FOOTNOTES:
[1656] Lapathus is the "sorrel," which, it appears, the Romans cultivated in their gardens with great care. It was called, in its wild state, Rumex. It was used at banquets, on account of its purgative qualities, together with the Coan wines, which possessed the same properties. Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. iv., 27. Pers., Sat. v., 135. Gumia is a "glutton, epicure, belly-god." (Lurco, comedo, helluo, gulæ mancipium.) The etymology is uncertain. Merula reads in all places gluvia, whence ingluvies.
[1657] There are two fish known by the name of squilla; the one apparently a small fish (perhaps a river fish, as Martial mentions their abounding in the Liris: lib. xiii., Ep. 83), used as a sauce or garnish for larger fish. Vid. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 42, "Affertur squillas inter muræna natantes," which Orell. explains as a conger served up with crabs. The other is a large fish forming a dish of itself. Cf. Juv., v., 80, "Quam longo distendat pectore lancem quæ fertur domino squilla," etc. If it is represented by the Greek κᾶρις, it is something of the lobster or prawn kind. It appears to have been dressed sometimes with sorrel sauce. Cf. Athen., iii., 92, 66. The acipenser is probably not the sturgeon: from its etymology it is some sharp-headed fish. (Acies et penna, or pinna.) Salmas., Ex. Plin., 1316: but what it really was is not known. It was a royal fish, like the sturgeon (Mart., xiii., Ep. 91), and when brought to table was ushered in with great solemnities: the servant who bore it had a chaplet round his head, and was preceded by another playing the flute. Publius Gallonius, the præco, is said to have been the first who introduced this luxury. Macrob., Sat. ii., 12. In Pliny's time, however, he tells us, it had gone out of fashion. H. N., ix., 26.
Decumanus is used here in the same sense as "Fluctus decumanus," i. e., of extraordinary size (Ov., Trist., I., ii., 49), the Pythagorean notion being that the tenth was always the largest; which notion they extended even to eggs. (Compare the Greek τρικυμία, Æsch., P. V., 1015, with Blomfield's gloss.)
[1658] This, according to Gerlach's view, is the answer of Lælius to some petulant questionings of an epicure. The missing words are utimur and cibo, or something to that effect.
[1659] Sumen was "the sow's udder, killed the day after farrowing." Cf. ad Juv., xi., 138, 81. Pers., i., 53.
Altilis is put for any thing fattened up—oxen, hares, geese, ducks, hens, or even fish. Cf. Hor., i., Ep. vii., 35, "Satur altilium." Juv., v., 168, "Minor altilis." Athen., ix., c. 32. Woodcocks, snipes, thrushes, and even dormice, are mentioned among their fatlings.
Catillo (either from catullus or catillus, diminutive of catinus, "a dish") is applied to "a dog that runs about licking the dishes." It is then used as a term of contempt for "those who came late to the sacrifices of Hercules, and had nothing left them but the dishes to lick." It is here used for "the pike that battens on the rich products of the Roman cloacæ." (Macrob., Sat. ii., 12.) The Roman epicures distinguished between three different kinds of the Tiber pike (lupus Tiberinus). The worst were those caught quite out at sea; the second best, those caught at Ostia at the river's mouth; the finest of all were those taken in the neighborhood of the embouchures of the sewers, either between the Pons Senatorius and Pons Sublicius, where the cloaca maxima empties itself, or between the Pons Sublicius and Fabricius. Hor., ii., Sat. ii, 31, "Lupus hic Tiberinus an alto captus hiet, pontesne inter jactatus an amnis Ostia sub Tusci." Juv., v., 104, "Tiberinus, et ipse vernula riparum pinguis torrente cloacâ."
[1660] Lucilius probably refers to some rich, strong, full-bodied wine, which these epicures drank unmixed, contrary to the usual custom. Defusum seems to be the better reading, which implies "pouring from a larger vessel, as the crater, into the cyathus or drinking-cup." Diffusum is applied "to racking the wine from the wine-vat or cask into the amphora," when it was sealed down. Cf. Hor., i., Ep. v., 4, Orell. Juv., v., 30. For the use of snow in cooling wine, see note to Juv., v., 50. This wine has lost none of its strength by mixing it with snow, and none of its flavor from having been filtered through the strainer. (Cf. Plin., H. N., xiv., 27. Hor., ii., Sat. iv., 51, seq.) A great difficulty with the ancients seems to have been to clear their wine of the lees; some of the methods are mentioned in the passage of Horace just quoted. Eggs were also used for the same purpose. Besides this, the wine was poured through a colum and saccus vinarius. The former was a kind of metal sieve, of which numbers have been found at Pompeii. The latter was a filter-bag of linen. (Hence "integrum perdunt lino vitiata saporem." Hor., u. s.) The usual plan was to fill both the colum and saccus with snow, and then to pour the wine over it; and with this view the snow was carefully preserved till summer, as is still done at Naples. (Hence "æstivæ nives." Mart., v., Ep. lxiv., 2.) Nero's invention of using water that had been boiled and afterward frozen, as a substitute for snow, has been already alluded to. This process also served to moderate the intoxicating power of the stronger wines; hence the phrases "castrare, frangere, liquare, vina." (Cf. Plin., H. N., xix., 4,19; xiv., 22; xxiv., 1, 1. Mart., xii., Ep. lx., 9, "Turbida sollicito transmittere Cæcuba sacco." xiv., Ep. ciii. and civ.; ix., Ep. xxiii, 8; xci., 5.)
[1661] The magistrate who exhibited the shows of gladiators was said edere munus. The first editores were the brothers Marcus and Decimus Junius Brutus, A.U.C. 490, B.C. 264, who exhibited a munus gladiatorium in the Forum Boarium, at their father's funeral. Val. Max., II., iv., 7, Liv. Epit., xvi. The country of Samnium afterward produced many of these gladiators, though probably the name Samnis was also given to those who were armed after the old Samnite fashion (as Threx, Gallus, etc. Hor., i., Ep. xviii., 36; ii., Ep. ii., 98. Livy describes their equipment in detail, ix., 40, which tallies exactly with the paintings discovered at Pompeii. Vid. Pompeii, vol. i., p. 308, seq.). Æsernia, now Isernia, was a town in the district of the Pentri in Samnium, to which the Romans sent a colony in the year above mentioned. Æsernius was probably some famous gladiator who was a native of this place, but his name and that of Pacideianus were afterward used proverbially for any eminent men of that class. Cf. Cic., opt. gen., Or. vi. Tusc., iv., 21, ad Quint. Frat., iii., 4. Hor., ii., Sat. vii., 97. Nonius explains "spurcus" to mean "savage, blood-thirsty."
[1662] The reading and interpretation of Gerlach is followed.
[1663] Cicero (de Orat., iii., 23) quotes these lines of Lucilius, when speaking of a certain Velocius, who, when a youth, had applied himself with great success to the gladiatorial art, so as in fact to be a match for any one, but afterward never practiced it. The relative claims of the readings civis and cuivis are discussed at great length in Harles' note to the passage of Cicero (q. v., ed. Lips., 1816). The rudis was the wooden sword with which the gladiators practiced; the sica being used in the ludus. They also received a rudis as a token of their release from service. Hence "rudem poscere," "rude donatus," etc. Ov., Am., II., ix., 22. Cic., Phil., ii., 29. Hor., i., Ep. i., 2. Suet., Cal., 32.
[1664] "Even though women may not have sufficient bodily strength to endure the rougher and more laborious duties of human life, still they may so far take care of their bodies as to be enabled to discharge the womanly office of suckling children." Gerlach: who reads succosa for succussa, and explains uberior by "largior, digitis non contractis, vola manus," "the open palm." Cf. lib. xxviii., Fr. 47.
[1665] An utterly hopeless Fragment: for the second word, titene, there are eleven various readings. Gerlach's emendation is followed, who thinks it refers to the torments of love.
[1666] This Fragment also Gerlach considers descriptive of the impetuosity of unbridled lust. Van Heusde sees an allusion to the episode of the hawk and the nightingale in Hesiod. Op. et Di., 201, seq.
[1667] Pessulus was the peg or bolt by which the fastening of the door was secured on the inside. It probably refers to a lover effecting a forcible entrance into his mistress's house. Cf. Hor., i., Od. xxv., 1; iii., Od. xxvi., 7, where Horace enumerates vectes among the weapons of a lover's warfare. Cf. Lucil., xxix., Fr. 47, "Vecte atque ancipiti ferre effringam cardines."
[1668] Cf. Cels., ii., 15.