Note 209 — LIFE OF CICERO.
George Long translation
It is uncertain who this man was. The allusion to the hole in his ear signifies that his ears were bored to carry pendants or earrings after the fashion of some nations at that time. Cicero meant to imply that he was not of genuine Italian stock. Juvenal alludes to a man’s foreign origin being shown by his ears being bored, in the following terms:—
“——quamvis Natus ad Euphratem, molles quod in aure fenestræ Arguerint, licet ipse neges.” Sat. i. 103, and the note of Heinrichs.