Footnotes
- 1.
- Double-dyed Tyrian wool cost over £40 in English money per lb.
- 2.
- The term used of St. Paul by the wise men of Athens. It means a picker up of unconsidered trifles which he strings together into an unintelligible system.
- 3.
- A laurel on the Palatine, planted by the wife of Augustus. It died suddenly just before the end of Nero.
- 4.
- The statuette of the Good Shepherd, of beautiful art, 2d century, in the Lateran Museum. It is an error to suppose in early Christians a complete emancipation from old usages and modes of thought.
- 5.
- Probably Dictamnus Fraxinella. For properties of these plants see Pliny, H. N. lib. xxv., xxvi., xxvii.
- 6.
- Our word nuptial comes from the veil wherewith the bride’s head was covered.
- 7.
- The reference was to the “Peace” of Aristophanes. Trygdeus was carried up to the Gods on the back of a dung-beetle.
- 8.
- The allusion was to the death of Claudius attributed to poisoned mushrooms administered to him by his wife-niece Agrippina.
- 9.
- The left was lucky with the Romans, the reverse with the Greeks.
- 10.
- Informers were so termed, because they obtained a quarter of the goods of such as they denounced and who were condemned. The Latin word is quadruplator.
- 11.
- On another occasion, a show of gladiators, this savage order was actually given and carried out under the eyes of Domitian.
- 12.
- The titles of lord and god were given to Domitian by his flatterers, and accepted and used by him, as of right.
- 13.
- There are mosaic pavements at Rome representing a floor after a dinner, with crawfish heads, oyster shells, nuts, picked bones, flower leaves, strewn about.
- 14.
- Calvisius Sabinus, a rich and ignorant man, made one of his slaves learn Homer by heart, another Hesiod and others the nine Greek lyric poets. When he gave a dinner, he concealed them under the table to prompt him with quotations.
- 15.
- A scourge of leather thongs and nails knotted in them.
- 16.
- The Roman benefit Clubs were under the invocation of some god or goddess, and the members were called Cultores Apollinis, or Jovi, as the case might be.
Transcriber’s Note
Variations in hyphenation (“reception room”, “reception-room”) and spelling have not been changed. In several places, punctuation and quotation marks have been silently corrected.
Other changes, which have been made to the text:
| page 65, “Gautists” changed to “flautists” | |
| page 66, “mournners” changed to “mourners” | |
| page 123, “Antenines” changed to “Antonines” | |
| page 186, “Clivius” changed to “Clivus” | |
| page 187, “learn” changed to “learned” | |
| page 196, “Domitia” changed to “Domitian” | |
| page 267, “beween” changed to “between” |