Verbum Græcum.—The lines in Vol. i., p. 415., where this word occurs, are in a doggrel journal of his American travels, written by Moore, and published in his Epistles, Odes, and other Poems. They are introduced apropos to the cacophony of the names of the places which he visited.
D. X.
"Après moi le Déluge" (Vol. iii, p. 299.).—This sentiment is to be found in verse of a Greek tragedian, cited in Sueton. Nero, c. 38.:
"Ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί."
Suetonius says that some one, at a convivial party, having quoted this line, Nero outdid him by adding, Immo ἐμοῦ ζῶντος. Nero was not contented that the conflagration of the world should occur after his death; he wished that it should take place during his lifetime.
Dio Cassius (lviii. 23.) attributes this verse, not to Nero, but to Tiberius, who, he says, used frequently to repeat it. See Prov. (app. ii. 56.), where other allusions to this verse are cited in the note of Leutsch.
L.
[We are indebted for a similar reply to C. B., who quotes the line from Euripides, Fragm. Inc. B. xxvii.]
"Après moi," or "après nous le Déluge" sounds like a modernisation of the ancient verse,—