It is impossible to name the period to which Hugo is referring
in this poem more precisely than by saying that it is the age of
Rome under the Empire. As will be seen from the notes, the
personages and events alluded to are not all contemporaneous.
It was enough for Hugo that they were typical of the Roman
decadence.
_Trimalcion_. The festival of Trimalcion is an episode in the
_Satyricon_ of Petronius Arbiter, the poem in which are
described all the excesses of Roman luxury and debauchery.
Petronius Arbiter lived in the time of Claudius.
_Lesbie_. Hugo is guilty of one of his inaccuracies here.
Lesbia was the lady to whom the poems of Catullus (87-47 B.C.?)
were addressed, while Delia, who is mentioned below in connexion
with Catullus, was in reality the mistress of Tibullus
(54 B.C.-19 A.D.).
_Crassus_. Hugo no doubt refers to M. Licinius Crassus
(died 53 B.C.), the Triumvir, who, when praetor, led an army
against the revolted gladiators under Spartacus. He twice defeated
them and subsequently crucified or hung, along the road from Capua
to Rome, six thousand slaves who had been taken prisoners.
_Épaphrodite_. Epaphroditus, a freedman and favourite of the Emperor
Nero, was the master of Epictetus, the lame slave and Stoic
philosopher, who was amongst the greatest of pagan moralists.
Epaphroditus, who treated his slave with great cruelty, is said to
have been one day twisting his leg for amusement. Epictetus said,
'If you continue, you will break my leg.' Epaphroditus went on, the
leg was broken, and Epictetus only said, 'Did I not tell you that
you would break it?'
Hugo seems to have in mind the short reigns of Galba (r. A.D. 68-9),
Otho (r. A.D. 69), and Vitellius (r. A.D. 69), all of whom perished
by violence.
_Vitellius_ was famous even among the later Romans for his gluttony
and voracious appetite. During the four months of his reign he is
said to have spent seven millions sterling on the pleasures of his
table. When at last the people rose against him, and the soldiers
proclaimed another emperor, Vitellius was found hiding in his
palace. He was dragged out into the Forum and killed on the
Gemoniae _(les Gémonies)_, a staircase which went up the Capitoline
Hill and on which the corpses of criminals were exposed before being
thrown into the Tiber. This is the _Escalier_ referred to in the
next line.
l. 57. These tortures were not known in Rome. They suggest rather
the Middle Ages.
_le cirque_. The circus where chariot-races took place. Hugo seems
to be confusing it with the Colosseum, where the gladiatorial
combats were fought.
_Le noir gouffre cloaque_. The Cloaca Maxima was the great sewer of
Rome. It is still in existence and in use. Hugo here first makes it
the symbol of the destruction towards which the Roman Empire was
tending, and then treats it half as a concrete reality, half as a
figure for some underworld in which dethroned but living emperors
meet. This blending of the symbol and the thing symbolized is
characteristic of the poet.
_chiffres du fatal nombre_: the figures or digits that stand for the
doomed number, i.e. the number with which a doomed man is marked.
_Attila_, the famous king of the Huns, 'the Scourge of God' as he was
called, reigned A.D. 434-53.