The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
describes the Leontine fields as the most fertile part of Sicily. Polyb.
vii. 1. And see Cicero, contra Verrem, iii. 46, 47.]
[Footnote 921: Novara, a town of the Milanese.]
[Footnote 922: 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.]
[Footnote 923: See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxvi.]
[Footnote 924: 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.]
[Footnote 925: 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.]
[Footnote 926: The second Punic war ended A.U.C. 552, and the third began
A.U.C. 605. Terence was probably born about 560.]
[Footnote 927: Carthage was laid in ruins A.U.C. 606 or 607, six hundred
and sixty seven years after its foundation.]
[Footnote 928: These entertainments were given by the aediles M. Fulvius
Nobilior and M. Acilius Glabrio, A.U.C. 587.]
[Footnote 929: 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.]
[Footnote 930: The “Hecyra,” The Mother-in-law, is one of Terence’s
plays.]
[Footnote 931: The “Eunuch” was not brought out till five years after the
Andria, A.U.C. 592.]
[Footnote 932: 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.]
[Footnote 933: The “Adelphi” was first acted A.U.C. 593.]
[Footnote 934: 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.]
[Footnote 935: The calends of March was the festival of married women.
See before, VESPASIAN, c. xix.]
[Footnote 936: 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.]
[Footnote 937: 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.]
[Footnote 938: 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.]
[Footnote 939: 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.]
[Footnote 940: 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.]
[Footnote 941: They were consuls A.U.C. 594. Terence was, therefore,
thirty-four years old at the time of his death.]
[Footnote 942: 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.]
[Footnote 943: Suetonius has quoted these lines in the earlier part of
his Life of Terence. See before p. 532, where they are translated.]
[Footnote 944: Juvenal was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, as
appears by an ancient MS., and is intimated by himself. Sat. iii. 319.]
[Footnote 945: He must have been therefore nearly forty years old at this
time, as he lived to be eighty.]
[Footnote 946: The seventh of Juvenal’s Satires.]
[Footnote 947: 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;
Esurit, intactam
Paridi nisi vendat Agaven.
--Juv. Sat. vii. 87.]
[Footnote 948: 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.]
[Footnote 949: 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.]
[Footnote 950: 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.]
[Footnote 951: Syene is meant, the frontier station of the imperial
troops in that quarter of the world.]
[Footnote 952: A.U.C. 786, A.D. 34.]
[Footnote 953: A.U.C. 814, A.D. 62.]
[Footnote 954: 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.]
[Footnote 955: 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.]
[Footnote 956: Caesius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns
of Nero and Galba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him.]
[Footnote 957: “Numanus.” It should be Servilius Nonianus, who is
mentioned by Pliny, xxviii. 2, and xxxvii. 6.]
[Footnote 958: Commentators are not agreed about these sums, the text
varying both in the manuscripts and editions.]
[Footnote 959: See Dr. Thomson’s remarks on Persius, before, p. 398.]
[Footnote 960: 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.]
[Footnote 961: There were two Arrias, mother and daughter, Tacit. Annal.
xvi. 34. 3.]
[Footnote 962: Persius died about nine days before he completed his
twenty-ninth year.]
[Footnote 963: Venusium stood on the confines of the Apulian, Lucanian,
and Samnite territories.
Sequor hunc, Lucanus an Appulus anceps;
Nam Venusinus arat finem sub utrumque colonus.
Hor Sat. xi. 1. 34.] [Footnote 964: Sat. i. 6. 45.]
[Footnote 965: 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.]
[Footnote 966: See Ode xi. 7. 1.]
[Footnote 967: 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.”]
[Footnote 968: Probably the Septimius to whom Horace addressed the ode
beginning
Septimi, Gades aditure mecum.--Ode xl. b. i.]
[Footnote 969: See AUGUSTUS, c. xxi.; and Horace, Ode iv, 4.]
[Footnote 970: See Epist. i. iv. xv.
Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 972: 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.]
[Footnote 973: 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:
O nata mecum consule Manlio Testa.--Ode iii. 21.
And again,
Tu vina, Torquato, move Consule pressa meo.--Epod. xiii. 8.]
[Footnote 974: A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not
his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.]
[Footnote 975: 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.]
[Footnote 976: Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca’s
brother.]
[Footnote 977: This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the
text to be imperfect.]
[Footnote 978: 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.]
[Footnote 979: See NERO, c. xxxvi.]
[Footnote 980: 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.]
[Footnote 981: 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.]
[Footnote 982: 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.]
[Footnote 983: 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.]
[Footnote 984: Although this brief memoir of Pliny is inserted in all the