"Sure yonder female with the child she bred, The dog their playmate, and their little shed, Had with more justice been conferr'd on me, Than on a cymbal-beating debauchee." Gifford. [522] _Polyphemi._ For the loudness of his roar, vid. Virg., Æn., iii., 672. The meaning seems to be, "I am as badly off with but one slave as Polyphemus was with only one eye: had he had _two_ Ulysses would not have escaped him." Badham takes it of the slave calling for food. "My hungry rascal must at home be fed, Or else, like Polypheme, he'll roar for bread!" [523] _Decembri_, used here adjectively. [524] _Durate._ A parody on Virg., Æn., i., 207, "Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis." Cf. Suet., Cal., 45. "Cold! never mind! a month or two, and then The grasshoppers, my lads, will come again!" Badham. [525] _Ruperat._ Cf. Tac., Ann., xi., 30, "At is redderet uxorem, rumperetque tabulas nuptiales." There was an express clause in the marriage contract, "liberorum procreandorum gratiâ uxorem duci." [526] _Libris actorum._ Cf. Tac., Ann., iii., 3. Sat. ii., 136, "cupient et in acta referri." These acta were public registers, in which parents were obliged to insert the names of their children a few days after their birth. They contained, besides, records of marriages, divorces, deaths, and other occurrences of the year, and were therefore of great service to historians, who as some think employed persons to read them up for them. (Cf. acta legenti vii., 104.) Servius Tullius instituted this custom. The records were kept in the temple of Saturn. [527] _Suspende coronas._ This was customary on all festive occasions, as here, on the birth of a child; at marriages (vi., 51, "Necte coronam postibus, et densos per limina tende corymbos"), the return of friends (cf. xii., 91, "Longos erexit janua ramos"), or any public rejoicing (as x., 65, on the death of Sejanus, "Pone domi lauros"). So, when advocates gained a cause, their clients adorned the entrance of their houses with palm branches. Cf. vii., 118, "virides scalarum gloria palmæ." Mart., vii., Ep. xxviii., 6, "excolat et geminas plurima palma fores." [528] _Legatum omne._ One of the provisions of the Lex Papia Poppæa (introduced, at the desire of Augustus, to extend the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus) was, that if a married person had no child, a tenth, and in some cases a larger proportion, of what was bequeathed him, should fall to the exchequer. Cf. vi., 38. It conferred also certain privileges and immunities on those who in Rome had three children (hence jus trium liberorum) born in wedlock. Cf. Ruperti and Lips. ad Tac., Ann., iii., 25. Cf. Ann., xv., 19. Mart., ii., Ep. xci., 6; ix., lxvii. [529] _Caducum_, probably a legacy contingent upon the condition of having children. [530] _Pumice._ Cf. viii., 16, "tenerum attritus Catanensi pumice lumbum." [531] _Valvis._ Cf. xiii., 145, _seq._