Note 1535 — PERSIUS.

Exossatus ager. Among the Romans it was esteemed a great disgrace for a legatee to refuse to administer to the estate of the testator. Persius says, "even though you refuse to act as my heir, I shall have no great difficulty in finding some one who will. Though I have spent large sums in largesses to the mob, and in honor of the emperor, I have still a field left near the city, which many would gladly take." Such is unquestionably the drift of the passage; but "exossatus" is variously explained. It literally means that from which the bones have been taken: vid. Plaut., Aul., II., ix., 2, "Murænam exdorsua, atque omnia exossata fac sient." Amph., I., i., 163. So Lucr., iv., 1267. Ter., Ad., III., iv., 14. As stones are "the bones of the earth" (Ov., Met., i., 393, "Lapides in corpore terræ ossa reor"), it may mean "thoroughly cleared from stones;" or, as Casaubon says, so thoroughly exhausted by constant cropping, that the land is reduced to its very bones (as Juv., viii., 90, "Ossa vides regum vacuis exhausta medullis"). "Yet even this field, bad as it is, some terræ filius may be found to take." Juxta is generally explained "near Rome," and therefore parted with last. D'Achaintre takes it with exossatus in the sense of "almost."