The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius. Sulpicia

the different guests.

[206] Quum Pol sit honestius. Rupertis' conjecture.

[207] Trebius is put in the lowest place in the triclinium, the third culcitra, or cushion, on the lowest (tertia) bed, and only because there was no one else to occupy it.

[208] "What is the night? Almost at odds with morning, which is which." Macbeth, Act iii., 4. Cf. Anacreon, iii., 1; Theocr., xxiv., 11. i.e., a little after midnight.

[209] "Tonsursæ tempus inter æquinoctium vernum et solstitium, quum sudare inceperunt oves: a quo sudore recens lana tonsa sucida appellata est. Tonsus recentes eodem die perungunt vino et oleo." Varro, R. R., II., xi., 6.

[210] Cf. iv., 103.

[211] "Tenet," or "keeps to himself," or "holds up to the light."

[212] Setine was the favorite wine of Augustus. Alban. Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 16.

[213] Amber was fabled to be produced by the tears of the sisters of Phaeton, the daughters of the Sun, shed for his loss, on the banks of the Eridanus, where they were metamorphosed into poplars or alders.

[214] Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 261.

[215] Nero, on his way to Greece, fell in at Beneventum with one Vatinius, "Sutrinæ tabernæ alumnus," whom he took first as his buffoon, and afterward as his confidant. Tac., Ann., xv., 34. Cf. Martial, xiv., Ep. 96.

[216] Sulphura. Cf. Mart., i., Ep. 43, Qui pallentia sulphurata fractis permutat vitreis. Vid. x., 3, Quæ sulphurata nolit empta ramento Vatiniorum proxeneta fractorum. Compare the "Bellarmines" of mediæval pottery and the Flemish "Graybeards."

[217] Pruinis. "Neronis principis inventum est decoquere aquam, vitroque demissam in nives refrigerare." Plin., xxxi., 3.

[218] Frivola; properly "goods and chattels." Cf. iii., 198.

[219] Artocopi. Cf. Xen., An., IV., iv., 21. Some read Artoptæ.

[220] This is the indignant exclamation of Trebius.

[221] Constrictus, or, "shrunk from having been so long out of the sea."

[222] Cœna; the Silicernium; served on the ninth day to appease the dead. Cf. Plaut., Pseud., III., ii., 7; Aul., II., iv., 45.

[223] Vendat. Cf. iii., 187. Aurelia. See Plin., ii., Ep. 20.

[224] Lina. Cf. Virg., Georg., i., 142.

[225] The pike (Lupus Tiberinus) was esteemed in exact proportion to the distance it was caught from the common sewers of Rome. Hor., ii., Sat. ii., 31.

[226] Structor. Cf. xi., 136.

[227] Cacus. Virg., Æn., viii., 264.

[228] Free Roman citizens had three names, prænomen, nomen, and cognomen. Slaves had no prænomen. Cf. Pers., Sat. v., 76–82. He means to imply that, by turning parasite, Trebius had virtually forfeited the privileges of a free Roman.

[229] Da Trebio. Cf. Suet., Dom., xi., "partibus de cœnâ dignatus est." Xen., Anab., I., ix., 26.

[230] Virg., Æn., iv., 327.

[231] Viridem thoraca. Heinrich supposes this to be a mimic piece of armor, to be worn by children playing at soldiers.

[232] Nuces, "walnuts;" minimas nuces, nuts.

[233] Cf. Tac., Ann., xii., 66, 7, "Infusum cibo boletorum venenum;" it was prepared by Locusta. Cf. Sat. i., 71. Martial, Ep., I., xxi., 4, "Boletum qualem Claudius edit, edas." Cf. Suet., Nero, 33.

[234] Probably alluding to a monkey exhibited riding on a goat, and equipped as a soldier, to amuse the Prætorian guards at their barrack gate; or, as some think, the "recruit" himself is intended, and then Capella is taken as a proper name.

[235] The golden bulla, hollow, and in the shape of a heart, was borrowed from the Etruscans, and at first confined to the children of nobles. It was afterward borne, like the "tria nomina," by all who were free-born, till they were fifteen. The poorer citizens had it made of leather, or some cheap material. Cf. xiv., 5, hæres bullatus.

[236] Cf. Xen., Anab., I., ix., 26.

SATIRE VI.

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I believe that while Saturn still was king, chastity lingered upon earth, and was long seen there: when a chill cavern furnished a scanty dwelling, and inclosed in one common shade the fire and household gods, the cattle, and their owners. When a wife, bred on the mountains, prepared a rustic bed with leaves and straw and the skins of the wild beasts their neighbors; not like thee, Cynthia[237]—or thee whose beaming eyes the death of a sparrow dimmed with tears—but bearing breasts from which her huge infants might drink, not suck, and often more uncivilized even than her acorn-belching husband. Since men lived very differently then, when the world was new, and the sky but freshly created, who, born out of the riven oak, or moulded out of clay, had no parents.

      Many traces of primæval chastity, perhaps, or some few at least, may have existed, even under Jove; but then it was before Jove's beard was grown; before the Greeks were yet ready to swear by another's head; when no one feared a thief for