See Harphrey’s Coin Collector’s Manual, p. 328.]

755 (return)
[ Demetrius, who was born at Corinth, seems to have been a close imitator of Diogenes, the founder of the sect. Having come to Rome to study under Apollonius, he was banished to the islands, with other philosophers, by Vespasian.]

756 (return)
[ There being no such place as Morbonia, and the supposed name being derived from morbus, disease, some critics have supposed that Anticyra, the asylum of the incurables, (see CALIGULA, c. xxix.) is meant; but the probability is, that the expression used by the imperial chamberlain was only a courtly version of a phrase not very commonly adopted in the present day.]

757 (return)
[ Helvidius Priscus, a person of some celebrity as a philosopher and public man, is mentioned by Tacitus, Xiphilinus, and Arrian.]

758 (return)
[ Cicero speaks in strong terms of the sordidness of retail trade—Off. i. 24.]

759 (return)
[ The sesterce being worth about two-pence half-penny of English money, the salary of a Roman senator was, in round numbers, five thousand pounds a year; and that of a professor, as stated in the succeeding chapter, one thousand pounds. From this scale, similar calculations may easily be made of the sums occurring in Suetonius’s statements from time to time. There appears to be some mistake in the sum stated in c. xvi. just before, as the amount seems fabulous, whether it represented the floating debt, or the annual revenue, of the empire.]

760 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xliii. The proscenium of the ancient theatres was a solid erection of an architectural design, not shifted and varied as our stage-scenes.]

761 (return)
[ Many eminent writers among the Romans were originally slaves, such as Terence and Phaedrus; and, still more, artists, physicians and artificers. Their talents procuring their manumission, they became the freedmen of their former masters. Vespasian, it appears from Suetonius, purchased the freedom of some persons of ability belonging to these classes.]

762 (return)
[ The Coan Venus was the chef-d’oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now restored, it must have been well preserved.]

763 (return)
[ Probably the colossal statue of Nero (see his Life, c. xxxi.), afterwards placed in Vespasian’s amphitheatre, which derived its name from it.]

764 (return)
[ The usual argument in all times against the introduction of machinery.]

765 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix.]

766 (return)
[ At the men’s Saturnalia, a feast held in December attended with much revelling, the masters waited upon their slaves; and at the women’s Saturnalia, held on the first of March, the women served their female attendants, by whom also they sent presents to their friends.]

767 (return)
[ Notwithstanding the splendour, and even, in many respects, the refinement of the imperial court, the language as well as the habits of the highest classes in Rome seem to have been but too commonly of the grossest description, and every scholar knows that many of their writers are not very delicate in their allusions. Apropos of the ludicrous account given in the text, Martial, on one occasion, uses still plainer language.

768 (return)
[ See c. iii. and note.]

769 (return)
[ Probably the emperor had not entirely worn off, or might even affect the rustic dialect of his Sabine countrymen; for among the peasantry the au was still pronounced o, as in plostrum for plaustrum, a waggon; and in orum for aurum, gold, etc. The emperor’s retort was very happy, Flaurus being derived from a Greek word, which signifies worthless, while the consular critic’s proper name, Florus, was connected with much more agreeable associations.]

770 (return)
[ Some of the German critics think that the passage bears the sense of the gratuity having beer given by the lady, and that so parsimonious a prince as Vespasian was not likely to have paid such a sum as is here stated for a lady’s proffered favours.]

771 (return)
[ The Flavian family had their own tomb. See DOMITIAN, c. v. The prodigy, therefore, did not concern Vespasian. As to the tomb of the Julian family, see AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]

772 (return)
[ Alluding to the apotheosis of the emperors.]

773 (return)
[ Cutiliae was a small lake, about three-quarters of a mile from Reate, now called Lago di Contigliano. It was very deep, and being fed from springs in the neighbouring hills, the water was exceedingly clear and cold, so that it was frequented by invalids, who required invigorating. Vespasian’s paternal estates lay in the neighbourhood of Reate. See chap i.]

774 (return)
[ A.U.C. 832.]

775 (return)
[ Each dynasty lasted twenty-eight years. Claudius and Nero both reigning fourteen; and, of the Flavius family, Vespasian reigned ten, Titus three, and Domitian fifteen.]

776
[ Caligula. Titus was born A.U.C. 794; about A.D. 49.]

777 (return)
[ The Septizonium was a circular building of seven stories. The remains of that of Septimus Severus, which stood on the side of the Palatine Hill, remained till the time of Pope Sixtus V., who removed it, and employed thirty-eight of its columns in ornamenting the church of St. Peter. It does not appear whether the Septizonium here mentioned as existing in the time of Titus, stood on the same spot.]

778 (return)
[ Britannicus, the son of Claudius and Messalina.]

779 (return)
[ A.U.C. 820.]

780 (return)
[ Jerusalem was taken, sacked, and burnt, by Titus, after a two years’ siege, on the 8th September, A.U.C. 821, A.D. 69; it being the Sabbath. It was in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, when the emperor was sixty years old, and Titus himself, as he informs us, thirty. For particulars of the siege, see Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vi. and vii.; Hegesippus, Excid. Hierosol. v.; Dio, lxvi.; Tacitus, Hist. v.; Orosius, vii. 9.]

781 (return)
[ For the sense in which Titus was saluted with the title of Emperor by the troops, see JULIUS CAESAR, c. lxxvi.]

782 (return)
[ The joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, which was celebrated A.U.C. 824, is fully described by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 24. It is commemorated by the triumphal monument called the Arch of Titus, erected by the senate and people of Rome after his death, and still standing at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on the road leading from the Colosseum to the Forum, and is one of the most beautiful as well as the most interesting models of Roman art. It consists of four stories of the three orders of architecture, the Corinthian being repeated in the two highest. Some of the bas-reliefs, still in good preservation, represent the table of the shew-bread, the seven-branched golden candlestick, the vessel of incense, and the silver trumpets, which were taken by Titus from the Temple at Jerusalem, and, with the book of the law, the veil of the temple, and other spoils, were carried in the triumph. The fate of these sacred relics is rather interesting. Josephus says, that the veil and books of the law were deposited in the Palatium, and the rest of the spoils in the Temple of Peace. When that was burnt, in the reign of Commodus, these treasures were saved, and they were afterwards carried off by Genseric to Africa. Belisarius recovered them, and brought them to Constantinople, A.D. 520. Procopius informs us, that a Jew, who saw them, told an acquaintance of the emperor that it would not be advisable to carry them to the palace at Constantinople, as they could not remain anywhere else but where Solomon had placed them. This, he said, was the reason why Genseric had taken the Palace at Rome, and the Roman army had in turn taken that of the Vandal kings. Upon this, the emperor was so alarmed, that he sent the whole of them to the Christian churches at Jerusalem.]

783 (return)
[ A.U.C. 825.]

784 (return)
[ A.U.C. 824.]

785 (return)
[ A.U.C. 823, 825, 827-830, 832.]

786 (return)
[ Berenice, whose name is written by our author and others Beronice, was daughter of Agrippa the Great, who was by Aristobulus, grandson of Herod the Great. Having been contracted to Mark, son of Alexander Lysimachus, he died before their union, and Agrippa married her to Herod, Mark’s brother, for whom he had obtained from the emperor Claudius the kingdom of Chalcis. Herod also dying, Berenice, then a widow, lived with her brother, Agrippa, and was suspected of an incestuous intercourse with him. It was at this time that, on their way to the imperial court at Rome, they paid a visit to Festus, at Caesarea, and were present when St. Paul answered his accusers so eloquently before the tribunal of the governor. Her fascinations were so great, that, to shield herself from the charge of incest, she prevailed on Polemon, king of Cilicia, to submit to be circumcised, become a Jew, and marry her. That union also proving unfortunate, she appears to have returned to Jerusalem, and having attracted Vespasian by magnificent gifts, and the young Titus by her extraordinary beauty, she followed them to Rome, after the termination of the Jewish war, and had apartments in the palace, where she lived with Titus, “to all appearance, as his wife,” as Xiphilinus informs us; and there seems no doubt that he would have married her, but for the strong prejudices of the Romans against foreign alliances. Suetonius tells us with what pain they separated.]

787 (return)
[ The Colosseum: it had been four years in building. See VESPAS. c. ix.]

788 (return)
[ The Baths of Titus stood on the Esquiline Hill, on part of the ground which had been the gardens of Mecaenas. Considerable remains of them are still found among the vineyards; vaulted chambers of vast dimensions, some of which were decorated with arabesque paintings, still in good preservation. Titus appears to have erected a palace for himself adjoining; for the Laocoon, which is mentioned by Pliny as standing in this palace, was found in the neighbouring ruins.]

789 (return)
[ If the statements were not well attested, we might be incredulous as to the number of wild beasts collected for the spectacles to which the people of Rome were so passionately devoted. The earliest account we have of such an exhibition, was A.U.C. 502, when one hundred and forty-two elephants, taken in Sicily, were produced. Pliny, who gives this information, states that lions first appeared in any number, A.U.C. 652; but these were probably not turned loose. In 661, Sylla, when he was praetor, brought forward one hundred. In 696, besides lions, elephants, and bears, one hundred and fifty panthers were shown for the first time. At the dedication of Pompey’s Theatre, there was the greatest exhibition of beasts ever then known; including seventeen elephants, six hundred lions, which were killed in the course of five days, four hundred and ten panthers, etc. A rhinoceros also appeared for the first time. This was A.U.C. 701. The art of taming these beasts was carried to such perfection, that Mark Antony actually yoked them to his carriage. Julius Caesar, in his third dictatorship, A.U.C. 708, showed a vast number of wild beasts, among which were four hundred lions and a cameleopard. A tiger was exhibited for the first time at the dedication of the Theatre of Marcellus, A.U.C. 743. It was kept in a cage. Claudius afterwards exhibited four together. The exhibition of Titus, at the dedication of the Colosseum, here mentioned by Suetonius, seems to have been the largest ever made; Xiphilinus even adds to the number, and says, that including wild-boars, cranes, and other animals, no less than nine thousand were killed. In the reigns of succeeding emperors, a new feature was given to these spectacles, the Circus being converted into a temporary forest, by planting large trees, in which wild animals were turned loose, and the people were allowed to enter the wood and take what they pleased. In this instance, the game consisted principally of beasts of chase; and, on one occasion, one thousand stags, as many of the ibex, wild sheep (mouflions from Sardinia?), and other grazing animals, besides one thousand wild boars, and as many ostriches, were turned loose by the emperor Gordian.]

790 (return)
[ “Diem perdidi.” This memorable speech is recorded by several other historians, and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles.]

791 (return)
[ A.U.C. 832, A.D. 79. It is hardly necessary to refer to the well-known Epistles of Pliny the younger, vi. 16 and 20, giving an account of the first eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny, the historian, perished. And see hereafter, p. 475.]

792 (return)
[ The great fire at Rome happened in the second year of the reign of Titus. It consumed a large portion of the city, and among the public buildings destroyed were the temples of Serapis and Isis, that of Neptune, the baths of Agrippa, the Septa, the theatres of Balbus and Pompey, the buildings and library of Augustus on the Palatine, and the temple of Jupiter in the Capitol.]

793 (return)
[ See VESPASIAN, cc. i. and xxiv. The love of this emperor and his son Titus for the rural retirement of their paternal acres in the Sabine country, forms a striking contrast to the vicious attachment of such tyrants as Tiberius and Caligula for the luxurious scenes of Baiae, or the libidinous orgies of Capri.]

794 (return)
[ A.U.C. 834, A.D. 82.]

795
[ A.U.C. 804.]

796 (return)
[ A street, in the sixth region of Rome, so called, probably, from a remarkable specimen of this beautiful shrub which had made free growth on the spot.]

797 (return)
[ VITELLIUS, c. xv.]

798 (return)
[ Tacitus (Hist. iii.) differs from Suetonius, saying that Domitian took refuge with a client of his father’s near the Velabrum. Perhaps he found it more safe afterwards to cross the Tiber.]

799 (return)
[ One of Domitian’s coins bears on the reverse a captive female and soldier, with GERMANIA DEVICTA.]

800 (return)
[ VESPASIAN, c. xii; TITUS, c. vi.]

801 (return)
[ Such excavations had been made by Julius and by Augustus (AUG. xliii.), and the seats for the spectators fitted up with timber in a rude way. That was on the other side of the Tiber. The Naumachia of Domitian occupies the site of the present Piazza d’Espagna, and was larger and more ornamented.]

802 (return)
[ A.U.C. 841. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi.]

803 (return)
[ This feast was held in December. Plutarch informs us that it was instituted in commemoration of the seventh hill being included in the city bounds.]

804 (return)
[ The Capitol had been burnt, for the third time, in the great fire mentioned TITUS, c. viii. The first fire happened in the Marian war, after which it was rebuilt by Pompey, the second in the reign of Vitellius.]

805 (return)
[ This forum, commenced by Domitian and completed by Nerva, adjoined the Roman Forum and that of Augustus, mentioned in c. xxix. of his life. From its communicating with the two others, it was called Transitorium. Part of the wall which bounded it still remains, of a great height, and 144 paces long. It is composed of square masses of freestone, very large, and without any cement; and it is not carried in a straight line, but makes three or four angles, as if some buildings had interfered with its direction.]

806 (return)
[ The residence of the Flavian family was converted into a temple. See c. i. of the present book.]

807 (return)
[ The Stadium was in the shape of a circus, and used for races both of men and horses.]

808 (return)
[ The Odeum was a building intended for musical performances. There were four of them at Rome.]

809 (return)
[ See before, c. iv.]

810 (return)
[ See VESPASIAN, c. xiv.]

811 (return)
[ See NERD, c. xvi.]

812 (return)
[ This absurd edict was speedily revoked. See afterwards c. xiv.]

813 (return)
[ This was an ancient law levelled against adultery and other pollutions, named from its author Caius Scatinius, a tribune of the people. There was a Julian law, with the same object. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

814 (return)
[ Geor. xi. 537.]

815 (return)
[ See Livy, xxi. 63, and Cicero against Verres, v. 18.]

816 (return)
[ See VESPASIAN, c. iii.]

817 (return)
[ Cant names for gladiators.]

818 (return)
[ The faction which favoured the “Thrax” party.]

819 (return)
[ DOMITIAN, c. i.]

820 (return)
[ See VESPASIAN, c. xiv.]

821 (return)
[ This cruel punishment is described in NERO, c. xlix.]

822 (return)
[ Gentiles who were proselytes to the Jewish religion; or, perhaps, members of the Christian sect, who were confounded with them. See the note to TIBERIUS, c. xxxvi. The tax levied on the Jews was two drachmas per head. It was general throughout the empire.]

823 (return)
[ We have had Suetonius’s reminiscences, derived through his grandfather and father successively, CALIGULA, c. xix.; OTHO, c. x. We now come to his own, commencing from an early age.]

824 (return)
[ This is what Martial calls, “Mentula tributis damnata.”]

825 (return)
[ The imperial liveries were white and gold.]

826 (return)
[ See CALIGULA, c. xxi., where the rest of the line is quoted; eis koiranos esto.]

827 (return)
[ An assumption of divinity, as the pulvinar was the consecrated bed, on which the images of the gods reposed.]

828 (return)
[ The pun turns on the similar sound of the Greek word for “enough,” and the Latin word for “an arch.”]

829 (return)
[ Domitia, who had been repudiated for an intrigue with Paris, the actor, and afterwards taken back.]

830 (return)
[ The lines, with a slight accommodation, are borrowed from the poet Evenus, Anthol. i. vi. i., who applies them to a goat, the great enemy of vineyards. Ovid, Fasti, i. 357, thus paraphrases them:

831 (return)
[ Pliny describes this stone as being brought from Cappadocia, and says that it was as hard as marble, white and translucent, cxxiv. c. 22.]

832 (return)
[ See note to c. xvii.]

833 (return)
[ The guilt imputed to them was atheism and Jewish (Christian?) manners. Dion, lxvii. 1112.]

834 (return)
[ See VESPASIAN, c. v.]

835 (return)
[ Columella (R. R. xi. 2.) enumerates dates among the foreign fruits cultivated in Italy, cherries, dates, apricots, and almonds; and Pliny, xv. 14, informs us that Sextus Papinius was the first who introduced the date tree, having brought it from Africa, in the latter days of Augustus.]

836 (return)
[ Some suppose that Domitilla was the wife of Flavius Clemens (c. xv.), both of whom were condemned by Domitian for their “impiety,” by which it is probably meant that they were suspected of favouring Christianity. Eusebius makes Flavia Domitilla the niece of Flavius Clemens, and says that she was banished to Ponza, for having become a Christian. Clemens Romanus, the second bishop of Rome, is said to have been of this family.]

837 (return)
[ A.U.C. 849.]

838 (return)
[ See c. v.]

839 (return)
[ The famous library of Alexandria collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus had been burnt by accident in the wars. But we find from this passage in Suetonius that part of it was saved, or fresh collections had been made. Seneca (de Tranquill. c. ix. 7) informs us that forty thousand volumes were burnt; and Gellius states that in his time the number of volumes amounted to nearly seventy thousand.]

840 (return)
[ This favourite apple, mentioned by Columella and Pliny, took its name from C. Matius, a Roman knight, and friend of Augustus, who first introduced it. Pliny tells us that Matius was also the first who brought into vogue the practice of clipping groves.]

841 (return)
[ Julia, the daughter of Titus.]

842 (return)
[ It will be understood that the terms Grammar and Grammarian have here a more extended sense than that which they convey in modern use. See the beginning of c. iv.]

843 (return)
[ Suetonius’s account of the rude and unlettered state of society in the early times of Rome, is consistent with what we might infer, and with the accounts which have come down to us, of a community composed of the most daring and adventurous spirits thrown off by the neighbouring tribes, and whose sole occupations were rapine and war. But Cicero discovers the germs of mental cultivation among the Romans long before the period assigned to it by Suetonius, tracing them to the teaching of Pythagoras, who visited the Greek cities on the coast of Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.—Tusc. Quaest. iv. 1.]

844 (return)
[ Livius, whose cognomen Andronicus, intimates his extraction, was born of Greek parents. He began to teach at Rome in the consulship of Claudius Cento, the son of Appius Caecus, and Sempronius Tuditanus, A.U.C. 514. He must not be confounded with Titus Livius, the historian, who flourished in the Augustan age.]

845 (return)
[ Ennius was a native of Calabria. He was born the year after the consulship mentioned in the preceding note, and lived to see at least his seventy-sixth year, for Gellius informs us that at that age he wrote the twelfth book of his Annals.]

846 (return)
[ Porcius Cato found Ennius in Sardinia, when he conquered that island during his praetorship. He learnt Greek from Ennius there, and brought him to Rome on his return. Ennius taught Greek at Rome for a long course of years, having M. Cato among his pupils.]

847 (return)
[ Mallos was near Tarsus, in Cilicia. Crates was the son of Timocrates, a Stoic philosopher, who for his critical skill had the surname of Homericus.]

848 (return)
[ Aristarchus flourished at Alexandria, in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, whose son he educated.]

849 (return)
[ A.U.C. 535-602 or 605.]

850 (return)
[ Cicero (De Clar. Orat. c. xx., De Senect. c. v. 1) places the death of Ennius A.U.C. 584, for which there are other authorities; but this differs from the account given in a former note.]

851 (return)
[ The History of the first Punic War by Naevius is mentioned by Cicero, De Senect, c. 14.]

852 (return)
[ Lucilius, the poet, was born about A.U.C. 605.]

853 (return)
[ Q. Metellus obtained the surname of Numidicus, on his triumph over Jugurtha, A.U.C. 644. Aelius, who was Varro’s tutor, accompanied him to Rhodes or Smyrna, when he was unjustly banished, A.U.C. 653.]

854 (return)
[ Servius Claudius (also called Clodius) is commended by Cicero, Fam. Epist. ix. 16, and his singular death mentioned by Pliny, xxv. 4.]

855 (return)
[ Daphnis, a shepherd, the son of Mercury, was said to have been brought up by Pan. The humorous turn given by Lenaeus to Lutatius’s cognomen is not very clear. Daphnides is the plural of Daphnis; therefore the herd or company, agaema; and Pan was the god of rustics, and the inventor of the rude music of the reed.]

856 (return)
[ Oppius Cares is said by Macrobius to have written a book on Forest Trees.]

857 (return)
[ Quintilian enumerates Bibaculus among the Roman poets in the same line with Catullus and Horace, Institut. x. 1. Of Sigida we know nothing; even the name is supposed to be incorrectly given. Apuleius mentions a Ticida, who is also noticed by Suetonius hereafter in c. xi., where likewise he gives an account of Valerius Cato.]

858 (return)
[ Probably Suevius, of whom Macrobius informs us that he was the learned author of an Idyll, which had the title of the Mulberry Grove; observing, that “the peach which Suevius reckons as a species of the nuts, rather belongs to the tribe of apples.”]

859 (return)
[ Aurelius Opilius is mentioned by Symmachus and Gellius. His cotemporary and friend, Rutilius Rufus, having been a military tribune under Scipio in the Numantine war, wrote a history of it. He was consul A.U.C. 648, and unjustly banished, to the general grief of the people, A.U.C. 659.]

860 (return)
[ Quintilian mentions Gnipho, Instit. i. 6. We find that Cicero was among his pupils. The date of his praetorship, given below, fixes the time when Gnipho flourished.]

861 (return)
[ This strange cognomen is supposed to have been derived from a cork arm, which supplied the place of one Dionysius had lost. He was a poet of Mitylene.]

862 (return)
[ See before, JULIUS, c. xlvi.]

863 (return)
[ A.U.C. 687.]

864 (return)
[ Suetonius gives his life in c. x.]

865 (return)
[ A grade of inferior officers in the Roman armies, of which we have no very exact idea.]

866 (return)
[ Horace speaks feelingly on the subject:

867 (return)
[ Domitius Marsus wrote epigrams. He is mentioned by Ovid and Martial.]

868 (return)
[ This is not the only instance mentioned by Suetonius of statues erected to learned men in the place of their birth or celebrity. Orbilius, as a schoolmaster, was represented in a sitting posture, and with the gown of the Greek philosophers.]

869 (return)
[ Tacitus (Annal. cxi. 75) gives the character of Atteius Capito. He was consul A.U.C. 758.]

870 (return)
[ Asinius Pollio; see JULIUS, c. xxx.]

871 (return)
[ Whether Hermas was the son or scholar of Gnipho, does not appear,]

872 (return)
[ Eratosthenes, an Athenian philosopher, flourished in Egypt, under three of the Ptolemies successively. Strabo often mentions him. See xvii. p. 576.]

873 (return)
[ Cornelius Helvius Cinna was an epigrammatic poet, of the same age as Catullus. Ovid mentions him, Tristia, xi. 435.]

874 (return)
[ Priapus was worshipped as the protector of gardens.]

875 (return)
[ Zenodotus, the grammarian, was librarian to the first Ptolemy at Alexandria, and tutor to his sons.]

876 (return)
[ For Crates, see before, p. 507.]

877 (return)
[ We find from Plutarch that Sylla was employed two days before his death, in completing the twenty-second book of his Commentaries; and, foreseeing his fate, entrusted them to the care of Lucullus, who, with the assistance of Epicadius, corrected and arranged them. Epicadius also wrote on Heroic verse, and Cognomina.]

878 (return)
[ Plutarch, in his Life of Caesar, speaks of the loose conduct of Mucia, Pompey’s wife, during her husband’s absence.]

879 (return)
[ Fam. Epist. 9.]

880 (return)
[ Cicero ad Att. xii. 36.]

881 (return)
[ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. v.]

882 (return)
[ Lenaeus was not singular in his censure of Sallust. Lactantius, 11. 12, gives him an infamous character; and Horace says of him,

883 (return)
[ The name of the well known Roman knight, to whom Cicero addressed his Epistles, was Titus Pomponius Atticus. Although Satrius was the name of a family at Rome, no connection between it and Atticus can be found, so that the text is supposed to be corrupt. Quintus Caecilius was an uncle of Atticus, and adopted him. The freedman mentioned in this chapter probably assumed his name, he having been the property of Caecilius; as it was the custom for freedmen to adopt the names of their patrons.]

884 (return)
[ Suetonius, TIBERIUS, c. viii. Her name was Pomponia.]

885 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. lxvi.]

886 (return)
[ He is mentioned before, c. ix.]

887 (return)
[ Verrius Flaccus is mentioned by St. Jerome, in conjunction with Athenodorus of Tarsus, a Stoic philosopher, to have flourished A.M.C. 2024, which is A.U.C. 759; A.D. 9. He is also praised by Gellius, Macrobius, Pliny, and Priscian.]

888 (return)
[ Cinna wrote a poem, which he called “Smyrna,” and was nine years in composing, as Catullus informs us, 93. 1.]

889 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, cc. lxii. lxix.]

890 (return)
[ Cornelius Alexander, who had also the name of Polyhistor, was born at Miletus, and being taken prisoner, and bought by Cornelius, was brought to Rome, and becoming his teacher, had his freedom given him, with the name of his patron. He flourished in the time of Sylla, and composed a great number of works; amongst which were five books on Rome. Suetonius has already told us (AUGUSTUS, xxix.) that he had the care of the Palatine Library.]

891 (return)
[ No such consul as Caius Licinius appears in the Fasti; and it is supposed to be a mistake for C. Atinius, who was the colleague of Cn. Domitius Calvinus, A.U.C. 713, and wrote a book on the Civil War.]

892 (return)
[ Julius Modestus, in whom the name of the Julian family was still preserved, is mentioned with approbation by Gellius, Martial, Quintilian, and others.]

893 (return)
[ Melissus is mentioned by Ovid, De Pontif. iv 16-30.]

894 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix. p. 93, and note.]

895 (return)
[ The trabea was a white robe, with a purple border, of a different fashion from the toga.]

896 (return)
[ See before, c. x.]

897 (return)
[ See CLAUDIUS, c. x1i. and note.]

898 (return)
[ Remmius Palaemon appears to have been cotemporary with Pliny and Quintilian, who speak highly of him.]

899 (return)
[ Now Vicenza.]

900 (return)
[ “Audiat haec tantum vel qui venit, ecce, Palaemon.”—Eccl. iii. 50.]

901 (return)
[ All the editions have the word vitem; but we might conjecture, from the large produce, that it is a mistake for vineam, a vineyard: in which case the word vasa might be rendered, not bottles, but casks. The amphora held about nine gallons. Pliny mentions that Remmius bought a farm near the turning on the Nomentan road, at the tenth mile-stone from Rome.]

902 (return)
[ “Usque ad infamiam oris.”—See TIBERIUS, p. 220, and the notes.]

903 (return)
[ Now Beyrout, on the coast of Syria. It was one of the colonies founded by Julius Caesar when he transported 80,000 Roman citizens to foreign parts.—JULIUS, xlii.]

904 (return)
[ This senatus consultum was made A.U.C. 592.]

905 (return)
[ Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 710.]

906 (return)
[ See NERO, c. x.]

907 (return)
[ As to the Bullum, see before, JULIUS, c. lxxxiv.]

908 (return)
[ This extract given by Suetonius is all we know of any epistle addressed by Cicero to Marcus Titinnius.]

909 (return)
[ See Cicero’s Oration, pro Caelio, where Atracinus is frequently mentioned, especially cc. i. and iii.]

910 (return)
[ “Hordearium rhetorem.”]

911 (return)
[ From the manner in which Suetonius speaks of the old custom of chaining one of the lowest slaves to the outer gate, to supply the place of a watch-dog, it would appear to have been disused in his time.]

912 (return)
[ The work in which Cornelius Nepos made this statement is lost.]

913 (return)
[ Pliny mentions with approbation C. Epidius, who wrote some treatises in which trees are represented as speaking; and the period in which he flourished, agrees with that assigned to the rhetorician here named by Suetonius. Plin. xvii. 25.]

914 (return)
[ Isauricus was consul with Julius Caesar II., A.U.C. 705, and again with L. Antony, A.U.C. 712.]

915 (return)
[ A river in the ancient Campania, now called the Sarno, which discharges itself into the bay of Naples.]

916 (return)
[ Epidius attributes the injury received by his eyes to the corrupt habits he contracted in the society of M. Antony.]

917 (return)
[ The direct allusion is to the “style” or probe used by surgeons in opening tumours.]

918 (return)
[ Mark Antony was consul with Julius Caesar, A.U.C. 709. See before, JULIUS, c. lxxix.]

919 (return)
[ Philipp. xi. 17.]

920 (return)
[ Leontium, now called Lentini, was a town in Sicily, the foundation of which is related by Thucydides, vi. p. 412. Polybius describes the Leontine fields as the most fertile part of Sicily. Polyb. vii. 1. And see Cicero, contra Verrem, iii. 46, 47.]

921 (return)
[ Novara, a town of the Milanese.]

922 (return)
[ St. Jerom in Chron. Euseb. describes Lucius Munatius Plancus as the disciple of Cicero, and a celebrated orator. He founded Lyons during the time he governed that part of the Roman provinces in Gaul.]

923 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxvi.]

924 (return)
[ He meant to speak of Cisalpine Gaul, which, though geographically a part of Italy, did not till a late period enjoy the privileges of the other territories united to Rome, and was administered by a praetor under the forms of a dependent province. It was admitted to equal rights by the triumvirs, after the death of Julius Caesar. Albutius intimated that those rights were now in danger.]

925 (return)
[ Lucius Fenestella, an historical writer, is mentioned by Lactantius, Seneca, and Pliny, who says, that he died towards the close of the reign of Tiberius.]

926 (return)
[ The second Punic war ended A.U.C. 552, and the third began A.U.C. 605. Terence was probably born about 560.]

927 (return)
[ Carthage was laid in ruins A.U.C. 606 or 607, six hundred and sixty seven years after its foundation.]

928 (return)
[ These entertainments were given by the aediles M. Fulvius Nobilior and M. Acilius Glabrio, A.U.C. 587.]

929 (return)
[ St. Jerom also states that Terence read the “Andria” to Caecilius who was a comic poet at Rome; but it is clearly an anachronism, as he died two years before this period. It is proposed, therefore, to amend the text by substituting Acilius, the aedile; a correction recommended by all the circumstances, and approved by Pitiscus and Ernesti.]

930 (return)
[ The “Hecyra,” The Mother-in-law, is one of Terence’s plays.]

931 (return)
[ The “Eunuch” was not brought out till five years after the Andria, A.U.C. 592.]

932 (return)
[ About 80 pounds sterling; the price paid for the two performances. What further right of authorship is meant by the words following, is not very clear.]

933 (return)
[ The “Adelphi” was first acted A.U.C. 593.]

934 (return)
[ This report is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic, vii. 3), who applies it to the younger Laelius. The Scipio here mentioned is Scipio Africanus, who was at this time about twenty-one years of age.]

935 (return)
[ The calends of March was the festival of married women. See before, VESPASIAN, c. xix.]

936 (return)
[ Santra, who wrote biographies of celebrated characters, is mentioned as “a man of learning,” by St. Jerom, in his preface to the book on the Ecclesiastical Writers.]

937 (return)
[ The idea seems to have prevailed that Terence, originally an African slave, could not have attained that purity of style in Latin composition which is found in his plays, without some assistance. The style of Phaedrus, however; who was a slave from Thrace, and lived in the reign of Tiberius, is equally pure, although no such suspicion attaches to his work.]

938 (return)
[ Cicero (de Clar. Orat. c. 207) gives Sulpicius Gallus a high character as a finished orator and elegant scholar. He was consul when the Andria was first produced.]

939 (return)
[ Labeo and Popilius are also spoken of by Cicero in high terms, Ib. cc. 21 and 24. Q. Fabius Labeo was consul with M. Claudius Marcellus, A.U.C. 570 and Popilius with L. Postumius Albinus, A.U.C. 580.]

940 (return)
[ The story of Terence’s having converted into Latin plays this large number of Menander’s Greek comedies, is beyond all probability, considering the age at which he died, and other circumstances. Indeed, Menander never wrote so many as are here stated.]

941 (return)
[ They were consuls A.U.C. 594. Terence was, therefore, thirty-four years old at the time of his death.]

942 (return)
[ Hortulorum, in the plural number. This term, often found in Roman authors, not inaptly describes the vast number of little inclosures, consisting of vineyards, orchards of fig-trees, peaches, etc., with patches of tillage, in which maize, legumes, melons, pumpkins, and other vegetables are cultivated for sale, still found on small properties, in the south of Europe, particularly in the neighbourhood of towns.]

943 (return)
[ Suetonius has quoted these lines in the earlier part of his Life of Terence. See before p. 532, where they are translated.]

944 (return)
[ Juvenal was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, as appears by an ancient MS., and is intimated by himself. Sat. iii. 319.]

945 (return)
[ He must have been therefore nearly forty years old at this time, as he lived to be eighty.]

946 (return)
[ The seventh of Juvenal’s Satires.]

947 (return)
[ This Paris does not appear to have been the favourite of Nero, who was put to death by that prince (see NERO, c. liv.) but another person of the same name, who was patronised by the emperor Domitian. The name of the poet joined with him is not known. Salmatius thinks it was Statius Pompilius, who sold to Paris, the actor, the play of Agave;

948 (return)
[ Sulpicius Camerinus had been proconsul in Africa; Bareas Soranus in Asia. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 52; xvi. 23. Both of them are said to have been corrupt in their administration; and the satirist introduces their names as examples of the rich and noble, whose influence was less than that of favourite actors, or whose avarice prevented them from becoming the patrons of poets.]

949 (return)
[ The “Pelopea,” was a tragedy founded on the story of the daughter of Thyestes; the “Philomela,” a tragedy on the fate of Itys, whose remains were served to his father at a banquet by Philomela and her sister Progne.]

950 (return)
[ This was in the time of Adrian. Juvenal, who wrote first in the reigns of Domitian and Trajan, composed his last Satire but one in the third year of Adrian, A.U.C. 872.]

951 (return)
[ Syene is meant, the frontier station of the imperial troops in that quarter of the world.]

952
[ A.U.C. 786, A.D. 34.]

953 (return)
[ A.U.C. 814, A.D. 62.]

954 (return)
[ Persius was one of the few men of rank and affluence among the Romans, who acquired distinction as writers; the greater part of them having been freedmen, as appears not only from these lives of the poets, but from our author’s notices of the grammarians and rhetoricians. A Caius Persius is mentioned with distinction by Livy in the second Punic war, Hist. xxvi. 39; and another of the same name by Cicero, de Orat. ii. 6, and by Pliny; but whether the poet was descended from either of them, we have no means of ascertaining.]

955 (return)
[ Persius addressed his fifth satire to Annaeus Cornutus. He was a native of Leptis, in Africa, and lived at Rome in the time of Nero, by whom he was banished.]

956 (return)
[ Caesius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns of Nero and Galba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him.]

957 (return)
[ “Numanus.” It should be Servilius Nonianus, who is mentioned by Pliny, xxviii. 2, and xxxvii. 6.]

958 (return)
[ Commentators are not agreed about these sums, the text varying both in the manuscripts and editions.]

959 (return)
[ See Dr. Thomson’s remarks on Persius, before, p. 398.]

960 (return)
[ There is no appearance of any want of finish in the sixth Satire of Persius, as it has come down to us; but it has been conjectured that it was followed by another, which was left imperfect.]

961 (return)
[ There were two Arrias, mother and daughter, Tacit. Annal. xvi. 34. 3.]

962 (return)
[ Persius died about nine days before he completed his twenty-ninth year.]

963 (return)
[ Venusium stood on the confines of the Apulian, Lucanian, and Samnite territories.

965 (return)
[ Horace mentions his being in this battle, and does not scruple to admit that he made rather a precipitate retreat, “relicta non bene parmula.”—Ode xi. 7-9.]

966 (return)
[ See Ode xi. 7. 1.]

967 (return)
[ The editors of Suetonius give different versions of this epigram. It seems to allude to some passing occurrence, and in its present form the sense is to this effect: “If I love you not, Horace, to my very heart’s core, may you see the priest of the college of Titus leaner than his mule.”]

968 (return)
[ Probably the Septimius to whom Horace addressed the ode beginning

969 (return)
[ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxi.; and Horace, Ode iv, 4.]

970 (return)
[ See Epist. i. iv. xv.

971
[ It is satisfactory to find that the best commentators consider the words between brackets as an interpolation in the work of Suetonius. Some, including Bentley, reject the preceding sentence also.]

972 (return)
[ The works of Horace abound with references to his Sabine farm which must be familiar to many readers. Some remains are still shewn, consisting of a ruined wall and a tesselated pavement in a vineyard, about eight miles from Tivoli, which are supposed, with reason, to mark its site. At least, the features of the neighbouring country, as often sketched by the poet—and they are very beautiful—cannot be mistaken.]

973 (return)
[ Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus were consuls A.U.C. 688. The genial Horace, in speaking of his old wine, agrees with Suetonius in fixing the date of his own birth:

And again,

974 (return)
[ A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.]

975 (return)
[ It may be concluded that Horace died at Rome, under the hospitable roof of his patron Mecaenas, whose villa and gardens stood on the Esquiline hill; which had formerly been the burial ground of the lower classes; but, as he tells us, Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico spatiare.—Sat. i. 8.]

976 (return)
[ Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca’s brother.]

977 (return)
[ This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the text to be imperfect.]

978 (return)
[ They had good reason to know that, ridiculous as the tyrant made himself, it was not safe to incur even the suspicion of being parties to a jest upon him.]

979 (return)
[ See NERO, c. xxxvi.]

980 (return)
[ St. Jerom (Chron. Euseb.) places Lucan’s death in the tenth year of Nero’s reign, corresponding with A.U.C. 817. This opportunity is taken of correcting an error in the press, p. 342, respecting the date of Nero’s accession. It should be A.U.C. 807, A.D. 55.]

981 (return)
[ These circumstances are not mentioned by some other writers. See Dr. Thomson’s account of Lucan, before, p. 347, where it is said that he died with philosophical firmness.]

982 (return)
[ We find it stated ib. p. 396, that Lucan expired while pronouncing some verses from his own Pharsalia: for which we have the authority of Tacitus, Annal. xv. 20. 1. Lucan, it appears, employed his last hours in revising his poems; on the contrary, Virgil, we are told, when his death was imminent, renewed his directions that the Aeneid should be committed to the flames.]

983 (return)
[ The text of the concluding sentence of Lucan’s life is corrupt, and neither of the modes proposed for correcting it make the sense intended very clear.]

984 (return)
[ Although this brief memoir of Pliny is inserted in all the editions of Suetonius, it was unquestionably not written by him. The author, whoever he was, has confounded the two Plinys, the uncle and nephew, into which error Suetonius could not have fallen, as he lived on intimate terms with the younger Pliny; nor can it be supposed that he would have composed the memoir of his illustrious friend in so cursory a manner. Scaliger and other learned men consider that the life of Pliny, attributed to Suetonius, was composed more than four centuries after that historian’s death.]

985 (return)
[ See JULIUS, c. xxviii. Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (the younger Pliny) was born at Como, A.U.C. 814; A.D. 62. His father’s name was Lucius Caecilius, also of Como, who married Plinia, the sister of Caius Plinius Secundus, supposed to have been a native of Verona, the author of the Natural History, and by this marriage the uncle of Pliny the Younger. It was the nephew who enjoyed the confidence of the emperors Nerva and Trajan, and was the author of the celebrated Letters.]

986 (return)
[ The first eruption of Mount Vesuvius occurred A.U.C. 831, A.D. 79. See TITUS, c. viii. The younger Pliny was with his uncle at Misenum at the time, and has left an account of his disastrous enterprise in one of his letters, Epist. vi. xvi.]

987 (return)
[ For further accounts of the elder Pliny, see the Epistles of his nephew, B. iii. 5; vi. 16. 20; and Dr. Thomson’s remarks before, pp. 475-478.]