Note 1405 — PERSIUS.

Puteal flagellas. "This line," Casaubon says, "was purposely intended to be obscure; that while all would apply it in one sense to Nero, Persius, if accused, might maintain that he intended only the other sense, which the words at first sight bear." Puteal is put for the forum itself by synecdoche. It is properly the "puteal Libonis," a place which L. Scribonius Libo caused to be inclosed (perhaps cir. A.U.C. 604). It had been perhaps a bidental (cf. ad Sat. ii., 27), or, as others say, the place where the razor of the augur Nævius was deposited. Near it was the prætor's chair, and the benches frequented by persons who had private suits, among whom the class of usurers would be most conspicuous. (Hence Hor., i., Epist. xix., 8, "Forum putealque Libonis Mandabo siccis." ii., Sat. vi., 35.) Puteal flagellare, therefore, is taken in its primitive sense to mean, "to frequent the forum for the purpose of enforcing rigorous payment from those to whom you have lent money; or the benches of the usurers, in quest of persons to whom you may lend it on exorbitant interest." Cf. Ov., Remed., Am., 561, "Qui puteal Janumque timet, celeresque Kalendas." Cic., Sext., 8. In its secondary sense, it may apply to the nightly atrocities of Nero, who used to frequent the forum, violently assaulting those he met, and outrageously insulting females, not unfrequently committing robberies and even murder; but having been soundly beaten one night by a nobleman whose wife he had outraged, he went ever after attended by gladiators, as a security for his personal safety; who kept aloof until their services were required. Nero might well, therefore, be called the "scourge of the Forum," and be said to leave scars and wales behind him in the scenes of his enormities. Juvenal (Sat. iii., 278, seq.) alludes to the same practices. A description of them at full length may be found in Tacitus (Ann., xiii., 26) and Suetonius (Vit. Neron., c. 26).