[29]. The following is the passage from Machon, as quoted by Athenaeus; without a knowledge of it Forberg’s allusion remains obscure:
“... Demophon, Sophocles’ minion, when still a youth had Nico, already old and surnamed the she-goat; they say she had very fine buttocks. One day, he begged of her to lend them to him. ‘Very well,’ she said with a smile,—‘Take from me, dear, what you give to Sophocles.’” (Note of the translator.)
[30]. Secta, sect (from sequor) may also be derived from secare, to cut, and thus mean: laceration. (Note of the translator.)
[31]. Justinus tells the tale somewhat differently: “Pausanias had had to undergo since his puberty the violence of Attalus, who added to this indignity a crying outrage: having invited him to a feast and made him drunk, he not only satisfied upon him, when full of wine, his brutal lust, but allowed him to be used by all the guests like a vile courtesan, and made him the laughing stock of his equals. Unable to bear this infamy, Pausanias carried his complaint before Philip many and many a time, but the King always put him off with illusory promises. When Pausanias however saw Attalus elevated to the rank of the Chief of the Army, his fury turned against Philip, and the vengeance which he could not take upon his enemy, he took upon the iniquitous judge.” (IX., 6).
[32]. Suetonius, Julius Caesar, ch. 48: “Not content with having written in some of his letters that Cæsar was conducted by the guards to the bed-chamber of the King, slept there in a golden bed hung with purple, and that he allowed the bloom of his youth to be blighted in Bithynia, Cicero said to him one day in the midst of the Senate, where Cæsar was defending the case of Nysa, the daughter of King Nicomedes, and spoke of his obligations to that King: Pray, let us pass over all this; it is only too well known what you have received, and what you have given.”
On the day of his triumph over the Gauls, the soldiers sung the following verses, amongst those which are usually sung behind the triumphal car, and they are well known.
“Cæsar has subdued the Gauls, and Nicomedes Cæsar: this day is Cæsar triumphant for having subdued the Gauls, and Nicomedes, who subdued Cæsar, has no triumph.”
Catullus (carm. 57):
“How well they go together, those shameless cinedes, Mamurra the patient, and Cæsar.”
[33]. Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, ch. 51: Nor yet did he respect the conjugal bed in the provinces; this appears from the distich, also sung by the soldiers at the triumphal entry: