[452] Sufflamine. "The introduction of the drag-chain has a local propriety: Rome, with its seven hills, had just so many necessities for the frequent use of the sufflamen. This necessity, from the change of the soil, exists no longer." Badham.
[453] Testes. Cf. vi., 311, Lunà teste.
[454] Damasippus (cf. Hor., ii., Sat. iii., 16) was a name of the Licinian gens. "Damasippus was sick," says Holyday, "of that disease which the Spartans call horse-feeding."
[455] Hordea. Horses in Italy are fed on barley, not on oats.
[456] Eponam (cf. Aristoph., Nub., 84), the patroness of grooms. Some read "Hipponam," which Gifford prefers, from the tameness of the epithet "solam." Cf. Blunt's Vestiges, p. 29.
"On some rank deity, whose filthy face
We suitably o'er stinking stables place." Dryden.
[457] Amomo, an Assyrian shrub. Cf. iv., 108.
[458] Idumeæ. The gate at Rome near the Arch of Titus, through which Vespasian and Titus entered the city in triumph after their victories in Palestine.
[459] Dominum. Cf. Mart., i., Ep. 113, "Cum te non nossem dominum regemque vocabam." Cf. iv., Ep. 84, 5.
[460] Inscripta lintea. Perhaps "curtains, having painted on them what was for sale within." Others say it means "embroidered with needlework;" or "towels," according to Calderinus, who compares Catull., xxv., 7.