Note 7 — Chapter III · ANCIENT FORMS OF ADVERTISING.
Reading edition
Pausanias Græc., lib. viii. c. 14, Arcadia.
[8] Apuleius, Golden Ass, Book viii., Episode 8.
[9] The spot here mentioned was at the back of the Temple of Venus Myrtia (the myrtle Venus), on Mount Aventine in Rome.
[10] Apuleius, Book vi.
[11] That is, “The troop of gladiators of the ædil will fight on the 31st of May. There will be fights with wild animals, and an awning to keep off the sun.” Wind and weather permitting, there were awnings over the heads of the spectators; but, generally, there appears to have been too much wind in this breezy summer retreat to admit of this luxury. “Nam ventus populo vela negare solet,” says Martial, and the same idea occurs in three other places in this poet’s works (vi. 9; xi. 21; xiv. 29). Sometimes, also, the bills of gladiators promise sparsiones, which consisted in certain sprinklings of water perfumed with saffron or other odours; and, as they produced what was called a nimbus, or cloud, the perfumes were probably dispersed over the audience in drops by means of pipes or spouts, or, perhaps, by some kind of rude engine.
[12] Nine hundred shops in a town which would hardly contain more than about twelve hundred is rather incredible—perhaps it should be ninety. Pergulæ were either porticos shaded with verdure, lattices with creeping plants, or small rooms above the shops, bedrooms for the shopkeepers. Cœnacula were rooms under the terraces. When they were good enough to let to the higher classes they were called equestria (as in the following advertisement). Plutarch informs us that Sylla, in his younger days, lived in one of them, where he paid a rent of £8 a year.
[13] A. L. Millin, Description d’un Mosaique antique du Musée Pio. Clementin, à Rome, 1819, p. 9.