[77] Nova. "By witty spleen increased." Gifford.
"Friends, unenrich'd, shall revel o'er your bier,
Tell the sad news, nor grace it with a tear." Hodgson.
[79] Tædâ. Cf. viii., 235, "Ausi quod libeat tunica punire molestâ." Tac., Ann., xv., 44, "Aut crucibus adfixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur." Sen., de Ira, iii., 3, "Circumdati defixis corporibus ignes."
[80] Qui dedit, i. e., Tigellinus.
[81] Committas, a metaphor from pairing or matching gladiators in the arena.
"Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain;
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry,
Not if he drown himself for company." Dryden.
[82] Flaminiâ. The laws of the xii. tables forbade all burials within the city. The road-sides, therefore, were lined with tombs. Hence the common beginning of epitaphs, "Siste gradum viator." The peculiar propriety of the selection of these two roads is the fact that Domitian was buried by the Flaminian, and Paris, the mime, Juvenal's personal enemy, by the Latin road.