“Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Cæsare major;
Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fuit?”
—Ep. vi. 32.
See the very beautiful lines of Statius:—
“Urbe fuit media nulli concessa potentum
Ara Deum, mitis posuit Clementia sedem:
Et miseri fecere sacram, sine supplice numquam
Illa novo; nulla damnavit vota repulsa.
Auditi quicunque rogant, noctesque diesque
Ire datum, et solis numen placare querelis.
Parca superstitio; non thurea flamma, nec altus
Accipitur sanguis, lachrymis altaria sudant ...
Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo
Forma Deæ, mentes habitare et pectora gaudet.
Semper habet trepidos, semper locus horret egenis
Cœtibus, ignotæ tantum felicibus aræ.”—Thebaid, xii. 481-496.
This altar was very old, and was said to have been founded by the descendants of Hercules. Diodorus of Sicily, however, makes a Syracusan say that it was brought from Syracuse (lib. xiii. 22). Marcus Aurelius erected a temple to “Beneficentia” on the Capitol. (Xiphilin, lib. lxxi. 34.)
“Tunc genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis,
Inque vicem gens omnis amet.”
—Pharsalia, vi.
“Hæc duri immota Catonis
Secta fuit, servare modum, finemque tenere,
Naturamque sequi, patriæque impendere vitam,
Nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.”
Lucan, Phars. ii. 380-383.
On the gladiators at banquets, see J. Lipsius, Saturnalia, lib. i. c. vi., Magnin; Origines du Théâtre, pp. 380-385. This was originally an Etruscan custom, and it was also very common at Capua. As Silius Italicus says:—
“Exhilarare viris convivia cæde Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira.”
Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius, was especially addicted to this kind of entertainment. (Capitolinus, Verus.) See, too, Athenæus iv. 40, 41.