Part 18

It may create a smile to hear that, to prevent danger to the public, Augustus decreed that no new buildings erected in a public thoroughfare should exceed in height seventy feet. Trajan reduced it to sixty.

Virgil is said to have recited before him the whole of the second, fourth, and sixth books of the Aeneid; and Octavia, being present, when the poet came to the passage referring to her son, commencing, "Tu Marcellus eris," was so much affected that she was carried out fainting.

Chap. xix.

Perhaps the point of the reply lay in the temple of Jupiter Tonans being placed at the approach to the Capitol from the Forum? See c. xxix. and c. xv., with the note.

If these trees flourished at Rome in the time of Augustus, the winters there must have been much milder than they now are. There was one solitary palm standing in the garden of a convent some years ago, but it was of very stunted growth.

The Republican forms were preserved in some of the larger towns.

"The Nundinae occurred every ninth day, when a market was held at Rome, and the people came to it from the country. The practice was not then introduced amongst the Romans, of dividing their time into weeks, as we do, in imitation of the Jews. Dio, who flourished under Severus, says that it first took place a little before his time, and was derived from the Egyptians."--Thomson. A fact, if well founded, of some importance.

"The Romans divided their months into calends, nones, and ides. The first day of the month was the calends of that month; whence they reckoned backwards, distinguishing the time by the day before the calends, the second day before the calends, and so on, to the ides of the preceding month. In eight months of the year, the nones were the fifth day, and the ides the thirteenth: but in March, May, July, and October, the nones fell on the seventh, and the ides on the fifteenth. From the nones they reckoned backwards to the calends, as they also did from the ides to the nones."--Ib.

The early Christians shared with the Jews the aversion of the Romans to their religion, more than that of others, arising probably from its monotheistic and exclusive character. But we find from Josephus and Philo that Augustus was in other respects favourable to the Jews.

Strabo tells us that Mendes was a city of Egypt near Lycopolis. Asclepias wrote a book in Greek with the idea of theologoumenon, in defence of some very strange religious rites, of which the example in the text is a specimen.

Velletri stands on very high ground, commanding extensive views of the Pontine marshes and the sea.

Munda was a city in the Hispania Boetica, where Julius Caesar fought a battle. See c. lvi.

The good omen, in this instance, was founded upon the etymology of the names of the ass and its driver; the former of which, in Greek, signifies fortunate, and the latter, victorious.

Aesar is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination; aisa signifying fate.

Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples. Augustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast.

"Puteoli"--"A ship of Alexandria." Words which bring to our recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13. Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and not only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of corn and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east.

The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxiii. The Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and women, freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers.

Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.

A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that emperor.

Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.

Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman citizens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but not that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained their own laws and customs; nor were they obliged to receive the Roman laws unless they chose it.

Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles from Rome, now called Frattochio.

Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in this pious office, which occupied them during five days.

For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 94, note. The superb monument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by a dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first who was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present Porta del Popolo; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor and his family were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the church of the Madonna of that name.

The distinction between the Roman people and the tribes, is also observed by Tacitus, who substitutes the word plebs, meaning, the lowest class of the populace.

Those of his father Octavius, and his father by adoption, Julius Caesar.

See before, c. 65. But he bequeathed a legacy to his daughter, Livia.

Virgil.