Part 56

[Footnote 553: The Allobroges were a tribe of Gauls, inhabiting Dauphiny and Savoy; the Arverni have left their name in Auvergne.]

[Footnote 554: A.U.C. 695.]

[Footnote 555: A.U.C. 700.]

[Footnote 556: A.U.C. 711.]

[Footnote 557: A.U.C. 723.]

[Footnote 558: Nais seems to have been a freedwoman, who had been allowed to adopt the family name of her master.]

[Footnote 559: By one of those fictions of law, which have abounded in all systems of jurisprudence, a nominal alienation of his property was made in the testator's life-time.]

[Footnote 560: The suggestion offered (note, p. 123), that the Argentarii, like the goldsmiths of the middle ages, combined the business of bankers, or money-changers, with dealings in gold and silver plate, is confirmed by this passage. It does not, however, appear that they were artificers of the precious metals, though they dealt in old and current coins, sculptured vessels, gems, and precious stones.]

[Footnote 561: Pyrgi was a town of the ancient Etruria, near Antium, on the sea-coast, but it has long been destroyed.]

[Footnote 562: A.U.C. 791; A.D. 39.]

[Footnote 563: The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Romans, in the case of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. The customs of the Judaical law were similar. See Matt. i. 59-63; Luke iii. 21. 22.]

[Footnote 564: A.U.C. 806.]

[Footnote 565: Seneca, the celebrated philosophical writer, had been released from exile in Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards fell a sacrifice to the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero.]

[Footnote 566: Caligula.]

[Footnote 567: A.U.C. 809--A.D. 57.]

[Footnote 568: Antium, the birth-place of Nero, an ancient city of the Volscians, stood on a rocky promontory of the coast, now called Capo d' Anzo, about thirty-eight miles from Rome. Though always a place of some naval importance, it was indebted to Nero for its noble harbour. The ruins of the moles yet remain; and there are vestiges of the temples and villas of the town, which was the resort of the wealthy Romans, it being a most delightful winter residence. The Apollo Belvidere was discovered among these ruins.]

[Footnote 569: A.U.C. 810.]

[Footnote 570: The Podium was part of the amphitheatre, near the orchestra, allotted to the senators, and the ambassadors of foreign nations; and where also was the seat of the emperor, of the person who exhibited the games, and of the Vestal Virgins. It projected over the wall which surrounded the area of the amphitheatre, and was raised between twelve and fifteen feet above it; secured with a breast-work or parapet against the irruption of wild beasts.]

[Footnote 571: A.U.C. 813.]

[Footnote 572: The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, probably, incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander Severus; but no vestige of them remains. That the former were magnificent, we may infer from the verses of Martial:

--------Quid Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis.--B. vii. ch. 34.

What worse than Nero? What better than his baths?]

[Footnote 573: Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the beard was marked with particular ceremony. It was usually in their twenty-first year, but the period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved at twenty; Augustus at twenty-five.]

[Footnote 574: A.U.C. 819. See afterwards, c. xxx.]

[Footnote 575: A.U.C. 808, 810, 811, 813.]

[Footnote 576: The Sportulae were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money were carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public entertainments at which food was distributed, or money given in lieu of it.]

[Footnote 577: "Superstitionis novae et maleficae," are the words of Suetonius; the latter conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas relates that a certain martyr cried out from his dungeon--"Ye have loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer and profane person." Tacitus calls the Christian religion "a foreign and deadly [Footnote exitiabilis: superstition," Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, "a depraved, wicked (or prava), and outrageous superstition." Epist. x. 97.]

Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the Roman Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the derision of the people; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn to pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were crucified, or condemned to be burnt; and at night-fall served in place of lamps to lighten the darkness, Nero's own gardens being used for the spectacle. Annal. xv. 44.

Traditions of the church place the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, under the reign of Nero. The legends are given by Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 206, etc., with the notes and reference to the apocryphal works on which they are founded.]

[Footnote 578: Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. See c. xvii. of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius Paulinus, attacked Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and extirpated them with great cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who inhabited Derbyshire, were probably the cause of Nero's wishing to withdraw the legions; she having reduced London, Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy thousand of the Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length defeated by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit. Agric. xv. 1, xvi. 1; and Annal. xiv. 29.]

[Footnote 579: The dominions of Cottius embraced the vallies in the chain of the Alps extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Romans the Cottian Alps. See TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

[Footnote 580: It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the circumnavigation of the southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan, which, even in our days, has its perils. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xliv. and CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

[Footnote 581: Caspiae Portae; so called from the difficulties opposed by the narrow and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the country washed by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between the Caspian and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of Teflis, and is frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and the Circassian tribes.]

[Footnote 582: Citharoedus: the word signifies a vocalist, who with his singing gave an accompaniment on the harp.]

[Footnote 583: It has been already observed that Naples was a Greek colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular tongue.]

[Footnote 584: See AUGUSTUS, c. xcviii.]

[Footnote 585: Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees; the second from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs; and the third from the tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together.]

[Footnote 586: Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous intercourse with her brother having been detected, in consequence of the cries of the infant of which she was delivered, she killed herself. It was a joke at Rome, that some one asking, when Nero was performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied. "He is labouring in child-birth."]

[Footnote 587: A town in Corcyra, now Corfu. There was a sea-port of the same name in Epirus.]

[Footnote 588: The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by Suetonius, was so called because it was the largest of all the circuses in and about Rome. Rudely constructed of timber by Tarquinius Drusus, and enlarged and improved with the growing fortunes of the republic, under the emperors it became a most superb building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, and surrounded it with a canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to protect the spectators against danger from the chariots during the races. Claudius (c. xxi.) rebuilt the carceres with marble, and gilded the metae. This vast centre of attraction to the Roman people, in the games of which religion, politics, and amusement, were combined, was, according to Pliny, three stadia (of 625 feet) long, and one broad, and held 260,000 spectators; so that Juvenal says,

"Totam hodie Romam circus capit."--Sat. xi. 195.

This poetical exaggeration is applied by Addison to the Colosseum.

"That on its public shews unpeopled Rome."--Letter to Lord Halifax.

The area of the Circus Maximus occupied the hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills, so that it was overlooked by the imperial palace, from which the emperors had so full a view of it, that they could from that height give the signals for commencing the races. Few fragments of it remain; but from the circus of Caracalla, which is better preserved, a tolerably good idea of the ancient circus may be formed. For details of its parts, and the mode in which the sports were conducted, see Burton's Antiquities, p. 309, etc.]

[Footnote 589: The Velabrum was a street in Rome. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xxxvii.]

[Footnote 590: Acte was a slave who had been bought in Asia, whose beauty so captivated Nero that he redeemed her, and became greatly attached to her. She is supposed to be the concubine of Nero mentioned by St. Chrysostom, as having been converted by St. Paul during his residence at Rome. The Apostle speaks of the "Saints in Caesar's household."--Phil. iv. 22.]

[Footnote 591: See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 37.]

[Footnote 592: A much-frequented street in Rome. See CLAUDIUS, c. xvi.]

[Footnote 593: It is said that the advances were made by Agrippina, with flagrant indecency, to secure her power over him. See Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 594: Olim etiam, quoties lectica cum matre veheretur, libidinatum inceste, ac maculis vestis proditum, affirmant.]

[Footnote 595: Tacitus calls him Pythagoras, which was probably the freedman's proper name; Doryphorus being a name of office somewhat equivalent to almoner. See Annal. B. xv.]

[Footnote 596: The emperor Caligula, who was the brother of Nero's mother, Agrippina.]

[Footnote 597: See before, c. xiii. Tiridates was nine months in Rome or the neighbourhood, and was entertained the whole time at the emperor's expense.]

[Footnote 598: Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of the river Aufidus, celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by Pliny, and retained its reputation for the manufacture in the middle ages, as we find in Ordericus Vitalis.]

[Footnote 599: The Mazacans were an African tribe from the deserts in the interior, famous for their spirited barbs, their powers of endurance, and their skill in throwing the dart.]

[Footnote 600: The Palace of the Caesars, on the Palatine hill, was enlarged by Augustus from the dimensions of a private house (see AUGUSTUS, cc. xxix., lvii.). Tiberius made some additions to it, and Caligula extended it to the Forum (CALIGULA, c. xxxi.). Tacitus gives a similar account with that of our author of the extent and splendour of the works of Nero. Annal. xv. c. xlii. Reaching from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, it covered all the intermediate space, where the Colosseum now stands. We shall find that it was still further enlarged by Domitian, c. xv. of his life is the present work.]

[Footnote 601: The penates were worshipped in the innermost part of the house, which was called penetralia. There were likewise publici penates, worshipped in the Capitol, and supposed to be the guardians of the city and temples. Some have thought that the lares and penates were the same; and they appear to be sometimes confounded. They were, however, different. The penates were reputed to be of divine origin; the lares, of human. Certain persons were admitted to the worship of the lares, who were not to that of the penates. The latter, as has been already said, were worshipped only in the innermost part of the house, but the former also in the public roads, in the camp, and on sea.]

[Footnote 602: A play upon the Greek word moros, signifying a fool, while the Latin morari, from moror, means "to dwell," or "continue."]

[Footnote 603: A small port between the gulf of Baiae and cape Misenum.]

[Footnote 604: From whence the "Procul, O procul este profani!" of the poet; a warning which was transferred to the Christian mysteries.]

[Footnote 605: See before, c. xii.]

[Footnote 606: Statilius Taurus; who lived in the time of Augustus, and built the amphitheatre called after his name. AUGUSTUS, c. xxiv. He is mentioned by Horace, Epist. i. v. 4.]

[Footnote 607: Octavia was first sent away to Campania, under a guard of soldiers, and after being recalled, in consequence of the remonstrances of the people, by whom she was beloved, Nero banished her to the island of Pandataria.]

[Footnote 608: A.U.C. 813.]

[Footnote 609: Seneca was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Caius Piso. Tacitus furnishes some interesting details of the circumstances under which the philosopher calmly submitted to his fate, which was announced to him when at supper with his friends, at his villa, near Rome.--Tacitus, b. xiv. xv.]

[Footnote 610: This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which Claudius died, is described by Seneca, Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and xix. and by Pliny, II. c. xxv.]

[Footnote 611: See Tacitus, Annal. xv. 49-55.]

[Footnote 612: The sixteenth book of Tacitus, which would probably have given an account of the Vinician conspiracy, is lost. It is shortly noticed by Plutarch.]

[Footnote 613: See before, c. xix.]

[Footnote 614: This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the beginning of August, A.U.C. 816, A.D. 64. It was imputed to the Christians, and drew on them the persecutions mentioned in c. xvi., and the note.]

[Footnote 615: The revolt in Britain broke out A.U.C. 813. Xiphilinus (lxii. p. 701) attributes it to the severity of the confiscations with which the repayment of large sums of money advanced to the Britons by the emperor Claudius, and also by Seneca, was exacted. Tacitus adds another cause, the insupportable tyranny and avarice of the centurions and soldiers. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had named the emperor his heir. His widow Boadicea and her daughters were shamefully used, his kinsmen reduced to slavery, and his whole territory ravaged; upon which the Britons flew to arms. See c. xviii., and the note.]

[Footnote 616: Neonymphon; alluding to Nero's unnatural nuptials with Sporus or Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be neonymphos.]

[Footnote 617: "Sustulit" has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away, and put out of the way.]

[Footnote 618: The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean; as the god of war, Ekataebaletaes.]

[Footnote 619: Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up all Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from Rome, was originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs us, (lib. ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate survey of the ruins of Veii, in Gell's admirable TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS VICINITY, p. 436, of Bohn's Edition.]

[Footnote 620: Suetonius calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription as AURELIUS ANTONINUS PIUS AUG. BRIT. (his latest title). On the reverse is the organ; an oblong chest with the pipes above, and a draped figure on each side.]

[Footnote 621: A fine sand from the Nile, similar to puzzuclano, which was strewed on the stadium; the wrestlers also rolled in it, when their bodies were slippery with oil or perspiration.]

[Footnote 622: The words on the ticket about the emperor's neck, are supposed, by a prosopopea, to be spoken by him. The reply is Agrippina's, or the people's. It alludes to the punishment due to him for his parricide. By the Roman law, a person who had murdered a parent or any near relation, after being severely scourged, was sewed up in a sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then thrown into the sea, or a deep river.]

[Footnote 623: Gallos, which signifies both cocks and Gauls.]

[Footnote 624: Vindex, it need hardly be observed, was the name of the propraetor who had set up the standard of rebellion in Gaul. The word also signifies an avenger of wrongs, redresser of grievances; hence vindicate, vindictive, etc.]

[Footnote 625: Aen. xii. 646.]

[Footnote 626: The Via Salaria was so called from the Sabines using it to fetch salt from the coast. It led from Rome to the northward, near the gardens of Sallust, by a gate of the same name, called also Quirinalis, Agonalis, and Collina. It was here that Alaric entered.]

[Footnote 627: The Via Nomentana, so named because it led to the Sabine town of Nomentum, joined the Via Salara at Heretum on the Tiber. It was also called Ficulnensis. It entered Rome by the Porta Viminalis, now called Porta Pia. It was by this road that Hannibal approached the walls of Rome. The country-house of Nero's freedman, where he ended his days, stood near the Anio, beyond the present church of St. Agnese, where there was a villa of the Spada family, belonging now, we believe, to Torlonia.]

[Footnote 628: This description is no less exact than vivid. It was easy for Nero to gain the nearest gate, the Nomentan, from the Esquiline quarter of the palace, without much observation; and on issuing from it (after midnight, it appears), the fugitives would have the pretorian camp so close on their right hand, that they might well hear the shouts of the soldiers.]

[Footnote 629: Decocta. Pliny informs us that Nero had the water he drank, boiled, to clear it from impurities, and then cooled with ice.]

[Footnote 630: Wood, to warm the water for washing the corpse, and for the funeral pile,]

[Footnote 631: This burst of passion was uttered in Greek, the rest was spoken in Latin. Both were in familiar use. The mixture, perhaps, betrays the disturbed state of Nero's mind.]

[Footnote 632: II. x. 535.]

[Footnote 633: Collis Hortulorum; which was afterwards called the Pincian Hill, from a family of that name, who flourished under the lower empire. In the time of the Caesars it was occupied by the gardens and villas of the wealthy and luxurious; among which those of Sallust are celebrated. Some of the finest statues have been found in the ruins; among others, that of the "Dying Gladiator." The situation was airy and healthful, commanding fine views, and it is still the most agreeable neighbourhood in Rome.]

[Footnote 634: Antiquarians suppose that some relics of the sepulchre of the Domitian family, in which the ashes of Nero were deposited, are preserved in the city wall which Aurelian, when he extended its circuit, carried across the "Collis Hortulorum." Those ancient remains, declining from the perpendicular, are called the Muro Torto.--The Lunan marble was brought from quarries near a town of that name, in Etruria. It no longer exists, but stood on the coast of what is now called the gulf of Spezzia.--Thasos, an island in the Archipelago, was one of the Cyclades. It produced a grey marble, much veined, but not in great repute.]

[Footnote 635: See c. x1i.]

[Footnote 636: The Syrian Goddess is supposed to have been Semiramis deified. Her rites are mentioned by Florus, Apuleius, and Lucian.]

[Footnote 637: A.U.C. 821--A.D. 69.]

[Footnote 638: We have here one of the incidental notices which are so valuable in an historian, as connecting him with the times of which he writes. See also just before, c. lii.]

[Footnote 639: Veii; see the note, NERO, c. xxxix.]

[Footnote 640: The conventional term for what is most commonly known as,

"The Laurel, meed of mighty conquerors, And poets sage,"--Spenser's Faerie Queen.

is retained throughout the translation. But the tree or shrub which had this distinction among the ancients, the Laurus nobilis of botany, the Daphne of the Greeks, is the bay-tree, indigenous in Italy, Greece, and the East, and introduced into England about 1562. Our laurel is a plant of a very different tribe, the Prunes lauro-cerasus, a native of the Levant and the Crimea, acclimated in England at a later period than the bay.]

[Footnote 641: The Temple of the Caesars is generally supposed to be that dedicated by Julius Caesar to Venus genitrix, from whom the Julian family pretended to derive their descent. See JULIUS, c. lxi.; AUGUSTUS, c. ci.]

[Footnote 642: A.U.C. 821.]

[Footnote 643: The Atrium, or Aula, was the court or hall of a house, the entrance to which was by the principal door. It appears to have been a large oblong square, surrounded with covered or arched galleries. Three sides of the Atrium were supported by pillars, which, in later times, were marble. The side opposite to the gate was called Tablinum; and the other two sides, Alae. The Tablinum contained books, and the records of what each member of the family had done in his magistracy. In the Atrium the nuptial couch was erected; and here the mistress of the family, with her maid-servants, wrought at spinning and weaving, which, in the time of the ancient Romans, was their principal employment.]

[Footnote 644: He was consul with L. Aurelius Cotta, A.U.C. 610.]

[Footnote 645: A.U.C. 604.]

[Footnote 646: A.U.C. 710.]

[Footnote 647: A.U.C 775.]

[Footnote 648: A.U.C. 608.]

[Footnote 649: Caius Sulpicius Galba, the emperor's brother, had been consul A.U.C. 774.]

[Footnote 650: A.U.C. 751.]

[Footnote 651: Now Fondi, which, with Terracina, still bearing its original name, lie on the road to Naples. See TIBERIUS, cc. v. and xxxix.]

[Footnote 652: Livia Ocellina, mentioned just before.]

[Footnote 653: A.U.C. 751.]

[Footnote 654: The widow of the emperor Augustus.]

[Footnote 655: Suetonius seems to have forgotten, that, according to his own testimony, this legacy, as well as those left by Tiberius, was paid by Caligula. "Legata ex testamento Tiberii; quamquam abolito, sed et Juliae Augustae, quod Tiberius suppresserat, cum fide, ac sine calumnia repraesentate persolvit." CALIG. c. xvi.]

[Footnote 656: A.U.C. 786.]

[Footnote 657: Caius Caesar Caligula. He gave the command of the legions in Germany to Galba.]

[Footnote 658: "Scuto moderatus;" another reading in the parallel passage of Tacitus is scuto immodice oneratus, burdened with the heavy weight of a shield.]

[Footnote 659: It would appear that Galba was to have accompanied Claudius in his expedition to Britain; which is related before, CLAUDIUS, c. xvii.]

[Footnote 660: It has been remarked before, that the Cantabria of the ancients is now the province of Biscay.]

[Footnote 661: Now Carthagena.]

[Footnote 662: A.U.C. 821.]

[Footnote 663: Now Corunna.]

[Footnote 664: Tortosa, on the Ebro.]

[Footnote 665: "Simus," literally, fiat-nosed, was a cant word, used for a clown; Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long retirement. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain his farm.]

[Footnote 666: The command of the pretorian guards.]

[Footnote 667: In the Forum. See AUGUSTUS, c. lvii.]

[Footnote 668: II. v. 254.]

[Footnote 669: A.U.C. 822.]

[Footnote 670: On the esplanade, where the standards, objects of religious reverence, were planted. See note to c. vi. Criminals were usually executed outside the Vallum, and in the presence of a centurion.]

[Footnote 671: Probably one of the two mentioned in CLAUDIUS, c. xiii.]

[Footnote 672: A.U.C. 784 or 785.]

[Footnote 673: "Distento sago impositum in sublime jactare."]