"Front the cool east, when now the averted sun
Through the mid ardors of his course has run." Hodgson.
[381] Lunam. Senators wore black shoes of tanned leather: they were a kind of short boot reaching to the middle of the leg (hence, "Nigris medium impediit crus pellibus," Hor., I., Sat. vi., 27), with a crescent or the letter C in front, because the original number of senators was a hundred.—Aluta, "steeped in alum," to soften the skin.
[382] Ventidius Bassus, son of a slave; first a carman, then a muleteer; afterward made in one year prætor and consul. Being appointed to command against the Parthians, he was allowed a triumph; having been himself, in his youth, led as a captive in the triumphal procession of Pompey's father. Cf. Val. Max., vi., 10.
[383] Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, the pupil of Plato and Isocrates, wrote a treatise on Rhetoric, and set up as a teacher of it at Athens; but, meeting with no encouragement, shut up his school and hanged himself.
[384] Secundus Carrinas is said to have been driven by poverty from Athens to Rome; and was banished by Caligula for a declamation against tyrants. He is mentioned, Tac., Ann., xv., 45.
[385] Gelidas. "Cicutæ refrigeratoria vis: quos enecat incipiunt algere ab extremitatibus corporis." Plin., xxv., 13. Plat., Phædo, fin. Pers., iv., 1.
[386] Dii Majorum, etc.
"Shades of our sires! O sacred be your rest,
And lightly lie the turf upon your breast;
Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,
And spring eternal bloom and flourish there!
Your honor'd tutors, now a slighted race,
And gave them all a parent's power and place!" Gifford.
[387] Rufus, according to the old Schol., was a native of Gaul. Grangæus calls him Q. Curtius Rufus, and says nothing more is known of him than that he was an eminent rhetorician. He is here represented as charging Cicero with barbarisms or provincialisms, such as a Savoyard would use.
[388] Enceladus. Nothing is known of him.