HKB
[339] A.U.C. 779.
[340] Terracina, standing at the southern extremity of the Pontine Marshes, on the shore of the Mediterranean. It is surrounded by high calcareous cliffs, in which there are caverns, affording, as Strabo informs us, cool retreats, attached to the Roman villas built round.
[341] Augustus died at Nola, a city in Campania. See c. lviii. of his life.
[342] Fidenae stood in a bend of the Tiber, near its junction with the Anio. There are few traces of it remaining.
[343] That any man could drink an amphora of wine at a draught, is beyond all credibility; for the amphora was nearly equal to nine gallons, English measure. The probability is, that the man had emptied a large vessel, which was shaped like an amphora.
[344] Capri, the luxurious retreat and scene of the debaucheries of the Roman emperors, is an island off the southern point of the bay of Naples, about twelve miles in circumference.
[345] Pan, the god of the shepherds, and inventor of the flute, was said to be the son of Mercury and Penelope. He was worshipped chiefly in Arcadia, and represented with the horns and feet of a goat. The Nymphs, as well as the Graces, were represented naked.
[346] The name of the island having a double meaning, and signifying also a goat.
[347] "Quasi pueros primae teneritudinis, quos 'pisciculos' vocabat, institueret, ut natanti sibi inter femina versarentur, ac luderent: lingua morsuque sensim appetentes; atque etiam quasi infantes firmiores, necdum tamen lacte depulsos, inguini ceu papillae admoveret: pronior sane ad id genus libidinis, et natura et aetate."
[348] "Foeminarum capitibus solitus illudere."
[349] "Obscoenitate oris hirsuto atque olido."
[350] "Hircum vetulum capreis naturam ligurire"
[351] The Temple of Vesta, like that dedicated to the same goddess at Tivoli, is round. There was probably one on the same site, and in the same circular form, erected by Numa Pompilius; the present edifice is far too elegant for that age, but there is no record of its erection, but it is known to have been repaired by Vespasian or Domitian after being injured by Nero's fire. Its situation, near the Tiber, exposed it to floods, from which we find it suffered, from Horace's lines--
"Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis Littore Etrusco violenter undis, Ire dejectum monumenta Regis, Templaque Vestae."--Ode, lib. i. 2. 15.
This beautiful temple is still in good preservation. It is surrounded by twenty columns of white marble, and the wall of the cell, or interior (which is very small, its diameter being only the length of one of the columns), is also built of blocks of the same material, so nicely joined, that it seems to be formed of one solid mass.
[352] Antlia; a machine for drawing up water in a series of connected buckets, which was worked by the feet, nisu pedum.
[353] The elder Livia was banished to this island by Augustus. See c. lxv. of his life.
[354] An island in the Archipelago.
[355] This Theodore is noticed by Quintilian, Instit. iii. 1. Gadara was in Syria.
[356] It mattered not that the head substituted was Tiberius's own.
[357] The verses were probably anonymous.
[358] Oderint dum probent: Caligula used a similar expression; Oderint dum metuant.
[359] A.U.C. 778. Tacit. Annal. iv. The historian's name was A. Cremutius Cordo. Dio has preserved the passage, xlvii. p. 619. Brutus had already called Cassius "The last of the Romans," in his lamentation over his dead body.
[360] She was the sister of Germanicus, and Tacitus calls her Livia; but Suetonius is in the habit of giving a fondling or diminutive term to the names of women, as Claudilla, for Claudia, Plautilla, etc.
[361] Priam is said to have had no less than fifty sons and daughters; some of the latter, however, survived him, as Hecuba, Helena, Polyxena, and others.
[362] There were oracles at Antium and Tibur. The "Praenestine Lots" are described by Cicero, De Divin. xi. 41.
[363] Agrippina, and Nero and Drusus.