The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
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.]
[Footnote 196: Antonius Musa was a freedman, and had acquired his
knowledge of medicine while a domestic slave; a very common occurrence.]
[Footnote 197: A.U.C. 711.]
[Footnote 198: See cc. x. xi. xii. and xiii.]
[Footnote 199: One of them was Scipio, the father of Cornelia, whose
death is lamented by Propertius, iv. 12. The other is unknown.]
[Footnote 200: A.U.C. 715.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 202: This form of adoption consisted in a fictitious sale. See
Cicero, Topic. iii.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 204: She was removed to Reggio in Calabria.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.”]
[Footnote 207: Women called ustriculae, the barbers, were employed in
thin delicate operation. It is alluded to by Juvenal, ix. 4, and Martial,
v. 61.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 210: Mark Antony makes use of fondling diminutives of the names
of Tertia, Terentia, and Rufa, some of Augustus’s favourites.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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. Mart. xi. 15, 1.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 214: See c. xxxii. and note.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 216: The highest cast was so called.]
[Footnote 217: Enlarged by Tiberius and succeeding emperors. The ruins
of the palace of the Caesars are still seen on the Palatine.]
[Footnote 218: Probably travertine, a soft limestone, from the Alban
Mount, which was, therefore, cheaply procured and easily worked.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 226: Casum bubulum manu pressum; probably soft cheese, not
reduced to solid consistence in the cheese-press.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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 xviii.
12.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 230: A custom in all warm countries; the siesta of the Italians
in later times.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 232: His physician, mentioned c. lix.]
[Footnote 233: Sept. 21st, a sickly season at Rome.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 236: In spongam incubuisse, literally has fallen upon a sponge,
as Ajax is said to have perished by falling on his own sword.]
[Footnote 237: Myrobrecheis. Suetonius often preserves expressive Greek
phrases which Augustus was in the habit of using. This compound word
meant literally, myrrh-scented, perfumed.]
[Footnote 238: These are variations of language of small importance,
which can only be understood in the original language.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 241: Chap. xix.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 244: The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger
towns.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 246: “The Romans divided their months into calends, nones, and
ides. The first day of the month was the calends of that month; whence