[78] Scipio Africanus the younger was elected consul B.C. 147 when he was thirty-seven years of age, the law as to age being for that occasion not enforced. There was an old Plebiscitum (law passed in the Comitia Tributa) which enacted that no man should hold the same magistracy without an interval of ten full years. (Livius. 7, c. 42; 10, c. 13). The first instance of the law being suspended was in the case of Q. Fabius Maximus. One of Sulla's laws re-enacted or confirmed the old law.
[79] This canal of Marius is mentioned by Strabo (p. 183) and other ancient writers. The eastern branch of the Rhone runs from Arelate (Arles) to the sea, and the canal of Marius probably commenced in this branch about twenty Roman miles below Arles (which did not then exist), and entered the sea between the mouth of this branch and Maritima, now Martigues. The length of the canal of Marius might be about twelve Roman miles. Marseilles is east of Martigues. (D'Anville. Notice de la Gaule Ancienne.)
[80] The movements of the barbarians are not clearly stated. It appears from what follows that the Cimbri entered Italy on the north-east over the Noric Alps, for their march brought them to the banks of the Adige. Florus says that they came by the defiles of Tridentum (Trento). The Teutones, if they marched through the Ligurian country along the sea to meet Marius, who was near Marseilles, must have come along the Riviera of Genoa.
[81] Plutarch calls her a Syrian. Martha may have been a Syrian name, as well as a Jewish name. Syrians and Jews flocked to Rome in great numbers under the later Republic and the Empire, and got their living in various ways not always reputable. The Jews at Rome used to cause disturbances in the popular assemblies in Cicero's time. (Cic. Pro Flacco, c. 28.) Jews and Syrians are often mentioned together by the Roman writers. The Jews at Rome were greatly troubled at the assassination of the Dictator Cæsar, and they crowded round the place where the body was burnt for nights in succession. Cæsar had rather favoured the nation for their services in the Alexandrine War. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 84, and Casaubon's note.)
[82] He wrote on Natural History; among other things, a History of Birds, from which this story is probably taken. There is evidently an error in the text ἠσπάζοντο τοὺς στρατιοτάς. I have adopted Reiske's emendation.
[83] Pessinus was in Galatia, properly a part of Phrygia, and the seat of the temple of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods or the Great Mother. In the second Punic War the Romans sent ambassadors to Pessinus, and got permission to convey to Rome the Great Mother of the Gods, who was a sacred stone. The Sibylline Books had declared that when a foreign enemy was in Italy, he could be driven out, if the Idæan mother, for Cybele was so called also, was brought to Rome. The goddess was received at Rome (B.C. 203) with great respect, and placed in the temple of Victory. (Livius, 29, c. 10, &c.) Plutarch does not explain how the goddess now happened to be in Asia and Rome at the same time, for there is no account of her leaving Rome after she was taken there. The annual celebration called Megalesia, that is, the festival of the Great Mother, was instituted at Rome in honour of the goddess, and celebrated in the spring. (Herodianus, i. 32, &c.) It was a tradition that the stone fell from the skies at Pessinus. There was another great stone in Syria (Herodianus, v. 5), in the temple of the Sun, which was worshipped: the stone was round in the lower part, and gradually tapered upwards; the colour was black, and the people Aida that it fell from heaven. It is probable that these stones were ærolites, the falling of which is often recorded in ancient writers, and now established beyond all doubt by repeated observation in modern times. (See Penny Cyclopædia, "Ærolites.") There is a large specimen in the British Museum. The immediate cause of the Romans sending for the Great Mother was a heavy shower of stones at Rome, an occurrence which in those days was very common. One might have supposed that one of the Roman ærolites would have answered as well as the stone of Pessinus, but the stone of Pessinus had the advantage of being consecrated by time and coming from a distance, and it was probably a large stone. Cf. Plut. Lys. ch. 12.
[84] This is Aix, about eighteen Roman miles north of Marseilles. Places which were noted for warm springs or medicinal springs were called by the Romans Aquæ, Waters, with some addition to the name. The colony of Aquæ Sextiæ was founded by C. Sextius Calvinus B.C. 120, after defeating the Salyes or Saluvii, in whose country it was. The springs of Aix fell off in repute even in ancient times, and they have no great name now; the water is of a moderate temperature.
Other modern towns have derived their name from the same word Aquæ, which is probably the same as the Celtic word Ac or Acq. There is an Aix in Savoy, and Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in the Rhine Province of Prussia. Sometimes the Aquæ took a name from a deity. In France there were the Aquæ Bormonis, the waters of the God Bormo (Bourbonnes-les-Bains): in England, Aquæ Sulis, the Waters of the Goddess Sulis, which by an error became Solis in our books, as if they were called the waters of the Sun. The inscriptions found at Bath name the goddess Sulia.
[85] Plutarch means to say that the Ambrones and Ligurians were of one stock, and some writers conclude that they were both Celts. This may be so or it may not, for evidence is wanting. Of all the absurd parade of learning under which ancient history has been buried by modern critics, the weightiest and the most worthless part is that which labours to discover the relationship of people of whom we have only little, and that little often conflicting, evidence.
[86] The Lar according to D'Anville, not the Arc.