[234] Feminalibus et tibialibus: Neither the ancient Romans or the Greeks wore breeches, trews, or trowsers, which they despised as barbarian articles of dress. The coverings here mentioned were swathings for the legs and thighs, used mostly in cases of sickness or infirmity, and when otherwise worn, reckoned effeminate. But soon after the Romans became acquainted with the German and Celtic nations, the habit of covering the lower extremities, barbarous as it had been held, was generally adopted. [235] Albula. On the left of the road to Tivoli, near the ruins of Adrian's villa. The waters are sulphureous, and the deposit from them causes incrustations on twigs and other matters plunged in the springs. See a curious account of this stream in Gell's Topography, published by Bohn, p 40. [236] In spongam incubuisse, literally has fallen upon a sponge, as Ajax is said to have perished by falling on his own sword. [237] Myrobrecheis. Suetonius often preserves expressive Greek phrases which Augustus was in the habit of using. This compound word meant literally, myrrh-scented, perfumed. [238] These are variations of language of small importance, which can only be understood in the original language. [239] It may create a smile to hear that, to prevent danger to the public, Augustus decreed that no new buildings erected in a public thoroughfare should exceed in height seventy feet. Trajan reduced it to sixty. [240] Virgil is said to have recited before him the whole of the second, fourth, and sixth books of the Aeneid; and Octavia, being present, when the poet came to the passage referring to her son, commencing, "Tu Marcellus eris," was so much affected that she was carried out fainting. [241] Chap. xix. [242] Perhaps the point of the reply lay in the temple of Jupiter Tonans being placed at the approach to the Capitol from the Forum? See c. xxix. and c. xv., with the note. [243] If these trees flourished at Rome in the time of Augustus, the winters there must have been much milder than they now are. There was one solitary palm standing in the garden of a convent some years ago, but it was of very stunted growth. [244] The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns. [245] "The Nundinae occurred every ninth day, when a market was held at Rome, and the people came to it from the country. The practice was not then introduced amongst the Romans, of dividing their time into weeks, as we do, in imitation of the Jews. Dio, who flourished under Severus, says that it first took place a little before his time, and was derived from the Egyptians."--Thomson. A fact, if well founded, of some importance.