FOOTNOTES (continued 2)

418 (return) [ Suetonius flourished about seventy years after this, in the reign of Adrian, and derived many of the anecdotes which give interest to his history from cotemporary persons. See CLAUDIUS, c. xv. etc.]

419 (return) [ See TIBERIUS, c. xlvii. and AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi.]

420 (return) [ This aqueduct, commenced by Caligula and completed by Claudian, a truly imperial work, conveyed the waters of two streams to Rome, following the valley of the Anio from above Tivoli. The course of one of these rivulets was forty miles, and it was carried on arches, immediately after quitting its source, for a distance of three miles. The other, the Anio Novus, also began on arches, which continued for upwards of twelve miles. After this, both were conveyed under ground; but at the distance of six miles from the city, they were united, and carried upon arches all the rest of the way. This is the most perfect of all the ancient aqueducts; and it has been repaired, so as to convey the Acqua Felice, one of the three streams which now supply Rome. See CLAUDIUS, c. xx.]

421 (return) [ By Septa, Suetonius here means the huts or barracks of the pretorian camp, which was a permanent and fortified station. It stood to the east of the Viminal and Quirinal hills, between the present Porta Pia and S. Lorenzo, where there is a quadrangular projection in the city walls marking the site. The remains of the Amphitheatrum Castrense stand between the Porta Maggiore and S. Giovanni, formerly without the ancient walls, but now included in the line. It is all of brick, even the Corinthian pillars, and seems to have been but a rude structure, suited to the purpose for which it was built, the amusement of the soldiers, and gymnastic exercises. For this purpose they were used to construct temporary amphitheatres near the stations in the distant provinces, which were not built of stone or brick, but hollow circular spots dug in the ground, round which the spectators sat on the declivity, on ranges of seats cut in the sod. Many vestiges of this kind have been traced in Britain.]

422 (return) [ The Isthmus of Corinth; an enterprize which had formerly been attempted by Demetrius, and which was also projected by Julius Caesar, c. xliv., and Nero, c. xix.; but they all failed of accomplishing it.]

423 (return) [ On the authority of Dio Cassius and the Salmatian manuscript, this verse from Homer is substituted for the common reading, which is,

424 (return) [ Alluding, in the case of Romulus, to the rape of the Sabines; and in that of Augustus to his having taken Livia from her husband.—AUGUSTUS, c. lxii.]

425 (return) [ Selene was the daughter of Mark Antony by Cleopatra.]

426 (return) [ See c. xii.]

427 (return) [ The vast area of the Roman amphitheatres had no roof, but the audience were protected against the sun and bad weather by temporary hangings stretched over it.]

428 (return) [ A proverbial expression, meaning, without distinction.]

429 (return) [ The islands off the coast of Italy, in the Tuscan sea and in the Archipelago, were the usual places of banishment. See before, c. xv.; and in TIBERIUS, c. liv., etc.]

430 (return) [ Anticyra, an island in the Archipelago, was famous for the growth of hellebore. This plant being considered a remedy for insanity, the proverb arose—Naviga in Anticyram, as much as to say, “You are mad.”]

431 (return) [ Meaning the province in Asia, called Galatia, from the Gauls who conquered it, and occupied it jointly with the Greek colonists.]

432 (return) [ A quotation from the tragedy of Atreus, by L. Attius, mentioned by Cicero. Off. i. 28.]

433 (return) [ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxxi.]

434 (return) [ These celebrated words are generally attributed to Nero; but Dio and Seneca agree with Suetonius in ascribing them to Caligula.]

435 (return) [ Gladiators were distinguished by their armour and manner of fighting. Some were called Secutores, whose arms were a helmet, a shield, a sword, or a leaden ball. Others, the usual antagonists of the former, were named Retiarii. A combatant of this class was dressed in a short tunic, but wore nothing on his head. He carried in his left hand a three-pointed lance, called Tridens or Fuscina, and in his right, a net, with which he attempted to entangle his adversary, by casting it over his head, and suddenly drawing it together; when with his trident he usually slew him. But if he missed his aim, by throwing the net either too short or too far, he instantly betook himself to flight, and endeavoured to prepare his net for a second cast. His antagonist, in the mean time, pursued, to prevent his design, by dispatching him.]

436 (return) [ AUGUSTUS, c. xxiii.]

437 (return) [ TIBERIUS, c. xl.]

438 (return) [ See before, c. xix.]

439 (return) [ Popae were persons who, at public sacrifices, led the victim to the altar. They had their clothes tucked up, and were naked to the waist. The victim was led with a slack rope, that it might not seem to be brought by force, which was reckoned a bad omen. For the same reason, it was allowed to stand loose before the altar, and it was thought a very unfavourable sign if it got away.]

440 (return) [ Plato de Repub. xi.; and Cicero and Tull. xlviii.]

441 (return) [ The collar of gold, taken from the gigantic Gaul who was killed in single combat by Titus Manlius, called afterwards Torquatus, was worn by the lineal male descendants of the Manlian family. But that illustrious race becoming extinct, the badge of honour, as well as the cognomen of Torquatus, was revived by Augustus, in the person of Caius Nonius Asprenas, who perhaps claimed descent by the female line from the family of Manlius.]

442 (return) [ Cincinnatus signifies one who has curled or crisped hair, from which Livy informs us that Lucius Quintus derived his cognomen. But of what badge of distinction Caligula deprived the family of the Cincinnati, unless the natural feature was hereditary, and he had them all shaved—a practice we find mentioned just below—history does not inform us, nor are we able to conjecture.]

443 (return) [ The priest of Diana Nemorensis obtained and held his office by his prowess in arms, having to slay his competitors, and offer human sacrifices, and was called Rex from his reigning paramount in the adjacent forest. The temple of this goddess of the chase stood among the deep woods which clothe the declivities of the Alban Mount, at a short distance from Rome—nemus signifying a grove. Julius Caesar had a residence there. See his Life, c. lxxi. The venerable woods are still standing, and among them chestnut-trees, which, from their enormous girth and vast apparent age, we may suppose to have survived from the era of the Caesars. The melancholy and sequestered lake of Nemi, deep set in a hollow of the surrounding woods, with the village on its brink, still preserve the name of Nemi.]

444 (return) [ An Essedarian was one who fought from an Esseda, the light carriage described in a former note, p. 264.]

445 (return) [ See before, JULIUS, c. x., and note.]

446 (return) [ Particularly at Baiae, see before, c. xix. The practice of encroaching on the sea on this coast, commenced before,—

447 (return) [ Most of the gladiators were slaves.]

448 (return) [ The part of the Palatium built or occupied by Augustus and Tiberius.]

449 (return) [ Mevania, a town of Umbria. Its present name is Bevagna. The Clitumnus is a river in the same country, celebrated for the breed of white cattle, which feed in the neighbouring pastures.]

450 (return) [ Caligula appears to have meditated an expedition to Britain at the time of his pompous ovation at Puteoli, mentioned in c. xiii.; but if Julius Caesar could gain no permanent footing in this island, it was very improbable that a prince of Caligula’s character would ever seriously attempt it, and we shall presently see that the whole affair turned out a farce.]

451 (return) [ It seems generally agreed, that the point of the coast which was signalized by the ridiculous bravado of Caligula, somewhat redeemed by the erection of a lighthouse, was Itium, afterwards called Gessoriacum, and Bononia (Boulogne), a town belonging to the Gaulish tribe of the Morini; where Julius Caesar embarked on his expedition, and which became the usual place of departure for the transit to Britain.]

452 (return) [ The denarius was worth at this time about seven pence or eight pence of our money.]

453 (return) [ Probably to Anticyra. See before, c. xxix. note]

454 (return) [ The Cimbri were German tribes on the Elbe, who invaded Italy A.U.C. 640, and were defeated by Metellus.]

455 (return) [ The Senones were a tribe of Cis-Alpine Gauls, settled in Umbria, who sacked and pillaged Rome A.U.C. 363.]

456 (return) [ By the transmarine provinces, Asia, Egypt, etc., are meant; so that we find Caligula entertaining visions of an eastern empire, and removing the seat of government, which were long afterwards realized in the time of Constantine.]

457 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xviii.]

458 (return) [ About midnight, the watches being divided into four.]

459 (return) [ Scabella: commentators are undecided as to the nature of this instrument. Some of them suppose it to have been either a sort of cymbal or castanet, but Pitiscus in his note gives a figure of an ancient statue preserved at Florence, in which a dancer is represented with cymbals in his hands, and a kind of wind instrument attached to the toe of his left foot, by which it is worked by pressure, something in the way of an accordion.]

460 (return) [ The port of Rome.]

461 (return) [ The Romans, in their passionate devotion to the amusements of the circus and the theatre, were divided into factions, who had their favourites among the racers and actors, the former being distinguished by the colour of the party to which they belonged. See before, c. xviii., and TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

462 (return) [ In the slang of the turf, the name of Caligula’s celebrated horse might, perhaps, be translated “Go a-head.”]

463 (return) [ Josephus, who supplies us with minute details of the assassination of Caligula, says that he made no outcry, either disdaining it, or because an alarm would have been useless; but that he attempted to make his escape through a corridor which led to some baths behind the palace. Among the ruins on the Palatine hill, these baths still attract attention, some of the frescos being in good preservation. See the account in Josephus, xix. 1, 2.]

464 (return) [ The Lamian was an ancient family, the founders of Formiae. They had gardens on the Esquiline mount.]

465 (return) [ A.U.C. 714.]

466 (return) [ Pliny describes Drusus as having in this voyage circumnavigated Germany, and reached the Cimbrian Chersonese, and the Scythian shores, reeking with constant fogs.]

467 (return) [ Tacitus, Annal. xi. 8, 1, mentions this fosse, and says that Drusus sailed up the Meuse and the Waal. Cluverius places it between the village of Iselvort and the town of Doesborg.]

468 (return) [ The Spolia Opima were the spoils taken from the enemy’s king, or chief, when slain in single combat by a Roman general. They were always hung up in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Those spoils had been obtained only thrice since the foundation of Rome; the first by Romulus, who slew Acron, king of the Caeninenses; the next by A. Cornelius Cossus, who slew Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, A.U. 318; and the third by M. Claudius Marcellus, who slew Viridomarus, king of the Gauls, A.U. 330.]

469 (return) [ A.U.C. 744.]

470 (return) [ This epistle, as it was the habit of Augustus, is interspersed with Greek phrases.]

471 (return) [ The Alban Mount is the most interesting feature of the scenery of the Campagna about Rome, Monti Cavo, the summit, rising above an amphitheatre of magnificent woods, to an elevation of 2965 French feet. The view is very extensive: below is the lake of Albano, the finest of the volcanic lakes in Italy, and the modern town of the same name. Few traces remain of Alba Longa, the ancient capital of Latium.]

472 [ On the summit of the Alban Mount, on the site of the present convent, stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the Latin tribes assembled annually, and renewed their league, during the Feriae Latinae, instituted by Tarquinus Superbus. It was here, also, that Roman generals, who were refused the honours of a full triumph, performed the ovation, and sacrificed to Jupiter Latialis. Part of the triumphal way by which the mountain was ascended, formed of vast blocks of lava, is still in good preservation, leading through groves of chestnut trees of vast size and age. Spanning them with extended arms—none of the shortest—the operation was repeated five times in compassing their girth.]

473 (return) [ CALIGULA. See c. v. of his life.]

474 (return) [ A.U.C. 793. Life of CALIGULA, cc. xliv., xlv., etc.]

475 (return) [ A.U.C. 794.]

476 (return) [ The chamber of Mercury; the names of deities being given to different apartments, as those “of Isis,” “of the Muses,” etc.]

477 (return) [ See the note, p. 265.]

478 (return) [ The attentive reader will have marked the gradual growth of the power of the pretorian guard, who now, and on so many future occasions, ruled the destinies of the empire.]

479 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, cc. xliii., xlv.]

480 (return) [ Ib. c. ci.]

481 (return) [ Germanicus.]

482 (return) [ Naples and other cities on that coast were Greek colonies.]

483 (return) [ This arch was erected in memory of the standards (the eagles) lost by Varus, in Germany, having been recovered by Germanicus under the auspices of Tiberius. See his Life, c. xlvii.; and Tacit. Annal. ii. 41. It seems to have stood at the foot of the Capitol, on the side of the Forum, near the temple of Concord; but there are no remains of it.]

484 (return) [ Tacitus informs us that the same application had been made by Tiberius. Annal. iii. The prefect of the pretorian guards, high and important as his office had now become, was not allowed to enter the senate-house, unless he belonged to the equestrian order.]

485 (return) [ The procurators had the administration of some of the less important provinces, with rank and authority inferior to that of the pro-consuls and prefects. Frequent mention of these officers is made by Josephus; and Pontius Pilate, who sentenced our Lord to crucifixion, held that office in Judaea, under Tiberius.]

486 (return) [ Pollio and Messala were distinguished orators, who flourished under the Caesars Julius and Augustus.]

487 (return) [ A.U.C. 795, 796.]

488 (return) [ A.U.C. 800, 804.]

489 (return) [ “Ad bestias” had become a new and frequent sentence for malefactors. It will be recollected, that it was the most usual form of martyrdom for the primitive Christians. Polycarp was brought all the way from Smyrna to be exposed to it in the amphitheatre at Rome.]

490 (return) [ This reminds us of the decision of Solomon in the case of the two mothers, who each claimed a child as their own, 1 Kings iii. 22-27.]

491 (return) [ A most absurd judicial conclusion, the business of the judge or court being to decide, on weighing the evidence, on which side the truth preponderated.]

492 (return) [ See the note in CALIGULA, c. xix., as to Suetonius’s sources of information from persons cotemporary with the occurrences he relates.]

493 (return) [ The insult was conveyed in Greek, which seems, from Suetonius, to have been in very common use at Rome: kai su geron ei, kai moros.]

494 (return) [ A.U.C. 798, or 800.]

495 (return) [ There was a proverb to the same effect: “Si non caste, saltem caute.”]

496 (return) [ Ptolemy appointed him to an office which led him to assume a foreign dress. Rabirius was defended by Cicero in one of his orations, which is extant.]

497 (return) [ The Sigillaria was a street in Rome, where a fair was held after the Saturnalia, which lasted seven days; and toys, consisting of little images and dolls, which gave their name to the street and festival, were sold. It appears from the text, that other articles were exposed for sale in this street. Among these were included elegant vases of silver and bronze. There appears also to have been a bookseller’s shop, for an ancient writer tells us that a friend of his showed him a copy of the Second Book of the Aeneid, which he had purchased there.]

498 (return) [ Opposed to this statement there is a passage in Servius Georgius, iii. 37, asserting that he had heard (accipimus) that Augustus, besides his victories in the east, triumphed over the Britons in the west; and Horace says:—

Strabo likewise informs us, that in his time, the petty British kings sent embassies to cultivate the alliance of Augustus, and make offerings in the Capitol: and that nearly the whole island was on terms of amity with the Romans, and, as well as the Gauls, paid a light tribute.—Strabo, B. iv. p. 138. That Augustus contemplated a descent on the island, but was prevented from attempting it by his being recalled from Gaul by the disturbances in Dalmatia, is very probable. Horace offers his vows for its success:

But the word iturus shews that the scheme was only projected, and the lines previously quoted are mere poetical flattery. Strabo’s statement of the communications kept up with the petty kings of Britain, who were perhaps divided by intestine wars, are, to a certain extent, probably correct, as such a policy would be a prelude to the intended expedition.]

499 (return) [ Circius. Aulus Gellius, Seneca, and Pliny, mention under this name the strong southerly gales which prevail in the gulf of Genoa and the neighbouring seas.]

500 (return) [ The Stoechades were the islands now called Hieres, off Toulon.]

501 (return) [ Claudius must have expended more time in his march from Marseilles to Gessoriacum, as Boulogne was then called, than in his vaunted conquest of Britain.]

502 (return) [ In point of fact, he was only sixteen days in the island, receiving the submission of some tribes in the south-eastern districts. But the way had been prepared for him by his able general, Aulus Plautius, who defeated Cunobeline, and made himself master of his capital, Camulodunum, or Colchester. These successes were followed up by Ostorius, who conquered Caractacus and sent him to Rome. It is singular that Suetonius has supplied us with no particulars of these events. Some account of them is given in the disquisition appended to this life of CLAUDIUS. The expedition of Plautius took place A.U.C. 796., A.D. 44.]

503 (return) [ Carpentum: see note in CALIGULA, c. xv.]

504 (return) [ The Aemiliana, so called because it contained the monuments of the family of that name, was a suburb of Rome, on the Via Lata, outside the gate.]

505 (return) [ The Diribitorium was a house in the Flaminian Circus, begun by Agrippa, and finished by Augustus, in which soldiers were mustered and their pay distributed; from whence it derived its name. When the Romans went to give their votes at the election of magistrates, they were conducted by officers named Diribitores. It is possible that one and the same building may have been used for both purposes.] The Flaminian Circus was without the city walls, in the Campus Martius. The Roman college now stands on its site.]

506 (return) [ A law brought in by the consuls Papius Mutilus and Quintus Poppaeus; respecting which, see AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

507 (return) [ The Fucine Lake is now called Lago di Celano, in the Farther Abruzzi. It is very extensive, but shallow, so that the difficulty of constructing the Claudian emissary, can scarcely be compared to that encountered in a similar work for lowering the level of the waters in the Alban lake, completed A.U.C. 359.]

508 (return) [ Respecting the Claudian aqueduct, see CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

509 (return) [ Ostia is referred to in a note, TIBERIUS, c. xi.]

510 (return) [ Suetonius calls this “the great obelisk” in comparison with those which Augustus had placed in the Circus Maximus and Campus Martius. The one here mentioned was erected by Caligula in his Circus, afterwards called the Circus of Nero. It stood at Heliopolis, having been dedicated to the sun, as Herodotus informs us, by Phero, son of Sesostris, in acknowledgment of his recovery from blindness. It was removed by Pope Sixtus V. in 1586, under the celebrated architect, Fontana, to the centre of the area before St. Peter’s, in the Vatican, not far from its former position. This obelisk is a solid piece of red granite, without hieroglyphics, and, with the pedestal and ornaments at the top, is 182 feet high. The height of the obelisk itself is 113 palms, or 84 feet.]

511 (return) [ Pliny relates some curious particulars of this ship: “A fir tree of prodigious size was used in the vessel which, by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with their arms.”—B. xvi. c. 76.]

512 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi. It appears to have been often a prey to the flames, TIBERIUS, c. xli.; CALIGULA, c. xx.]

513 (return) [ Contrary to the usual custom of rising and saluting the emperor without acclamations.]

514 (return) [ A.U.C. 800.]

515 (return) [ The Secular Games had been celebrated by Augustus, A.U.C. 736. See c. xxxi. of his life, and the Epode of Horace written on the occasion.]

516 (return) [ In the circus which he had himself built.]

517 (return) [ Tophina; Tuffo, a porous stone of volcanic origin, which abounds in the neighbourhood of Rome, and, with the Travertino, is employed in all common buildings.]

518 (return) [ In compliment to the troops to whom he owed his elevation: see before, c. xi.]

519 (return) [ Palumbus was a gladiator: and Claudius condescended to pun upon his name, which signifies a wood-pigeon.]

520 (return) [ See before, c. xvii. Described is c. xx and note.]

521 (return) [ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

522 (return) [ To reward his able services as commander of the army in Britain. See before, c. xvii.]

523 (return) [ German tribes between the Elbe and the Weser, whose chief seat was at Bremen, and others about Ems or Lueneburg.]

524 (return) [ This island in the Tiber, opposite the Campus Martius, is said to have been formed by the corn sown by Tarquin the Proud on that consecrated field, and cut down and thrown by order of the consuls into the river. The water being low, it lodged in the bed of the stream, and gradual deposits of mud raising it above the level of the water, it was in course of time covered with buildings. Among these was the temple of Aesculapius, erected A.U.C. 462, to receive the serpent, the emblem of that deity which was brought to Rome in the time of a plague. There is a coin of Antoninus Pius recording this event, and Lumisdus has preserved copies of some curious votive inscriptions in acknowledgment of cures which were found in its ruins, Antiquities of Rome, p. 379. It was common for the patient after having been exposed some nights in the temple, without being cured, to depart and put an end to his life. Suetonius here informs us that slaves so exposed, at least obtained their freedom.]

525 (return) [ Which were carried on the shoulders of slaves. This prohibition had for its object either to save the wear and tear in the narrow streets, or to pay respect to the liberties of the town.]

526 (return) [ See the note in c. i. of this life of CLAUDIUS.]

527 (return) [ Seleucus Philopater, son of Antiochus the Great, who being conquered by the Romans, the succeeding kings of Syria acknowledged the supremacy of Rome.]

528 (return) [ Suetonius has already, in TIBERIUS, c. xxxvi., mentioned the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, and this passage confirms the conjecture, offered in the note, that the Christians were obscurely alluded to in the former notice. The antagonism between Christianity and Judaism appears to have given rise to the tumults which first led the authorities to interfere. Thus much we seem to learn from both passages: but the most enlightened men of that age were singularly ill-informed on the stupendous events which had recently occurred in Judaea, and we find Suetonius, although he lived at the commencement of the first century of the Christian aera, when the memory of these occurrences was still fresh, and it might be supposed, by that time, widely diffused, transplanting Christ from Jerusalem to Rome, and placing him in the time of Claudius, although the crucifixion took place during the reign of Tiberius. St. Luke, Acts xviii. 2, mentions the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the emperor Claudius: Dio, however, says that he did not expel them, but only forbad their religious assemblies. It was very natural for Suetonius to write Chrestus instead of Christus, as the former was a name in use among the Greeks and Romans. Among others, Cicero mentions a person of that name in his Fam. Ep. 11. 8.]

529 (return) [ Pliny tells us that Druidism had its origin in Gaul, and was transplanted into Britain, xxi. 1. Julius Caesar asserts just the contrary, Bell. Gall. vi. 13, 11. The edict of Claudius was not carried into effect; at least, we find vestiges of Druidism in Gaul, during the reigns of Nero and Alexander Severus.]

530 (return) [ The Eleusinian mysteries were never transferred from Athens to Rome, notwithstanding this attempt of Claudius, and although Aurelius Victor says that Adrian effected it.]

531 (return) [ A.U.C. 801.]

532 (return) [ A.U.C. 773.]

533 (return) [ It would seem from this passage, that the cognomen of “the Great,” had now been restored to the descendants of Cneius Pompey, on whom it was first conferred.]

534 (return) [ A.U.C. 806.]

535 (return) [ A.U.C. 803.]

536 (return) [ This is the Felix mentioned in the Acts, cc. xxiii. and xxiv., before whom St. Paul pleaded. He is mentioned by Josephus; and Tacitus, who calls him Felix Antonius, gives his character: Annal. v, 9. 6.]

537 (return) [ It appears that two of these wives of Felix were named Drusilla. One, mentioned Acts xxiv. 24, and there called a Jewess, was the sister of king Agrippa, and had married before, Azizus, king of the Emessenes. The other Drusilla, though not a queen, was of royal birth, being the granddaughter of Cleopatra by Mark Antony. Who the third wife of Felix was, is unknown.]

538 (return) [ Tacitus and Josephus mention that Pallas was the brother of Felix, and the younger Pliny ridicules the pompous inscription on his tomb.]

539 (return) [ A.U.C. 802.]

540 (return) [ The Salii, the priests of Mars, twelve in number, were instituted by Numa. Their dress was an embroidered tunic, bound with a girdle ornamented with brass. They wore on their head a conical cap, of a considerable height; carried a sword by their side; in their right hand a spear or rod, and in their left, one of the Ancilia, or shields of Mars. On solemn occasions, they used to go to the Capitol, through the Forum and other public parts of the city, dancing and singing sacred songs, said to have been composed by Numa; which, in the time of Horace, could hardly be understood by any one, even the priests themselves. The most solemn procession of the Salii was on the first of March, in commemoration of the time when the sacred shield was believed to have fallen from heaven, in the reign of Numa. After their procession, they had a splendid entertainment, the luxury of which was proverbial.]

541 (return) [ Scaliger and Casauhon give Teleggenius as the reading of the best manuscripts. Whoever he was, his name seems to have been a bye-word for a notorious fool.]

542 (return) [ Titus Livius, the prince of Roman historians, died in the fourth year of the reign of Tiberius, A.U.C. 771; at which time Claudius was about twenty-seven years old, having been born A.U.C. 744.]

543 (return) [ Asinius Gallus was the son of Asinius Pollio, the famous orator, and had written a hook comparing his father with Cicero, and giving the former the preference.]

544 (return) [ Quintilian informs us, that one of the three new letters the emperor Claudius attempted to introduce, was the Aeolic digamma, which had the same force as v consonant. Priscian calls another anti-signs, and says that the character proposed was two Greek sigmas, back to back, and that it was substituted for the Greek ps. The other letter is not known, and all three soon fell into disuse.]

545 (return) [ Caesar by birth, not by adoption, as the preceding emperors had been, and as Nero would be, if he succeeded.]

546 (return) [ Tacitus informs us, that the poison was prepared by Locusta, of whom we shall hear, NERO, c. xxxiii. etc.]

547 (return) [ A.U.C. 806; A.D. 54.]

548 (return) [ A.U.C. 593, 632, 658, 660, 700, 722, 785.]

549 (return) [ A.U.C. 632.]

550 (return) [ A.U.C. 639, 663.]

551 (return) [ For the distinction between the praenomen and cognomen, see note, p. 192.]

552 (return) [ A.U.C. 632.]

553 (return) [ The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and Savoy; the Arverni have left their name in Auvergne.]

554 (return) [ A.U.C. 695.]

555 (return) [ A.U.C. 700.]

556 (return) [ A.U.C. 711.]

557 (return) [ A.U.C. 723.]

558 (return) [ Nais seems to have been a freedwoman, who had been allowed to adopt the family name of her master.]

559 (return) [ By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the testator’s life-time.]

560 (return) [ The suggestion offered (note, p. 123), that the Argentarii, like the goldsmiths of the middle ages, combined the business of bankers, or money-changers, with dealings in gold and silver plate, is confirmed by this passage. It does not, however, appear that they were artificers of the precious metals, though they dealt in old and current coins, sculptured vessels, gems, and precious stones.]

561 (return) [ Pyrgi was a town of the ancient Etruria, near Antium, on the sea-coast, but it has long been destroyed.]

562 (return) [ A.U.C. 791; A.D. 39.]

563 (return) [ The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Romans, in the case of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. The customs of the Judaical law were similar. See Matt. i. 59-63; Luke iii. 21. 22.]

564 (return) [ A.U.C. 806.]

565 (return) [ Seneca, the celebrated philosophical writer, had been released from exile in Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards fell a sacrifice to the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero.]

566 (return) [ Caligula.]

567 (return) [ A.U.C. 809—A.D. 57.]

568 (return) [ Antium, the birth-place of Nero, an ancient city of the Volscians, stood on a rocky promontory of the coast, now called Capo d’ Anzo, about thirty-eight miles from Rome. Though always a place of some naval importance, it was indebted to Nero for its noble harbour. The ruins of the moles yet remain; and there are vestiges of the temples and villas of the town, which was the resort of the wealthy Romans, it being a most delightful winter residence. The Apollo Belvidere was discovered among these ruins.]

569 (return) [ A.U.C. 810.]

570 (return) [ The Podium was part of the amphitheatre, near the orchestra, allotted to the senators, and the ambassadors of foreign nations; and where also was the seat of the emperor, of the person who exhibited the games, and of the Vestal Virgins. It projected over the wall which surrounded the area of the amphitheatre, and was raised between twelve and fifteen feet above it; secured with a breast-work or parapet against the irruption of wild beasts.]

571 (return) [ A.U.C. 813.]

572 (return) [ The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, probably, incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander Severus; but no vestige of them remains. That the former were magnificent, we may infer from the verses of Martial:

573 (return) [ Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the beard was marked with particular ceremony. It was usually in their twenty-first year, but the period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved at twenty; Augustus at twenty-five.]

574 (return) [ A.U.C. 819. See afterwards, c. xxx.]

575 (return) [ A.U.C. 808, 810, 811, 813.]

576 (return) [ The Sportulae were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money were carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public entertainments at which food was distributed, or money given in lieu of it.]

577 (return) [ “Superstitionis novae et maleficae,” are the words of Suetonius; the latter conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas relates that a certain martyr cried out from his dungeon—“Ye have loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer and profane person.” Tacitus calls the Christian religion “a foreign and deadly [Footnote exitiabilis: superstition,” Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, “a depraved, wicked (or prava), and outrageous superstition.” Epist. x. 97.] Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the Roman Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the derision of the people; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn to pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were crucified, or condemned to be burnt; and at night-fall served in place of lamps to lighten the darkness, Nero’s own gardens being used for the spectacle. Annal. xv. 44. Traditions of the church place the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, under the reign of Nero. The legends are given by Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 206, etc., with the notes and reference to the apocryphal works on which they are founded.]

578 (return) [ Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. See c. xvii. of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius Paulinus, attacked Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and extirpated them with great cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who inhabited Derbyshire, were probably the cause of Nero’s wishing to withdraw the legions; she having reduced London, Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy thousand of the Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length defeated by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit. Agric. xv. 1, xvi. 1; and Annal. xiv. 29.]

579 (return) [ The dominions of Cottius embraced the vallies in the chain of the Alps extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Romans the Cottian Alps. See TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

580 (return) [ It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the circumnavigation of the southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan, which, even in our days, has its perils. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xliv. and CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

581 (return) [ Caspiae Portae; so called from the difficulties opposed by the narrow and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the country washed by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between the Caspian and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of Teflis, and is frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and the Circassian tribes.]

582 (return) [ Citharoedus: the word signifies a vocalist, who with his singing gave an accompaniment on the harp.]

583 (return) [ It has been already observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue.]

584 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xcviii.]

585 (return) [ Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees; the second from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs; and the third from the tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together.]

586 (return) [ Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous intercourse with her brother having been detected, in consequence of the cries of the infant of which she was delivered, she killed herself. It was a joke at Rome, that some one asking, when Nero was performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied. “He is labouring in child-birth.”]

587 (return) [ A town in Corcyra, now Corfu. There was a sea-port of the same name in Epirus.]

588 (return) [ The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by Suetonius, was so called because it was the largest of all the circuses in and about Rome. Rudely constructed of timber by Tarquinius Drusus, and enlarged and improved with the growing fortunes of the republic, under the emperors it became a most superb building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, and surrounded it with a canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to protect the spectators against danger from the chariots during the races. Claudius (c. xxi.) rebuilt the carceres with marble, and gilded the metae. This vast centre of attraction to the Roman people, in the games of which religion, politics, and amusement, were combined, was, according to Pliny, three stadia (of 625 feet) long, and one broad, and held 260,000 spectators; so that Juvenal says,

This poetical exaggeration is applied by Addison to the Colosseum.

The area of the Circus Maximus occupied the hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills, so that it was overlooked by the imperial palace, from which the emperors had so full a view of it, that they could from that height give the signals for commencing the races. Few fragments of it remain; but from the circus of Caracalla, which is better preserved, a tolerably good idea of the ancient circus may be formed. For details of its parts, and the mode in which the sports were conducted, see Burton’s Antiquities, p. 309, etc.]

589 (return) [ The Velabrum was a street in Rome. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xxxvii.]

590 (return) [ Acte was a slave who had been bought in Asia, whose beauty so captivated Nero that he redeemed her, and became greatly attached to her. She is supposed to be the concubine of Nero mentioned by St. Chrysostom, as having been converted by St. Paul during his residence at Rome. The Apostle speaks of the “Saints in Caesar’s household.”—Phil. iv. 22.]

591 (return) [ See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 37.]

592 (return) [ A much-frequented street in Rome. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvi.]

593 (return) [ It is said that the advances were made by Agrippina, with flagrant indecency, to secure her power over him. See Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 2, 3.]

594 (return) [ Olim etiam, quoties lectica cum matre veheretur, libidinatum inceste, ac maculis vestis proditum, affirmant.]

595 (return) [ Tacitus calls him Pythagoras, which was probably the freedman’s proper name; Doryphorus being a name of office somewhat equivalent to almoner. See Annal. B. xv.]

596 (return) [ The emperor Caligula, who was the brother of Nero’s mother, Agrippina.]

597 (return) [ See before, c. xiii. Tiridates was nine months in Rome or the neighbourhood, and was entertained the whole time at the emperor’s expense.]

598 (return) [ Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of the river Aufidus, celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by Pliny, and retained its reputation for the manufacture in the middle ages, as we find in Ordericus Vitalis.]

599 (return) [ The Mazacans were an African tribe from the deserts in the interior, famous for their spirited barbs, their powers of endurance, and their skill in throwing the dart.]

600 (return) [ The Palace of the Caesars, on the Palatine hill, was enlarged by Augustus from the dimensions of a private house (see AUGUSTUS, cc. xxix., lvii.). Tiberius made some additions to it, and Caligula extended it to the Forum (CALIGULA, c. xxxi.). Tacitus gives a similar account with that of our author of the extent and splendour of the works of Nero. Annal. xv. c. xlii. Reaching from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, it covered all the intermediate space, where the Colosseum now stands. We shall find that it was still further enlarged by Domitian, c. xv. of his life is the present work.]

601 (return) [ The penates were worshipped in the innermost part of the house, which was called penetralia. There were likewise publici penates, worshipped in the Capitol, and supposed to be the guardians of the city and temples. Some have thought that the lares and penates were the same; and they appear to be sometimes confounded. They were, however, different. The penates were reputed to be of divine origin; the lares, of human. Certain persons were admitted to the worship of the lares, who were not to that of the penates. The latter, as has been already said, were worshipped only in the innermost part of the house, but the former also in the public roads, in the camp, and on sea.]

602 (return) [ A play upon the Greek word moros, signifying a fool, while the Latin morari, from moror, means “to dwell,” or “continue.”]

603 (return) [ A small port between the gulf of Baiae and cape Misenum.]

604 (return) [ From whence the “Procul, O procul este profani!” of the poet; a warning which was transferred to the Christian mysteries.]

605 (return) [ See before, c. xii.]

606 (return) [ Statilius Taurus; who lived in the time of Augustus, and built the amphitheatre called after his name. AUGUSTUS, c. xxiv. He is mentioned by Horace, Epist. i. v. 4.]

607 (return) [ Octavia was first sent away to Campania, under a guard of soldiers, and after being recalled, in consequence of the remonstrances of the people, by whom she was beloved, Nero banished her to the island of Pandataria.]

608 (return) [ A.U.C. 813.]

609 (return) [ Seneca was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Caius Piso. Tacitus furnishes some interesting details of the circumstances under which the philosopher calmly submitted to his fate, which was announced to him when at supper with his friends, at his villa, near Rome.—Tacitus, b. xiv. xv.]

610 (return) [ This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which Claudius died, is described by Seneca, Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and xix. and by Pliny, II. c. xxv.]

611 (return) [ See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 49-55.]

612 (return) [ The sixteenth book of Tacitus, which would probably have given an account of the Vinician conspiracy, is lost. It is shortly noticed by Plutarch.]

613 (return) [ See before, c. xix.]

614 (return) [ This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the beginning of August, A.U.C. 816, A.D. 64. It was imputed to the Christians, and drew on them the persecutions mentioned in c. xvi., and the note.]

615 (return) [ The revolt in Britain broke out A.U.C. 813. Xiphilinus (lxii. p. 701) attributes it to the severity of the confiscations with which the repayment of large sums of money advanced to the Britons by the emperor Claudius, and also by Seneca, was exacted. Tacitus adds another cause, the insupportable tyranny and avarice of the centurions and soldiers. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had named the emperor his heir. His widow Boadicea and her daughters were shamefully used, his kinsmen reduced to slavery, and his whole territory ravaged; upon which the Britons flew to arms. See c. xviii., and the note.]

616 (return) [ Neonymphon; alluding to Nero’s unnatural nuptials with Sporus or Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be neonymphos.]

617 (return) [ “Sustulit” has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away, and put out of the way.]

618 (return) [ The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean; as the god of war, Ekataebaletaes.]

619 (return) [ Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up all Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from Rome, was originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs us, (lib. ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate survey of the ruins of Veii, in Gell’s admirable TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS VICINITY, p. 436, of Bohn’s Edition.]

620 (return) [ Suetonius calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription as AURELIUS ANTONINUS PIUS AUG. BRIT. (his latest title). On the reverse is the organ; an oblong chest with the pipes above, and a draped figure on each side.]

621 (return) [ A fine sand from the Nile, similar to puzzuclano, which was strewed on the stadium; the wrestlers also rolled in it, when their bodies were slippery with oil or perspiration.]

622 (return) [ The words on the ticket about the emperor’s neck, are supposed, by a prosopopea, to be spoken by him. The reply is Agrippina’s, or the people’s. It alludes to the punishment due to him for his parricide. By the Roman law, a person who had murdered a parent or any near relation, after being severely scourged, was sewed up in a sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then thrown into the sea, or a deep river.]

623 (return) [ Gallos, which signifies both cocks and Gauls.]

624 (return) [ Vindex, it need hardly be observed, was the name of the propraetor who had set up the standard of rebellion in Gaul. The word also signifies an avenger of wrongs, redresser of grievances; hence vindicate, vindictive, etc.]

625 (return) [ Aen. xii. 646.]

626 (return) [ The Via Salaria was so called from the Sabines using it to fetch salt from the coast. It led from Rome to the northward, near the gardens of Sallust, by a gate of the same name, called also Quirinalis, Agonalis, and Collina. It was here that Alaric entered.]

627 (return) [ The Via Nomentana, so named because it led to the Sabine town of Nomentum, joined the Via Salara at Heretum on the Tiber. It was also called Ficulnensis. It entered Rome by the Porta Viminalis, now called Porta Pia. It was by this road that Hannibal approached the walls of Rome. The country-house of Nero’s freedman, where he ended his days, stood near the Anio, beyond the present church of St. Agnese, where there was a villa of the Spada family, belonging now, we believe, to Torlonia.]

628 (return) [ This description is no less exact than vivid. It was easy for Nero to gain the nearest gate, the Nomentan, from the Esquiline quarter of the palace, without much observation; and on issuing from it (after midnight, it appears), the fugitives would have the pretorian camp so close on their right hand, that they might well hear the shouts of the soldiers.]

629 (return) [ Decocta. Pliny informs us that Nero had the water he drank, boiled, to clear it from impurities, and then cooled with ice.]

630 (return) [ Wood, to warm the water for washing the corpse, and for the funeral pile,]

631 (return) [ This burst of passion was uttered in Greek, the rest was spoken in Latin. Both were in familiar use. The mixture, perhaps, betrays the disturbed state of Nero’s mind.]

632 (return) [ II. x. 535.]

633 (return) [ Collis Hortulorum; which was afterwards called the Pincian Hill, from a family of that name, who flourished under the lower empire. In the time of the Caesars it was occupied by the gardens and villas of the wealthy and luxurious; among which those of Sallust are celebrated. Some of the finest statues have been found in the ruins; among others, that of the “Dying Gladiator.” The situation was airy and healthful, commanding fine views, and it is still the most agreeable neighbourhood in Rome.]

634 (return) [ Antiquarians suppose that some relics of the sepulchre of the Domitian family, in which the ashes of Nero were deposited, are preserved in the city wall which Aurelian, when he extended its circuit, carried across the “Collis Hortulorum.” Those ancient remains, declining from the perpendicular, are called the Muro Torto.—The Lunan marble was brought from quarries near a town of that name, in Etruria. It no longer exists, but stood on the coast of what is now called the gulf of Spezzia.—Thasos, an island in the Archipelago, was one of the Cyclades. It produced a grey marble, much veined, but not in great repute.]

635 (return) [ See c. x1i.]

636 (return) [ The Syrian Goddess is supposed to have been Semiramis deified. Her rites are mentioned by Florus, Apuleius, and Lucian.]

637 (return) [ A.U.C. 821—A.D. 69.]

638 (return) [ We have here one of the incidental notices which are so valuable in an historian, as connecting him with the times of which he writes. See also just before, c. lii.]

639 (return) [ Veii; see the note, NERO, c. xxxix.]

640 (return) [ The conventional term for what is most commonly known as,

is retained throughout the translation. But the tree or shrub which had this distinction among the ancients, the Laurus nobilis of botany, the Daphne of the Greeks, is the bay-tree, indigenous in Italy, Greece, and the East, and introduced into England about 1562. Our laurel is a plant of a very different tribe, the Prunes lauro-cerasus, a native of the Levant and the Crimea, acclimated in England at a later period than the bay.]

641 (return) [ The Temple of the Caesars is generally supposed to be that dedicated by Julius Caesar to Venus genitrix, from whom the Julian family pretended to derive their descent. See JULIUS, c. lxi.; AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]

642 (return) [ A.U.C. 821.]

643 (return) [ The Atrium, or Aula, was the court or hall of a house, the entrance to which was by the principal door. It appears to have been a large oblong square, surrounded with covered or arched galleries. Three sides of the Atrium were supported by pillars, which, in later times, were marble. The side opposite to the gate was called Tablinum; and the other two sides, Alae. The Tablinum contained books, and the records of what each member of the family had done in his magistracy. In the Atrium the nuptial couch was erected; and here the mistress of the family, with her maid-servants, wrought at spinning and weaving, which, in the time of the ancient Romans, was their principal employment.]

644 (return) [ He was consul with L. Aurelius Cotta, A.U.C. 610.]

645 (return) [ A.U.C. 604.]

646 (return) [ A.U.C. 710.]

647 (return) [ A.U.C 775.]

648 (return) [ A.U.C. 608.]

649 (return) [ Caius Sulpicius Galba, the emperor’s brother, had been consul A.U.C. 774.]

650 [ A.U.C. 751.]

651 (return) [ Now Fondi, which, with Terracina, still bearing its original name, lie on the road to Naples. See TIBERIUS, cc. v. and xxxix.]

652 (return) [ Livia Ocellina, mentioned just before.]

653 (return) [ A.U.C. 751.]

654 (return) [ The widow of the emperor Augustus.]

655 (return) [ Suetonius seems to have forgotten, that, according to his own testimony, this legacy, as well as those left by Tiberius, was paid by Caligula. “Legata ex testamento Tiberii; quamquam abolito, sed et Juliae Augustae, quod Tiberius suppresserat, cum fide, ac sine calumnia repraesentate persolvit.” CALIG. c. xvi.]

656 (return) [ A.U.C. 786.]

657 [ Caius Caesar Caligula. He gave the command of the legions in Germany to Galba.]

658 (return) [ “Scuto moderatus;” another reading in the parallel passage of Tacitus is scuto immodice oneratus, burdened with the heavy weight of a shield.]

659 (return) [ It would appear that Galba was to have accompanied Claudius in his expedition to Britain; which is related before, CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]

660 (return) [ It has been remarked before, that the Cantabria of the ancients is now the province of Biscay.]

661 (return) [ Now Carthagena.]

662 (return) [ A.U.C. 821.]

663 (return) [ Now Corunna.]

664 (return) [ Tortosa, on the Ebro.]

665 (return) [ “Simus,” literally, fiat-nosed, was a cant word, used for a clown; Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long retirement. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain his farm.]

666 (return) [ The command of the pretorian guards.]

667 (return) [ In the Forum. See AUGUSTUS, c. lvii.]

668 (return) [ II. v. 254.]

669 (return) [ A.U.C. 822.]

670 (return) [ On the esplanade, where the standards, objects of religious reverence, were planted. See note to c. vi. Criminals were usually executed outside the Vallum, and in the presence of a centurion.]

671 (return) [ Probably one of the two mentioned in CLAUDIUS, c. xiii.]

672 (return) [ A.U.C. 784 or 785.]

673 (return) [ “Distento sago impositum in sublime jactare.”]

674 (return) [ See NERO, c. xxxv.]

675 (return) [ The Milliare Aureum was a pillar of stone set up at the top of the Forum, from which all the great military roads throughout Italy started, the distances to the principal towns being marked upon it. Dio (lib. liv.) says that it was erected by the emperor Augustus, when he was curator of the roads.]

676 (return) [ Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur, denoted any person who foretold futurity, or interpreted omens. There was at Rome a body of priests, or college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell future events, chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and from other appearances. They were of the greatest authority in the Roman state; for nothing of importance was done in public affairs, either at home or abroad, in peace or war, without consulting them. The Romans derived the practice of augury chiefly from the Tuscans; and anciently their youth used to be instructed as carefully in this art, as afterwards they were in the Greek literature. For this purpose, by a decree of the senate, a certain number of the sons of the leading men at Rome was sent to the twelve states of Etruria for instruction.]

677 (return) [ See before, note, c. i. The Principia was a broad open space, which separated the lower part of the Roman camp from the upper, and extended the whole breadth of the camp. In this place was erected the tribunal of the general, when he either administered justice or harangued the army. Here likewise the tribunes held their courts, and punishments were inflicted. The principal standards of the army, as it has been already mentioned, were deposited in the Principia; and in it also stood the altars of the gods, and the images of the Emperors, by which the soldiers swore.]

678 (return) [ See NERO, c. xxxi. The sum estimated as requisite for its completion amounted to 2,187,500 pounds of our money.]

679 (return) [ The two last words, literally translated, mean “long trumpets;” such as were used at sacrifices. The sense is, therefore, “What have I to do, my hands stained with blood, with performing religious ceremonies!”]

680 (return) [ The Ancile was a round shield, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of Mars. It was kept with great care in the sanctuary of his temple, as a symbol of the perpetuity of the Roman empire; and that it might not be stolen, eleven others were made exactly similar to it.]

681 (return) [ This ideal personage, who has been mentioned before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxviii., was the goddess Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called also Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna, Mater, etc. She was painted as a matron, crowned with towers, sitting in a chariot drawn by lions. A statue of her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome, in the time of the second Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests, called the Galli and Corybantes, were castrated; and worshipped her with the sound of drums, tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were disgraced by great indecencies.]

682 (return) [ Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, Jupiter Infernus, and Stygnis. He was the brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions. His wife was Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she was gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, in Sicily. The victims offered to the infernal gods were black: they were killed with their faces bent downwards; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was poured into a ditch.]

683 (return) [ A town between Mantua and Cremona.]

684 (return) [ The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from Cremona. Tacitus gives some details of this action. Hist. ii. 243.]

685 (return) [ Both Greek and Latin authors differ in the mode of spelling the name of this place, the first syllable being written Beb, Bet, and Bret. It is now a small village called Labino, between Cremona and Verona.]

686 (return) [ Lenis was a name of similar signification with that of Tranquillus, borne by his son, the author of the present work. We find from Tacitus, that there was, among Otho’s generals, in this battle, another person of the name of Suetonius, whose cognomen was Paulinus; with whom our author’s father must not be confounded. Lenis was only a tribune of the thirteenth legion, the position of which in the battle is mentioned by Tacitus, Hist. xi. 24, and was angusticlavius, wearing only the narrow stripe, as not being of the senatorial order; while Paulinus was a general, commanding a legion, at least, and a consular man; having filled that Office A.U.C. 818. There seems no doubt that Suetonius Paulinus was the same general who distinguished himself by his successes and cruelties in Britain. NERO, c. xviii., and note.] Not to extend the present note, we may shortly refer to our author’s having already mentioned his grandfather (CALIGULA, c. xix.); besides other sources from which he drew his information. He tells us that he himself was then a boy. We have now arrived at the times in which his father bore a part. Such incidental notices, dropped by historical writers, have a certain value in enabling us to form a judgment on the genuineness of their narratives as to contemporaneous, or recent, events.]

687 (return) [ A.U.C. 823.]

688 (return) [ Jupiter, to prevent the discovery of his amour with Io, the daughter of the river Inachus, transformed her into a heifer, in which metamorphosis she was placed by Juno under the watchful inspection of Argus; but flying into Egypt, and her keeper being killed by Mercury, she recovered her human shape, and was married to Osiris. Her husband afterwards became a god of the Egyptians, and she a goddess, under the name of Isis. She was represented with a mural crown on her head, a cornucopia in one hand, and a sistrum (a musical instrument) in the other.]

689 (return) [ Faunus was supposed to be the third king who reigned over the original inhabitants of the central parts of Italy, Saturn being the first. Virgil makes his wife’s name Marica—

Her name may have been changed after her deification; but we have no other accounts than those preserved by Suetonius, of several of the traditions handed down from the fabulous ages respecting the Vitellian family.]

690 (return) [ The Aequicolae were probably a tribe inhabiting the heights in the neighbourhood of Rome. Virgil describes them, Aen. vii. 746.]

691 (return) [ Nuceria, now Nocera, is a town near Mantua; but Livy, in treating of the war with the Samnites, always speaks of Luceria, which Strabo calls a town in Apulia.]

692 (return) [ Cassius Severus is mentioned before, in AUGUSTUS, c. lvi.; CALIGULA, c. xvi., etc.]

693 (return) [ A.U.C. 785.]

694 (return) [ A.U.C. 787.]

695 (return) [ He is frequently commended by Josephus for his kindness to the Jews. See, particularly, Antiq. VI. xviii.]

696 (return) [ A.U.C. 796, 800.]

697 (return) [ A.U.C. 801.]

698 (return) [ A.U.C. 797. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]

699 (return) [ A.U.C. 801.]

700 (return) [ A.U.C. 767; being the year after the death of the emperor Augustus; from whence it appears that Vitellius was seventeen years older than Otho, both being at an advanced age when they were raised to the imperial dignity.]

701 (return) [ He was sent to Germany by Galba.]

702 (return) [ See TIBERIUS, c. xliii.]

703 (return) [ Julius Caesar, also, was said to have exchanged brass for gold in the Capitol, Junius, c. liv. The tin which we here find in use at Rome, was probably brought from the Cassiterides, now the Scilly islands. whence it had been an article of commerce by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians from a very early period.]

704 (return) [ A.U.C. 821.]

705 (return) [ A.U.C. 822.]

706 (return) [ Vienne was a very ancient city of the province of Narbonne, famous in ecclesiastical history as the early seat of a bishopric in Gaul.]

707 (return) [ See OTHO, c. ix.]

708 (return) [ See OTHO, c. ix.]

709 (return) [ Agrippina, the wife of Nero and mother of Germanicus, founded a colony on the Rhine at the place of her birth. Tacit. Annal. b. xii. It became a flourishing city, and its origin may be traced in its modern name, Cologne.]

710 (return) [ A dies non fastus, an unlucky day in the Roman calendar, being the anniversary of their great defeat by the Gauls on the river Allia, which joins the Tiber about five miles from Rome. This disaster happened on the 16th of the calends of August (17th July).

711 (return) [ Posca was sour wine or vinegar mixed with water, which was used by the Roman soldiery as their common drink. It has been found beneficial in the cure of putrid diseases.]

712 (return) [ Upwards of 4000 pounds sterling. See note, p. 487.]

713 (return) [ In imitation of the form of the public edicts, which began with the words, BONUM FACTUM.]

714 (return) [ Catta muliere: The Catti were a German tribe who inhabited the present countries of Hesse or Baden. Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., informs us that the Germans placed great confidence in the prophetical inspirations which they attributed to their women.]

715 (return) [ Suetonius does not supply any account of the part added by Tiberius to the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine, although, as it will be recollected, he has mentioned or described the works of Augustus, Caligula, and Nero. The banquetting-room here mentioned would easily command a view of the Capitol, across the narrow intervening valley. Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, was prefect of the city.]

716 (return) [ Caligula.]

717 (return) [ Lucius and Germanicus, the brother and son of Vitellius, were slain near Terracina; the former was marching to his brother’s relief.]

718 (return) [ A.U.C. 822.]

719 (return) [ c. ix.]

720 (return) [ Becco, from whence the French bec, and English beak; with, probably, the family names of Bec or Bek. This distinguished provincial, under his Latin name of Antoninus Primus, commanded the seventh legion in Gaul. His character is well drawn by Tacitus, in his usual terse style, Hist. XI. 86. 2.]

721 (return) [ Reate, the original seat of the Flavian family, was a city of the Sabines. Its present name is Rieti.]

722 (return) [ It does not very clearly appear what rank in the Roman armies was held by the evocati. They are mentioned on three occasions by Suetonius, without affording us much assistance. Caesar, like our author, joins them with the centurions. See, in particular, De Bell. Civil. I. xvii. 4.]

723 (return) [ The inscription was in Greek, kalos telothaesanti.]

724 (return) [ In the ancient Umbria, afterwards the duchy of Spoleto; its modern name being Norcia.]

725 (return) [ Gaul beyond, north of the Po, now Lombardy.]

726 (return) [ We find the annual migration of labourers in husbandry a very common practice in ancient as well as in modern times. At present, several thousand industrious labourers cross over every summer from the duchies of Parma and Modena, bordering on the district mentioned by Suetonius, to the island of Corsica; returning to the continent when the harvest is got in.]

727 (return) [ A.U.C. 762, A.D. 10.]

728 (return) [ Cosa was a place in the Volscian territory; of which Anagni was probably the chief town. It lies about forty miles to the north-east of Rome.]

729 (return) [ Caligula.]

730 (return) [ These games were extraordinary, as being out of the usual course of those given by praetors.]

731 (return) [ “Revocavit in contubernium.” From the difference of our habits, there is no word in the English language which exactly conveys the meaning of contubernium; a word which, in a military sense, the Romans applied to the intimate fellowship between comrades in war who messed together, and lived in close fellowship in the same tent. Thence they transferred it to a union with one woman who was in a higher position than a concubine, but, for some reason, could not acquire the legal rights of a wife, as in the case of slaves of either sex. A man of rank, also, could not marry a slave or a freedwoman, however much he might be attached to her.]

732 (return) [ Nearly the same phrases are applied by Suetonius to Drusilla, see CALIGULA, c. xxiv., and to Marcella, the concubine of Commodus, by Herodian, I. xvi. 9., where he says that she had all the honours of an empress, except that the incense was not offered to her. These connections resembled the left-hand marriages of the German princes.]

733 (return) [ This expedition to Britain has been mentioned before, CLAUDIUS, c. xvii. and note; and see ib. xxiv.] Valerius Flaccus, i. 8, and Silius Italicus, iii. 598, celebrate the triumphs of Vespasian in Britain. In representing him, however, as carrying his arms among the Caledonian tribes, their flattery transferred to the emperor the glory of the victories gained by his lieutenant, Agricola. Vespasian’s own conquests, while he served in Britain, were principally in the territories of the Brigantes, lying north of the Humber, and including the present counties of York and Durham.]

734 (return) [ A.U.C. 804.]

735 (return) [ Tacitus, Hist. V. xiii. 3., mentions this ancient prediction, and its currency through the East, in nearly the same terms as Suetonius. The coming power is in both instances described in the plural number, profecti; “those shall come forth;” and Tacitus applies it to Titus as well as Vespasian. The prophecy is commonly supposed to have reference to a passage in Micah, v. 2, “Out of thee (Bethlehem-Ephrata) shall He come forth, to be ruler in Israel.” Earlier prophetic intimations of a similar character, and pointing to a more extended dominion, have been traced in the sacred records of the Jews; and there is reason to believe that these books were at this time not unknown in the heathen world, particularly at Alexandria, and through the Septuagint version. These predictions, in their literal sense, point to the establishment of a universal monarchy, which should take its rise in Judaea. The Jews looked for their accomplishment in the person of one of their own nation, the expected Messiah, to which character there were many pretenders in those times. The first disciples of Christ, during the whole period of his ministry, supposed that they were to be fulfilled in him. The Romans thought that the conditions were answered by Vespasian, and Titus having been called from Judaea to the seat of empire. The expectations entertained by the Jews, and naturally participated in and appropriated by the first converts to Christianity, having proved groundless, the prophecies were subsequently interpreted in a spiritual sense.]

736 (return) [ Gessius Florus was at that time governor of Judaea, with the title and rank of prepositus, it not being a proconsular province, as the native princes still held some parts of it, under the protection and with the alliance of the Romans. Gessius succeeded Florus Albinus, the successor of Felix.]

737 (return) [ Cestius Gallus was consular lieutenant in Syria.]

738 (return) [ See note to c. vii.]

739 (return) [ A right hand was the sign of sovereign power, and, as every one knows, borne upon a staff among the standards of the armies.]

740 (return) [ Tacitus says, “Carmel is the name both of a god and a mountain; but there is neither image nor temple of the god; such are the ancient traditions; we find there only an altar and religious awe.”—Hist. xi. 78, 4. It also appears, from his account, that Vespasian offered sacrifice on Mount Carmel, where Basilides, mentioned hereafter, c. vii., predicted his success from an inspection of the entrails.]

741 (return) [ Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, who was engaged in these wars, having been taken prisoner, was confined in the dungeon at Jotapata, the castle referred to in the preceding chapter, before which Vespasian was wounded.—De Bell. cxi. 14.]

742 (return) [ The prediction of Josephus was founded on the Jewish prophecies mentioned in the note to c. iv., which he, like others, applied to Vespasian.]

743 (return) [ Julius Caesar is always called by our author after his apotheosis, Divus Julius.]

744 (return) [ The battle at Bedriacum secured the Empire for Vitellius. See OTHO, c. ix; VITELLIUS, c. x.]

745 (return) [ Alexandria may well be called the key, claustra, of Egypt, which was the granary of Rome. It was of the first importance that Vespasian should secure it at this juncture.]

746 (return) [ Tacitus describes Basilides as a man of rank among the Egyptians, and he appears also to have been a priest, as we find him officiating at Mount Carmel, c. v. This is so incompatible with his being a Roman freedman, that commentators concur in supposing that the word “libertus.” although found in all the copies now extant, has crept into the text by some inadvertence of an early transcriber. Basilides appears, like Philo Judaeus, who lived about the same period, to have been half-Greek, half-Jew, and to have belonged to the celebrated Platonic school of Alexandria.]

747 (return) [ Tacitus informs us that Vespasian himself believed Basilides to have been at this time not only in an infirm state of health, but at the distance of several days’ journey from Alexandria. But (for his greater satisfaction) he strictly examined the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple on that day: he made inquiries of all he met, whether he had been seen in the city; nay, further, he dispatched messengers on horseback, who ascertained that at the time specified, Basilides was more than eighty miles from Alexandria. Then Vespasian comprehended that the appearance of Basilides, and the answer to his prayers given through him, were by divine interposition. Tacit. Hist. iv. 82. 2.]

748 (return) [ The account given by Tacitus of the miracles of Vespasian is fuller than that of Suetonius, but does not materially vary in the details, except that, in his version of the story, he describes the impotent man to be lame in the hand, instead of the leg or the knee, and adds an important circumstance in the case of the blind man, that he was “notus tabe occulorum,” notorious for the disease in his eyes. He also winds up the narrative with the following statement: “They who were present, relate both these cures, even at this time, when there is nothing to be gained by lying.” Both the historians lived within a few years of the occurrence, but their works were not published until advanced periods of their lives. The closing remark of Tacitus seems to indicate that, at least, he did not entirely discredit the account; and as for Suetonius, his pages are as full of prodigies of all descriptions, related apparently in all good faith, as a monkish chronicle of the Middle Ages. The story has the more interest, as it is one of the examples of successful imposture, selected by Hume in his Essay on Miracles; with the reply to which by Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, most readers are familiar. The commentators on Suetonius agree with Paley in considering the whole affair as a juggle between the priests, the patients, and, probably, the emperor. But what will, perhaps, strike the reader as most remarkable, is the singular coincidence of the story with the accounts given of several of the miracles of Christ; whence it has been supposed, that the scene was planned in imitation of them. It did not fall within the scope of Dr. Paley’s argument to advert to this; and our own brief illustration must be strictly confined within the limits of historical disquisition. Adhering to this principle, we may point out that if the idea of plagiarism be accepted, it receives some confirmation from the incident related by our author in a preceding paragraph, forming, it may be considered, another scene of the same drama, where we find Basilides appearing to Vespasian in the temple of Serapis, under circumstances which cannot fail to remind us of Christ’s suddenly standing in the midst of his disciples, “when the doors were shut.” This incident, also, has very much the appearance of a parody on the evangelical history. But if the striking similarity of the two narratives be thus accounted for, it is remarkable that while the priests of Alexandria, or, perhaps, Vespasian himself from his residence in Judaea, were in possession of such exact details of two of Christ’s miracles—if not of a third striking incident in his history—we should find not the most distant allusion in the works of such cotemporary writers as Tacitus and Suetonius, to any one of the still more stupendous occurrences which had recently taken place in a part of the world with which the Romans had now very intimate relations. The character of these authors induces us to hesitate in adopting the notion, that either contempt or disbelief would have led them to pass over such events, as altogether unworthy of notice; and the only other inference from their silence is, that they had never heard of them. But as this can scarcely be reconciled with the plagiarism attributed to Vespasian or the Egyptian priests, it is safer to conclude that the coincidence, however singular, was merely fortuitous. It may be added that Spartianus, who wrote the lives of Adrian and succeeding emperors, gives an account of a similar miracle performed by that prince in healing a blind man.]

749 (return) [ A.U.C. 823-833, excepting 826 and 831.]

750 (return) [ The temple of Peace, erected A.D. 71, on the conclusion of the wars with the Germans and the Jews, was the largest temple in Rome. Vespasian and Titus deposited in it the sacred vessels and other spoils which were carried in their triumph after the conquest of Jerusalem. They were consumed, and the temple much damaged, if not destroyed, by fire, towards the end of the reign of Commodus, in the year 191. It stood in the Forum, where some ruins on a prodigious scale, still remaining, were traditionally considered to be those of the Temple of Peace, until Piranesi contended that they are part of Nero’s Golden House. Others suppose that they are the remains of a Basilica. A beautiful fluted Corinthian column, forty-seven feet high, which was removed from this spot, and now stands before the church of S. Maria Maggiore, gives a great idea of the splendour of the original structure.]

751 (return) [ This temple, converted into a Christian church by pope Simplicius, who flourished, A.D. 464-483, preserves much of its ancient character. It is now, called San Stefano in Rotondo, from its circular form; the thirty-four pillars, with arches springing from one to the other and intended to support the cupola, still remaining to prove its former magnificence.]

752 (return) [ This amphitheatre is the famous Colosseum begun by Trajan, and finished by Titus. It is needless to go into details respecting a building the gigantic ruins of which are so well known.]

753 (return) [ Hercules is said, after conquering Geryon in Spain, to have come into this part of Italy. One of his companions, the supposed founder of Reate, may have had the name of Flavus.]

754 (return) [ Vespasian and his son Titus had a joint triumph for the conquest of Judaea, which is described at length by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 16. The coins of Vespasian exhibiting the captive Judaea (Judaea capta), are probably familiar to the reader. See Harphrey’s Coin Collector’s Manual, p. 328.]

755 (return) [ Demetrius, who was born at Corinth, seems to have been a close imitator of Diogenes, the founder of the sect. Having come to Rome to study under Apollonius, he was banished to the islands, with other philosophers, by Vespasian.]

756 (return) [ There being no such place as Morbonia, and the supposed name being derived from morbus, disease, some critics have supposed that Anticyra, the asylum of the incurables, (see CALIGULA, c. xxix.) is meant; but the probability is, that the expression used by the imperial chamberlain was only a courtly version of a phrase not very commonly adopted in the present day.]

757 (return) [ Helvidius Priscus, a person of some celebrity as a philosopher and public man, is mentioned by Tacitus, Xiphilinus, and Arrian.]

758 (return) [ Cicero speaks in strong terms of the sordidness of retail trade—Off. i. 24.]

759 (return) [ The sesterce being worth about two-pence half-penny of English money, the salary of a Roman senator was, in round numbers, five thousand pounds a year; and that of a professor, as stated in the succeeding chapter, one thousand pounds. From this scale, similar calculations may easily be made of the sums occurring in Suetonius’s statements from time to time. There appears to be some mistake in the sum stated in c. xvi. just before, as the amount seems fabulous, whether it represented the floating debt, or the annual revenue, of the empire.]

760 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xliii. The proscenium of the ancient theatres was a solid erection of an architectural design, not shifted and varied as our stage-scenes.]

761 (return) [ Many eminent writers among the Romans were originally slaves, such as Terence and Phaedrus; and, still more, artists, physicians and artificers. Their talents procuring their manumission, they became the freedmen of their former masters. Vespasian, it appears from Suetonius, purchased the freedom of some persons of ability belonging to these classes.]

762 (return) [ The Coan Venus was the chef-d’oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now restored, it must have been well preserved.]

763 (return) [ Probably the colossal statue of Nero (see his Life, c. xxxi.), afterwards placed in Vespasian’s amphitheatre, which derived its name from it.]

764 (return) [ The usual argument in all times against the introduction of machinery.]

765 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix.]

766 (return) [ At the men’s Saturnalia, a feast held in December attended with much revelling, the masters waited upon their slaves; and at the women’s Saturnalia, held on the first of March, the women served their female attendants, by whom also they sent presents to their friends.]

767 (return) [ Notwithstanding the splendour, and even, in many respects, the refinement of the imperial court, the language as well as the habits of the highest classes in Rome seem to have been but too commonly of the grossest description, and every scholar knows that many of their writers are not very delicate in their allusions. Apropos of the ludicrous account given in the text, Martial, on one occasion, uses still plainer language.

768 (return) [ See c. iii. and note.]

769 (return) [ Probably the emperor had not entirely worn off, or might even affect the rustic dialect of his Sabine countrymen; for among the peasantry the au was still pronounced o, as in plostrum for plaustrum, a waggon; and in orum for aurum, gold, etc. The emperor’s retort was very happy, Flaurus being derived from a Greek word, which signifies worthless, while the consular critic’s proper name, Florus, was connected with much more agreeable associations.]

770 (return) [ Some of the German critics think that the passage bears the sense of the gratuity having beer given by the lady, and that so parsimonious a prince as Vespasian was not likely to have paid such a sum as is here stated for a lady’s proffered favours.]

771 (return) [ The Flavian family had their own tomb. See DOMITIAN, c. v. The prodigy, therefore, did not concern Vespasian. As to the tomb of the Julian family, see AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]

772 (return) [ Alluding to the apotheosis of the emperors.]

773 (return) [ Cutiliae was a small lake, about three-quarters of a mile from Reate, now called Lago di Contigliano. It was very deep, and being fed from springs in the neighbouring hills, the water was exceedingly clear and cold, so that it was frequented by invalids, who required invigorating. Vespasian’s paternal estates lay in the neighbourhood of Reate. See chap i.]

774 (return) [ A.U.C. 832.]

775 (return) [ Each dynasty lasted twenty-eight years. Claudius and Nero both reigning fourteen; and, of the Flavius family, Vespasian reigned ten, Titus three, and Domitian fifteen.]

776 [ Caligula. Titus was born A.U.C. 794; about A.D. 49.]

777 (return) [ The Septizonium was a circular building of seven stories. The remains of that of Septimus Severus, which stood on the side of the Palatine Hill, remained till the time of Pope Sixtus V., who removed it, and employed thirty-eight of its columns in ornamenting the church of St. Peter. It does not appear whether the Septizonium here mentioned as existing in the time of Titus, stood on the same spot.]

778 (return) [ Britannicus, the son of Claudius and Messalina.]

779 (return) [ A.U.C. 820.]

780 (return) [ Jerusalem was taken, sacked, and burnt, by Titus, after a two years’ siege, on the 8th September, A.U.C. 821, A.D. 69; it being the Sabbath. It was in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, when the emperor was sixty years old, and Titus himself, as he informs us, thirty. For particulars of the siege, see Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vi. and vii.; Hegesippus, Excid. Hierosol. v.; Dio, lxvi.; Tacitus, Hist. v.; Orosius, vii. 9.]

781 (return) [ For the sense in which Titus was saluted with the title of Emperor by the troops, see JULIUS CAESAR, c. lxxvi.]

782 (return) [ The joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, which was celebrated A.U.C. 824, is fully described by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 24. It is commemorated by the triumphal monument called the Arch of Titus, erected by the senate and people of Rome after his death, and still standing at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on the road leading from the Colosseum to the Forum, and is one of the most beautiful as well as the most interesting models of Roman art. It consists of four stories of the three orders of architecture, the Corinthian being repeated in the two highest. Some of the bas-reliefs, still in good preservation, represent the table of the shew-bread, the seven-branched golden candlestick, the vessel of incense, and the silver trumpets, which were taken by Titus from the Temple at Jerusalem, and, with the book of the law, the veil of the temple, and other spoils, were carried in the triumph. The fate of these sacred relics is rather interesting. Josephus says, that the veil and books of the law were deposited in the Palatium, and the rest of the spoils in the Temple of Peace. When that was burnt, in the reign of Commodus, these treasures were saved, and they were afterwards carried off by Genseric to Africa. Belisarius recovered them, and brought them to Constantinople, A.D. 520. Procopius informs us, that a Jew, who saw them, told an acquaintance of the emperor that it would not be advisable to carry them to the palace at Constantinople, as they could not remain anywhere else but where Solomon had placed them. This, he said, was the reason why Genseric had taken the Palace at Rome, and the Roman army had in turn taken that of the Vandal kings. Upon this, the emperor was so alarmed, that he sent the whole of them to the Christian churches at Jerusalem.]

783 (return) [ A.U.C. 825.]

784 (return) [ A.U.C. 824.]

785 (return) [ A.U.C. 823, 825, 827-830, 832.]

786 (return) [ Berenice, whose name is written by our author and others Beronice, was daughter of Agrippa the Great, who was by Aristobulus, grandson of Herod the Great. Having been contracted to Mark, son of Alexander Lysimachus, he died before their union, and Agrippa married her to Herod, Mark’s brother, for whom he had obtained from the emperor Claudius the kingdom of Chalcis. Herod also dying, Berenice, then a widow, lived with her brother, Agrippa, and was suspected of an incestuous intercourse with him. It was at this time that, on their way to the imperial court at Rome, they paid a visit to Festus, at Caesarea, and were present when St. Paul answered his accusers so eloquently before the tribunal of the governor. Her fascinations were so great, that, to shield herself from the charge of incest, she prevailed on Polemon, king of Cilicia, to submit to be circumcised, become a Jew, and marry her. That union also proving unfortunate, she appears to have returned to Jerusalem, and having attracted Vespasian by magnificent gifts, and the young Titus by her extraordinary beauty, she followed them to Rome, after the termination of the Jewish war, and had apartments in the palace, where she lived with Titus, “to all appearance, as his wife,” as Xiphilinus informs us; and there seems no doubt that he would have married her, but for the strong prejudices of the Romans against foreign alliances. Suetonius tells us with what pain they separated.]

787 (return) [ The Colosseum: it had been four years in building. See VESPAS. c. ix.]

788 (return) [ The Baths of Titus stood on the Esquiline Hill, on part of the ground which had been the gardens of Mecaenas. Considerable remains of them are still found among the vineyards; vaulted chambers of vast dimensions, some of which were decorated with arabesque paintings, still in good preservation. Titus appears to have erected a palace for himself adjoining; for the Laocoon, which is mentioned by Pliny as standing in this palace, was found in the neighbouring ruins.]

789 (return) [ If the statements were not well attested, we might be incredulous as to the number of wild beasts collected for the spectacles to which the people of Rome were so passionately devoted. The earliest account we have of such an exhibition, was A.U.C. 502, when one hundred and forty-two elephants, taken in Sicily, were produced. Pliny, who gives this information, states that lions first appeared in any number, A.U.C. 652; but these were probably not turned loose. In 661, Sylla, when he was praetor, brought forward one hundred. In 696, besides lions, elephants, and bears, one hundred and fifty panthers were shown for the first time. At the dedication of Pompey’s Theatre, there was the greatest exhibition of beasts ever then known; including seventeen elephants, six hundred lions, which were killed in the course of five days, four hundred and ten panthers, etc. A rhinoceros also appeared for the first time. This was A.U.C. 701. The art of taming these beasts was carried to such perfection, that Mark Antony actually yoked them to his carriage. Julius Caesar, in his third dictatorship, A.U.C. 708, showed a vast number of wild beasts, among which were four hundred lions and a cameleopard. A tiger was exhibited for the first time at the dedication of the Theatre of Marcellus, A.U.C. 743. It was kept in a cage. Claudius afterwards exhibited four together. The exhibition of Titus, at the dedication of the Colosseum, here mentioned by Suetonius, seems to have been the largest ever made; Xiphilinus even adds to the number, and says, that including wild-boars, cranes, and other animals, no less than nine thousand were killed. In the reigns of succeeding emperors, a new feature was given to these spectacles, the Circus being converted into a temporary forest, by planting large trees, in which wild animals were turned loose, and the people were allowed to enter the wood and take what they pleased. In this instance, the game consisted principally of beasts of chase; and, on one occasion, one thousand stags, as many of the ibex, wild sheep (mouflions from Sardinia?), and other grazing animals, besides one thousand wild boars, and as many ostriches, were turned loose by the emperor Gordian.]

790 (return) [ “Diem perdidi.” This memorable speech is recorded by several other historians, and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles.]

791 (return) [ A.U.C. 832, A.D. 79. It is hardly necessary to refer to the well-known Epistles of Pliny the younger, vi. 16 and 20, giving an account of the first eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny, the historian, perished. And see hereafter, p. 475.]

792 (return) [ The great fire at Rome happened in the second year of the reign of Titus. It consumed a large portion of the city, and among the public buildings destroyed were the temples of Serapis and Isis, that of Neptune, the baths of Agrippa, the Septa, the theatres of Balbus and Pompey, the buildings and library of Augustus on the Palatine, and the temple of Jupiter in the Capitol.]

793 (return) [ See VESPASIAN, cc. i. and xxiv. The love of this emperor and his son Titus for the rural retirement of their paternal acres in the Sabine country, forms a striking contrast to the vicious attachment of such tyrants as Tiberius and Caligula for the luxurious scenes of Baiae, or the libidinous orgies of Capri.]

794 (return) [ A.U.C. 834, A.D. 82.]

795 [ A.U.C. 804.]

796 (return) [ A street, in the sixth region of Rome, so called, probably, from a remarkable specimen of this beautiful shrub which had made free growth on the spot.]

797 (return) [ VITELLIUS, c. xv.]

798 (return) [ Tacitus (Hist. iii.) differs from Suetonius, saying that Domitian took refuge with a client of his father’s near the Velabrum. Perhaps he found it more safe afterwards to cross the Tiber.]

799 (return) [ One of Domitian’s coins bears on the reverse a captive female and soldier, with GERMANIA DEVICTA.]

800 (return) [ VESPASIAN, c. xii; TITUS, c. vi.]

801 (return) [ Such excavations had been made by Julius and by Augustus (AUG. xliii.), and the seats for the spectators fitted up with timber in a rude way. That was on the other side of the Tiber. The Naumachia of Domitian occupies the site of the present Piazza d’Espagna, and was larger and more ornamented.]

802 (return) [ A.U.C. 841. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi.]

803 (return) [ This feast was held in December. Plutarch informs us that it was instituted in commemoration of the seventh hill being included in the city bounds.]

804 (return) [ The Capitol had been burnt, for the third time, in the great fire mentioned TITUS, c. viii. The first fire happened in the Marian war, after which it was rebuilt by Pompey, the second in the reign of Vitellius.]

805 (return) [ This forum, commenced by Domitian and completed by Nerva, adjoined the Roman Forum and that of Augustus, mentioned in c. xxix. of his life. From its communicating with the two others, it was called Transitorium. Part of the wall which bounded it still remains, of a great height, and 144 paces long. It is composed of square masses of freestone, very large, and without any cement; and it is not carried in a straight line, but makes three or four angles, as if some buildings had interfered with its direction.]

806 (return) [ The residence of the Flavian family was converted into a temple. See c. i. of the present book.]

807 (return) [ The Stadium was in the shape of a circus, and used for races both of men and horses.]

808 (return) [ The Odeum was a building intended for musical performances. There were four of them at Rome.]

809 (return) [ See before, c. iv.]

810 (return) [ See VESPASIAN, c. xiv.]

811 (return) [ See NERD, c. xvi.]

812 (return) [ This absurd edict was speedily revoked. See afterwards c. xiv.]

813 (return) [ This was an ancient law levelled against adultery and other pollutions, named from its author Caius Scatinius, a tribune of the people. There was a Julian law, with the same object. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxiv.]

814 (return) [ Geor. xi. 537.]

815 (return) [ See Livy, xxi. 63, and Cicero against Verres, v. 18.]

816 (return) [ See VESPASIAN, c. iii.]

817 (return) [ Cant names for gladiators.]

818 (return) [ The faction which favoured the “Thrax” party.]

819 (return) [ DOMITIAN, c. i.]

820 (return) [ See VESPASIAN, c. xiv.]