NOTES

The Palace of the Cæsars.—In this description of the Palace of the Cæsars, I chiefly follow Lanciani and Burn’s Rome and the Campagna, ch. viii. See, too, Statius, Sylv. iv. 26-31; Claudian, De VI. Cons. Hon. 39-41.

Lollia Paulina’s jewels.—See Pliny, N. H. ix. 58.

Agrippina’s talking thrush.—‘Agrippina, Claudii Principis, turdum habuit, quod nunquam ante, imitantem sermones humanos, cum hæc proderem. Habebant et Cæsares juvenes [i. e. Nero and Britannicus] sturnum, item luscinias, Græco et Latino sermone dociles, præterea ... loquentes longiore etiam contextu.’—Pliny, N. H. x. 59.

Nero’s genealogy.—Nero was, in the female line, abnepos—great-great-grandson—of Augustus. Britannicus was only the pronepos—great-grandson—of Octavia (the sister of Augustus), and great-nephew of Tiberius:—

Augustus

＝ Scribonia

|

Julia

＝ Agrippa

|

Agrippina I.

＝ Germanicus

|

Agrippina II.

＝ Claudius

|

Nero

Octavia

＝ Mark Antony

|

Antonia Minor

＝ Drusus, Brother of Tiberius

______|______

|

|

Germanicus

Claudius

＝ Messalina

|

Britannicus

Agrippina’s white nightingale.—Pliny says it cost more than 40l N. H. x. 43.

The Bacchanalians.—The orgies of this pseudo-religious body had been denounced and suppressed in B.C. 186.—See Livy, xxxix. 9-14.

Nero’s poetry.—The lines of Persius, Sat. i. 92-105, have been supposed to contain these quotations from Nero’s poems.

Seneca’s flatteries.—The opening of Seneca’s De Clementia abounds in this fulsome and impolitic flattery.

For these self-criticisms of Seneca, see Ep. xlv. lxxx. &c.; De Vit. Beat. 3.

Nero really made this jest.—Tac. Ann. xiv. 14.

Epictetus.—No date in the life of Epictetus is certain; but as he was certainly the slave of Epaphroditus, Nero’s secretary, I take no violent liberty in introducing him here.

Slaves were not held culpable for what their masters ordered.—The sentiment which Petronius puts into the mouth of Trimalchio—‘Nec turpe est quod dominus jubet’—is echoed by Seneca, ‘Impudicitia ... in servo necessitas est.’

The ass-headed god.—One of the ancient calumnies against the Christians is that they worshipped a god with an ass’s head named Onokoites. See the writer’s Lives of the Fathers, i. § v. Hence the Christians were called Asinarii, and the ancients thought that Jews also worshipped the ass. See Tac. Hist. v. 4; Plut. Sympos. iv. 5, § 2; Diod. Sic. xxxiv. Fragm.; Jos. C. Apion. ii. 7. For the slander as regards Christians, see Min. Fel. Octav. ix. 28; Tert. Ad Natt. i. 14, Apol. 16. The celebrated graffito of ‘Alexamenos adoring his god,’ known by the Germans as the Spott-Crucifix, is now in the Library of the Collegio Romano at Rome, in the Museo Kircheriano. It was really found in the Gelotian Pædagogium, but is probably of much later date than the reign of Nero.

Duc me, Parens, celsique Dominator poli,

Quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est.

Adsum impiger. Fac nolle, comitabor tamen.

Cleanthes apud Senecam.

Ancient wall-scribblings.—For the Graffito alluded to see note 13. The playful distich attributed to Britannicus is really scrawled on a wall at Pompeii:—

‘Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruina

Qui tot stultorum tædia sustineas.’

The graffiti ascribed to Titus are on the walls of the Domus Gelotiana, but are becoming fast obliterated. They were discovered in 1857.—See Lanciani’s Rome, p. 121.

The ‘Cyzicene room’ of a luxurious Roman house or villa faced the north, and opened by folding doors on the garden. The younger Pliny had such rooms in his villa. They were built for warmth and sunlight.

For a remarkable ‘unconscious prophecy of heathendom,’ see Æsch. Prom. Vinct. 1026-1029. Seneca’s words are:—‘Nemo per se satis valet ut emergat. Oportet manum aliquis porrigat, aliquis educat.’ Sen. Ep. 52.

The Fish.—The initial letters of ΙΧΘΥΣ, ‘fish,’ stood for Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ, ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.’ It was the commonest of ancient Christian symbols. See Tert. De Bapt. i.; Jer. Ep. 43; Aug. De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23; and the writer’s Lives of the Fathers, i. § xvi.

Arrest of Onesimus.—Some readers will recognise an incident which really occurred in the life of Alypius, the friend of St. Augustine, which the English reader may see narrated in my Lives of the Fathers, ii. 313.

Agrippas.—Children born feet-first were called agrippas, and to be so born was regarded as a certain augury of misfortune.—Pliny, N. H. vii. 6.

Ancient dancing.—The allusions to the dancing of the pantomimic actors may all be found in Lucan’s De Saltatione; Vell. Paterc. ii. 83; Athen. xiv. 627-630; and other ancient writers.

Lucan’s daring flatteries may be read in Pharsal. i. 33-66.

The Stemma Cæsarum.—For further facts and details about the Cæsarian family, See Champagny, Les Césars, ii. 77, and passim.

Otho’s banquet.—The details here described are derived in every particular from Pliny, Suetonius, Seneca, and other ancient writers.

Tossing in a blanket. Sagatio.—Suet. Otho, 2; Mart. i. 4. A case is mentioned in Ulpian of a boy who was killed by it. Greek, παλμός.

Age of Britannicus.—There is some historic uncertainty about the age of Britannicus. The proper date for assuming the toga virilis was the end of the fifteenth year, but Nero had been allowed to assume it soon after his fourteenth birthday (Tac. Ann. xii. 41). In Ann. xii. 25 Tacitus says that Nero was two years older (biennio majorem) than Britannicus; but from xiii. 6 and 15, where we are told that Nero was barely seventeen at the beginning of his reign, and that Britannicus was nearly fifteen when he was murdered, it seems clear that triennio would be nearer the truth than biennio. Eckhel, in his Doctr. Num. vi. 260, comes to the conclusion that Nero was three years and two months older than Britannicus; and other circumstances seem to make this probable. Suetonius also (Claud. 27) makes some admitted blunders. It seems likely that Nero was born on Dec. 15, A.D. 37, and Britannicus on Feb. 12 or 13, A.D. 41, on the twentieth day of his father’s reign. On this subject I must refer to Nipperdey on Tac. Ann. xii. 25; Orelli on Tac. Ann. xii. 25, 41, xiii. 6, 15; H. Schiller, Gesch. d. Römischen Kaiserreichs, pp. 71, &c.

Making gods.—Nero makes the remark in the text to Seneca in the tragedy of Octavia:—

‘Stulte verebor, ipse quum faciam, Deos.’

Octav. Act. ii. 450

Χρυσὸν ἀνὴρ εὑρὼν ἔλιπε βρόχον, αὐτὰρ ὁ χρυσὸν

Ὂν λίπεν οὐχ εὑρὼν, ἥψεν ὃν εὗρε βρόχον.

This epigram was once quoted to Coleridge as proof of the condensation possible in Greek. He at once rendered it in the two English lines:—

‘Jack, finding some gold, left a rope on the ground,

Tom, missing his gold, used the rope which he found.’

Pagan epitaphs.—For those quoted see Nov. Fiorentini, xxxiii. (ap. Döllinger, Judaism, &c. ii. 147; and Muratori, p. 1677).

The magnificent verses sung by Britannicus are preserved by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. iii. 19), and were deservedly admired for their force and rhythm. They end thus, with a striking specimen of ancient rhyme:—

‘Hæc omnia vidi inflammari,

Priamo vitam vi evitari,

Jovis aram sanguine turpari.’

This ancient hymn is preserved for us at the end of the Pædagogus of St. Clement of Alexandria. I avail myself of the translation by my friend the late Dean of Wells (Lazarus, and other Poems).

An imperial banquet.—See Sen. Ep. xc. 15, cxv. 9. The menu of a banquet of luxurious Salian priests is preserved in Macrobius, Saturn. iii. 13.

The classical reader will recognise that I have not invented these stories of rural pagan life. They are found in Apuleius.

The Lemuralia.—See this expiatory rite described in Ovid, Fasti, v. 421-444; and compare Latour St.-Ybars, Néron, pp. 213, 214. The custom is also alluded to in Varro, Vit. Pop. Rom. Fr. 241; Servius ad Æn. i. 276.

Gladiators’ School.—‘Alebat devotum corpus pravior omni fauce sagina.’—Quinct. ‘Qui dabit immundæ venalia fata saginæ.’—Propert. iv. 8. 25. Δεῖ σε εὐτακτεῖν, ἀναγκοφαγεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι πεμμάτων, μὴ ψυχρὸν πίνειν.—Epict. Dissert. iii. 15, § 3.

The gladiator’s oath was comprehensively horrible. ‘In verba Eumolpi sacramentum juravimus uri, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari, et quicquid aliud Eumolpus jussisset; tamquam legitimi gladiatores domino corpora animosque religiosissime addicimus.’—Petronius.

Gladiatorial games.—Not one incident is here described which does not find its authority in Martial De Spectaculis, and other epigrams, or in one or other of the many contemporary or later writers of the Empire. See Lipsius, De Gladiatoribus in his Saturnalia.

Dead gladiators.—‘Quinetiam percussos jacentesque repeti jubent, et cadavera ictibus dissipari, ne quis illos simulata morte deludat’ (Lactantius).

The Rex Nemorensis.—See Ovid, Fasti, iii. 263-277; Propert. iii. 24. 9; Stat. Sylv. iii. 1. 32; and Mr. Fraser’s Golden Bough.

The appearance and cautious terror of the priest are described by Strabo (v. 3. 12):—ξιφήρης οὖν ἐστιν, ἀεὶ περισκοπῶν, τὰς ἐπιθέσεις ἕτοιμος ἀμύνεσθαι.

Age of Octavia.—Nothing certain can be ascertained as to the exact age of Octavia at her death. Tillemont, Néron, Art. xv., thinks that she was twenty-two; and Nipperdey on Tac. Ann. xiv. 64 conjectures that the true reading is ‘II et vicesimo.’ See Stahr, Agrippina, p. 54; Lehmann, 132; Sievers, Studien zur Gesch. des Röm. Kaiser., 129; H. Schiller, Gesch. des Röm. Kaiserreichs, 67. When she married Nero she was apparently thirteen, and he fifteen; Schiller, l. c. 83.

Christian fortitude.—These are the explanations given by Pagans of the calmness of Christians under martyrdom. Marc. Aurelius says that men should die calmly, yet not διὰ ψιλὴν παράταξιν ὡς οἱ Χριστιανοί, Medit. xi. 3; ὑπὸ μανίας, ὑπὸ ἔθους, ὡς οἱ Γαλιλαῖοι, says Epictetus, Dissert. iv. 7.

Ishmael ben Phabi.—An Ishmael ben Phabi was made high priest by Valerius Gratus; and another, or the same at a later age, by Festus. The younger is here intended.

Anchialus is a dubious word found in Martial, Ep. xi. 94, and very variously explained. The famous oracle quoted by Josephus is found in Macrobius, Saturn. i. 18.

Esther, in her epitaph, charges Arescusus not to put ‘D. M.’ or any other pagan symbol on her tomb. The name of Primitivus, a Curator Spoliarii in Nero’s time (mentioned in the next paragraph), has been preserved in an inscription found in the Columbaria.

I borrow this ancient hymn from the conclusion of the Pædagogus of Clement of Alexandria. The translation is by my friend the late Dean of Wells.

What we call St. Elmo’s fire was known to the ancients as ‘the fires of Castor and Pollux.’ A bidental was an enclosure round a place struck by lightning. For such legends of St. John as I have here adopted I may refer to Tert. De Præscr. Hær. 36; Jer. C. Jovin. i. 26; and In Matt. xx. 23, Orig. In Matt. Hom. xii; Zahn, Acta Johannis, cxvii.-cxxii.

I have elsewhere given strong reasons for the belief that St. John was banished to Patmos by Nero, not by Domitian. See Early Days of Christianity, ii. 147, 184 sqq.

Icarus.—See Sueton, Nero, 12; Dio Chrysost. Orat. xxi. 9. There seems to be an echo of this incident in the legend about the attempted flight of Simon Magus. Cyril Hierosol. Catech. vi. 15; Arnob. C. Gentes, ii. 12. See Lipsius, Petrus-Sage, and Fabricius, Cod. Apocr. N. T. iii. 632.

See Clem. Rom. Ad Cor. i. 6. Διὰ ζῆλος διωχθεῖσαι γυναῖκες Δαναΐδες καὶ Δίρκαι αἰκίσματα δεινὰ καὶ ἀνόσια παθοῦσαι· ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς πίστεως βέβαιον δρόμον κατήντησαν καὶ ἔλαβον γέρας γενναῖον αἱ ἀσθενεῖς τῷ σώματι. I do not see any reason to accept any alterations of the reading. See, too, Renan, L’Antéchrist, p. 167. The Dirce-statue, known as the Farnese Bull, is now in the Museo Borbonico at Naples.

I am indebted for one slight touch in this scene to the otherwise absurd sketch in Latour St.-Ybars’ Néron.

Dion Cassius tells the fate of Corbulo in three energetic words: παίων ἔλεγεν Ἄξιος (lxiii. 17).

The reader who is familiar with the cycles of early Christian legend will recognise that I borrow the character of Patroclus and various incidents of these scenes from the Acts of Linus. They are printed in De la Bigne, Bibl. Patr. Max. ii. 67; and some account of them is given by Dr. Salmon, in Dict. Christ. Biog. iii. 726. See, too, the allusion of St. Chrysostom, Hom. xlvi. in Actt. App.