[821] A slave only; and not by any of his brother patricians. Antony was rendered infamous by his proscriptions.
[822] Appian and Livy mention the fine as consisting of ten thousand talents in all, or in other words, eight hundred thousand pounds of silver (at eighty pounds to the talent). Sillig is therefore of opinion that Pliny is in error here in inserting the word “annua.” The payment of the ten thousand talents, we learn from the same authorities, was spread over fifty years.
[823] Asia Minor.
[824] “Folia.” Hardouin prefers the reading “solia,” meaning “thrones,” or “chairs of state,” probably.
[825] Ajasson refuses to place credit in this statement.
[826] This vase of Semiramis was her drinking bowl, in much the same sense that the great cannon at Dover was Queen Elizabeth’s “pocket pistol.”
[827] The country to which, in previous times, the Argonauts had sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece, or in other words in search of gold, in which those regions were probably very prolific.
[828] See B. vi. c. 4.
[829] This story of the defeat of the great Ramses-Sesostris by a petty king of Colchis, would almost appear apocryphal. It is not improbable, however, that Sesostris, when on his Thracian expedition, may have received a repulse on penetrating further north, accustomed as his troops must have been, to a warmer climate.
[830] Of the amphitheatre.