[69] Smoked Cheese. See Mart. Ep. XI, 52; XIII, 32. The best smoked cheese was the Velabrian, so called from Velabrum, a region between the Capitoline, Palatine and Aventine Hills.
[70] Metapontum, also Metapontium (Μεταπόντιον). A Greek city on the Tarentine Gulf, which has now disappeared except the remains of a Doric temple (la Tavola de’ Paladini). Even at the time of our story the once famous city had already begun to decline.
[71] Cyrenaica. A region on the northern coast of Africa; now the table-land of Barca.
[72] Grappling Hooks. Grapnels (corvi, manus ferreae) were an invention of Duilius. See Front. II, 3, 24; Flor. II, 2. When the corvi had seized the hostile ship, bridges were thrown across. Of course the party most interested in securing this close combat was the side that considered itself the superior in military strength, while inferior in point of strategy. For instance, the Romans in their wars with the Carthaginians.
[73] Or else a pirate. In spite of the energetic measures adopted against the piracy practised by the Illyrians, Cilicians and Isaurians, it was not wholly suppressed on the Mediterranean, even in the reign of Domitian.
[74] Liguria. The Ligurians lived in the country, now called the Riviera, between Marseilles and Pisa. Under the emperors the territory of Liguria contained the region now occupied by Nice, Genoa, Southern Piedmont, and the Western part of Parma and Piacenza.
[75] He severed the rope by which the rudder was worked. This bold method of rendering a hostile ship unfit for battle, was by no means rare. The two-edged axe, used to cut the rope of the rudder, was called bipennis.
[76] Was it not the same perhaps with the vessel of State? Comparing the administration of the government to a ship was common among the Romans. See the well-known ode of Horace “Ad rem publicam” (I, 14.): O navis, referent in mare te novi fluctus....
[77] Planasia and Ilva, now Pianosa and Elba.
[78] Athenopolis, now Saint Tropez.