Book xiv

. of the Metamorphoses.]

[Footnote 937: Day on which.--Ver. 257. He alluded to a festival celebrated by the servants, on the Caprotine Nones, the seventh of July, when they sacrificed to 'Juno Caprotina.' Macrobius says that the servants sacrificed to Juno under a wild fig-tree (called 'caprificus'), in memory of the service done by the female slaves, in exposing themselves to the lust ot the enemy, for the public welfare. The Gauls being driven from the city, the neighbouring nations chose the Dictator of the Fidenates for their chief, and, marching to Rome, demanded of the Senate, that if they would save their city, they should send out to them their wives and daughters The Senate, knowing their own weakness, were much perplexed, when a handmaid, named 'Tutela,' or 'Philotis,' offered, with some others, to go out to the enemy in disguise. Being, accordingly, dressed like free women, they repaired in tears to the camp of the enemy. They soon induced their new acquaintances to drink, on the pretence that they were bound to consider the day as a festival; and when intoxicated, a signal was giver, from a fig tree near, that the Romans should fall on them. The camp of the enemy was assailed, and most of them were slain. In return for their service, the female, slaves were made free, and received marriage portion? at the public expense. Another account, agreeing with the present passage, says, that the Gauls were the enemy who made the demand, and that Retana was the name of the female slave.]

[Footnote 938: The lower classes.--Ver. 259. Witness his own appeals in the Amores to Napè, Cypassis. Bagous, and the porter.]

[Footnote 939: In the Sacred Street.'--Ver. 266. Presents of game and trout very often follow a similar devolution at the present day.]

[Footnote 940: Amaryllis was so fond of.--Ver. 267. He alludes to a line of Virgil, which, doubtless, was then well known to all persons of education. It occurs in the Eclogues: 'Castaneasque nuces, mea quas Amaryllis amabat.' 'Chesnuts, too, which my Amaryllis was so fond of.' In the next line, he hints that the damsels of his day were too greedy to be satisfied with chesnuts only.]

[Footnote 941: Thrush and a pigeon.--Ver. 269. Probably live birds of the kind are here alluded to; Pliny tells us that they were trained to imitate the human voice. Thrushes were much esteemed as a delicacy for the table. They were sold tied up in clusters, in the shape of a crown.]

[Footnote 942: By these means.--Ver. 271. He alludes to those who continued to slip into dead men's shoes, by making trifling presents of niceties. Juvenal inveighs against this practice.]

[Footnote 943: Poetry does not.--Ver. 274. See the remarks of Dipsas in the Amores, Book i . El. viii. 1. 57.]

[Footnote 944: Only rich.--Ver. 276. See the Amores, Book iii . El. ii.]

[Footnote 945: Tyrian hue.--Ver. 297. See the Fasti,