[99] Silenus. (Σειληνός.) Son of Hermes and a nymph, the constant companion of Bacchus. “He is the very image of an elderly satyr, a perpetually-intoxicated, jovial, good-natured old man with a baldpate and snub-nose, fat and rotund as a wine-skin, from which he is inseparable. His own feet can rarely carry him; he usually rides on a donkey, or is led and supported by satyrs. He delights in music and song as well as wine.” Silenus had a temple at Elis.
[100] You see, my worthy friend, how truly Domitian inclines to leniency. See [note 13], Vol. II.
[101] Past the Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus lay south-west, the Mamertine Prison north-east of the Palatine Hill.
[102] Breast-Belt. The breast-belt (mamillare) supplied the place of corsets to the Roman ladies.
[103] Bryonia (the hedge-rape). Such professional poisoners are often mentioned. Locusta (“the grasshopper”) a contemporary and accomplice of the emperor Nero, was specially notorious. See Suet Ner., 33; Tac. Ann. XXII, 66; Juv. Sat. I, 71. Our Bryonia is not historical.
[104] Amathusia. A surname of Aphrodite, from the city of Amathus on the southern coast of Cyprus, where there was a famous temple of the goddess.
[105] Marry the vine with the elm. A favorite phrase, to characterize the idyllic activity of rural life. See Hor. Epod. II, 9; Od. IV, 5, 30.
[106] All the meat had come up ready carved. The various dishes were usually carved in the triclinium, by a slave (scissor) specially appointed for the purpose, after which the taster (praegustator) tried them, to secure the company from poison.
[107] Parthenius, give me your arm as far as the balcony. Out-buildings (galleries, balconies, bow-windows) were not unknown to the ancients. See, among other instances, the famous bow-windowed house in Pompeii.
[108] The little town of Rodumna. Municipes, that is, sharers, was the name originally bestowed upon the inhabitants of those cities most closely connected with Rome, for instance Tusculum, Formiae, Lanuvium. Later the term extended to all the cities in Italy, so that every Roman country-town was called municipium. Still later the name included all the cities in the empire. We use the word municipium here incorrectly, in the sense of the German “country-town” for the elevation of all the cities of the empire to municipia did not occur until several decades after Domitian’s reign. What is here said of the importance of Rodumna is not supported by the writings of the ancient authors.