Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book because they were
the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the soldiers. From their
being always in the camp they acquired some military knowledge, and
hence we find them occasionally used in great emergencies. They are
sometimes confounded with Lixæ; but the latter were _not_ slaves. The
name is then applied to any coarse and common drudge. Cf. Hor., i.,
Ep. xiv., 41, "Invidet usum Lignorum tibi calo." Cf. i., Sat. ii.,
44; vi., 103. Tac., Hist., i., 49.--_Alto_ refers to the old Greek
proverb, ἄνοος ὁ μακρὸς, "Every tall man is a fool;" which Aristotle
(in Physiogn.) confirms.
[1461] _Examen._ See note on Sat. i., 6.
[1462] _Natura medendi._ Horace has the same idea, ii., Ep. i., 114,
"Navem agere ignarus navis timet; abrotonum ægro non audet nisi qui
didicit dare; quod medicorum est promittunt medici."
[1463] _Peronatus._ Cf. Juv., xiv., 186.
[1464] _Melicerta_ was the son of Ino, who leaped with him into the
sea, to save him from her husband Athamas. Neptune, at the request
of Venus, changed them into sea-deities, giving to Ino the name of
Leucothea, and to Palæmon that of Melicerta, or, according to others,
Portunus (à portu, as Neptunus, à nando). Vid. Ov., Met., iv., 523,
_seq._ Fast., vi., 545. Milton's Lycidas,
"By Leucothea's golden bands,
And her son that rules the sands."
[1465] _Frontem._ See note on Sat. i., 12. Hor., ii., Ep. i., 80,
"Clament periisse pudorem cuncti."
[1466] _In luto fixum._ From Hor., i., Ep. xvi., 63, "Quî melior servo
qui liberior sit avarus. _In triviis fixum_ cum se demittat ob assem."
The boys at Rome used to fix an as tied to a piece of string in the
mud, which they jerked away, with jeers and cries of "Etiam!" as soon
as any sordid fellow attempted to pick it up. Mercury being the god of
luck (see note on ii., 44; Hor., ii., Sat. iii., 25), Persius uses the
term "Mercurial saliva" for the miser's mouth watering at the sight of
the prize (vi., 62).--_Glutto_ expresses the gurgling sound made in the
throat at the swallowing of liquids.
[1467] _Fronte politus._ Hor., i., Ep. xvi., 45, "Introrsus turpem,
speciosum pelle decorâ."
[1468] _Vulpem._ Hor., A. P., 437, "Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe
latentes." Lysander's saying is well known, "Where the lion's skin does
not fit, we must don the fox's."
[1469] _Funemque reduco._ Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. sc. 1.
"I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again."
[1470] _Digitum exsere._ The Stoics held that none but a philosopher
could perform even the most trivial act, such as putting out the
finger, correctly; there being no middle point between absolute wisdom
and absolute folly: consequently it was beyond even the power of the
gods to bestow upon a fool the power of acting rightly.
[1471] _Litabis._ See note on Sat. ii., 75.
[1472] _Bathylli_, i. e., "Like the graceful Bathyllus, when acting the
part of the satyr." Juv., Sat. vi., 63. Gifford's note.
[1473] _Tot subdite rebus._ "None but the philosopher can be free,
because all men else are the slaves of _something_; of avarice, luxury,
love, ambition, or superstition." Cf. Epict., Man., xiv., 2, ὅστις
οὖν ἐλεύθερος εἶναι βούλεται, μήτε θελέτω τι, μήτε φευγέτω τι τῶν ἐπ'
ἄλλοις· εἰ δὲ μὴ, δουλεύειν ἀνάγκη. So taught the Stoics; and inspired
wisdom reads the same lesson. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?"
Rom., vi., 16.
[1474] _Crispinus._ This "Verna Canopi," whom Juvenal mentions so often
with bitter hatred and contempt, rose from the lowest position to
eminence under Nero, who found him a ready instrument of his lusts and
cruelties. His connection with Nero commended him to Domitian also. One
of his phases may probably have been the keeping a bath. Juv., i., 27;
iv., 1, 14, etc.
[1475] _Nervos agitat._ "A slave is no better than a puppet in the
hands of his master, who pulls the strings that set his limbs in
motion." The allusion is to the ἀγάλματα νευρόσπαστα, "images worked by
strings." Herod., ii., 48. Xen., Sympos., iv. Lucian., de Deâ Syriâ,
xvi.
[1476] _Scutica._ Vid. ad Juv., vi., 480.
[1477] _Saperdam._ From the Greek σαπέρδης (Aristot., Fr. 546), a poor
insipid kind of fish caught in the Black Sea, called κορακῖνος until it
was salted. Archestratus in Athenæus (iii., p. 117) calls it a φαῦλον
ἀκιδνὸν ἕδεσμα.
[1478] _Castoreum._ Cf. Juv., xii., 34.
[1479] _Ebenum._ Virg., Georg., ii., 115, "Sola India nigrum fert
_ebenum_: solis est _thurea_ virga Sabæis."
[1480] _Lubrica Coa._ The grape of Cos was very sweet and luscious:
a large quantity of sea-water was added to the lighter kind, called
Leuco-Coum, which gave it a very purgative quality; which, in fact,
most of the lighter wines of the ancients possessed. Vid. Cels., i.,
1. Plin., H. N., xiv., 10. Horace alludes to this property of the Coan
wine, ii., Sat. iv., 27, "Si dura morabitur aloes, Mytilus et viles
pellent obstanti aconchæ Et lapathi brevis herba, sed _albo_ non sine
_Coo_." (May not "_lubrica_ conchylia" in the next line be interpreted
in the same way, instead of its recorded meaning, "slimy?") Casaubon
explains it by λεαντικός.
[1481] _Camelo._ "Thirsty from its journey over the desert to
Alexandria from India." Vid. Plin., H. N., xii., 7, 14, 15. Jahn's
Biblical Antiquities, p. 31.
[1482] _Baro_ is no doubt the true reading, and not _varo_, which some
derive from _varum_, "an unfashioned stake" (of which _vallum_ is the
diminutive), "a log;" and hence applied to a stupid person. Baro is,
as the old Scholiast tells us rightly for once, the Gallic term for a
soldier's slave, his Calo; and, like Calo, became a term of reproach
and contumely. It afterward was used, like homo (whence _homagium_,
"homage"), to mean the king's "man," or vassal; and hence its use in
mediæval days as an heraldic title. Compare the Norman-French terms
Escuyer, Valvasseur.
[1483] _Œnophorum._ Hor., i., Sat. vi., 109, "Pueri lasanum portantes
œnophorumque." Pellis is probably a substitute for a leathern
portmanteau or valise.
[1484] _Cannabe._
"And while a broken plank supports your meat,
And a coil'd cable proves your softest seat,
Suck from squab jugs that pitchy scents exhale,
The seaman's beverage, sour at once and stale." Gifford.
[1485] _Sessilis obba._ Sessilis is properly applied to the broad back
of a stout horse, affording a good seat ("tergum sessile," Ov., Met.,
xii., 401), then to any thing resting on a broad base. Obba is a word
of Hebrew root, originally applied to a vase used for making libations
to the dead. It is the ἄμβιξ of the Greeks (cf. Athen., iv., 152), a
broad vessel tapering to the mouth, and ans |