[822] Gentiles who were proselytes to the Jewish religion; or, perhaps, members of the Christian sect, who were confounded with them. See the note to TIBERIUS, c. xxxvi. The tax levied on the Jews was two drachmas per head. It was general throughout the empire.
[823] We have had Suetonius's reminiscences, derived through his grandfather and father successively, CALIGULA, c. xix.; OTHO, c. x. We now come to his own, commencing from an early age.
[824] This is what Martial calls, "Mentula tributis damnata."
[825] The imperial liveries were white and gold.
[826] See CALIGULA, c. xxi., where the rest of the line is quoted; eis koiranos esto.
[827] An assumption of divinity, as the pulvinar was the consecrated bed, on which the images of the gods reposed.
[828] The pun turns on the similar sound of the Greek word for "enough," and the Latin word for "an arch."
[829] Domitia, who had been repudiated for an intrigue with Paris, the actor, and afterwards taken back.
[830] The lines, with a slight accommodation, are borrowed from the poet Evenus, Anthol. i. vi. i., who applies them to a goat, the great enemy of vineyards. Ovid, Fasti, i. 357, thus paraphrases them:
Rode caper vitem, tamen hinc, cum staris ad aram,
In tua quod spargi cornua possit erit.