Anno Urbis - The Roman Empire Online

[200] A.U.C. 715.

[201] He is mentioned by Horace:

Occidit Daci Cotisonis agimen. Ode 8, b. iii.

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

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

[203] 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] She was removed to Reggio in Calabria.

[205] 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] 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] Women called ustriculae, the barbers, were employed in thin delicate operation. It is alluded to by Juvenal, ix. 4, and Martial,

5. 61.

[208] 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] 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] Mark Antony makes use of fondling diminutives of the names of Tertia, Terentia, and Rufa, some of Augustus's favourites.

[211] Dodekatheos; the twelve Dii Majores; they are enumerated in two verses by Ennius:--

Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars; Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.

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

Tonatrix Suburrae faucibus sed et primis, Cruenta pendent qua flagella tortorum.

[213] 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] See c. xxxii. and note.

[215] 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] The highest cast was so called.

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

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

[219] 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] 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] 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] 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] Now Tivoli, a delicious spot, where Horace had a villa, in which he hoped to spend his declining years.

Ver ubi longum, tepidasque praebet Jupiter brumas: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ibi, tu calentem

Debita sparges lachryma favillam
Vatis amici. Odes, B. ii. 5.

Adrian also had a magnificent villa near Tibur.

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

[227] 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] 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

18. 12.

[229] The Rhaetian wines had a great reputation; Virgil says,

------Ex quo te carmine dicam,
Rhaetica. Georg. ii. 96.

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

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

[231] 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] His physician, mentioned c. lix.

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

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

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

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

[239] 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] 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] Chap. xix.

[242] 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] 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] The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns.

[245] "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] "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] 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] 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] Velletri stands on very high ground, commanding extensive views of the Pontine marshes and the sea.

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

[251] 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] Aesar is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination; aisa signifying fate.

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

[254] "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] 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] Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.

[257] 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] Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.

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

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

[262] 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] 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] Those of his father Octavius, and his father by adoption, Julius Caesar.

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

[266] Virgil.

[267] Ibid.

[268] Ibid.

[269] Geor. ii.

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

[271] 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] Padua.

[273] 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:

Et juxta Ascanius, magmae spes altera Romae. Aeneid, xii.

And by his side Ascanius took his place, The second hope of Rome's immortal race.

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] 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] 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] Carm. i. 17.

[277] "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] Two faults have ruined me; my verse, and my mistake.

[279] These lines are thus rendered in the quaint version of Zachary Catlin.

I suffer 'cause I chanced a fault to spy, So that my crime doth in my eyesight lie.

Alas! why wait my luckless hap to see A fault at unawares to ruin me?

[280] "I myself employed you as ready agents in love, when my early youth sported in numbers adapted to it."--Riley's Ovid.

[281] "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] 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] "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."

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