[1328] Among the ancients, servants used to be summoned by clapping the hands, as they are, in modern times, by ringing of bells.—B. The same practice still prevails in the east.
[1329] In the twenty-third Chapter of the present Book.—B.
[1330] Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 12, and Diodorus Siculus, B. xiii. c. 14, gives the same account. It has been said, that, when he heard the news, he called for a draught of wine, and was choked with a grape-stone; this incident forms the subject of an epigram by Simonides, quoted by Hardouin, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 210.—B.
[1331] There is reason to believe, that the prize was given rather to the rank, than to the poetry of Dionysius; see the remarks of Ajasson, Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 210, 211.—B.
[1332] This anecdote is related by Livy, B. xxii. c. 7; by Valerius Maximus, B. ix. c. 12; and by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 15; the two former, however, state, that it occurred after the battle of Thrasymenus.—B.
[1333] Cicero, De Fato, sec. 6, styles Diodorus, “valens dialecticus.”—B.
[1334] According to Hardouin, these were Lucius, the prætor, and Caius, the father of the dictator; they were brothers, and the sons of C. Cæsar.—B.
[1335] Thirty-first of December; consequently his tenure of office was for a few hours only. Cicero indulged in several jokes upon his consulship, remarking that no one had died during it; and that the consul was extremely vigilant, for that he had never slept during his term of office.
[1336] This took place A.U.C. 708; Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, gives us an account of the jests passed by Cicero and others on the brief duration of his office.—B.
[1337] He is supposed to have been the same person who was consul A.U.C. 732.—B.