[2111] Optimus Maximus.
[2112] L. Junius Brutus, the nephew of Tarquin. Pliny alludes to the message sent to Delphi, for the purpose of consulting the oracle on a serpent being seen in the royal palace.
[2113] He alludes to the circumstance of the priestess being asked who should reign at Rome after Tarquin; upon which she answered, “He who first kisses his mother;” on which Brutus, the supposed idiot, stumbled to the ground, and kissed the earth, the mother of all.
[2114] A mere absurdity; the same has been said of the beech, and with equal veracity.
[2115] He makes a distinction between “altar” and “ara” here. The former was the altar of the superior Divinities, the latter of the superior and inferior as well.
[2116] The crackling of the laurel is caused by efforts of the essential oil to escape from the parenchyma or cellular tissue of the leaf, which it breaks with considerable violence when burning.
[2117] Nervorum. See B. xxiii. c. 80.
[2118] Suetonius, c. 66, confirms this. Fée says that the same superstition still exists in some parts of France. See B. ii. c. 56.
[2119] “The Poultry.”