[Note 11]. Page 63.
Epictetus.—No date in the life of Epictetus is certain; but as he was certainly the slave of Epaphroditus, Nero’s secretary, I take no violent liberty in introducing him here.
[Note 12]. Page 64.
Slaves were not held culpable for what their masters ordered.—The sentiment which Petronius puts into the mouth of Trimalchio—‘Nec turpe est quod dominus jubet’—is echoed by Seneca, ‘Impudicitia ... in servo necessitas est.’
[Note 13]. Page 67.
The ass-headed god.—One of the ancient calumnies against the Christians is that they worshipped a god with an ass’s head named Onokoites. See the writer’s Lives of the Fathers, i. § v. Hence the Christians were called Asinarii, and the ancients thought that Jews also worshipped the ass. See Tac. Hist. v. 4; Plut. Sympos. iv. 5, § 2; Diod. Sic. xxxiv. Fragm.; Jos. C. Apion. ii. 7. For the slander as regards Christians, see Min. Fel. Octav. ix. 28; Tert. Ad Natt. i. 14, Apol. 16. The celebrated graffito of ‘Alexamenos adoring his god,’ known by the Germans as the Spott-Crucifix, is now in the Library of the Collegio Romano at Rome, in the Museo Kircheriano. It was really found in the Gelotian Pædagogium, but is probably of much later date than the reign of Nero.
[Note 14]. Page 68.
Duc me, Parens, celsique Dominator poli,
Quocumque placuit; nulla parendi mora est.
Adsum impiger. Fac nolle, comitabor tamen.