Note 12 — LIFE OF CRASSUS.

A Roman who aspired to the highest offices of the State, prepared his way by the magnificence of his public entertainments during his curule ædileship, and by his affable manners. An humble individual is always gratified when a great man addresses him by name, and a shake of the hand secures his devotion. Ovidius (Ars Amat. ii. 253) alludes to this way of winning popular favour, and judiciously observes that it costs nothing, which would certainly recommend it to Crassus. If a man's memory was not so good as that of Crassus, he had only to buy a slave, as Horatius (1 Epist. i. 50) recommends, who could tell him the name of every man whom he met. Such a slave was called Nomenclator. If the nomenclator's memory ever failed him, he would not let his master know it: he gave a person any name that came into his head.