[773] _Cæspes._ Hor., Od., III., viii., 3, "Positusque carbo in cæspite vivo." Tac., Ann., i. 18. [774] _Niveam._ A white victim was offered to the Dii Superi: a black one to the Inferi. Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 60," _Junoni_ ante omnes, Ipsa tenens dextrâ pateram pulcherrima Dido _Candentis_ vaccæ media inter cornua fundit." Tibull., I., ii., 61, "Concidit ad magicos hostia _pulla_ deos." Hor., i., Sat. viii., 27," Pullam divellere mordicus agnam." [775] _Gorgone._ Cf. Vir., Æn., viii., 435, _seq._; ii., 616. [776] _Extensum._ It was esteemed a very bad omen if the victim did not go willingly to the sacrifice. It was always led, therefore, with a long slack rope. [777] _Matris._ Cf. Hor., iv., Od. ii., 54, "Me tener solvet vitulus, relicta matre." [778] _Nascenti._ Hor., iii., Od. xiii., 4, "Cui frons turgida cornibus Primis et Venerem, et prælia destinat." "He flies his mother's teat with playful scorn, And butts the oak-trees with his growing horn." Hodgson. [779] _Hispulla._ Cf. vi., 74, "Hispulla tragædo gaudet." (This was the name of the aunt of Pliny the Younger's wife, iv., Ep. 19; viii., 11.) "Huge as Hispulla: scarcely to be slain But by the stoutest servant of the train." Badham. [780] _Clitumnus_ was a small river in Umbria flowing into the Tinia, now "Topino," near Mevania, now "Timia." The Tinia discharges itself into the Tiber near Perusia. Pliny (viii., Ep. 8) gives a beautiful description of its source, now called "La Vene," in a letter which is, as Gifford says, a model of elegance and taste. Its waters were supposed to give a milk-white color to the cattle who drank of them. Virg., Georg., ii., 146, "Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus victima." Propert., II., xix., 25, "Quà formosa suo Clitumnus flumina luco Integit et niveos abluit unda boves." Sil., iv., 547, "Clitumnus in arvis Candentes gelido perfundit flumine tauros." Claudian., vi., Cons. Hon., 506. [781] _Ignis._ Grangæus interprets this of the meteoric fires seen in the Mediterranean, which, when seen single, were supposed to be fatal. Plin., ii., 37, "Graves cum solitarii venerunt mergentesque navigia, et si in carinæ ima deciderint, exurentes." These fires, when _double_, were hailed as a happy omen, as the stars of Castor and Pollux. "Fratres Helenæ lucida sidera," Hor., I., Od. iii., 2; cf. xii., 27. The French call it "Le feu St. Elme," said to be a corruption of "Helena." The Italian sailors call them "St. Peter and St. Nicholas." But these only appear at the _close_ of a storm. Cf. Hor., ii., _seq._, and Blunt's Vestiges, p. 37. [782] _Poetica tempestas._ "So loud the thunder, such the whirlwind's sweep, As when the poet lashes up the deep." Hodgson.