[182] Aen. i. 186.
[183] It is hardly necessary to direct the careful reader's attention to views of political economy so worthy of an enlightened prince. But it was easier to make the Roman people wear the toga, than to forego the cry of "Panem et Circenses."
[184] Septa were enclosures made with boards, commonly for the purpose of distributing the people into distinct classes, and erected occasionally like our hustings.
[185] The Thensa was a splendid carriage with four wheels, and four horses, adorned with ivory and silver, in which, at the Circensian games, the images of the gods were drawn in solemn procession from their shrines, to a place in the circus, called the Pulvinar, where couches were prepared for their reception. It received its name from thongs (lora tensa) stretched before it; and was attended in the procession by persons of the first rank, in their most magnificent apparel. The attendants took delight in putting their hands to the traces: and if a boy happened to let go the thong which he held, it was an indispensable rule that the procession should be renewed.
[186] The Cavea was the name of the whole of that part of the theatre where the spectators sat. The foremost rows were called cavea prima, of cavea; the last, cavea ultima, or summa; and the middle, cavea media.
[187] A.U.C. 726.
[188] As in the case of Herod, Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xv. 10.
[189] The Adriatic and the Tuscan.
[190] It was first established by Tiberius. See c. xxxvii.
[191] Tertullian, in his Apology, c. 34, makes the same remark. The word seems to have conveyed then, as it does in its theological sense now, the idea of Divinity, for it is coupled with Deus, God; nunquum se dominum vel deum appellare voluerit.