Note 482 — CANTO THE FOURTH[375]

{405} ["It is more likely to have been the pride than the love of Crassus which raised so superb a memorial to a wife whose name is not mentioned in history, unless she be supposed to be that lady whose intimacy with Dolabella was so offensive to Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, or she who was divorced by Lentulus Spinther, or she, perhaps the same person, from whose ear the son of Æsopus transferred a precious jewel to enrich his daughter (vide Hor., Sat., ii. 3. 239)" (Hist. Illust., p. 200). The wealth of Crassus was proverbial, as his agnomen, Dives, testifies (Plut., Crassus, ii., iii., Lipsiæ, 1813, v. 156, sq.).]