36. He pretended to stumble. So Apollo is made to declare that none of Tarquin's sons should succeed, and so to patronise the Regifugium.

45. I wonder whether our wives are faithful to us? or whether they are careless of our fate?

49.

Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, afterwards rejected from the consulship because of his name.

66

51. Urbs to a Roman's ear always meant the capital, as town" to an Englishman means London.

Nox superest, there is night enough still left.

52. Note the rapidity of the narrative till we come to the picture of Lucretia.

56.

Posito mero, over a bowl of wine. For Roman matrons to drink wine at all was contrary to decorum; but here are all the accompaniments of a protracted debauch.

62. Lacerna, a military cloak, a warm outer garment, sent apparently each campaign. Propertius, V. 3, 18: Texitur haec castris quarta lacerna tuis. - Paley.

63. She asks her maidens what news they hear of the war: how long it is likely to last.

67. Sed enim. It is only a matter of time, the town must fall; but I wish it were over, for my husband is so eager for the fraywherever there is danger he will put himself in the way of it. The whole of this picture is very touching. Note especially the touch in "revixit."

72.

74. 77.

Gremio. See I. 18, note.

A worthy expression of the soul beneath.

Juvenis, Sextus. The others are Titus and Aruns.

79. Forma, shapeliness, good figure. For the other features, see note

on IV. 33.

83. Carpitur, has his senses racked.

85.

A magno flatu, after a gale. In the next line, a vento, is after, .e., in consequence of the wind. Unda tumet, the swell remains.

87. Note how praesens forma and praesentia formae are interchangeable.

90.

Viderit. It is not clear what is the subject with the reading juvet; but with the reading in the text (Merkel's) Lucretia appears to be the subject. Let her look to herself; the bold find help either from chance or from Providence. The proof of it--boldness won me Gabii.

96. Kinsmanship gave him a claim to entertainment even in the absence of the master of the house.

97. Animis, general, "men's minds."

101.

108.

III.

Patrem. Spurius Lucretius.

Caeco, used of blind apprehension, which fears the worst.
Must I owe this trial too to a Tarquin, that I must proclaim my
own disgrace.

113. Coactae, probably the genitive, to the act of one who was under

force.

115. Fixit. The perfect denotes the suddenness with which it is done; it is at once completed.

117.

Could anything paint more delicately the innate purity of the woman than this last touch? Cf. Eur., Hecuba, 568:

πολλὴν πρόνοιαν εἶχεν εὐσχήμως πεσεῖν.

123. Per tibi ego hunc iuro. A common order in oaths, expressive of excitement.

XXII.

THE FABII.

THE Fabii were apparently a Sabine family, who became the leaders of the Roman aristocracy in the reaction that followed on the failure of Spurius Cassius and his agrarian law (A.U.C. 269). For seven years a Fabius held one of the consulships. As opponents of the commons they pressed forward the war with Veii in order to stop internal political efforts, and, by keeping the people under arms, to nullify, as far as possible, the tribunes' veto. Presently, however, came wars with the Aequi and Volsci on the other side, and the Fabii fell into odium as the authors of the war with Veii, which, from the proximity of the place, for it was but ten miles from Rome, was very harassing to the Roman farmers. Suddenly they seem to have changed sides and supported the commons in their demands; at any rate, they became very active in the Veientine war, and themselves undertook to garrison an outpost to harass and interfere with the enemy, much in the same way as Decelea, fortified by the Lacedaemonians, annoyed Athens in the Peloponnesian war. This post was situated on the Cremera, a small stream betwixt Rome and Veii, and it would seem that the whole clan (cum familiis suis, Aulus Gellius) migrated thither. One, however, was left behind who, from his holding the consulship not long after, must have been of mature years; probably he did not accept the policy of the rest of the clan.

2.

5.

8.

9.

II.

17.

25.

The warriors of one clan take arms as volunteers. Profiteri, however, is the word used for giving in one's name for any definite service.

There is a way through the Carmental gate on the right next to
the temple of Janus. This is Merkel's version: from a passage
which he quotes there seems to have been a temple of Janus out-
side the gate. Livy speaks of the right arch of the gate as being
the unlucky road: hence Heinsius proposes here to read dextro.
Explains rapacem. In summer the Cremera is a small brook.

Loco, in a fit place.
The Fabii were the lions; the Veientines the timid sheep.
Note the Libyan rock: the picture is more vivid when it is
definite. So the Laurentine boar below (33).

Campus, does not correspond to anything in the actual landscape;
the herds in the midst are like those left by Italian brigands
to give the signal of the passing traveller to their comrades.
Another form of the story represents them as returning to Rome to
keep a family festival at their home on the Quirinal.

26.

32.

33.

Quod vident, i.e., in the way of herds and moveables. Laurentibus. Its marshes were the haunt of the wild boar. Cf. Hor., Sat. II. iv. 42: Nam Laurens malus est, ulvis et arundine pinguis. Fulmineo. So Phædrus: Aper fulmineis ad cum venit dentibus ; and Ovid of the Calydonian boar: Medios violentus in hostes Fertur ut excussis elisi nubibus ignes. (Stories from Ovid, XX. 51.) The epithet marks the awful rapidity of the attack. The Fabian clan claimed descent from Hercules and Evander. 43. Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator, whose lingering policy saved Rome after Trasimene and Cannae (216 B.C.).

39.

Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.

XXIII.

CYBELE'S HOME-BRINGING.

THE worship of the Magna Mater Idaea, who came sometimes to be identified with the Italian Bona Dea and the Greek Rhea, was one of those which were imported into Rome in historical times. In the year 205, when Scipio was waiting for permission to carry the war against Hannibal into Africa, Italy was visited, according to Livy, by frequent showers of meteoric stones. The Sibylline books were consulted, and, in accordance with their directions, an embassy was sent to Attalus I., king of Pergamus, for permission to bring to Rome the image of Cybele, itself apparently a dióneres or meteoric stone. By direction of the Delphic oracle it was to be received by the best of the Roman citizens. The Megalesia were established simply as a memorial of the homebringing, and everything possible was done to prevent the abuse of a worship which, in its native Phrygia, was an occasion for all the mad excesses which distinguished the religious ceremonies of the East; but by the time of the empire the barriers were broken down, and the fakirlike enthusiasm of Cybele's worshippers (or the Galli) prepared the way for all the excesses of Isis worship and Eastern superstition which degraded the Rome of the emperors.

2. As the mater Idaea, Cybele was associated with Troy, and it would have been natural for her to accompany Aeneas.

6.

36

'By the fates for Latium."

Edomito orbe. Rather a poetical anticipation. Rome had not yet finished the conflict with Carthage, and had not begun her world-conquests.

7. Euboici, the Sibylline books. the Cumaean, and Cumae Euboea.

The chief Sibyl for Rome was was a colony from Chalcis in

8. Inspectum, sc. carmen. The carmen is given by Livy: "Quandoque hostis alienigena terrae Italiae bellum intulisset, eum pelli Italia vincique posse, si mater Idaea a Pessinunte Romam advecta foret." (XXIX. 10.) Ovid has mixed up what Livy gives as separate sortes.

II.

14.

NOTES. XXIII., CYBELE'S HOME-BRINGING.

They are as men lost in a maze.

43

The image,

Idaeo, Ida, a mountain in the Phrygian Troad.
however, was fetched from Pessinus, which is at some distance
from Troy.

16. Attalus, the first of the name (230-197 B.C.), son of Attalus, a brother of Philetaerus, to whom Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals and successors, entrusted the fortress of Pergamus. Philetaerus afterwards made himself independent, and was succeeded by Eumenes, the son of another brother of the same name.

22.

Rem negat. There is no trace of this in Livy; but if he had assented, there would have been no means for Cybele to express her own feelings in the matter, and so the poet would have lost the chance of his patriotic lines.

Nostra eris, i.e., you will still be with men of Phrygian blood. 24. Phryx pius. Aeneas, whose care for his father Anchises, whom

he carried out of burning Troy, makes this his stock epithet. Cf. Virgil's Aeneid, IX. 80, where Cybele asks of Jupiter that the safety of Aeneas' fleet may be guaranteed, since it was built from the timber of a pine wood-“mihi multos dilecta per annos.'

26. Cf. Livy, XXIX. 11: Sacrumque iis lapidem, quam matrem esse deum incolae dicebant, tradidit ac deportare Romam jussit."

28. Dividit. See below, 66. The Tiber divided into two channels at its mouth hence the plural Ostia.

30.

32.

34. 42.

45.

56.

60.

62.

Tusci. See XV. 40, and note.

The Vestal virgins.

Adversas, against the stream.

Nobilitate. In its dignity it matched her birth. Mr. Paley
takes it as an ablative of comparison, impar being equivalent
to inferior.

For Clausus, see Livy, II. 16; and Virgil's Aeneid, VII. 706.
The family was a Sabine one.
Her love of dress, beyond the simplicity of the time, and her
freedom in conversation with stern, grave old men, made her
to be looked upon as lacking in modesty. It is supposed by
some that she was a Vestal virgin, of whom a specially modest
and reserved behaviour was expected. The precedence
accorded to the Vestals would account for her coming out-
"ab agmine matrum (49).

Certa, definite, fixed.

Re, "by an act, not by mere words."-Paley.

Scena. The story was probably enacted on the stage as part of the Megalesia, which were memorial games.

63. The fact of her following was a commendation of Claudia's

70.

74.

purity.

Posito foco, a temporary altar.

Ab amne, the stream is lost in the river; the amnis is agent of

the change.

75. This washing was an annual custom, and took place near the Porta Capena. Martial, III. 47:

which shows also that the image was of meteoric iron. The women (molles manus) beating on the tambourine. Celeberrima, attended by a great crowd.

Ipsa, sc. dea.

Nasica. P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, adjudged the best citizen of Rome. Her temple was built by Metellus, but Augustus rebuilt it, and from that time it bore his name.

XXIV.

NEW YEAR'S CUSTOMS.

THERE is no god in the Roman Pantheon who is so distinctively Roman as Janus. Most of the others were identified by the popular theology with Grecian Deities, but Janus stood alone. His name (Janus, Dianus, from dius, dium, the open, clear sky), shows that he is the sun-god,* and so the companion of Diana, the moon. As such he is the porter of heaven and light, whose doors he opens in the morning and closes at night. This aspect of opening and shutting, of going in and out is the predominant one amongst the Italian tribes, and the symbol of the god is the simple arch or open passage (transitio pervia, Cic., N.D. II. 27). The original idea, however, was preserved in the oldest of these Jani at Rome, the Janus Geminus of Numa-in the Forum, which faced east and west. (See below, 1. 54.) This same double function of opening and closing the day accounts also for the two-headed shape in which he is usually depicted.

As he opens heaven to men, he is the mediator between them and the gods, and is first invoked at every sacrifice. As the god of beginnings he is the creator and overseer of the whole universe; he presides over all human business, men's going out and coming in. The Roman belief in beginnings, as having an almost magical effect on all that followed, made them look to him in all that they did. Especially as a war god (Janus Quirinus) his approval would bring success on warlike expeditions. Hence the custom which is most intimately associated with the name of Janus; for his open door is the symbol of successful beginnings, and so, whenever Rome's armies go forth to war, his door is left open; when they return victorious, and peace is established, it is shut.

The Kalends of each month were sacred to Janus, in conjunction with Juno (who, as Lucina, is also a moon-goddess), but the Kalends of January more especially, as nearest to the shortest day, and to those of the opening solar year; for the civil year for long began at Rome with the month of Mars.

* This is confirmed by the fact that there is no other Latin sun-god: Sol is Sabine, Apollo is Greek, and of later introduction. Mommsen, however, dissents from this See his History of Rome, vol. i. p. 273 (Eng. Trans.).

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