616 ([return])
[ Neonymphon; alluding to Nero’s unnatural nuptials with Sporus or Pythagoras. See cc. xxviii. xxix. It should be neonymphos.]
617 ([return])
[ “Sustulit” has a double meaning, signifying both, to bear away, and put out of the way.]
618 ([return])
[ The epithet applied to Apollo, as the god of music, was Paean; as the god of war, Ekataebaletaes.]
619 ([return])
[ Pliny remarks, that the Golden House of Nero was swallowing up all Rome. Veii, an ancient Etruscan city, about twelve miles from Rome, was originally little inferior to it, being, as Dionysius informs us, (lib. ii. p. 16), equal in extent to Athens. See a very accurate survey of the ruins of Veii, in Gell’s admirable TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS VICINITY, p. 436, of Bohn’s Edition.]
620 ([return])
[ Suetonius calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic organ appears to have been a later improvement. We have before us a contorniate medallion, of Caracalla, from the collection of Mr. W. S. Bohn, upon which one or other of these instruments figures. On the obverse is the bust of the emperor in armour, laureated, with the inscription as AURELIUS ANTONINUS PIUS AUG. BRIT. (his latest title). On the reverse is the organ; an oblong chest with the pipes above, and a draped figure on each side.]