Part 9 (1/2)

[39] The Promoti were also picked men, something like the Comites; the French translator calls them the Veterans.

[40] From ??pt? to cut, and att?a any delicate food; meant as equivalent to our cheeseparer, or skinflint.

[41] This was a very important post; it seems to have united the functions of a modern chamberlain, chancellor, and secretary of state.

The master presented citizens to the emperor, received foreign amba.s.sadors, recommended men for civil employments, decided civil actions of several kinds, and superintended many of the affairs of the post.

[42] Cologne.

[43] The dragons were the effigies on some of the standards.

[44] There is no such pa.s.sage in any extant work of Cicero, but a sentence in his speech ad Pontifices resembles it: ”For although it be more desirable to end one's life without pain, and without injury, still it tends more to an immortality of glory to be regretted by one's countrymen, than to have been always free from injury.” And a still closer likeness to the sentiment is found in his speech ad Quirites post reditum: ”Although there is nothing more to be wished for by man than prosperous, equal, continual good-fortune in life, flowing on in a prosperous course, without any misadventure; still, if all my life had been tranquil and peaceful, I should have been deprived of the incredible and almost heavenly delight and happiness which I now enjoy through your kindness.”--Orations, v. 2; Bohn, p. 491-2.

[45] In one of the lost books of this history.

[46] The Nymphaeum was a temple sacred to the Nymphs, deriving its name of Septemzodium, or Septizonium (which it shared with more than one other building at Rome), from the seven rows of pillars, one above the other, and each row lessening both in circuit and in height, with which the exterior was embellished. Another temple of this kind was built by Septimius Severus.

[47] Cologne.

[48] This story of the Phocaeenses is told by Herodotus, i. 166, and alluded to by Horace, Epod. xv. 10.

[49] The Eubages, or ??ate??, as Strabo calls them, appear to have been a tribe of priests.

[50] The Cottian Alps are Mont Genevre. It is unnecessary to point out how Ammia.n.u.s mistakes the true bearing of these frontiers of Gaul.

[51] Briancon.

[52] The Graiae Alps are the Little St. Bernard; and it was over them that Hannibal really pa.s.sed, as has been conclusively proved by Dr. J.A.

Cramer.

[53] From the G.o.d Pen, or Peninus, Liv. xxi. 38. The Alpes Peninae are the Great St. Bernard.

[54] Compare Livy's account of Hannibal's march, from which, wholly erroneous as it is, this description seems to have been taken; not that even Livy has made such a gross mistake about the Druentia, or Durance, which falls into the Rhone.

[55] Caesar's account of his expedition begins with the statement that ”Gaul is divided into three provinces.”

[56] Chalons sur Marne.

[57] Chalons sur Saone.

[58] Ammia.n.u.s refers to Plautus, Epidicus, Act. I., sc. i., line 10:--

_Thesprio._ I am less of a pilferer now than formerly.

_Ep._ How so?

_Thes._ I rob openly.

BOOK XVI.