[87] Cicero was the first who received the honour of being called "Pater patriae."
[88] Statues were placed in the Capitol of each of the seven kings of Rome, to which an eighth was added in honour of Brutus, who expelled the last. The statue of Julius Caesar was afterwards raised near them.
[89] The white fillet was one of the insignia of royalty. Plutarch, on this occasion, uses the expression, diadaemati basiliko, a royal diadem.
[90] The Lupercalia was a festival, celebrated in a place called the Lupercal, in the month of February, in honour of Pan. During the solemnity, the Luperci, or priests of that god, ran up and down the city naked, with only a girdle of goat's skin round their waist, and thongs of the same in their hands; with which they struck those they met, particularly married women, who were thence supposed to be rendered prolific.
[91] Persons appointed to inspect and expound the Sibylline books.
[92] A.U.C. 709.
[93] See before, c. xxii.
[94] This senate-house stood in that part of the Campus Martius which is now the Campo di Fiore, and was attached by Pompey, "spoliis Orientis Onustus," to the magnificent theatre, which he built A.U.C. 698, in his second consulship. His statue, at the foot of which Caesar fell, as Plutarch tells us, was placed in it. We shall find that Augustus caused it to be removed.
[95] The stylus, or graphium, was an iron pen, broad at one end, with a sharp point at the other, used for writing upon waxen tables, the leaves or bark of trees, plates of brass, or lead, etc. For writing upon paper or parchment, the Romans employed a reed, sharpened and split in the point like our pens, called calamus, arundo, or canna. This they dipped in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for ink.
[96] It was customary among the ancients, in great extremities to shroud the face, in order to conceal any symptoms of horror or alarm which the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was drawn round the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in falling, as the Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and legs.