Note 3, 29 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 4)

29. censoremne: So Casaubon. Jahn (1868) reads -que, thus abandoning the reading which is best supported by MSS., but utterly unsupported by grammar, -ve. The careless use of vel after ve is one of those slips that are simply incredible, nor can -ve—vel be successfully defended by connecting the latter closely with trabeate. Pretor explains, ‘because you have a censor in your family, or are yourself a knight of distinction (sc. quodve censorem tuum salutas vel quod ipse trabeatus es)’. Heinr.’s conjecture, fatuum, with a reference to the censorship of Claudius, is itself almost fatuous. If we are to resort to conjecture, Heinr.’s other suggestion, vetulum, would be mild. Jahn explains this line (after Niebuhr) of the municipales equites, ‘Because you are a great man in your own provincial town.’ Comp. 1, 129. ‘In any case the allusion is to the annual transvectio of the equites before the censor, who used to review them (recognoscere) as they defiled before him on horseback. If censorem is understood of Rome, tuum will imply that the youth is related to the Emperor, like Juvenal’s Rubellius Blandus, 8, 40; otherwise it means “your local censor”’ (Conington).—trabeate: The trabea is the official dress of the equites. Comp. 1, 123.