[1517] Lunai portum. A line from the beginning of the Annals of Ennius. The town of Luna, now Luni, is in Etruria, but only separated by the river Macra (now Magra) from Liguria. The Lunai Portus, now Golfo di Spezzia, is in Liguria, and was the harbor from which the Romans usually took shipping for Corsica and Sardinia. Ennius therefore must have known it well, from often sailing thence with the elder Cato.
[1518] Cor Ennii. "Cor" is frequently used for sense. It is here a periphrasis for "Ennius in his senses." Quintus Ennius was born B.C. 239, at Rudiæ, now Rugge, in Calabria, near Brundusium, and was brought to Rome from Sardinia by Cato when quæstor there B.C. 204. He lived in a very humble way on Mount Aventine, and died B.C. 169, of gout (morbus articularis), and was buried in Scipio's tomb on the Via Appia. He held the Pythagorean doctrine of Metempsychosis, and says himself, in the beginning of his Annals, that Homer appeared to him in a dream, and told him that he had once been a peacock, and that his soul was transferred to him. The fragment describing this is extant. "Transnavit cita per teneras Caliginis auras (anima Homeri) visus Homerus adesse poeta. Tum memini fieri me pavum." [Cf. Hor., ii., Ep. i., 50. "Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus, Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur Quo promissa cadant et somnia Pythagorea." Tertull., de An., 24, "Pavum se meminit Homerus, Ennio Somniante.">[ The interpretation in the text seems the most reasonable. Others take quintus as a numeral adjective, and explain the meaning to be, that the soul of a peacock transmigrated first into Euphorbus, then into Homer, then into Pythagoras, and then into Ennius, who was consequently fifth from the peacock.
[1519] Auster, the Sirocco of the modern Italians, was reckoned peculiarly unwholesome to cattle. Cf. Virg., Georg., i., 443, "Urget ab alto Arboribusque satisque Notus pecorique sinister." 462, "Quid cogitet humidus Auster." Ecl., ii., 58. Tibul., I., i., 41. Hor., ii., Sat. vi., 18, "Nec mala me ambitio perdit nec plumbeus Auster, Auctumnusque gravis, Libitinæ quæstus acerbæ." ii., Od. xiv., 15. Some derive the name from "Ardeo," others from αὐὼ, "to parch or burn up:" so Austerus, from αὐστηρός.
[1520] Angulus. Hor., ii., Sat. vi., 8, "Oh! si angulus ille proximus accedat qui nunc denormat agellum."
[1521] Senio. "The premature old age brought on by pining at another's welfare." So Plautus, "Præ mærore adeo miser æquè ægritudine consenui." Cf. Capt., I., ii., 20. Truc., ii., 5, 13.
[1522] Naso tetigisse. "I will not become such a miser as to seal up vapid wine, and then closely examine the seal when it is again produced, to see whether it is untouched." Cf. Theophr. π. αἰσχροκερδ. So Cicero says, "Lagenas etiam inanes obsignare." Fam., xiv., 26.
[1523] Horoscope. Properly, "the star that is in the ascendant at the moment of a person's birth, from which the nativity is calculated." Persius has just ridiculed the Pythagoreans, he now laughs at the Astrologers. Whatever they may say, twins born under exactly the same horoscope, have widely different characters and pursuits. "Castor gaudet equis—ovo prognatus eodem Pugnis." Hor., ii., Sat. i., 26. Cf. Diog. Laert., II., i., 3.
[1524] Muria. Either a brine made of salt and water, or a kind of fishsauce made of the liquor of the thunny. Every word is a picture. "He buys his sauce in a cup; instead of pouring it over his salad, he dips the salad in it, and then scarcely moistens it: he will not trust his servant to season it, so he does it himself; but only sprinkles the pepper like dew, not in a good shower, and as sparingly as if it were some holy thing." Cf. Theophr., π. μικρολογ, καὶ ἀπαγορεῦσαι τῇ γυναικὶ, μήτε ἅλας χρωννύειν μήτε ἐλλύχνιον, μήτε κύμινον, μήτε ὀρίγανον, μήτε οὐλὰς, μήτε στεμματα, μήτε θυηλήματα· ἀλλὰ λέγειν, ὅτι τὰ μικρὰ ταῦτα πολλά ἐστι τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ. Hor., i., Sat. i., 71, "Tanquam parcere sacris cogeris." ii., Sat. iii., 110, "Metuensque velut contingere sacrum."
[1525] Turdarum. So the best MSS. and the Scholiasts read, and Casaubon follows. Varro, L. L., viii., 38, says the feminine form is not Latin. The "turdus" (Greek κίχλη), probably like our "field-fare," was esteemed the greatest delicacy by the Greeks and Romans. In the Nubes of Aristophanes, the λόγος δίκαιος says, "In former days young men were not allowed οὐδ' ὀψοφαγεῖν, οὐδὲ κιχλίζειν." (Ubi vid. Schol.; but cf. Theoc., Id., xi., 78, cum Schol.) To be able to distinguish the sex of so small a bird by the flavor would be the acme of Epicurism. Hor., i., Ep. xv., 41, "Cum sit obeso nil melius turdo." Mart., xiii., Ep. 92, "Inter aves turdus, si quis me judice certet, Inter quadrupedes mattya prima lepus." Cf. Athen., ii., 68, D.
[1526] Prendit amicus. From Hom., Od., v., 425, τόφρα δέ μιν μέγα κῦμα φέρε τρηχεῖαν ἐπ' ἀκτήν· ἔνθα κ' ἀπὸ ῥινοὺς δρύφθη, σὺν δ' ὀστέ' ἀράχθη, and 435. Virg., Æn., vi., 360. Cf. Palimirus," Prensantemque uncis manibus capita ardua montis."