[119] The campaign on the Rhine against the Germans. For Trajan’s campaign on the Rhine, see Plin. Paneg. 14. Some expressions in the description given there have been literally transcribed.
[120] The Propraetor of Lugdunum. Augustus divided all the provinces of the empire into two classes: the imperial and senatorial. The management of the former he undertook himself, confiding the latter to the senate. “In one respect, he had selected for himself those most difficult to govern, either because the inhabitants were not yet at peace, or warlike neighbors threatened an assault: the senate, on the contrary, obtained the peaceful ones. Thus the matter looked as if he had granted the senate the best and most lucrative, undertaking all care and peril himself; but in reality, he made the senate defenceless, retaining the army for his own exclusive use. Only one senatorial province (Africa) obtained one, and afterwards two legions. The governors of the senatorial provinces were divided into two classes. Africa and Asia, according to the decision of the senate, obtained ex-consuls. The other senatorial provinces were entrusted to praetors, who also bore the title of proconsul. The governors of the imperial provinces, on the contrary, though they might also have been consuls, were called propraetors, to indicate that they commanded the army (praeire). These propraetors (legati Caesaris pro praet. cons. pot.) were distinguished from the senatorial proconsuls in this respect—that they held office longer than a year, in consequence of which the provincials obtained great pecuniary relief.” Lugdunensian Gaul belonged to the imperial provinces, and therefore possessed a propraetor and a larger garrison.
[121] With regard to Ulpius Trajanus. See Plin. Paneg. 14, where the supposition is expressed that Domitian at that time cherished “a certain fear” of his victorious general Trajan.
[122] Guard of honor. An imperial propraetor had a right to six lictors.
[123] They have determined to accuse Domitian before the Senate. The senate possessed the right, which however was scarcely more than theoretical, of elevating and deposing emperors.
[124] Republic of Cincinnatus and Regulus is reëstablished. The opposition, under the emperors of the first centuries, possessed a really republican character, which frequently asserted itself in contemporary literature.
[125] To-day, the sixth after the Calends. The first day of every month was called Kalendae (from kalare, to proclaim). The beginning of the month was originally fixed by the new moon. An official, in later times the Pontifex Maximus, proclaimed the appearance of the new moon from a house (Curia Calabra) specially built for the purpose on the Capitoline Hill. The days of the second half of the month were reckoned in such a manner, that they were mentioned as before the calends of the following month; for instance, the 24th of March was the 9th day before the calends of April. The day from which, and the one to which the computation was made, were included in the reckoning. The phrase used here, “the sixth day after the calends, corresponds identically to no Latin form of speech.”
[126] Three hundred lions. “We are most amazed”—says Friedländer—“at the number of animals of one species, as well as the whole number of those belonging to different species, gathered at the great Roman spectacles. These numbers sound incredible; of course it must not be forgotten, that within two thousand years the species of the large animals have sustained a vast, scarcely computable diminution. Doubtless Dio’s remark, that all such numbers are exaggerated, is correct; but even after great reductions, nay, even if cut down one half, they remain enormous. The spectacles exhibited by Pompey and Caesar, are not only unsurpassed, but unequalled in this respect. In the former 17 or 18 elephants, 500 or 600 lions, and 410 other African animals were displayed; in the latter 400 lions and 40 elephants. Among the historians of the empire, the statement is by no means rare that 100, 200 and even 300 lions, 300, 400 and 500 bears, an equal number of African wild beasts (and still larger numbers of the ordinary kinds of animals) were exhibited or hunted at a single spectacle. All the Zoological gardens in Europe at the present day could be abundantly supplied with the animals gathered in Rome for a single great festival. According to Augustus’ own statement—he took great pleasure in ‘vast numbers of animals and unfamiliar wild beasts’—3,500 African animals alone perished in the 26 spectacles he gave. At the hundred-day festival given by Titus in the year 80 to commemorate the opening of the Flavian amphitheatre, 5,000 wild beasts of all kinds were exhibited in a single day, and the whole number of wild and tame ones killed reached 9,000.”
[127] End of the great festival. The centennial games, so far as we are informed, usually numbered only three festival days; nothing however prevents the supposition that Domitian, by the exercise of his sovereign will, might have made an exception.
[128] "Come hither to see, what none of you has ever yet seen, or ever will see again!" Latin:—quod nunquam quisquam spectasset nec spectaturus esset.