[554] The passage to which Plutarch refers is Iliad, i. 259. The character of Favonius is well known from the Lives of Pompeius and Cato the Younger.
[555] Kaltwasser has a note on the Roman practice of an invited guest taking his shadows (umbræ) with him. Horace alludes to the practice (i. Ep. 5, 28),
——“locus est et pluribus umbris.”
Plutarch discusses the etiquette as to umbræ in his Symposiaca (book vii. Qu. 6).
[556] The Romans reclined at table. They placed couches on three sides of the table and left the fourth open. The central couch or sofa (lectus medius) was the first place. The other sofas at the adjoining two sides were respectively lectus summus and imus.
[557] Nothing further seems to be known of him. The name Pella is probably corrupt. The consequence of his condemnation was Infamia, as to the meaning of which term: see Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Infamia. This interview between Brutus and Cassius forms one of the finest scenes in Shakespeare’s play of Julius Cæsar.
[558] The reading here is probably corrupt. See the note of Sintenis.
[559] The ghost story is told also in the Life of Cæsar, c. 69.
[560] Cassius was one of the Romans who had embraced the doctrines of Epicurus, modified somewhat by the Roman character. Cicero in a letter to Cassius (Ad Diversos, xv. 16) rallies him about his opinions; and Cassius (xv. 19) in reply defends them. Cicero says to Cassius, that he hopes he will tell him whether it is in his power, as soon as he chooses to think of Cassius, to have his spectrum (εἴδωλον) present, before him, and whether, if he should begin to think of the island Britannia, the image (spectrum) of Britannia will fly to his mind.
Lucretius expounded the Epicurean doctrines in his poem De Rerum Natura. In his fourth book he treats of images (simulacra):