Agrippa also built the temple of Neptune, and the portico of the
Argonauts.
[159] To whatever extent Augustus may have cleared out the bed of the
Tiber, the process of its being encumbered with an alluvium of ruins and
mud has been constantly going on. Not many years ago, a scheme was set
on foot for clearing it by private enterprise, principally for the sake
of the valuable remains of art which it is supposed to contain.
[160] The Via Flaminia was probably undertaken by the censor Caius
Flaminius, and finished by his son of the same name, who was consul
A.U.C. 566, and employed his soldiers in forming it after subduing the
Ligurians. It led from the Flumentan gate, now the Porta del Popolo,
through Etruria and Umbria into the Cisalpine Gaul, ending at Ariminum,
the frontier town of the territories of the republic, now Rimini, on the
Adriatic; and is travelled by every tourist who takes the route, north of
the Appenines, through the States of the Church, to Rome. Every one
knows that the great highways, not only in Italy but in the provinces,
were among the most magnificent and enduring works of the Roman people.
[161] It had formed a sort of honourable retirement in which Lepidus was
shelved, to use a familiar expression, when Augustus got rid of him
quietly from the Triumvirate. Augustus assumed it A.U.C. 740, thus
centring the last of all the great offices of the state in his own
person; that of Pontifex Maximus, being of high importance, from the
sanctity attached to it, and the influence it gave him over the whole
system of religion.
[162] In the thirty-six years since the calendar was corrected by Julius
Caesar, the priests had erroneously intercalated eleven days instead of
nine. See JULIUS, c. xl.
[163] Sextilis, the sixth month, reckoning from March, in which the year
of Romulus commenced.
[164] So Cicero called the day on which he returned from exile, the day
of his "nativity" and his "new birth," paligennesian, a word which had
afterwards a theological sense, from its use in the New Testament.
[165] Capi. There is a peculiar force in the word here adopted by
Suetonius; the form used by the Pontifex Maximus, when he took the novice
from the hand of her father, being Te capio amata, "I have you, my dear,"
implying the forcible breach of former ties, as in the case of a captive
taken in war.
[166] At times when the temple of Janus was shut, and then only, certain
divinations were made, preparatory to solemn supplication for the public
health, "as if," says Dio, "even that could not be implored from the
gods, unless the signs were propitious." It would be an inquiry of some
interest, now that the care of the public health is becoming a department
of the state, with what sanatory measures these becoming solemnities were
attended.
[167] Theophrastus mentions the spring and summer flowers most suited
for these chaplets. Among the former, were hyacinths, roses, and white
violets; among the latter, lychinis, amaryllis, iris, and some species of
lilies.
[168] Ergastulis. These were subterranean strong rooms, with narrow
windows, like dungeons, in the country houses, where incorrigible slaves
were confined in fetters, in the intervals of the severe tasks in
grinding at the hand-mills, quarrying stones, drawing water, and other
hard agricultural labour in which they were employed.
[169] These months were not only "the Long Vacation" of the lawyers, but
during them there was a general cessation of business at Rome; the
calendar exhibiting a constant succession of festivals. The month of
December, in particular, was devoted to pleasure and relaxation.
[170] Causes are mentioned, the hearing of which was so protracted that
lights were required in the court; and sometimes they lasted, we are
told, as long as eleven or twelve days.
[171] Orcini. They were also called Charonites, the point of the
sarcasm being, that they owed their elevation to a dead man, one who was
gone to Orcus, namely Julius Caesar, after whose death Mark Antony
introduced into the senate many persons of low rank who were designated
for that honour in a document left by the deceased emperor.
[172] Cordus Cremutius wrote a History of the Civil Wars, and the Times
of Augustus, as we are informed by Dio, 6, 52.
[173] In front of the orchestra.
[174] The senate usually assembled in one of the temples, and there was
an altar consecrated to some god in the curia, where they otherwise met,
as that to Victory in the Julian Curia.
[175] To allow of their absence during the vintage, always an important
season in rural affairs in wine-growing countries. In the middle and
south of Italy, it begins in September, and, in the worst aspects, the
grapes are generally cleared before the end of October. In elevated
districts they hung on the trees, as we have witnessed, till the month of
November.
[176] Julius Caesar had introduced the contrary practice. See JULIUS,
c. xx.
[177] A.U.C. 312, two magistrates were created, under the name of
Censors, whose office, at first, was to take an account of the number of
the people, and the value of their estates. Power was afterwards granted
them to inspect the morals of the people; and from this period the office
became of great importance. After Sylla, the election of censors was
intermitted for about seventeen years. Under the emperors, the office of
censor was abolished; but the chief functions of it were exercised by the
emperors themselves, and frequently both with caprice and severity.
[178] Young men until they were seventeen years of age, and young women
until they were married, wore a white robe bordered with purple, called
Toga Praetexta. The former, when they had completed this period, laid
aside the dress of minority, and assumed the Toga Virilis, or manly
habit. The ceremony of changing the Toga was performed with great
solemnity before the images of the Lares, to whom the Bulla was
consecrated. On this occasion, they went either to the Capitol, or to
some temple, to pay their devotions to the Gods.
[179] Transvectio: a procession of the equestrian order, which they made
with great splendour through the city, every year, on the fifteenth of
July. They rode on horseback from the temple of Honour, or of Mars,
without the city, to the Capitol, with wreaths of olive on their heads,
dressed in robes of scarlet, and bearing in their hands the military
ornaments which they had received from their general, as a reward of
their valour. The knights rode up to the censor, seated on his curule
chair in front of the Capitol, and dismounting, led their horses in
review before him. If any of the knights was corrupt in his morals, had
diminished his fortune below the legal standard, or even had not taken
proper care of his horse, the censor ordered him to sell his horse, by
which he was considered as degraded from the equestrian order.
[180] Pugillaria were a kind of pocket book, so called, because
memorandums were written or impinged by the styli, on their waxed
surface. They appear to have been of very ancient origin, for we read of
them in Homer under the name of pinokes.--II. z. 169.
Graphas en pinaki ptukto thyrophthora polla.
Writing dire things upon his tablet's roll.
[181] Pullatorum; dusky, either from their dark colour, or their being
soiled. The toga was white, and was the distinguishing costume of the
sovereign people of Rome, without which, they were not to appear in
public; as members of an university are forbidden to do so, without the
academical dress, or officers in garrisons out of their regimentals.
[182] Aen. i. 186.
[183] It is hardly necessary to direct the careful reader's attention to
views of political economy so worthy of an enlightened prince. But it
was easier to make the Roman people wear the toga, than to forego the cry
of "Panem et Circenses."
[184] Septa were enclosures made with boards, commonly for the purpose
of distributing the people into distinct classes, and erected
occasionally like our hustings.
[185] The Thensa was a splendid carriage with four wheels, and four
horses, adorned with ivory and silver, in which, at the Circensian games,
the images of the gods were drawn in solemn procession from their
shrines, to a place in the circus, called the Pulvinar, where couches
were prepared for their reception. It received its name from thongs
(lora tensa) stretched before it; and was attended in the procession by
persons of the first rank, in their most magnificent apparel. The
attendants took delight in putting their hands to the traces: and if a
boy happened to let go the thong which he held, it was an indispensable
rule that the procession should be renewed.
[186] The Cavea was the name of the whole of that part of the theatre
where the spectators sat. The foremost rows were called cavea prima, of
cavea; the last, cavea ultima, or summa; and the middle, cavea media.
[187] A.U.C. 726.
[188] As in the case of Herod, Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xv. 10.
[189] The Adriatic and the Tuscan.
[190] It was first established by Tiberius. See c. xxxvii.
[191] Tertullian, in his Apology, c. 34, makes the same remark. The
word seems to have conveyed then, as it does in its theological sense
now, the idea of Divinity, for it is coupled with Deus, God; nunquum se
dominum vel deum appellare voluerit.
[192] An inclosure in the middle of the Forum, marking the spot where
Curtius leapt into the lake, which had been long since filled up.
[193] Sandalarium, Tragoedum; names of streets, in which temples of tame
gouts stood, as we now say St. Peter, Cornhill, etc.
[194] A coin, in value about 8 3/4 d. of our money.
[195] The senate, as instituted by Romulus, consisted of one hundred
members, who were called Patres, i. e. Fathers, either upon account of
their age, or their paternal care of the state. The number received some
augmentation under Tullus Hostilius; and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth
king of Rome, added a hundred more, who were called Patres minorum
gentium; those created by Romulus being distinguished by the name of
Patres majorum gentium. Those who were chosen into the senate by Brutus,
after the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, to supply the place of those
whom that king had slain, were called Conscripti, i. e. persons written
or enrolled among the old senators, who alone were properly styled
Patres. Hence arose the custom of summoning to the senate those who were
Patres, and those who were Conscripti; and hence also was applied to the
senators in general the designation of Patres Conscripti, the particle
et, and, being understood to connect the two classes of senators. In the
time of Julius Caesar, the number of senators was increased to nine
hundred, and after his death to a thousand; many worthless persons having
been admitted into the senate during the civil wars. Augustus afterwards
reduced the number to six hundred.
[196] Antonius Musa was a freedman, and had acquired his knowledge of
medicine while a domestic slave; a very common occurrence.
[197] A.U.C. 711.
[198] See cc. x. xi. xii. and xiii.
[199] One of them was Scipio, the father of Cornelia, whose death is
lamented by Propertius, iv. 12. The other is unknown.
[200] A.U.C. 715.
[201] He is mentioned by Horace:
Occidit Daci Cotisonis agimen. Ode 8, b. iii.
Most probably Antony knew the imputation to be unfounded, and made it for
the purpose of excusing his own marriage with Cleopatra.
[202] This form of adoption consisted in a fictitious sale. See Cicero,
Topic. iii.
[203] Curiae. Romulus divided the people of Rome into three tribes; and
each tribe into ten Curiae. The number of tribes was afterwards
increased by degrees to thirty-five; but that of the Curiae always
remained the same.
[204] She was removed to Reggio in Calabria.
[205] Agrippa was first banished to the little desolate island of
Planasia, now Pianosa. It is one of the group in the Tuscan sea, between
Elba and Corsica.
[206] A quotation from the Iliad, 40, iii.; where Hector is venting his
rage on Paris. The inflexion is slightly changed, the line in the
original commencing, "Aith' opheles, etc., would thou wert, etc."
[207] Women called ustriculae, the barbers, were employed in thin
delicate operation. It is alluded to by Juvenal, ix. 4, and Martial,
v. 61.
[208] Cybele.--Gallus was either the name of a river in Phrygia,
supposed to cause a certain frenzy in those who drank of its waters, or
the proper name of the first priest of Cybele.
[209] A small drum, beat by the finger or thumb, was used by the priests
of Cybele in their lascivious rites and in other orgies of a similar
description, These drums were made of inflated skin, circular in shape,
so that they had some resemblance to the orb which, in the statues of the
emperor, he is represented as holding in his hand. The populace, with
the coarse humour which was permitted to vent itself freely at the
spectacles, did not hesitate to apply what was said in the play of the
lewd priest of Cybele, to Augustus, in reference to the scandals attached
to his private character. The word cinaedus, translated "wanton," might
have been rendered by a word in vulgar use, the coarsest in the English
language, and there is probably still more in the allusion too indelicate
to be dwelt upon.
[210] Mark Antony makes use of fondling diminutives of the names of
Tertia, Terentia, and Rufa, some of Augustus's favourites.
[211] Dodekatheos; the twelve Dii Majores; they are enumerated in two
verses by Ennius:--
Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars;
Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.
[212] Probably in the Suburra, where Martial informs us that torturing
scourges were sold:
Tonatrix Suburrae faucibus sed et primis,
Cruenta pendent qua flagella tortorum.
Mart. xi. 15, 1.
[213] Like the gold and silver-smiths of the middle ages, the Roman
money-lenders united both trades. See afterwards, NERO, c. 5. It is
hardly necessary to remark that vases or vessels of the compound metal
which went by the name of Corinthian brass, or bronze, were esteemed even
more valuable than silver plate.
[214] See c. xxxii. and note.
[215] The Romans, at their feasts, during the intervals of drinking,
often played at dice, of which there were two kinds, the tesserae and
tali. The former had six sides, like the modern dice; the latter, four
oblong sides, for the two ends were not regarded. In playing, they used
three tesserae and four tali, which were all put into a box wider below
than above, and being shaken, were thrown out upon the gaming-board or
table.
[216] The highest cast was so called.
[217] Enlarged by Tiberius and succeeding emperors. The ruins of the
palace of the Caesars are still seen on the Palatine.
[218] Probably travertine, a soft limestone, from the Alban Mount, which
was, therefore, cheaply procured and easily worked.
[219] It was usual among the Romans to have separate sets of apartments
for summer and winter use, according to their exposure to the sun.
[220] This word may be interpreted the Cabinet of Arts. It was common,
in the houses of the great, among the Romans, to have an apartment called
the Study, or Museum. Pliny says, beautifully, "O mare! O littus! verum
secretumque mouseion, quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis?" O sea!
O shore! Thou real and secluded museum; what treasures of science do you
not discover to us, how much do you teach us!--Epist. i. 9.
[221] Mecaenas had a house and gardens on the Esquiline Hill, celebrated
for their salubrity--
Nunc licet Esquiliis habitore salubribus.--Hor. Sat. i. 3, 14.
[222] Such as Baiae, and the islands of Ischia, Procida, Capri, and
others; the resorts of the opulent nobles, where they had magnificent
marine villas.
[223] Now Tivoli, a delicious spot, where Horace had a villa, in which
he hoped to spend his declining years.
Ver ubi longum, tepidasque praebet
Jupiter brumas: . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . ibi, tu calentem
Debita sparges lachryma favillam
Vatis amici. Odes, B. ii. 5.
Adrian also had a magnificent villa near Tibur.
[224] The Toga was a loose woollen robe, which covered the whole body,
close at the bottom, but open at the top down to the girdle, and without
sleeves. The right arm was thus at liberty, and the left supported a
flap of the toga, which was drawn up, and thrown back over the left
shoulder; forming what is called the Sinus, a fold or cavity upon the
breast, in which things might be carried, and with which the face or head
might be occasionally covered. When a person did any work, he tucked up
his toga, and girt it round him. The toga of the rich and noble was
finer and larger than that of others; and a new toga was called Pexa.
None but Roman citizens were permitted to wear the toga; and banished
persons were prohibited the use of it. The colour of the toga was white.
The clavus was a purple border, by which the senators, and other orders,
with the magistrates, were distinguished; the breadth of the stripe
corresponding with their rank.
[225] In which the whole humour of the thing consisted either in the
uses to which these articles were applied, or in their names having in
Latin a double signification; matters which cannot be explained with any
decency.
[226] Casum bubulum manu pressum; probably soft cheese, not reduced to
solid consistence in the cheese-press.
[227] A species of fig tree, known in some places as Adam's fig. We
have gathered them, in those climates, of the latter crop, as late as the
month of November.
[228] Sabbatis Jejunium. Augustus might have been better informed of
the Jewish rites, from his familiarity with Herod and others; for it is
certain that their sabbath was not a day of fasting. Justin, however,
fell into the same error: he says, that Moses appointed the sabbath-day
to be kept for ever by the Jews as a fast, in memory of their fasting for
seven days in the deserts of Arabia, xxxvi. 2. 14. But we find that
there was a weekly fast among the Jews, which is perhaps what is here
meant; the Sabbatis Jejunium being equivalent to the Naesteuo dis tou
sabbatou, 'I fast twice in the week' of the Pharisee, in St. Luke
xviii. 12.
[229] The Rhaetian wines had a great reputation; Virgil says,
------Ex quo te carmine dicam,
Rhaetica. Georg. ii. 96.
The vineyards lay at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps; their produce, we
have reason to believe, was not a very generous liquor.
[230] A custom in all warm countries; the siesta of the Italians in
later times.
[231] The strigil was used in the baths for scraping the body when in a
state of perspiration. It was sometimes made of gold or silver, and not
unlike in form the instrument used by grooms about horses when profusely
sweating or splashed with mud.
[232] His physician, mentioned c. lix.
[233] Sept. 21st, a sickly season at Rome.
[234] Feminalibus et tibialibus: Neither the ancient Romans or the
Greeks wore breeches, trews, or trowsers, which they despised as
barbarian articles of dress. The coverings here mentioned were swathings
for the legs and thighs, used mostly in cases of sickness or infirmity,
and when otherwise worn, reckoned effeminate. But soon after the Romans
became acquainted with the German and Celtic nations, the habit of
covering the lower extremities, barbarous as it had been held, was
generally adopted.
[235] Albula. On the left of the road to Tivoli, near the ruins of
Adrian's villa. The waters are sulphureous, and the deposit from them
causes incrustations on twigs and other matters plunged in the springs.
See a curious account of this stream in Gell's Topography, published by
Bohn, p 40.
[236] In spongam incubuisse, literally has fallen upon a sponge, as Ajax
is said to have perished by falling on his own sword.
[237] Myrobrecheis. Suetonius often preserves expressive Greek phrases
which Augustus was in the habit of using. This compound word meant
literally, myrrh-scented, perfumed.
[238] These are variations of language of small importance, which can
only be understood in the original language.
[239] It may create a smile to hear that, to prevent danger to the
public, Augustus decreed that no new buildings erected in a public
thoroughfare should exceed in height seventy feet. Trajan reduced it to
sixty.
[240] Virgil is said to have recited before him the whole of the second,
fourth, and sixth books of the Aeneid; and Octavia, being present, when
the poet came to the passage referring to her son, commencing, "Tu
Marcellus eris," was so much affected that she was carried out fainting.
[241] Chap. xix.
[242] Perhaps the point of the reply lay in the temple of Jupiter Tonans
being placed at the approach to the Capitol from the Forum? See c. xxix.
and c. xv., with the note.
[243] If these trees flourished at Rome in the time of Augustus, the
winters there must have been much milder than they now are. There was
one solitary palm standing in the garden of a convent some years ago, but
it was of very stunted growth.
[244] The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns.
[245] "The Nundinae occurred every ninth day, when a market was held at
Rome, and the people came to it from the country. The practice was not
then introduced amongst the Romans, of dividing their time into weeks, as
we do, in imitation of the Jews. Dio, who flourished under Severus, says
that it first took place a little before his time, and was derived from
the Egyptians."--Thomson. A fact, if well founded, of some importance.
[246] "The Romans divided their months into calends, nones, and ides.
The first day of the month was the calends of that month; whence they
reckoned backwards, distinguishing the time by the day before the
calends, the second day before the calends, and so on, to the ides of the
preceding month. In eight months of the year, the nones were the fifth
day, and the ides the thirteenth: but in March, May, July, and October,
the nones fell on the seventh, and the ides on the fifteenth. From the
nones they reckoned backwards to the calends, as they also did from the
ides to the nones."--Ib.
[247] The early Christians shared with the Jews the aversion of the
Romans to their religion, more than that of others, arising probably from
its monotheistic and exclusive character. But we find from Josephus and
Philo that Augustus was in other respects favourable to the Jews.
[248] Strabo tells us that Mendes was a city of Egypt near Lycopolis.
Asclepias wrote a book in Greek with the idea of theologoumenon, in
defence of some very strange religious rites, of which the example in the
text is a specimen.
[249] Velletri stands on very high ground, commanding extensive views of
the Pontine marshes and the sea.
[250] Munda was a city in the Hispania Boetica, where Julius Caesar
fought a battle. See c. lvi.
[251] The good omen, in this instance, was founded upon the etymology of
the names of the ass and its driver; the former of which, in Greek,
signifies fortunate, and the latter, victorious.
[252] Aesar is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination; aisa
signifying fate.
[253] Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples.
Augustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast.
[254] "Puteoli"--"A ship of Alexandria." Words which bring to our
recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13.
Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and not
only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of corn
and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other
commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east.
[255] The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxiii. The
Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and women,
freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers.
[256] Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.
[257] A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character
he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that
emperor.
[258] Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.
[259] Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman
citizens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing
at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but not
that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained
their own laws and customs; nor were they obliged to receive the Roman
laws unless they chose it.
[260] Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles
from Rome, now called Frattochio.
[261] Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in
this pious office, which occupied them during five days.
[262] For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 94, note. The superb
monument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family
was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by a
dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first who
was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present Porta del
Popolo; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor and his family
were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the church of the
Madonna of that name.
[263] The distinction between the Roman people and the tribes, is also
observed by Tacitus, who substitutes the word plebs, meaning, the lowest
class of the populace.
[264] Those of his father Octavius, and his father by adoption, Julius
Caesar.
[265] See before, c. 65. But he bequeathed a legacy to his daughter,
Livia.
[266] Virgil.
[267] Ibid.
[268] Ibid.
[269] Geor. ii.
[270] I am prevented from entering into greater details, both by the
size of my volume, and my anxiety to complete the undertaking.
[271] After performing these immortal achievements, while he was holding
an assembly of the people for reviewing his army in the plain near the
lake of Capra, a storm suddenly rose, attended with great thunder and
lightning, and enveloped the king in so dense a mist, that it took all
sight of him from the assembly. Nor was Romulus after this seen on
earth. The consternation being at length over, and fine clear weather
succeeding so turbulent a day, when the Roman youth saw the royal seat
empty, though they readily believed the Fathers who had stood nearest
him, that he was carried aloft by the storm, yet struck with the dread as
it were of orphanage, they preserved a sorrowful silence for a
considerable time. Then a commencement having been made by a few, the
whole multitude salute Romulus a god, son of a god, the king and parent
of the Roman city; they implore his favour with prayers, that he would be
pleased always propitiously to preserve his own offspring. I believe
that even then there were some who silently surmised that the king had
been torn in pieces by the hands of the Fathers; for this rumour also
spread, but was not credited; their admiration of the man and the
consternation felt at the moment, attached importance to the other
report. By the contrivance also of one individual, additional credit is
said to have been gained to the matter. For Proculus Julius, whilst the
state was still troubled with regret for the king, and felt incensed
against the senators, a person of weight, as we are told, in any matter,
however important, comes forward to the assembly. "Romans," he said,
"Romulus, the father of this city, suddenly descending from heaven,
appeared to me this day at day-break. While I stood covered with awe,
and filled with a religious dread, beseeching him to allow me to see him
face to face, he said; 'Go tell the Romans, that the gods do will, that
my Rome should become the capital of the world. Therefore let them
cultivate the art of war, and let them know and hand down to posterity,
that no human power shall be able to withstand the Roman arms.' Having
said this, he ascended up to heaven." It is surprising what credit was
given to the man on his making this announcement, and how much the regret
of the common people and army for the loss of Romulus, was assuaged upon
the assurance of his immortality.
[272] Padua.
[273] Commentators seem to have given an erroneous and unbecoming sense
to Cicero's exclamation, when they suppose that the object understood, as
connected with altera, related to himself. Hope is never applied in this
signification, but to a young person, of whom something good or great is
expected; and accordingly, Virgil, who adopted the expression, has very
properly applied it to Ascanius:
Et juxta Ascanius, magmae spes altera Romae. Aeneid, xii.
And by his side Ascanius took his place,
The second hope of Rome's immortal race.
Cicero, at the time when he could have heard a specimen of Virgil's
Eclogues, must have been near his grand climacteric; besides that, his
virtues and talents had long been conspicuous, and were past the state of
hope. It is probable, therefore, that altera referred to some third
person, spoken of immediately before, as one who promised to do honour to
his country. It might refer to Octavius, of whom Cicero at this time,
entertained a high opinion; or it may have been spoken in an absolute
manner, without reference to any person.
[274] I was born at Mantua, died in Calabria, and my tomb is at
Parthenope: pastures, rural affairs, and heroes are the themes of my
poems.
[275] The last members of these two lines, from the commas to the end
are said to have been supplied by Erotes, Virgil's librarian.
[276] Carm. i. 17.
[277] "The Medea of Ovid proves, in my opinion, how surpassing would
have been his success, if he had allowed his genius free scope, instead
of setting bounds to it."
[278] Two faults have ruined me; my verse, and my mistake.
[279] These lines are thus rendered in the quaint version of Zachary
Catlin.
I suffer 'cause I chanced a fault to spy,
So that my crime doth in my eyesight lie.
Alas! why wait my luckless hap to see
A fault at unawares to ruin me?
[280] "I myself employed you as ready agents in love, when my early
youth sported in numbers adapted to it."--Riley's Ovid.
[281] "I long since erred by one composition; a fault that is not recent
endures a punishment inflicted thus late. I had already published my
poems, when, according to my privilege, I passed in review so many times
unmolested as one of the equestrian order, before you the enquirer into
criminal charges. Is it then possible that the writings which, in my
want of confidence, I supposed would not have injured me when young, have
now been my ruin in my old age?"--Riley's Ovid.
[282] This place, now called Temisvar, or Tomisvar, stands on one of the
mouths of the Danube, about sixty-five miles E.N.E. from Silistria. The
neighbouring bay of the Black Sea is still called the Gulf of Baba.
[283] "It appears to me, therefore, more reasonable to pursue glory by
means of the intellect, than of bodily strength; and, since the life we
enjoy is short to make the remembrance of it as lasting as possible."