Quintus Claudius, Volume 1

Knight’s portion. 400,000 sesterces.

368

A large four-wheeled chariot. Allusion is here made to the rheda (the travelling-coach) or the carruca (a comfortable, nay, magnificent equipage).

369

Cisium. Such two-wheeled cabriolets were principally used when the greatest speed was desired. (See Cic., Rosc.: cisiis pervolavit)

370

Loaded with provisions. Aristocratic Romans, even on short journeys, carried a large quantity of baggage, principally table furniture and provisions, for the taverns so often mentioned were intended exclusively for the lower classes.

371

Ficana..A small town half-way between Ostia and Rome.

372

Thessalian hat. This was worn principally in travelling. Thessalia was the name given to the eastern part of northern Greece.

373

Utica. A city on the coast of the province of Africa, north of Tunis.

374

Nicopolis. A city of Epirus, at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf, opposite Actium.

375

Pandataria. An island in the Tyrrhenian sea, opposite to the Gulf of Gaeta.

376

Sinuessa. A city on the Gulf of Gaeta.

377

The water-clock (clepsydra) served as a measure of time, especially in affairs connected with the administration of justice. A water-clock usually ran about twenty minutes.

378

Peponilla, the wife of Julius Sabinus, who had incited an unsuccessful insurrection in Gaul, lived for nine years with her husband in a subterranean cave, always hoping the emperor would pardon the hunted man. But Vespasian was inexorable, and when Julius Sabinus was discovered, condemned not only him, but his faithful wife, to death. See Dio Cass. LXIV, 16. In Tacitus (Hist. IV, 67) she is called Epponina, in Plutarch (Dial. de amicit, 25,) Empona.

379

Thule (Θούλη) an island in the German ocean, was the moat extreme northern point of the earth known in those days. See Tac. Agr. X., Virg. Geog. I. 30. It it supposed to be what is now called Iceland, or a part of Norway.

380

A cargo of beasts for the centennial games. A catalogue of animals, dating from the time of Gordian III, (238 to 244 A.D.) mentions thirty-two elephants, ten tigers, sixty tame lions, three hundred tame leopards – but only one rhinoceros.

381

Live hares. See Mart. Ep. I, 6, (“the captured hare returning often in safety from the kindly tooth”) 14 (“and running at large through the open jaws,”) 22, 104.

382

Great Pan himself must bless them. Pan, son of Hermes and a daughter of Dryops, or of Zeus and the Arcadian nymph Callisto, etc., etc., is a divinity of the fields and forests. Cneius Afranius here uses the adjective “great” in the sense of “powerful,” "influential," – corresponding with the hyperbolical tone of the rest of his speech. The totally different expression, “the great Pan,” in the sense of a symbolical appellation of the universe, originates in a verbal error, according to which the word Pan is derived from the Greek πᾶς “all” "the whole" while it really comes from πάω (I graze.)

383

My sweet Erotion. A child of this name, who died in early youth, is mentioned by Martial, Ep. V, 34, 37, and X, 61.

Ep. V, 34.

“Ye parents Fronto and Flaccilla here,

To you do I commend my girl, my dear,

Lest pale Erotion tremble at the shades,

And the foul Dog of Hell’s prodigious heads.

Her age fulfilling just six winters was,

Had she but known so many days to pass.

’Mongst you, old patrons, may she sport and play,

And with her lisping tongue my name oft say.

May the smooth turf her soft bones hide, and be

O earth, as light to her, as she to thee!”

Fletcher.

Ep. X, 61.

“Underneath this greedy stone

Lies little sweet Erotion;

Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold,

Nipp’d away at six years old.

Thou, whoever thou mayst be,

That hast this small field after me,

Let the yearly rites be paid

To her little slender shade;

So shall no disease or jar,

Hurt thy house, or chill thy Lar;

But this tomb be here alone

The only melancholy stone.”

Leigh Hunt.

384

Philosopher of Sinope. The well-known Cynic philosopher Diogenes, born at Sinope on the Black Sea, 404. B.C.

385

Faun (from faveo– to be favorable). A god of the fields and woods, akin to the Greek woodland deity, Pan.

386

Dryad. The embodied life-principle of the tree, a tree-nymph.

387

Pannonian lynx. Pannonia, now Hungary. Lynxes were also imported from Gaul.

388

Where you, Caius, are, there will I, Caia, be. An ancient formula, in which the bride vowed faith and obedience to the bridegroom.

389

Zeuxis of Heracleia in Greece, a famous artist, who lived about 397 B.C. His contest with Parrhasius, in which he painted grapes so deceptive, that they lured the birds, is well known.

390

Peripatetics (wanderers.) A name given to Aristotles’ school of philosophers, from its founder’s habit of delivering his lectures, not seated, but walking about.

391

Cabbage Sprouts. In the spring the young cabbage shoots (cimae, prototomi) were eaten, in the summer and autumn the larger stalks (caules cauliculi) see Mart. Ep. V. 78.

392

Cybium (κύβιον). A sort of mayonnaise made of salt tunny-fish, cut into squares. See Mart. Ep. V. 78, where the sliced eggs are not lacking. There were two kinds of leek (porrum:) porrum sectile (chives) and porrum capitatum.