[81] The poets in Juvenal's time used to rehearse their poetry in August.
[82] Numa, the second king of Rome, who made their laws, and instituted their religion.
[83] Ægeria, a nymph, or goddess, with whom Numa feigned to converse by night; and to be instructed by her, in modelling his superstitions.
[84] We have a similar account of the accommodation of these vagabond Israelites, in the Sixth Satire, where the prophetic Jewess plies her customers:
----cophino, fænoque relicto.
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed;
She strolls, and telling fortunes, gains her bread.—Editor.
[85] Dædalus, in his flight from Crete, alighted at Cumæ.
[86] Lachesis is one of the three destinies, whose office was to spin the life of every man; as it was of Clotho to hold the distaff, and Atropos to cut the thread.
[87] Arturius means any debauched wicked fellow, who gains by the times.
[88] In a prize of sword-players, when one of the fencers had the other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the spectators. If they thought he deserved it not, they held up their thumbs, and bent them backwards in sign of death.
[89] Verres, præter in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero, by whom accused of oppressing the province, he was condemned: his name is used here for any rich vicious man.