FOOTNOTES (continued 3)

821 (return) [ This cruel punishment is described in NERO, c. xlix.]

822 (return) [ Gentiles who were proselytes to the Jewish religion; or, perhaps, members of the Christian sect, who were confounded with them. See the note to TIBERIUS, c. xxxvi. The tax levied on the Jews was two drachmas per head. It was general throughout the empire.]

823 (return) [ We have had Suetonius’s reminiscences, derived through his grandfather and father successively, CALIGULA, c. xix.; OTHO, c. x. We now come to his own, commencing from an early age.]

824 (return) [ This is what Martial calls, “Mentula tributis damnata.”]

825 (return) [ The imperial liveries were white and gold.]

826 (return) [ See CALIGULA, c. xxi., where the rest of the line is quoted; eis koiranos esto.]

827 (return) [ An assumption of divinity, as the pulvinar was the consecrated bed, on which the images of the gods reposed.]

828 (return) [ The pun turns on the similar sound of the Greek word for “enough,” and the Latin word for “an arch.”]

829 (return) [ Domitia, who had been repudiated for an intrigue with Paris, the actor, and afterwards taken back.]

830 (return) [ The lines, with a slight accommodation, are borrowed from the poet Evenus, Anthol. i. vi. i., who applies them to a goat, the great enemy of vineyards. Ovid, Fasti, i. 357, thus paraphrases them:

831 (return) [ Pliny describes this stone as being brought from Cappadocia, and says that it was as hard as marble, white and translucent, cxxiv. c. 22.]

832 (return) [ See note to c. xvii.]

833 (return) [ The guilt imputed to them was atheism and Jewish (Christian?) manners. Dion, lxvii. 1112.]

834 (return) [ See VESPASIAN, c. v.]

835 (return) [ Columella (R. R. xi. 2.) enumerates dates among the foreign fruits cultivated in Italy, cherries, dates, apricots, and almonds; and Pliny, xv. 14, informs us that Sextus Papinius was the first who introduced the date tree, having brought it from Africa, in the latter days of Augustus.]

836 (return) [ Some suppose that Domitilla was the wife of Flavius Clemens (c. xv.), both of whom were condemned by Domitian for their “impiety,” by which it is probably meant that they were suspected of favouring Christianity. Eusebius makes Flavia Domitilla the niece of Flavius Clemens, and says that she was banished to Ponza, for having become a Christian. Clemens Romanus, the second bishop of Rome, is said to have been of this family.]

837 (return) [ A.U.C. 849.]

838 (return) [ See c. v.]

839 (return) [ The famous library of Alexandria collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus had been burnt by accident in the wars. But we find from this passage in Suetonius that part of it was saved, or fresh collections had been made. Seneca (de Tranquill. c. ix. 7) informs us that forty thousand volumes were burnt; and Gellius states that in his time the number of volumes amounted to nearly seventy thousand.]

840 (return) [ This favourite apple, mentioned by Columella and Pliny, took its name from C. Matius, a Roman knight, and friend of Augustus, who first introduced it. Pliny tells us that Matius was also the first who brought into vogue the practice of clipping groves.]

841 (return) [ Julia, the daughter of Titus.]

842 (return) [ It will be understood that the terms Grammar and Grammarian have here a more extended sense than that which they convey in modern use. See the beginning of c. iv.]

843 (return) [ Suetonius’s account of the rude and unlettered state of society in the early times of Rome, is consistent with what we might infer, and with the accounts which have come down to us, of a community composed of the most daring and adventurous spirits thrown off by the neighbouring tribes, and whose sole occupations were rapine and war. But Cicero discovers the germs of mental cultivation among the Romans long before the period assigned to it by Suetonius, tracing them to the teaching of Pythagoras, who visited the Greek cities on the coast of Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.—Tusc. Quaest. iv. 1.]

844 (return) [ Livius, whose cognomen Andronicus, intimates his extraction, was born of Greek parents. He began to teach at Rome in the consulship of Claudius Cento, the son of Appius Caecus, and Sempronius Tuditanus, A.U.C. 514. He must not be confounded with Titus Livius, the historian, who flourished in the Augustan age.]

845 (return) [ Ennius was a native of Calabria. He was born the year after the consulship mentioned in the preceding note, and lived to see at least his seventy-sixth year, for Gellius informs us that at that age he wrote the twelfth book of his Annals.]

846 (return) [ Porcius Cato found Ennius in Sardinia, when he conquered that island during his praetorship. He learnt Greek from Ennius there, and brought him to Rome on his return. Ennius taught Greek at Rome for a long course of years, having M. Cato among his pupils.]

847 (return) [ Mallos was near Tarsus, in Cilicia. Crates was the son of Timocrates, a Stoic philosopher, who for his critical skill had the surname of Homericus.]

848 (return) [ Aristarchus flourished at Alexandria, in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, whose son he educated.]

849 (return) [ A.U.C. 535-602 or 605.]

850 (return) [ Cicero (De Clar. Orat. c. xx., De Senect. c. v. 1) places the death of Ennius A.U.C. 584, for which there are other authorities; but this differs from the account given in a former note.]

851 (return) [ The History of the first Punic War by Naevius is mentioned by Cicero, De Senect, c. 14.]

852 (return) [ Lucilius, the poet, was born about A.U.C. 605.]

853 (return) [ Q. Metellus obtained the surname of Numidicus, on his triumph over Jugurtha, A.U.C. 644. Aelius, who was Varro’s tutor, accompanied him to Rhodes or Smyrna, when he was unjustly banished, A.U.C. 653.]

854 (return) [ Servius Claudius (also called Clodius) is commended by Cicero, Fam. Epist. ix. 16, and his singular death mentioned by Pliny, xxv. 4.]

855 (return) [ Daphnis, a shepherd, the son of Mercury, was said to have been brought up by Pan. The humorous turn given by Lenaeus to Lutatius’s cognomen is not very clear. Daphnides is the plural of Daphnis; therefore the herd or company, agaema; and Pan was the god of rustics, and the inventor of the rude music of the reed.]

856 (return) [ Oppius Cares is said by Macrobius to have written a book on Forest Trees.]

857 (return) [ Quintilian enumerates Bibaculus among the Roman poets in the same line with Catullus and Horace, Institut. x. 1. Of Sigida we know nothing; even the name is supposed to be incorrectly given. Apuleius mentions a Ticida, who is also noticed by Suetonius hereafter in c. xi., where likewise he gives an account of Valerius Cato.]

858 (return) [ Probably Suevius, of whom Macrobius informs us that he was the learned author of an Idyll, which had the title of the Mulberry Grove; observing, that “the peach which Suevius reckons as a species of the nuts, rather belongs to the tribe of apples.”]

859 (return) [ Aurelius Opilius is mentioned by Symmachus and Gellius. His cotemporary and friend, Rutilius Rufus, having been a military tribune under Scipio in the Numantine war, wrote a history of it. He was consul A.U.C. 648, and unjustly banished, to the general grief of the people, A.U.C. 659.]

860 (return) [ Quintilian mentions Gnipho, Instit. i. 6. We find that Cicero was among his pupils. The date of his praetorship, given below, fixes the time when Gnipho flourished.]

861 (return) [ This strange cognomen is supposed to have been derived from a cork arm, which supplied the place of one Dionysius had lost. He was a poet of Mitylene.]

862 (return) [ See before, JULIUS, c. xlvi.]

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

864 (return) [ Suetonius gives his life in c. x.]

865 (return) [ A grade of inferior officers in the Roman armies, of which we have no very exact idea.]

866 (return) [ Horace speaks feelingly on the subject:

867 (return) [ Domitius Marsus wrote epigrams. He is mentioned by Ovid and Martial.]

868 (return) [ This is not the only instance mentioned by Suetonius of statues erected to learned men in the place of their birth or celebrity. Orbilius, as a schoolmaster, was represented in a sitting posture, and with the gown of the Greek philosophers.]

869 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. cxi. 75) gives the character of Atteius Capito. He was consul A.U.C. 758.]

870 (return) [ Asinius Pollio; see JULIUS, c. xxx.]

871 (return) [ Whether Hermas was the son or scholar of Gnipho, does not appear,]

872 (return) [ Eratosthenes, an Athenian philosopher, flourished in Egypt, under three of the Ptolemies successively. Strabo often mentions him. See xvii. p. 576.]

873 (return) [ Cornelius Helvius Cinna was an epigrammatic poet, of the same age as Catullus. Ovid mentions him, Tristia, xi. 435.]

874 (return) [ Priapus was worshipped as the protector of gardens.]

875 (return) [ Zenodotus, the grammarian, was librarian to the first Ptolemy at Alexandria, and tutor to his sons.]

876 (return) [ For Crates, see before, p. 507.]

877 (return) [ We find from Plutarch that Sylla was employed two days before his death, in completing the twenty-second book of his Commentaries; and, foreseeing his fate, entrusted them to the care of Lucullus, who, with the assistance of Epicadius, corrected and arranged them. Epicadius also wrote on Heroic verse, and Cognomina.]

878 (return) [ Plutarch, in his Life of Caesar, speaks of the loose conduct of Mucia, Pompey’s wife, during her husband’s absence.]

879 (return) [ Fam. Epist. 9.]

880 (return) [ Cicero ad Att. xii. 36.]

881 (return) [ See before, AUGUSTUS, c. v.]

882 (return) [ Lenaeus was not singular in his censure of Sallust. Lactantius, 11. 12, gives him an infamous character; and Horace says of him,

883 (return) [ The name of the well known Roman knight, to whom Cicero addressed his Epistles, was Titus Pomponius Atticus. Although Satrius was the name of a family at Rome, no connection between it and Atticus can be found, so that the text is supposed to be corrupt. Quintus Caecilius was an uncle of Atticus, and adopted him. The freedman mentioned in this chapter probably assumed his name, he having been the property of Caecilius; as it was the custom for freedmen to adopt the names of their patrons.]

884 (return) [ Suetonius, TIBERIUS, c. viii. Her name was Pomponia.]

885 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. lxvi.]

886 (return) [ He is mentioned before, c. ix.]

887 (return) [ Verrius Flaccus is mentioned by St. Jerome, in conjunction with Athenodorus of Tarsus, a Stoic philosopher, to have flourished A.M.C. 2024, which is A.U.C. 759; A.D. 9. He is also praised by Gellius, Macrobius, Pliny, and Priscian.]

888 (return) [ Cinna wrote a poem, which he called “Smyrna,” and was nine years in composing, as Catullus informs us, 93. 1.]

889 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, cc. lxii. lxix.]

890 (return) [ Cornelius Alexander, who had also the name of Polyhistor, was born at Miletus, and being taken prisoner, and bought by Cornelius, was brought to Rome, and becoming his teacher, had his freedom given him, with the name of his patron. He flourished in the time of Sylla, and composed a great number of works; amongst which were five books on Rome. Suetonius has already told us (AUGUSTUS, xxix.) that he had the care of the Palatine Library.]

891 (return) [ No such consul as Caius Licinius appears in the Fasti; and it is supposed to be a mistake for C. Atinius, who was the colleague of Cn. Domitius Calvinus, A.U.C. 713, and wrote a book on the Civil War.]

892 (return) [ Julius Modestus, in whom the name of the Julian family was still preserved, is mentioned with approbation by Gellius, Martial, Quintilian, and others.]

893 (return) [ Melissus is mentioned by Ovid, De Pontif. iv 16-30.]

894 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix. p. 93, and note.]

895 (return) [ The trabea was a white robe, with a purple border, of a different fashion from the toga.]

896 (return) [ See before, c. x.]

897 (return) [ See CLAUDIUS, c. x1i. and note.]

898 (return) [ Remmius Palaemon appears to have been cotemporary with Pliny and Quintilian, who speak highly of him.]

899 (return) [ Now Vicenza.]

900 (return) [ “Audiat haec tantum vel qui venit, ecce, Palaemon.”—Eccl. iii. 50.]

901 (return) [ All the editions have the word vitem; but we might conjecture, from the large produce, that it is a mistake for vineam, a vineyard: in which case the word vasa might be rendered, not bottles, but casks. The amphora held about nine gallons. Pliny mentions that Remmius bought a farm near the turning on the Nomentan road, at the tenth mile-stone from Rome.]

902 (return) [ “Usque ad infamiam oris.”—See TIBERIUS, p. 220, and the notes.]

903 (return) [ Now Beyrout, on the coast of Syria. It was one of the colonies founded by Julius Caesar when he transported 80,000 Roman citizens to foreign parts.—JULIUS, xlii.]

904 (return) [ This senatus consultum was made A.U.C. 592.]

905 (return) [ Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 710.]

906 (return) [ See NERO, c. x.]

907 (return) [ As to the Bullum, see before, JULIUS, c. lxxxiv.]

908 (return) [ This extract given by Suetonius is all we know of any epistle addressed by Cicero to Marcus Titinnius.]

909 (return) [ See Cicero’s Oration, pro Caelio, where Atracinus is frequently mentioned, especially cc. i. and iii.]

910 (return) [ “Hordearium rhetorem.”]

911 (return) [ From the manner in which Suetonius speaks of the old custom of chaining one of the lowest slaves to the outer gate, to supply the place of a watch-dog, it would appear to have been disused in his time.]

912 (return) [ The work in which Cornelius Nepos made this statement is lost.]

913 (return) [ Pliny mentions with approbation C. Epidius, who wrote some treatises in which trees are represented as speaking; and the period in which he flourished, agrees with that assigned to the rhetorician here named by Suetonius. Plin. xvii. 25.]

914 (return) [ Isauricus was consul with Julius Caesar II., A.U.C. 705, and again with L. Antony, A.U.C. 712.]

915 (return) [ A river in the ancient Campania, now called the Sarno, which discharges itself into the bay of Naples.]

916 (return) [ Epidius attributes the injury received by his eyes to the corrupt habits he contracted in the society of M. Antony.]

917 (return) [ The direct allusion is to the “style” or probe used by surgeons in opening tumours.]

918 (return) [ Mark Antony was consul with Julius Caesar, A.U.C. 709. See before, JULIUS, c. lxxix.]

919 (return) [ Philipp. xi. 17.]

920 (return) [ Leontium, now called Lentini, was a town in Sicily, the foundation of which is related by Thucydides, vi. p. 412. Polybius describes the Leontine fields as the most fertile part of Sicily. Polyb. vii. 1. And see Cicero, contra Verrem, iii. 46, 47.]

921 (return) [ Novara, a town of the Milanese.]

922 (return) [ St. Jerom in Chron. Euseb. describes Lucius Munatius Plancus as the disciple of Cicero, and a celebrated orator. He founded Lyons during the time he governed that part of the Roman provinces in Gaul.]

923 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxvi.]

924 (return) [ He meant to speak of Cisalpine Gaul, which, though geographically a part of Italy, did not till a late period enjoy the privileges of the other territories united to Rome, and was administered by a praetor under the forms of a dependent province. It was admitted to equal rights by the triumvirs, after the death of Julius Caesar. Albutius intimated that those rights were now in danger.]

925 (return) [ Lucius Fenestella, an historical writer, is mentioned by Lactantius, Seneca, and Pliny, who says, that he died towards the close of the reign of Tiberius.]

926 (return) [ The second Punic war ended A.U.C. 552, and the third began A.U.C. 605. Terence was probably born about 560.]

927 (return) [ Carthage was laid in ruins A.U.C. 606 or 607, six hundred and sixty seven years after its foundation.]

928 (return) [ These entertainments were given by the aediles M. Fulvius Nobilior and M. Acilius Glabrio, A.U.C. 587.]

929 (return) [ St. Jerom also states that Terence read the “Andria” to Caecilius who was a comic poet at Rome; but it is clearly an anachronism, as he died two years before this period. It is proposed, therefore, to amend the text by substituting Acilius, the aedile; a correction recommended by all the circumstances, and approved by Pitiscus and Ernesti.]

930 (return) [ The “Hecyra,” The Mother-in-law, is one of Terence’s plays.]

931 (return) [ The “Eunuch” was not brought out till five years after the Andria, A.U.C. 592.]

932 (return) [ About 80 pounds sterling; the price paid for the two performances. What further right of authorship is meant by the words following, is not very clear.]

933 (return) [ The “Adelphi” was first acted A.U.C. 593.]

934 (return) [ This report is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic, vii. 3), who applies it to the younger Laelius. The Scipio here mentioned is Scipio Africanus, who was at this time about twenty-one years of age.]

935 (return) [ The calends of March was the festival of married women. See before, VESPASIAN, c. xix.]

936 (return) [ Santra, who wrote biographies of celebrated characters, is mentioned as “a man of learning,” by St. Jerom, in his preface to the book on the Ecclesiastical Writers.]

937 (return) [ The idea seems to have prevailed that Terence, originally an African slave, could not have attained that purity of style in Latin composition which is found in his plays, without some assistance. The style of Phaedrus, however; who was a slave from Thrace, and lived in the reign of Tiberius, is equally pure, although no such suspicion attaches to his work.]

938 (return) [ Cicero (de Clar. Orat. c. 207) gives Sulpicius Gallus a high character as a finished orator and elegant scholar. He was consul when the Andria was first produced.]

939 (return) [ Labeo and Popilius are also spoken of by Cicero in high terms, Ib. cc. 21 and 24. Q. Fabius Labeo was consul with M. Claudius Marcellus, A.U.C. 570 and Popilius with L. Postumius Albinus, A.U.C. 580.]

940 (return) [ The story of Terence’s having converted into Latin plays this large number of Menander’s Greek comedies, is beyond all probability, considering the age at which he died, and other circumstances. Indeed, Menander never wrote so many as are here stated.]

941 (return) [ They were consuls A.U.C. 594. Terence was, therefore, thirty-four years old at the time of his death.]

942 (return) [ Hortulorum, in the plural number. This term, often found in Roman authors, not inaptly describes the vast number of little inclosures, consisting of vineyards, orchards of fig-trees, peaches, etc., with patches of tillage, in which maize, legumes, melons, pumpkins, and other vegetables are cultivated for sale, still found on small properties, in the south of Europe, particularly in the neighbourhood of towns.]

943 (return) [ Suetonius has quoted these lines in the earlier part of his Life of Terence. See before p. 532, where they are translated.]

944 (return) [ Juvenal was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, as appears by an ancient MS., and is intimated by himself. Sat. iii. 319.]

945 (return) [ He must have been therefore nearly forty years old at this time, as he lived to be eighty.]

946 (return) [ The seventh of Juvenal’s Satires.]

947 (return) [ This Paris does not appear to have been the favourite of Nero, who was put to death by that prince (see NERO, c. liv.) but another person of the same name, who was patronised by the emperor Domitian. The name of the poet joined with him is not known. Salmatius thinks it was Statius Pompilius, who sold to Paris, the actor, the play of Agave;

948 (return) [ Sulpicius Camerinus had been proconsul in Africa; Bareas Soranus in Asia. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 52; xvi. 23. Both of them are said to have been corrupt in their administration; and the satirist introduces their names as examples of the rich and noble, whose influence was less than that of favourite actors, or whose avarice prevented them from becoming the patrons of poets.]

949 (return) [ The “Pelopea,” was a tragedy founded on the story of the daughter of Thyestes; the “Philomela,” a tragedy on the fate of Itys, whose remains were served to his father at a banquet by Philomela and her sister Progne.]

950 (return) [ This was in the time of Adrian. Juvenal, who wrote first in the reigns of Domitian and Trajan, composed his last Satire but one in the third year of Adrian, A.U.C. 872.]

951 (return) [ Syene is meant, the frontier station of the imperial troops in that quarter of the world.]

952 [ A.U.C. 786, A.D. 34.]

953 (return) [ A.U.C. 814, A.D. 62.]

954 (return) [ Persius was one of the few men of rank and affluence among the Romans, who acquired distinction as writers; the greater part of them having been freedmen, as appears not only from these lives of the poets, but from our author’s notices of the grammarians and rhetoricians. A Caius Persius is mentioned with distinction by Livy in the second Punic war, Hist. xxvi. 39; and another of the same name by Cicero, de Orat. ii. 6, and by Pliny; but whether the poet was descended from either of them, we have no means of ascertaining.]

955 (return) [ Persius addressed his fifth satire to Annaeus Cornutus. He was a native of Leptis, in Africa, and lived at Rome in the time of Nero, by whom he was banished.]

956 (return) [ Caesius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns of Nero and Galba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him.]

957 (return) [ “Numanus.” It should be Servilius Nonianus, who is mentioned by Pliny, xxviii. 2, and xxxvii. 6.]

958 (return) [ Commentators are not agreed about these sums, the text varying both in the manuscripts and editions.]

959 (return) [ See Dr. Thomson’s remarks on Persius, before, p. 398.]

960 (return) [ There is no appearance of any want of finish in the sixth Satire of Persius, as it has come down to us; but it has been conjectured that it was followed by another, which was left imperfect.]

961 (return) [ There were two Arrias, mother and daughter, Tacit. Annal. xvi. 34. 3.]

962 (return) [ Persius died about nine days before he completed his twenty-ninth year.]

963 (return) [ Venusium stood on the confines of the Apulian, Lucanian, and Samnite territories.

965 (return) [ Horace mentions his being in this battle, and does not scruple to admit that he made rather a precipitate retreat, “relicta non bene parmula.”—Ode xi. 7-9.]

966 (return) [ See Ode xi. 7. 1.]

967 (return) [ The editors of Suetonius give different versions of this epigram. It seems to allude to some passing occurrence, and in its present form the sense is to this effect: “If I love you not, Horace, to my very heart’s core, may you see the priest of the college of Titus leaner than his mule.”]

968 (return) [ Probably the Septimius to whom Horace addressed the ode beginning

969 (return) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xxi.; and Horace, Ode iv, 4.]

970 (return) [ See Epist. i. iv. xv.

971 [ It is satisfactory to find that the best commentators consider the words between brackets as an interpolation in the work of Suetonius. Some, including Bentley, reject the preceding sentence also.]

972 (return) [ The works of Horace abound with references to his Sabine farm which must be familiar to many readers. Some remains are still shewn, consisting of a ruined wall and a tesselated pavement in a vineyard, about eight miles from Tivoli, which are supposed, with reason, to mark its site. At least, the features of the neighbouring country, as often sketched by the poet—and they are very beautiful—cannot be mistaken.]

973 (return) [ Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus were consuls A.U.C. 688. The genial Horace, in speaking of his old wine, agrees with Suetonius in fixing the date of his own birth:

And again,

974 (return) [ A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.]

975 (return) [ It may be concluded that Horace died at Rome, under the hospitable roof of his patron Mecaenas, whose villa and gardens stood on the Esquiline hill; which had formerly been the burial ground of the lower classes; but, as he tells us, Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico spatiare.—Sat. i. 8.]

976 (return) [ Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca’s brother.]

977 (return) [ This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the text to be imperfect.]

978 (return) [ They had good reason to know that, ridiculous as the tyrant made himself, it was not safe to incur even the suspicion of being parties to a jest upon him.]

979 (return) [ See NERO, c. xxxvi.]

980 (return) [ St. Jerom (Chron. Euseb.) places Lucan’s death in the tenth year of Nero’s reign, corresponding with A.U.C. 817. This opportunity is taken of correcting an error in the press, p. 342, respecting the date of Nero’s accession. It should be A.U.C. 807, A.D. 55.]

981 (return) [ These circumstances are not mentioned by some other writers. See Dr. Thomson’s account of Lucan, before, p. 347, where it is said that he died with philosophical firmness.]

982 (return) [ We find it stated ib. p. 396, that Lucan expired while pronouncing some verses from his own Pharsalia: for which we have the authority of Tacitus, Annal. xv. 20. 1. Lucan, it appears, employed his last hours in revising his poems; on the contrary, Virgil, we are told, when his death was imminent, renewed his directions that the Aeneid should be committed to the flames.]

983 (return) [ The text of the concluding sentence of Lucan’s life is corrupt, and neither of the modes proposed for correcting it make the sense intended very clear.]

984 (return) [ Although this brief memoir of Pliny is inserted in all the editions of Suetonius, it was unquestionably not written by him. The author, whoever he was, has confounded the two Plinys, the uncle and nephew, into which error Suetonius could not have fallen, as he lived on intimate terms with the younger Pliny; nor can it be supposed that he would have composed the memoir of his illustrious friend in so cursory a manner. Scaliger and other learned men consider that the life of Pliny, attributed to Suetonius, was composed more than four centuries after that historian’s death.]

985 (return) [ See JULIUS, c. xxviii. Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (the younger Pliny) was born at Como, A.U.C. 814; A.D. 62. His father’s name was Lucius Caecilius, also of Como, who married Plinia, the sister of Caius Plinius Secundus, supposed to have been a native of Verona, the author of the Natural History, and by this marriage the uncle of Pliny the Younger. It was the nephew who enjoyed the confidence of the emperors Nerva and Trajan, and was the author of the celebrated Letters.]

986 (return) [ The first eruption of Mount Vesuvius occurred A.U.C. 831, A.D. 79. See TITUS, c. viii. The younger Pliny was with his uncle at Misenum at the time, and has left an account of his disastrous enterprise in one of his letters, Epist. vi. xvi.]

987 (return) [ For further accounts of the elder Pliny, see the Epistles of his nephew, B. iii. 5; vi. 16. 20; and Dr. Thomson’s remarks before, pp. 475-478.]