C. xv. v. 7. The Etymology of "platea" shows it to be a street widening into a kind of place, as we often find in the old country towns of Southern Europe.—R. F. B.
v. 18. Patente porta. This may be read "Your house door being open so that each passer may see your punishment," or it may be interpreted as referring to the punishment itself, i.e., through the opened buttocks.
v. 19. This mode of punishing adulterers was first instituted amongst the Athenians. The victim being securely tied, a mullet was thrust up his fundament and withdrawn, the sharp gills of the fish causing excruciating torment to the sufferer during the process of its withdrawal, and grievously lacerating the bowels. Sometimes an enormous radish was substituted for the mullet. According to an epigram quoted by Vossius from the Anthologia, Alcaeus, the comic writer, died under this very punishment.
Lo here Alcaeus sleeps; whom earth's green child,
The broad-leaved radish, lust's avenger, kill'd.
C. xvi. v. 1. Paedicabo et irrumabo. These detestable words are used here only as coarse forms of threatening, with no very definite meaning. It is certain that they were very
commonly employed in this way, with no more distinct reference to their original import than the corresponding phrases of the modern Italians, T' ho in culo and becco fottuto, or certain brutal exclamations common in the mouths of the English vulgar.
v. 5. Ovid has a distich to the same effect:
Crede mihi, distant mores a carmine nostri;
Vita verecunda est, musa jocosa mihi.