[184] Daci. A people living in the region now called Hungary, east of the Danube.
[185] Blood-hounds. (Molossi.) The dogs from Molossis in eastern Epirus were famous sleuth-hounds. (Hor. Virg. etc.)
[186] Patrician way. (vicus Patricius) ran between the Esquiline and Viminal hills.
[187] This is violence! Julius Caesar’s famous exclamation just before his murder, when Cimber Tullius, having approached him with a petition, after a refusal, seized him by the toga. (Suet. Jul. Caes. 82.)
[188] I should advise you, freedman. Their former condition of slavery affixed an ineffaceable stigma upon all freedmen, especially in the eyes of the old senatorial nobility. Even the vast power attained by some of the emperor’s freedmen, for instance the high chamberlain Parthenius, was of no avail in this respect; they too were at heart despised by all free-born citizens, much as they strove, from motives of prudence, to conceal this contempt beneath protestations of sycophantic devotion. Quintus addressing Stephanus as “freedman,” could not fail to be taken by the latter as a mortal insult.
[189] Town-watch, (cohortes urbanae). Besides the imperial body-guard, specially devoted to the Caesar’s service, there was a city-guard, which provided for the maintenance of public safety.
[190] Sabine Hills. The Sabines, an old Italian people, were the neighbors of the Latins. Their country extended northward to the domains of the Umbrians, southward to the Anio river.
[191] Followed by his clients and slaves. Aristocratic people rarely appeared in public without a train of followers.
[192] “Getting up early is my greatest torment.” See Martial, Ep. X 74, where the poet, as the sole reward for his verses, begs to be permitted to sleep as long as he likes in the morning.
[193] “Well said!” cried the poet. Martial often flattered his superiors, even to servility. See Mart. Ep. XII, 11, where he praises the poetic gifts of Parthenius.