Part 51

[Footnote 15: The ransom, too large for Caesar's private means, was raised by the voluntary contributions of the cities in the Asiatic province, who were equally liberal from their public funds in the case of other Romans who fell into the hands of pirates at that period.]

[Footnote 16: From Miletus, as we are informed by Plutarch.]

[Footnote 17: Who commanded in Spain.]

[Footnote 18: Rex, it will be easily understood, was not a title of dignity in a Roman family, but the surname of the Marcii.]

[Footnote 19: The rites of the Bona Dea, called also Fauna, which were performed in the night, and by women only.]

[Footnote 20: Hispania Boetica; the Hither province being called Hispania Tarraconensis.]

[Footnote 21: Alexander the Great was only thirty-three years at the time of his death.]

[Footnote 22: The proper office of the master of the horse was to command the knights, and execute the orders of the dictator. He was usually nominated from amongst persons of consular and praetorian dignity; and had the use of a horse, which the dictator had not, without the order of the people.]

[Footnote 23: Seneca compares the annals of Tanusius to the life of a fool, which, though it may be long, is worthless; while that of a wise man, like a good book, is valuable, however short.--Epist. 94.]

[Footnote 24: Bibulus was Caesar's colleague, both as edile and consul. Cicero calls his edicts "Archilochian," that is, as full of spite as the verses of Archilochus.--Ad. Attic. b. 7. ep. 24.]

[Footnote 25: A.U.C. 689. Cicero holds both the Curio's, father and son, very cheap.--Brut. c. 60.]

[Footnote 26: Regnum, the kingly power, which the Roman people considered an insupportable tyranny.]

[Footnote 27: An honourable banishment.]

[Footnote 28: The assemblies of the people were at first held in the open Forum. Afterwards, a covered building, called the Comitium, was erected for that purpose. There are no remains of it, but Lumisden thinks that it probably stood on the south side of the Forum, on the site of the present church of The Consolation.--Antiq. of Rome, p. 357.]

[Footnote 29: Basilicas, from Basileus; a king. They were, indeed, the palaces of the sovereign people; stately and spacious buildings, with halls, which served the purpose of exchanges, council chambers, and courts of justice. Some of the Basilicas were afterwards converted into Christian churches. "The form was oblong; the middle was an open space to walk in, called Testudo, and which we now call the nave. On each side of this were rows of pillars, which formed what we should call the side-aisles, and which the ancients called Porticus. The end of the Testudo was curved, like the apse of some of our churches, and was called Tribunal, from causes being heard there. Hence the term Tribune is applied to that part of the Roman churches which is behind the high altar."--Burton's Antiq. of Rome, p. 204.]

[Footnote 30: Such as statues and pictures, the works of Greek artists.]

[Footnote 31: It appears to have stood at the foot of the Capitoline hill. Piranesi thinks that the two beautiful columns of white marble, which are commonly described as belonging to the portico of the temple of Jupiter Stator, are the remains of the temple of Castor and Pollux.]

[Footnote 32: Ptolemy Auletes, the son of Cleopatra.]

[Footnote 33: Lentulus, Cethegus, and others.]

[Footnote 34: The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was commenced and completed by the Tarquins, kings of Rome, but not dedicated till the year after their expulsion, when that honour devolved on M. Horatius Fulvillus, the first of the consuls. Having been burnt down during the civil wars, A.U.C. 670, Sylla restored it on the same foundations, but did not live to consecrate it.]

[Footnote 35: Meaning Pompey; not so much for the sake of the office, as having his name inserted in the inscription recording the repairs of the Capitol, instead of Catulus. The latter, however, secured the honour, and his name is still seen inscribed in an apartment at the Capitol, as its restorer.]

[Footnote 36: It being the calends of January, the first day of the year, on which the magistrates solemnly entered on their offices, surrounded by their friends.]

[Footnote 37: Among others, one for recalling Pompey from Asia, under the pretext that the commonwealth was in danger. Cato was one of the colleagues who saw through the design and opposed the decree.]

[Footnote 38: See before, p. 5. This was in A.U.C. 693.]

[Footnote 39: Plutarch informs us, that Caesar, before he came into office, owed his creditors 1300 talents, somewhat more than 565,000 pounds of our money. But his debts increased so much after this period, if we may believe Appian, that upon his departure for Spain, at the expiration of his praetorship, he is reported to have said, Bis millies et quingenties centena minis sibi adesse oportere, ut nihil haberet: i. e. That he was 2,000,000 and nearly 20,000 sesterces worse than penniless. Crassus became his security for 830 talents, about 871,500 pounds.]

[Footnote 40: For his victories in Gallicia and Lusitania, having led his army to the shores of the ocean, which had not before been reduced to submission.]

[Footnote 41: Caesar was placed in this dilemma, that if he aspired to a triumph, he must remain outside the walls until it took place, while as a candidate for the consulship, he must be resident in the city.]

[Footnote 42: Even the severe censor was biassed by political expediency to sanction a system, under which what little remained of public virtue, and the love of liberty at Rome, were fast decaying. The strict laws against bribery at elections were disregarded, and it was practised openly, and accepted without a blush. Sallust says that everything was venal, and that Rome itself might be bought, if any one was rich enough to purchase it. Jugurth, viii. 20, 3.]

[Footnote 43: A.U.C. 695.]

[Footnote 44: The proceedings of the senate were reported in short notes taken by one of their own order, "strangers" not being admitted at their sittings. These notes included speeches as well as acts. These and the proceedings of the assemblies of the people, were daily published in journals [Footnote diurna: which contained also accounts of the trials at law, with miscellaneous intelligence of births and deaths, marriages and divorces. The practice of publishing the proceedings of the senate, introduced by Julius Caesar, was discontinued by Augustus.]

[Footnote 45: Within the city, the lictors walked before only one of the consuls, and that commonly for a month alternately. A public officer, called Accensus, preceded the other consul, and the lictors followed. This custom had long been disused, but was now restored by Caesar.]

[Footnote 46: In order that he might be a candidate for the tribuneship of the people; it was done late in the evening, at an unusual hour for public business.]

[Footnote 47: Gaul was divided into two provinces, Transalpine, or Gallia Ulterior, and Cisalpina, or Citerior. The Citerior, having nearly the same limits as Lombardy in after times, was properly a part of Italy, occupied by colonists from Gaul, and, having the Rubicon, the ancient boundary of Italy, on the south. It was also called Gallia Togata, from the use of the Roman toga; the inhabitants being, after the social war, admitted to the right of citizens. The Gallia Transalpina, or Ulterior, was called Comata, from the people wearing their hair long, while the Romans wore it short; and the southern part, afterwards called Narbonensis, came to have the epithet Braccata, from the use of the braccae, which were no part of the Roman dress. Some writers suppose the braccae to have been breeches, but Aldus, in a short disquisition on the subject, affirms that they were a kind of upper dress. And this opinion seems to be countenanced by the name braccan being applied by the modern Celtic nations, the descendants of the Gallic Celts, to signify their upper garment, or plaid.]

[Footnote 48: Alluding, probably, to certain scandals of a gross character which were rife against Caesar. See before, c. ii. (p. 2) and see also c. xlix.]

[Footnote 49: So called from the feathers on their helmets, resembling the crest of a lark; Alauda, Fr. Alouette.]

[Footnote 50: Days appointed by the senate for public thanksgiving in the temples in the name of a victorious general, who had in the decrees the title of emperor, by which they were saluted by the legions.]

[Footnote 51: A.U.C. 702.]

[Footnote 52: Aurelia.]

[Footnote 53: Julia, the wife of Pompey, who died in childbirth.]

[Footnote 54: Conquest had so multiplied business at Rome, that the Roman Forum became too little for transacting it, and could not be enlarged without clearing away the buildings with which it was surrounded. Hence the enormous sum which its site is said to have cost, amounting, it is calculated, to 809,291 pounds of our money. It stood near the old forum, behind the temple of Romulus and Remus, but not a vestige of it remains.]

[Footnote 55: Comum was a town of the Orobii, of ancient standing, and formerly powerful. Julius Caesar added to it five thousand new colonists; whence it was generally called Novocomum. But in time it recovered its ancient name, Comum; Pliny the younger, who was a native of this place, calling it by no other name.]

[Footnote 56: A.U.C. 705.]

[Footnote 57: Eiper gar adikein chrae, tyrannidos peri Kalliston adikein talla de eusebein chreon. --Eurip. Phoeniss. Act II, where Eteocles aspires to become the tyrant of Thebes.]

[Footnote 58: Now the Pisatello; near Rimini. There was a very ancient law of the republic, forbidding any general, returning from the wars, to cross the Rubicon with his troops under arms.]

[Footnote 59: The ring was worn on the finger next to the little finger of the left hand.]

[Footnote 60: Suetonius here accounts for the mistake of the soldiers with great probability. The class to which they imagined they were to be promoted, was that of the equites, or knights, who wore a gold ring, and were possessed of property to the amount stated in the text. Great as was the liberality of Caesar to his legions, the performance of this imaginary promise was beyond all reasonable expectation.]

[Footnote 61: A.U.C. 706.]

[Footnote 62: Elephants were first introduced at Rome by Pompey the Great, in his African triumph.]

[Footnote 63: VENI, VIDI, VICI.]

[Footnote 64: A.U.C. 708.]

[Footnote 65: Gladiators were first publicly exhibited at Rome by two brothers called Bruti, at the funeral of their father, A.U.C. 490; and for some time they were exhibited only on such occasions. But afterwards they were also employed by the magistrates, to entertain the people,

## particularly at the Saturnalia, and feasts of Minerva. These cruel

spectacles were prohibited by Constantine, but not entirely suppressed until the time of Honorius.]

[Footnote 66: The Circensian games were shews exhibited in the Circus Maximus, and consisted of various kinds: first, chariot and horse-races, of which the Romans were extravagantly fond. The charioteers were distributed into four parties, distinguished by the colour of their dress. The spectators, without regarding the speed of the horses, or the skill of the men, were attracted merely by one or the other of the colours, as caprice inclined them. In the time of Justinian, no less than thirty thousand men lost their lives at Constantinople, in a tumult raised by a contention amongst the partizans of the several colours. Secondly, contests of agility and strength; of which there were five kinds, hence called Pentathlum. These were, running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, and throwing the discus or quoit. Thirdly, Ludus Trojae, a mock-fight, performed by young noblemen on horseback, revived by Julius Caesar, and frequently celebrated by the succeeding emperors. We meet with a description of it in the fifth book of the Aeneid, beginning with the following lines:

Incedunt pueri, pariterque ante ora parentum Fraenatis lucent in equis: quos omnis euntes Trinacriae mirata fremit Trojaeque juventus.

Fourthly, Venatio, which was the fighting of wild beasts with one another, or with men called Bestiarii, who were either forced to the combat by way of punishment, as the primitive Christians were, or fought voluntarily, either from a natural ferocity of disposition, or induced by hire. An incredible number of animals of various kinds were brought from all quarters, at a prodigious expense, for the entertainment of the people. Pompey, in his second consulship, exhibited at once five hundred lions, which were all dispatched in five days; also eighteen elephants. Fifthly the representation of a horse and foot battle, with that of an encampment or a siege. Sixthly, the representation of a sea-fight (Naumachia), which was at first made in the Circus Maximus, but afterwards elsewhere. The combatants were usually captives or condemned malefactors, who fought to death, unless saved by the clemency of the emperor. If any thing unlucky happened at the games, they were renewed, and often more than once.]

[Footnote 67: A meadow beyond the Tiber, in which an excavation was made, supplied with water from the river.]

[Footnote 68: Julius Caesar was assisted by Sosigenes, an Egyptian philosopher, in correcting the calendar. For this purpose he introduced an additional day every fourth year, making February to consist of twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight, and, of course, the whole year to consist of three hundred and sixty-six days. The fourth year was denominated Bissextile, or leap year, because the sixth day before the calends, or first of March, was reckoned twice.

The Julian year was introduced throughout the Roman empire, and continued in general use till the year 1582. But the true correction was not six hours, but five hours, forty-nine minutes; hence the addition was too great by eleven minutes. This small fraction would amount in one hundred years to three-fourths of a day, and in a thousand years to more than seven days. It had, in fact, amounted, since the Julian correction, in 1582, to more than seven days. Pope Gregory XIII., therefore, again reformed the calendar, first bringing forward the year ten days, by reckoning the 5th of October the 15th, and then prescribing the rule which has gradually been adopted throughout Christendom, except in Russia, and the Greek church generally.]

[Footnote 69: Principally Carthage and Corinth.]

[Footnote 70: The Latus Clavus was a broad stripe of purple, on the front of the toga. Its width distinguished it from that of the knights, who wore it narrow.]

[Footnote 71: The Suburra lay between the Celian and Esquiline hills. It was one of the most frequented quarters of Rome.]

[Footnote 72: Bede, quoting Solinus, we believe, says that excellent pearls were found in the British seas, and that they were of all colours, but principally white. Eccl. Hist. b. i. c. 1.]

[Footnote 73: --------Bithynia quicquid Et predicator Caesaris unquam habuit.]

[Footnote 74: Gallias Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem; Ecce Caesar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias: Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Caesarem.]

[Footnote 75: Aegisthus, who, like Caesar, was a pontiff, debauched Clytemnestra while Agamemnon was engaged in the Trojan war, as Caesar did Mucia, the wife of Pompey, while absent in the war against Mithridates.]

[Footnote 76: A double entendre; Tertia signifying the third of the value of the farm, as well as being the name of the girl, for whose favours the deduction was made.]

[Footnote 77: Urbani, servate uxores; moechum calvum adducimus: Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.]

[Footnote 78: Plutarch tells us that the oil was used in a dish of asparagus. Every traveller knows that in those climates oil takes the place of butter as an ingredient in cookery, and it needs no experience to fancy what it is when rancid.]

[Footnote 79: Meritoria rheda; a light four-wheeled carriage, apparently hired either for the journey or from town to town. They were tolerably commodious, for Cicero writes to Atticus, (v. 17.) Hanc epistolam dictavi sedens in rheda, cum in castra proficiscerer.]

[Footnote 80: Plutarch informs us that Caesar travelled with such expedition, that he reached the Rhone on the eighth day after he left Rome.]

[Footnote 81: Caesar tells us himself that he employed C. Volusenus to reconnoitre the coast of Britain, sending him forward in a long ship, with orders to return and make his report before the expedition sailed.]

[Footnote 82: Religione; that is, the omens being unfavourable.]

[Footnote 83: The standard of the Roman legions was an eagle fixed on the head of a spear. It was silver, small in size, with expanded wings, and clutching a golden thunderbolt in its claw.]

[Footnote 84: To save them from the torture of a lingering death.]

[Footnote 85: Now Lerida, in Catalonia.]

[Footnote 86: The title of emperor was not new in Roman history; 1. It was sometimes given by the acclamations of the soldiers to those who commanded them. 2. It was synonymous with conqueror, and the troops hailed him by that title after a victory. In both these cases it was merely titular, and not permanent, and was generally written after the proper name, as Cicero imperator, Lentulo imperatore. 3. It assumed a permanent and royal character first in the person of Julius Caesar, and was then generally prefixed to the emperor's name in inscriptions, as IMP. CAESAR. DIVI. etc.]

[Footnote 87: Cicero was the first who received the honour of being called "Pater patriae."]

[Footnote 88: Statues were placed in the Capitol of each of the seven kings of Rome, to which an eighth was added in honour of Brutus, who expelled the last. The statue of Julius Caesar was afterwards raised near them.]

[Footnote 89: The white fillet was one of the insignia of royalty. Plutarch, on this occasion, uses the expression, diadaemati basiliko, a royal diadem.]

[Footnote 90: The Lupercalia was a festival, celebrated in a place called the Lupercal, in the month of February, in honour of Pan. During the solemnity, the Luperci, or priests of that god, ran up and down the city naked, with only a girdle of goat's skin round their waist, and thongs of the same in their hands; with which they struck those they met,

## particularly married women, who were thence supposed to be rendered

prolific.]

[Footnote 91: Persons appointed to inspect and expound the Sibylline books.]

[Footnote 92: A.U.C. 709.]

[Footnote 93: See before, c. xxii.]

[Footnote 94: This senate-house stood in that part of the Campus Martius which is now the Campo di Fiore, and was attached by Pompey, "spoliis Orientis Onustus," to the magnificent theatre, which he built A.U.C. 698, in his second consulship. His statue, at the foot of which Caesar fell, as Plutarch tells us, was placed in it. We shall find that Augustus caused it to be removed.]

[Footnote 95: The stylus, or graphium, was an iron pen, broad at one end, with a sharp point at the other, used for writing upon waxen tables, the leaves or bark of trees, plates of brass, or lead, etc. For writing upon paper or parchment, the Romans employed a reed, sharpened and split in the point like our pens, called calamus, arundo, or canna. This they dipped in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for ink.]

[Footnote 96: It was customary among the ancients, in great extremities to shroud the face, in order to conceal any symptoms of horror or alarm which the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was drawn round the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in falling, as the Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and legs.]

[Footnote 97: Caesar's dying apostrophe to Brutus is represented in all the editions of Suetonius as uttered in Greek, but with some variations. The words, as here translated, are Kai su ei ekeinon; kai su teknon. The Salmasian manuscript omits the latter clause. Some commentators suppose that the words "my son," were not merely expressive of the difference of age, or former familiarity between them, but an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia, mentioned before (see p. 33). But it appears very improbable that Caesar, who had never before acknowledged Brutus to be his son, should make so unnecessary an avowal, at the moment of his death. Exclusively of this objection, the apostrophe seems too verbose, both for the suddenness and urgency of the occasion. But this is not all. Can we suppose that Caesar, though a perfect master of Greek, would at such a time have expressed himself in that language, rather than in Latin, his familiar tongue, and in which he spoke with peculiar elegance? Upon the whole, the probability is, that the words uttered by Caesar were, Et tu Brute! which, while equally expressive of astonishment with the other version, and even of tenderness, are both more natural, and more emphatic.]

[Footnote 98: Men' me servasse, ut essent qui me perderent?]

[Footnote 99: The Bulla, generally made of gold, was a hollow globe, which boys wore upon their breast, pendant from a string or ribbon put round the neck. The sons of freedmen and poor citizens used globes of leather.]

[Footnote 100: Josephus frequently mentions the benefits conferred on his countrymen by Julius Caesar. Antiq. Jud. xiv. 14, 15, 16.]

[Footnote 101: Appian informs us that it was burnt by the people in their fury, B. c. xi. p. 521.]

[Footnote 102: Suetonius particularly refers to the conspirators, who perished at the battle of Philippi, or in the three years which intervened. The survivors were included in the reconciliation of Augustus, Antony, and Pompey, A.U.C. 715.]

[Footnote 103: Suetonius alludes to Brutus and Cassius, of whom this is related by Plutarch and Dio.]

[Footnote 104: For observations on Dr. Thomson's Essays appended to Suetonius's History of Julius Caesar, and the succeeding Emperors, see the Preface to this volume.]

[Footnote 105: He who has a devoted admiration of Cicero, may be sure that he has made no slight proficiency himself.]

[Footnote 106: A town in the ancient Volscian territory, now called Veletra. It stands on the verge of the Pontine Marshes, on the road to Naples.]

[Footnote 107: Thurium was a territory in Magna Graecia, on the coast, near Tarentum.]

[Footnote 108: Argentarius; a banker, one who dealt in exchanging money, as well as lent his own funds at interest to borrowers. As a class, they possessed great wealth, and were persons of consideration in Rome at this period.]

[Footnote 109: Now Laricia, or Riccia, a town of the Campagna di Roma, on the Appian Way, about ten miles from Rome.]

[Footnote 110: A.U.C. 691. A.C. (before Christ) 61.]

[Footnote 111: The Palatine hill was not only the first seat of the colony of Romulus, but gave its name to the first and principal of the four regions into which the city was divided, from the time of Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, to that of Augustus; the others being the Suburra, Esquilina, and Collina.]

[Footnote 112: There were seven streets or quarters in the Palatine region, one of which was called "Ad Capita Bubula," either from the butchers' stalls at which ox-heads are hung up for sale, or from their being sculptured on some edifice. Thus the remains of a fortification near the tomb of Cecilia Metella are now called Capo di Bove, from the arms of the Gaetani family over the gate.]

[Footnote 113: Adrian, to whom Suetonius was secretary.]

[Footnote 114: Augusto augurio postquam inclyta condita Roma est.]

[Footnote 115: A.U.C. 711.]

[Footnote 116: A.U.C. 712.]

[Footnote 117: After being defeated in the second engagement, Brutus retired to a hill, and slew himself in the night.]

[Footnote 118: The triumvir. There were three distinguished brothers of the name of Antony; Mark, the consul; Caius, who was praetor; and Lucius, a tribune of the people.]