wheel! But henceforth, Cæsar, let potters always attend your armies!" This opinion, worthy of the author, carried the day. He was well versed in the old luxury of the imperial court, and Nero's nights,[202] and a second appetite when the stomach was fired with the Falernian.[203] No one in my day was a greater connoisseur in good eating; he could detect at the first bite whether the oysters were natives from Circeii, or the Lucrine rocks, or whether they came from the Rutupian beds, and told the shore an Echinus came from at the first glance. They rise; and the cabinet being dismissed, the great chief bids the nobles depart whom he had dragged to the Alban height, amazed and forced to hurry, as though he were about to announce some tidings of the Catti and fierce Sicambri; as though from diverse parts of the world some alarming express had arrived on hurried wing. And would that he had devoted to such trifles as these those days of horror and cruelty, in which he removed from the city those glorious and illustrious spirits, with none to punish or avenge the deed! But he perished as soon as he began to be an object of alarm to cobblers. This was what proved fatal to one that was reeking with the blood of the Lamiæ! FOOTNOTES: [177] _Iterum._ Cf. i., 27, "Pars Niliacæ plebis, verna Canopi, Crispinus." [178] Cf. vii., 179. [179] The vestal escaped her punishment, through Crispinus' interest with Domitian. [180] Cf. Sat. ii., 29. Suet., Domit., c. 8. Plin., iv., Epist xi. [181] _Sex millibus_, about £44 7_s._ 6_d._ of English money. The value of the sestertium was reduced after the reign of Augustus. A mullet even of three pounds' weight was esteemed a great rarity. Vid. Hor., Sat., II., ii., 33, "Mullum laudas trilibrem." [182] The chief heir was named in the second line of the first table. Cf. Horace, ii., Sat. v., 53. Suet., Cæs., 83; Nero, 17. [183] Cf. Sat. xi., 3. [184] _Papyrus._ Garments were made of papyrus even in Anacreon's days. iv., Od. 4. It is still used for the same purpose. [185] Land would be probably cheap in Apulia, from its barrenness, and bad air, and the prevalence of the wind Atabulus. Cf. Hor., i., Sat. v., Montes Apulia notos quos torret Atabulus. [186] i. e., Alexandria. Of the various readings of this line, "pactâ mercede" seems to be the best. Even the fish Crispinus sold were not his own, he was only hired to sell them for others. [187] _Nero_, i. e., Domitian, who was as much disgusted at his own baldness as Cæsar. [188] Founded by a colony of Syracusans, who fled from the tyranny of Dionysius. [189] _Agerunt cum_; perhaps, "be ready to go to law with." [190] _Sperare_ sometimes means to _fear_. Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 419. [191] Alba was Domitian's favorite residence. Vid. Suet., Dom., iv., 19. Plin., iv., Ep. xi., "Non in regiam sed in Albanam villam convocavit."