[253] Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples. Augustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast.
[254] "Puteoli"—"A ship of Alexandria." Words which bring to our recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13. Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and not only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of corn and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east.
[255] The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxiii. The Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and women, freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers.
[256] Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.
[257] A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that emperor.
[258] Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.
[259] Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman citizens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but not that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained their own laws and customs; nor were they obliged to receive the Roman laws unless they chose it.
[260] Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles from Rome, now called Frattochio.
[261] Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in this pious office, which occupied them during five days.
[262] For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 94, note. The superb monument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by a dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first who was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present Porta del Popolo; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor and his family were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the church of the Madonna of that name.