[9] Archilochus could not have been called a satirist in the correct sense of the word. His observations were mostly personal or philosophical. He had evidently considerable power in illustrating the moral by the physical world, and one of his sayings "Speak not evil of the dead," has become proverbial. [10] Irony had previously been used in Asia. The only specimens of humour in the Old Testament are of this character, as in Job, "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you;" where Elijah says to the prophets of Baal, "Cry aloud, for he is a god," and the children call after Elisha, "Go up, thou bald-head." [11] Magnes and others of the day used similar titles. We read that there were once three Homeric hymns extant, named "The Monkeys," "The seven-times-shorn Goat," and "The Song on the Thrushes." [12] After disposing of his daughters for a bunch of garlic and a little salt, he exclaims, "Oh, Mercury, God of Traffic, grant that I may sell my wife as profitably, and my mother too!" [13] So the pun may be represented. [14] Certainly not before 460 B.C. [15] Compare our "Billingsgate." [16] We sometimes speak of a seedy coat. [17] The answers to the above riddles are, thistledown, sleep, night and day, shade. [18] "Gugga" seems to have corresponded with our "Nigger." [19] About three and nine pence. [20] Roman mirrors made of silver. [21] _Scurra_ originally meant a neighbour, then a gossip, then a pleasant fellow, and finally a jocose, and in those rude times a scurrilous man. [22] There is a story of Caligula having had an actor burnt alive for making an offensive pun in an Atellane play. Sometimes nicknames were thus made. Placidus was Acidus, Labienus, Rabienus; Claudius Tiberius Nero was Caldius Biberius Mero. [23] I have been obliged to omit some of the pungent indelicacy of the original. The Pope was the sacrificing priest. [24] We meet with such words as _verrucosus_, _sanna_, a grimace, and _stloppus_, the sound made by striking the inflated cheeks. [25] "A satirist is always to be suspected, who to make vice odious dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective fondness."--_Lamb._ [26] Palindromes, such as "Tibi subito motibus ibit." We have some in English, as where our forefather addresses his wife "Madam, I'm Adam." [27] Pyrogenes has a double meaning, "born of corn," and "born of fire," alluding to Bacchus' mother having been burnt. Bromos is a kind of cereal, Bromion a name for Bacchus. [28] A man of Capreae, having caught an unusually large barbel, presented it to Tiberius, who was so enraged at his being able to find him in his retreat, that he ordered his face to be scrubbed with the fish. [29] Some of the pagans put off Christian baptism till the last moment under this idea. [30] There seems to me to be several reasons for drawing this conclusion.