[202] You leeches are always right. Blepyrus, as his master’s constant companion, would watch over his health, if not as a qualified physician, at any rate, as an empirical adviser. The household leech in noble families was almost always a slave or freedman, and those who practised independently were often in the same position.
[203] Ostiarius. The porter, who sat in a niche of the entrance-corridor (ostium).
[204] Hyrcanian mountains. Hyrcania was the name of a rough mountainous region near the Caspian Sea.
[205] The second vigil. The Romans divided the time from sunrise to sunset into four vigils (night-watches) of three hours each.
[206] Cubiculum. Sleeping-room.
[207] Orbilius. The well-known schoolmaster, nicknamed by his pupils plagosus, (delighting in blows) to whom Horace went. (Suet. Gramm. 9.)
[208] I suppose you would like to stick a pin into me. Roman ladies often avenged mistakes committed by their slaves, during the process of making their toilettes, by such abuse. Nay, it sometimes happened that a slave thus stabbed was killed. See Mart. Ep. II, 66, where Lalage knocks down the female slave Plecusa on account of a single curl escaping from her hair.
[209] Ah! you naughty girl. With the sovereign contempt with which so many Romans treated their slaves, this tone, addressed to the daughter of the house, might seem strange, but even under the emperors the relation between masters and slaves was in many respects a patriarchial one. The older slaves, especially, were permitted many familiarities in their intercourse with the children of the family, who often called them “little father,” "little mother," allowed them to reprove them, and according to their personality, frequently permitted them to exercise no little authority. A beautiful example of cordial relations existing between the master, and his slaves and freedmen, is shown us in a letter from the younger Pliny to Paullinus (Ep. V. 19) where he says: "I see how mildly you treat your people, and therefore acknowledge the more frankly how indulgent I am to mine; I always remember the words of Homer:
“‘And was kind as a father....’
and our own ‘father of a family’ (pater familias). But even were I harsher and sterner by nature, I should be moved by the illness of my freedman Zosimus, to whom I must show the greater kindness, now that he needs it more.... My long-standing affection for him, which is only increased by anxiety, affords a guarantee for that. Surely it is natural, that nothing so fans and increases love as the fear of loss, which I have already endured more than once on his account. Some years ago, after reciting a long time with much effort, he raised blood; so I sent him to Egypt, from whence he returned a short time since greatly strengthened by the long journey. But on straining his voice too much for several days, a slight cough served to remind us of the old difficulty, and he again raised blood. Therefore I intend to send him to your estate at Forojulium, having often heard you say that the air there was healthful, and the milk very beneficial in such diseases.“