_Galgala_, the form found in the Septuagint and Vulgate of the place-name Gilgal. _Les grelots des troupeaux._ Here, again, Hugo is inaccurate. Sheep in Palestine do not have bells attached to them. _Jérimadeth_. The name seems to be of Hugo's own invention. It was a trick of the poet's to make proper names suit the exigencies of rime, as in this instance, in which 'Jérimadeth rimes with' demandait. AU LION D'ANDROCLÈS. 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.