Part 24 (1/2)
[Footnote 1028: Slaves who were purchased by the public. M.]
[Footnote 1029: The most probable conjecture (for it is a point of a good deal of obscurity) concerning the beneficiary seems to be that they were a certain number of soldiers exempted from the usual duty of their office, in order to be employed as a sort of body-guards to the general. These were probably foot; as the equites here mentioned were perhaps of the same nature, only that they served on horseback. Equites singulares Caesaris Augusti, &c., are frequently met with upon ancient inscriptions, and are generally supposed to mean the bodyguards of the emperor. M.]
[Footnote 1030: A province in Asia Minor, bounded by the Black Sea on the north, Bithynia on the west, Pontus on the east, and Phrygia on the south.]
[Footnote 1031: The Roman policy excluded slaves from entering into military service, and it was death if they did so. However, upon cases of great necessity, this maxim was dispensed with; but then they were first made free before they were received into the army, excepting only (as Servius in his notes upon Virgil) observes after the fatal battle of Cannae; when the public distress was so great that the Romans recruited their army with their slaves, though they had not time to give them their freedom. One reason, perhaps, of this policy might be that they did not think it safe to arm so considerable a body of men, whose numbers, in the times when the Roman luxury was at its highest, we may have some idea of by the instance which Pun the naturalist mentions of Claudius Isodorus, who at the time of his death was possessed of no less than 4,116 slaves, notwithstanding he had lost great numbers in the civil wars. Pun. Hist. Nat. x.x.xIII. 10. M.]
[Footnote 1032: A punishment among the Romans, usually inflicted upon slaves, by which they were to engage with wild beasts, or perform the part of gladiators, in the public shows. M.]
[Footnote 1033: It has been generally imagined that the ancients had not the art of raising water by engines; but this pa.s.sage seems to favour the contrary opinion. The word in the original is sipho, which Hesychius explains (as one of the commentators observes) ”instrumentuns ad jaculandas aquas adversas incendia; an instrument to throw up water against fires.” But there is a pa.s.sage in Seneca which seems to put this matter beyond conjecture, though none of the critics upon this place have taken notice of it: ”Solemiss,” says he, ”duabus manibus inter se junctis aguam concipere, et com pressa utrinque palma in modum ciphonis exprimere” (Q. N. 1. II. 16) where we plainly see the use of this sipho was to throw UP water, and consequently the Romans were acquainted with that art. The account which Pliny gives of his fountains at Tusc.u.m is likewise another evident proof. M.]
[Footnote 1034: This was an anniversary custom observed throughout the empire on the 30th of December. M.]
[Footnote 1035: About $132,000.]
[Footnote 1036: About $80,000.]
[Footnote 1037: About $400,000. To those who are not acquainted with the immense riches of the ancients, it may seem incredible that a city, and not the capital one either, of a conquered province should expend so large a sum of money upon only the sh.e.l.l (as it appears to be) of a theatre: but Asia was esteemed the most considerable part of the world for wealth; its fertility and exportations (as Tully observes) exceeding that of all other countries. M.]
[Footnote 1038: The word carte, in the original, comprehends more than what we call the pat in our theatres, as at means the whole s.p.a.ce lit which the spectators sat. These theatres being open at the top, the galleries here mentioned were for the convenience of retiring in bad weather. M.]
[Footnote 1039: A place in which the athletic exercises were performed, and where the philosophers also used to read their lectures. M.]
[Footnote 1040: The Roman foot consisted of 11.71 inches of our standard, M.]
[Footnote 1041: A colony in the district of Cataonia, in Cappadocia.]
[Footnote 1042: The honorary senators, that is, such who were not received into the council of the city by election, but by the appointment of the emperor, paid a certain sum of money upon their admission into the senate. M.]
[Footnote 1043: ”Graeculi. Even under the empire, with its relaxed morality and luxurious tone, the Romans continued to apply this contemptuous designation to people to whom they owed what taste for art and culture they possessed.” Church and Brodribb.]
[Footnote 1044: A Roman cubit is equal to a foot 5.406 inches of our measure.
Arbuthanot's Tab. M.]
[Footnote 1045: About $480.]
[Footnote 1046: About $120.]
[Footnote 1047: A diploma is properly a grant of certain privileges either to particular places or persons. It signifies also grants of other kinds; and it sometimes means post-warrants, as, perhaps, it does in this place. M.]
[Footnote 1048: A city in Bithynia. M.]
[Footnote 1049: Cybele, Rhea, or Ops, as she is otherwise called; from whom, according to the pagan creed, the rest of the G.o.ds are supposed to have descended. M.]
[Footnote 1040: Whatever was legally consecrated was ever afterwards unapplicable to profane uses. M.]
[Footnote 1041: That is, a city not admitted to enjoy the laws and privileges of Rome. M.]
[Footnote 1042: The reason why they did not choose to borrow of the public at the same rate of interest which they paid to private persons was (as one of the Commentators observes) because in the former instance they were obliged to give security, whereas in the latter they could raise money upon their personal credit. M.]