[909] See Cicero's Oration, pro Caelio, where Atracinus is frequently mentioned, especially cc. i. and iii.

[910] "Hordearium rhetorem."

[911] From the manner in which Suetonius speaks of the old custom of chaining one of the lowest slaves to the outer gate, to supply the place of a watch-dog, it would appear to have been disused in his time.

[912] The work in which Cornelius Nepos made this statement is lost.

[913] Pliny mentions with approbation C. Epidius, who wrote some treatises in which trees are represented as speaking; and the period in which he flourished, agrees with that assigned to the rhetorician here named by Suetonius. Plin. xvii. 25.

[914] Isauricus was consul with Julius Caesar II., A.U.C. 705, and again with L. Antony, A.U.C. 712.

[915] A river in the ancient Campania, now called the Sarno, which discharges itself into the bay of Naples.

[916] Epidius attributes the injury received by his eyes to the corrupt habits he contracted in the society of M. Antony.

[917] The direct allusion is to the "style" or probe used by surgeons in opening tumours.

[918] Mark Antony was consul with Julius Caesar, A.U.C. 709. See before, JULIUS, c. lxxix.