[25] I do not know if this offer of King Ptolemæus is noticed by any other writer. It is not certain whether it was Ptolemæus VI. Philometor or his younger brother Ptolemæus VII. Euergetes II. Their two reigns lasted 64 years from B.C. 181 to B.C. 117. Philometor died B.C. 146 and was succeeded by Euergetes who died B.C. 117. The death of Tiberius Gracchus the father is not ascertained. He married his wife Cornelia after B.C. 183 and he was consul B.C. 163. His son Tiberius, who was killed B.C. 133, was not thirty years old at the time and therefore was born about B.C. 163. Caius, who was nine years younger, was born about B.C. 154. It is not known whether Caius was the youngest child of Cornelia. Ptolemæus Philometor went to Rome B.C. 163, being driven out of his kingdom by his younger brother Euergetes, and he was well received by the senate. His brother also made a journey to Rome in the following year, B.C. 162. In B.C. 154 Ptolemæus Euergetes was at Rome for the second time, and he obtained the aid of the senate against his brother. Both the brothers may have seen Cornelia at Rome, but probably during the lifetime of her husband. Scipio Africanus, the son-in-law of Cornelia, was sent on an embassy to Alexandria to Euergetes B.C. 143. An Egyptian king might wish to strengthen himself at Rome by an alliance with the illustrious families of the Gracchi and the Scipios; but it is impossible to determine which of these two kings was the suitor. Philometor is spoken of as a mild and generous prince: Euergetes, who was also called Physcon, or Big-belly, was a cruel sensualist. The daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, might well decline a marriage with him, and any Egyptian alliance would have been viewed as a degradation to a noble Roman matron. The portrait of Physcon is given in Rosellini’s work on Egypt, from the ancient monuments, and he is very far from looking like a winning suitor. Kaltwasser assumes that it was Ptolemæus Philometor who made the offer to Cornelia; and he adds that he was also called Lathyrus; but this is a mistake; Lathyrus was the surname of Ptolemæus VIII. Soter II., the son of Physcon. He has not examined the chronology of these two kings.
[26] This was Publius Cornelius Scipio Æmilianus Africanus Minor. He was the son of L. Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedonia, and he was the adopted son of P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of the conqueror of Hannibal. According to the Roman usage in case of adoption, the son of Æmilius Paulus took the name of his adopted father, P. Cornelius Scipio, to which was added, according to the usage, the name of Æmilianus, which marked the gens to which he belonged by birth. It was after the destruction of Carthage that he acquired the additional name or title of Africanus, like his adoptive grandfather, from whom he is usually distinguished by the addition of the name Minor or younger. The daughter of Cornelia, whom he married, was named Sempronia. She was ugly and bore her husband no children, and they did not live harmoniously together. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 20.) As to the Roman names see the note on Marius, c. 1.
[27] The Greek name for Castor and Pollux, who were the sons of Jupiter and Leda. Pollux was a boxer, and Castor distinguished for his management of horses and as a runner. Their statues were generally placed side by side with their appropriate characters, to which Pluturch alludes.
[28] Plutarch uses the Greek word Bema (βῆμα), which is the name for the elevated stone station in the Pnyx from which the Athenian orators addressed the public assemblies. The place from which the Roman orators addressed the public assemblies was called the Rostra, or the beaks, because it was ornamented with the beaks of the ships which the Romans took from the people of Antium. (Liv. 8, c. 14.) The Rostra were in the Forum, and in a position between the Comitium and that part of the Forum which was appropriated to the meeting of the Roman tribes. (See Caius Gracchus, [ch. 5.])
[29] The history of this Athenian demagogue is in Thucydides, ii. &c. The play of Aristophanes called “The Knights” (Ἱππῆς) is directed against him. By his turbulent oratory he acquired some distinction at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, after the death of Perikles. (See Plutarch, Nikias, c. 2, 3.)
[30] The MSS. have δελφῖνας, dolphins, which some critics would change to δελφικάς, tables made at Delphi or in Delphic fashion. Plinius (Nat. Hist. 33, c. 11) speaks of these dolphins, though he does not say what they were. The alteration in the text is quite necessary. The dolphins were probably ornaments attached to some piece of furniture. Plutarch gives the value in drachmæ, the usual Greek silver coin, and the money of reckoning: the usual Roman money of reckoning was the sestertius. Plinius mentions the value of these dolphins at 5000 sestertii a pound, which would make 4 sestertii equivalent to a drachma. The drachma is reckoned at about 9-3/4d. and the sestertius at 2-1/4d. under the Republic.
[31] The original is literally “an instrument for practising the voice by which they raise sounds.” Perhaps a musician may be able to interpret the passage, without explaining the instrument to be a pitch-pipe as some have done. Cicero (De Orat. iii. 60) tells the same story somewhat differently. He says that this Licinius was a lettered man (literatus homo), and that he used to stand behind Caius Gracchus, yet so as to be concealed, with an ivory pipe (fistula), when Gracchus was addressing the public assemblies; his duty was to produce a suitable note either for the purpose of rousing his master when his tone was too low or lowering his tone when it was too vehement. (See also Dion, Fragmenta, p. 39, ed. Reimarus.)
[32] An augur was one who ascertained the will of the gods by certain signs, but more particularly the flights of birds. The institution of augurs was coeval with the Roman state, and as the augural ceremonial was essential to the validity of all elections, the body of augurs possessed great political influence. The college of augurs at this time consisted of nine members, who filled up the vacancies that occurred in their body. A member of the college held his office for life, and the places were objects of ambition to all the great personages in the state. They were not appropriated to a class of priests: they were held by persons who had no other priestly character. Cicero, for instance, was an augur. The Roman system of placing the highest religious offices not in the hands of a priestly class, but in the hands of persons who had held and might still hold civil offices, perhaps possessed some advantages. There are many valuable remarks on the Roman Auguria and Auspicia in Rubino, Untersuchungen über Römische Verfassung.
[33] Appius Claudius Pulcher was a member of the Claudia gens, and belonged to an old patrician family, which had long been opposed to all the pretensions of the plebeian order. He was consul B.C. 143. He did not long survive his son-in-law. Cicero (Brutus, 28) enumerates him among the orators of Rome; he observes that he spoke fluently, but with rather too much heat.
[34] The rank of Princeps Senatus was given at one time by the censors to the oldest of those who had filled the office of censor (Liv. 27, c. 11), but after the election of Q. Fabius Maximus mentioned in the passage of Livius, it was given to any person whom the censors thought most fit; and it was for the same person to be reappointed at each successive lustrum, that is, every five years. It was now merely an honorary distinction, though it had once been a substantive office. The title was retained under the Empire by the Emperors; and Princeps is the title by which Tacitus designates Augustus and his successor Tiberius. The title has come down to us through the French language in the form of Prince.