They rise; and the cabinet being dismissed, the great chief bids the nobles depart whom he had dragged to the Alban height, amazed and forced to hurry, as though he were about to announce some tidings of the Catti and fierce Sicambri; as though from diverse parts of the world some alarming express had arrived on hurried wing. And would that he had devoted to such trifles as these those days of horror and cruelty, in which he removed from the city those glorious and illustrious spirits, with none to punish or avenge the deed! But he perished as soon as he began to be an object of alarm to cobblers. This was what proved fatal to one that was reeking with the blood of the Lamiæ!
FOOTNOTES:
[177] Iterum. Cf. i., 27, "Pars Niliacæ plebis, verna Canopi, Crispinus."
[178] Cf. vii., 179.
[179] The vestal escaped her punishment, through Crispinus' interest with Domitian.
[180] Cf. Sat. ii., 29. Suet., Domit., c. 8. Plin., iv., Epist xi.
[181] Sex millibus, about £44 7s. 6d. of English money. The value of the sestertium was reduced after the reign of Augustus. A mullet even of three pounds' weight was esteemed a great rarity. Vid. Hor., Sat., II., ii., 33, "Mullum laudas trilibrem."
[182] The chief heir was named in the second line of the first table. Cf. Horace, ii., Sat. v., 53. Suet., Cæs., 83; Nero, 17.
[183] Cf. Sat. xi., 3.
[184] Papyrus. Garments were made of papyrus even in Anacreon's days. iv., Od. 4. It is still used for the same purpose.