[Footnote 974: A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not
his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.]
[Footnote 975: It may be concluded that Horace died at Rome, under the
hospitable roof of his patron Mecaenas, whose villa and gardens stood on
the Esquiline hill; which had formerly been the burial ground of the lower
classes; but, as he tells us,
Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico
spatiare.--Sat. i. 8.]
[Footnote 976: Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca’s
brother.]
[Footnote 977: This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the
text to be imperfect.]
[Footnote 978: They had good reason to know that, ridiculous as the
tyrant made himself, it was not safe to incur even the suspicion of being
parties to a jest upon him.]
[Footnote 979: See NERO, c. xxxvi.]
[Footnote 980: St. Jerom (Chron. Euseb.) places Lucan’s death in the
tenth year of Nero’s reign, corresponding with A.U.C. 817. This
opportunity is taken of correcting an error in the press, p. 342,
respecting the date of Nero’s accession. It should be A.U.C. 807, A.D.
55.]
[Footnote 981: These circumstances are not mentioned by some other
writers. See Dr. Thomson’s account of Lucan, before, p. 347, where it is
said that he died with philosophical firmness.]
[Footnote 982: We find it stated ib. p. 396, that Lucan expired while
pronouncing some verses from his own Pharsalia: for which we have the
authority of Tacitus, Annal. xv. 20. 1. Lucan, it appears, employed his
last hours in revising his poems; on the contrary, Virgil, we are told,
when his death was imminent, renewed his directions that the Aeneid should
be committed to the flames.]
[Footnote 983: The text of the concluding sentence of Lucan’s life is
corrupt, and neither of the modes proposed for correcting it make the
sense intended very clear.]
[Footnote 984: Although this brief memoir of Pliny is inserted in all the
editions of Suetonius, it was unquestionably not written by him. The
author, whoever he was, has confounded the two Plinys, the uncle and
nephew, into which error Suetonius could not have fallen, as he lived on
intimate terms with the younger Pliny; nor can it be supposed that he
would have composed the memoir of his illustrious friend in so cursory a
manner. Scaliger and other learned men consider that the life of Pliny,
attributed to Suetonius, was composed more than four centuries after that
historian’s death.]
[Footnote 985: See JULIUS, c. xxviii. Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus
(the younger Pliny) was born at Como, A.U.C. 814; A.D. 62. His father’s
name was Lucius Caecilius, also of Como, who married Plinia, the sister of
Caius Plinius Secundus, supposed to have been a native of Verona, the
author of the Natural History, and by this marriage the uncle of Pliny the
Younger. It was the nephew who enjoyed the confidence of the emperors
Nerva and Trajan, and was the author of the celebrated Letters.]
[Footnote 986: The first eruption of Mount Vesuvius occurred A.U.C. 831,
A.D. 79. See TITUS, c. viii. The younger Pliny was with his uncle at
Misenum at the time, and has left an account of his disastrous enterprise
in one of his letters, Epist. vi. xvi.]
[Footnote 987: For further accounts of the elder Pliny, see the Epistles
of his nephew, B. iii. 5; vi. 16. 20; and Dr. Thomson’s remarks before,
pp. 475-478.]