[Footnote 668: This was of course a gentile name. The name Soranus
should be Seranus or Serranus.]
[Footnote 669: C. Lælius, the friend of the elder Scipio Africanus, is
probably meant.]
[Footnote 670: The history of this insurrection of Spartacus is told
in the Life of Crassus, c. 8, &c. As to Gellius, see the Life of
Crassus, c. 9.]
[Footnote 671: Nomenclators, literally, "persons who called or
addressed others by name," were slaves and sometimes perhaps other
persons, whose business it was to know every man's name, to attend a
candidate in his canvass, and to inform him of the names of those whom
he was going to address, in order that he might appear to be
acquainted with them; for in accordance with a feeling, which all men
have in some degree, a desire to be known, a voter was pleased to find
himself addressed by a candidate as if his face and name were
familiar. This kind of notice from people who are above another in
rank and station is peculiarly gratifying to those who are conscious
that they have no real merit, and the pleasure which such attention
gives to those who receive it is the exact measure of their own real
opinion of their insignificance. I say their real opinion, for such
persons have a true opinion of themselves, though they attempt to
conceal it from themselves, and also to conceal it from others, in
neither of which attempts are they quite successful. It makes no
difference if a man knows that the great man who affects to know him
really does not know him, for he knows that the great man does not
know everybody and cares for very few; but the mere pretence of
knowing, the mere show of knowing and recognising, which the great man
assumes, he is willing to take for what he knows that it is not, a
mark of respect; and mainly, that others, as he hopes, may be deceived
by the false appearance, and take him to be what he knows that he is
not.