SATIRE
VIII
by
Juvenal
WHAT GOOD ARE
YOUR FAMILY TREES?
WHAT good are your family
trees? What good is it,
Ponticus, to be valued for one's ancient blood, and to
display the painted masks of one's forefathers--an
Aemilianus 1 standing
in his chariot; a half-crumbled
Curius; a Corvinus who has lost a shoulder, or a
Galba that has neither ear nor nose? Of what profit
is it to boast a Corvinus on your ample family chart,
and thereafter to trace kinship through many a
branch with grimy Dictators and Masters of the Horse,
if in presence of the Lepidi you live an evil
life? What
signify all these effigies of warriors if you gamble
all night long before your Numantine 2
ancestors,
and begin your sleep with the rise of the morning star,
at an hour when our Generals of old would be moving
their standards and their camps?
Why should a
Fabius, born in the home of Hercules,3 take
pride in
the title Allobrogicus,4 and
in the Great Altar,5 if he
be covetous and empty-headed and more effeminate
than a Euganean 6 lambkin; if his
loins, rubbed
smooth by Catanian 7
pumice, throw shame on his
shaggy-haired grandfathers; or if, as a trafficker in
poison, he dishonour his unhappy race by a statue that
will have to be broken in pieces? Though you deck
your hall from end to end with ancient waxen
images, Virtue is the one and only true nobility. Be
1 Alluding to the younger
Scipio, son of L. Aemilius
Paulus, who according to rule took the name of Aemilianus
after his adoption by P. Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio
Africanus major).
2
Scipio the younger was called Numantinus
after the
capture of Numantia, B.C.
134.
3
The Fabii pretended to be descended from Hercules.
4
Alluding to Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus ( B.C.
121).
5
The ara maxima of Hercules, near
the Circus.
6
Fine pasture land in
Venetia, where dwelt the Euganei.
7
From Catana near Mount Aetna.
a Paulus, or a Cossus, or a Drusus in character; rank
them before the statues of your ancestors; let them
precede the fasces themselves when you are
Consul.
You owe me, first of all things, the virtues of
the
soul; prove yourself stainless in life, one who
holds
fast to what is right both in word and deed, and I
ac-
knowledge you as a lord; all hail to you,
Gaetulicus,
or you, Silanus, or from whatever stock you come, if
you have proved yourself to a rejoicing country
a rare
and illustrious citizen, we would gladly cry what
Egypt
shouts when Osiris has been found.1
For who can
be called "noble" who is unworthy of his race, and
distinguished in nothing but his famous name? We
call some one's dwarf an "Atlas," his blackamoor "a
swan"; an unattractive, misshapen girl we
call
"Europa"; lazy hounds that are bald with chronic
mange, and who lick the edges of a dry lamp, will
bear the names of "Leopard," "Tiger," "Lion," or of
any other animal in the world that roars more
fiercely: take you care that it be not on that prin-
ciple that you are a Creticus or a Camerinus !
Who is it whom I admonish thus? It is to you,
Rubellius Blandus,2 that I speak. You
are puffed up
with the lofty pedigree of the Drusi, as though
you
had done something to make you noble, and to be
conceived by one glorying in the blood of the Juli,
rather than by one who weaves for hire under the
windy rampart. "You others are dirt," you
say;
"the very scum of our populace; not one of you can
point to his father's birthplace; but I am one of
the Cecropidae!" Long life to
you! May you long
enjoy the glories of your birth! And yet among the
1 When a new Apis was born,
the people shouted [Greek].
Apis was supposed to be an incarnation of Osiris.
2
Rubellius Blandus was married to Julia, grand-daughter
of Tiberius. One of his descendants must be meant
here.
lowest rabble you will find a Roman who has elo-
quence, one who will plead the cause of the unedu-
cated noble; you must go to the toga-clad herd for
a man to untie the knots and riddles of the law.
From them will come the brave young soldier who
marches to the Euphrates, or to the standards
that
guard the conquered Batavians, while you are
nothing
but a Cecropid, the image of a limbless Hermes!
For in no respect but one have you the advantage
over him: his head is of marble, while yours is
a
living effigy!
Tell me, thou scion of the Trojans, who deems a
dumb animal well-born unless it be strong? It is for
this that we commend the swift horse whose speed sets
every hand readily aglow, and fills the Circus with the
raucous shout of victory; that horse is noblest, on
whatever pasture reared, whose rush clean out-
strips the rest, and whose dust is foremost upon the
plain. But the offspring of Coryphaeus l
or Hirpinus 1
goes to the auction hammer if Victory lights but seldom
on his chariot: no respect is there paid to ancestors,
no
favour is shown to Ghosts! The descendants, slow
of
foot, that are fit only to turn a millstone, are forced to
exchange owners, for a mere nothing, and chafe their
necks against the collar. So, if I am to respect you,
and not your belongings, give me something of your
own to engrave among your titles, in addition to those
honours which we pay, and have paid, to those to
whom you owe your all.
Enough though is this for the youth whom report
has
handed down to us as proud and puffed up with his
kinship to Nero: for in those high places regard for
others is rarely to be found. But for you, Ponticus,
I cannot wish that you should be valued for the
1 Famous
racers.
glories of the past while doing nothing that shall
bring you praise in the days to come. It is a poor
thing to lean upon the fame of others, lest the
pillars
give way and the house fall down in ruin. The vine-
shoot, trailing upon the ground, longs for the widowed
elm. Be a stout soldier, a faithful guardian, and an
incorruptible judge; if summoned to bear witness in
some dubious and uncertain cause, though Phalaris 1
himself should bring up his bull and command you to
tell lies and dictate to you a perjury, count it the
greatest of all sins to prefer life to honour, and to lose,
for the sake of living, all that makes life worth having.
The man who merits death is already dead, though he
dine off a hundred oysters from Gaurus,2
and bathe
in a whole cauldron of Cosmus' 3
essences.
When you enter your long-expected Province as
its Governor, set a curb and a limit to your passion,
as also to your greed; have compassion on the im-
poverished provincials, whose very bones you see
sucked dry of marrow; have regard to what
the
law ordains, what the Senate enjoins; consider what
honours await the good ruler, with what a just
thunderstroke the Senate hurled down Capito and
Numitor,4 those plunderers 5
of the Cilicians. Yet
what profit was there from their condemnation? 6
Look out for an auctioneer, Chaerippus,7 to
sell your
rags to, seeing that Pansa has stripped you of all
that Natta left. And hold your tongue about it;
when all else is gone, it is madness to throw away
your passage-money.8
1 The famous tyrant of
Agrigentum [Sicily], who slowly
roasted his victims in a brazen bull.
2
Gaurus was a hill overlooking the Lucrine lake [known for its
oysters].
3
A well-known perfumer.
4
Condemned for extortion in Cilicia. See Tac.
Ann. xiii. 33.
5
The word piratae is used because the Cilicians had been
notorious pirates.
6
The native Cilicians reap no benefit from the condemna-
tion of the governors.
7
Chaerippus is a Cilician native who is advised to sell
anything he has left. Pansa and Natta are
fictitious names
to denote the plundering governors.
8
i.e. the fee to be given to Charon for the passage
over
the Styx. Some take it as the passage-money to
Rome.
Very different in days of old
were the wailings
of our allies and the harm inflicted on them by
losses, when they had been newly conquered and
were wealthy still. Their houses then were all
well-stored; they had piles of money, with Spartan
mantles and Coan purples; beside the paintings of
Parrhasius, and the statues of Myron, stood the
living ivories of Phidias; everywhere the works
of
Polyclitus were to be seem; few tables were without
a Mentor.1 But after that came now a
Dolabella,2
now an Antonius,3 and
now a sacrilegious Verres,4
loading big ships with secret spoils, peace-trophies
more numerous than those of war. Nowadays, on
capturing a little farm, your may rob our allies of a few
yoke of oxen, or a small stable of mares, with the sire
of the herd; or of the household gods themselves, if
there be a good statue left, or a single Deity in his
little shrine; such pass for the best, such are
the
choicest things now. You despise perchance, and
deservedly, the unwarlike Rhodian and the scented
Corinthian: what harm will their resined 5
youths do
you, or the smooth legs of the entire breed? But keep
clear of rugged Spain, avoid the land of Gaul and the
Dalmatian shore; spare, too, those harvesters 6
who
fill the belly of a city that has no leisure save for the
Circus and the play: what great profit can you reap
from outrages upon Libyans, seeing that Marius 7
has so lately stripped Africa to the skin? Beware
above all things to do no wrongs to men who are
at
1 These are all names of
famous Greek artists of the fifth
and later centuries.
2
Cornelius Dolabella, condemned of extortion in Cilicia,
B.C. 78.
3
C. Antonius, uncle of Mark Antony, expelled from the
Senate for extortion, B.C.
70.
4
C. Verres, propraetor of Sicily B.C.
73-70, attacked by
Cicero in his famous Verrine orations.
5
Resin was used as a depilatory.
6
i.e. of Africa, whence came the
main part of the Roman
supplies of corn.
7 Condemned for extortion in Africa in
A.D.
100.
once brave and miserable. You may take from them
all the gold and silver that they have; you will leave
behind their shields, their swords, their javelins,
and helmets; plundered though they be, they will
still have their arms.
What I have just propounded is no mere theme,
it is the truth; you may take it that I am reading out
to you one of the Sibyl's [prophetic] leaves. If
your whole staff be incorruptible: if no long-haired
Ganymede sells your judgments; if your wife be
blameless, and goes not the circuit, through all the
towns
and districts, like a Harpy ready to pounce with
crooked talons upon gold,--then you may trace back
your race to Picus;l
if you delight in lofty names,
you may count the whole array of Titans, and
Prometheus himself, among your ancestors, and
select for yourself a great-grandfather from what-
ever myth you please. But if you are carried away
headlong by ambition and by lust; if you break
your rods upon the bleeding backs of our allies; if
you love to see your axes blunted and your heads-
men weary, then the nobility of your own parents
begins to rise up in judgment against you, and to
hold a glaring torch over your misdeeds. The greater
the sinner's name, the more signal the guiltiness of
the sin in his soul. If you are inclined to put your
sig-
nature to forged deeds, what matters it to me that you
sign them in temples built by your grandfather,
or in
front of the triumphal statue of your father? What
does that matter, if you steal out at night for
adultery, covering yourself so hidden under a Gallic
hood?
The fat Lateranus whirls past the bones
and
ashes of his ancestors in a rapid car; with his
1 A
mythical Latin king, son of Saturn, and father of
Faunus.
own hands this muleteer 1 Consul locks the
wheel
with the drag. It is by night, indeed: but the moon
looks on; the stars strain their eyes to see. When
his time of office is over, Lateranus will take
up his
whip in broad daylight; not shrinking to meet a
now-aged friend, he will be the first to salute
him with
his whip; [later,] he will unbind the trusses of hay,
and pour out barley for his weary mules. Mean-
while, though he slays woolly victims and tawny steers
after Numa's fashion, he swears by no other deity
before Jove's high altar than the Goddess of horse-
flesh, and the images painted on the reeking stables.
And when it pleases him to go back to the all-night
tavern, a Syro-Phoenician runs forth to meet him--a
denizen of the Idumaean gate 2 perpetually
drenched
in perfumes--and salutes him as lord and prince
with all the airs of a host; and with him comes
Cyane, her dress tucked up, carrying a flagon of
wine for sale.
An apologist will say to me,
"We too did the
same as boys." Perhaps: but then you ceased from
your follies and let them drop. Let your evil days
be short; let some of your misdoings be cut off
with
your first beard. Boys may be pardoned; but when
Lateranus frequented those hot liquor shops with
their inscribed linen awnings, he was of ripe age,
fit to guard in arms the Armenian and Syrian rivers,
the Rhine and the Danube; fit to protect the person
of his Emperor. Send your Legate to Ostia,
O
Caesar, but search for him in some big cookshop!
There you will find him, lying cheek-by-jowl beside
a cut-throat, in the company of sailors, thieves, and
1 Lateranus is called
mulio as a
term of reproach [It is
beneath the dignity of a Consul to do such work].
2
A low quarter of Rome; perhaps the Jews' quarter.
3 The first cutting off of the
beard of a son or a favourite
was attended with some ceremony.
runaway slaves, beside hangmen and coffin-makers,
or of some eunuch priest lying drunk with idle
timbrels. There equality runs
free!
One cup serves
for everybody; no one has a bed to himself, nor
a table apart from the rest. What would you do,
friend Ponticus, if you chanced upon a slave like
this? You would send him to your Lucanian
or
Tuscan prison 1
But you gentlemen of Trojan
blood find excuses for yourselves; what would dis-
grace a huckster sits gracefully on a Volesus or a
Brutus!
What if I can never cite any
example so foul and
shameful that there is not something worse behind?
Your means exhausted, Damasippus, you hired out
your voice to the stage,2 taking the part of
the
"Clamorous Ghost" of Catullus.3 The
nimble Lentulus
acted famously the part of Laureolus;4
deserving,
in my judgment, to be really and truly crucified.
Nor can the spectators themselves be forgiven: this
populace with brazen face that sits and beholds
the
trifle buffooneries of our patricians, that can
listen to
a bare-footed 5 Fabius, and laugh to see the
Mamerci
cuffing each other. What matters it at what price
they sell their deaths? 6 No Nero
compels them to
sell; yet they hesitate not to sell themselves at the
games of the exalted Praetor. And yet suppose that
on one side of you were placed execution, on the other
the stage: which were the better choice? Was ever
any man so afraid of death that he would choose
to
play the jealous husband of a Thymele, or the
colleague
of the clown Corinthus? Yet when an Emperor 7
1 Private prisons in which gangs of
slaves were kept in
irons.
2
Siparium was
a curtain separating the front part of the
stage, on which mimes were acted, from the back.
3
A writer of mimi [mimes].
4
A highwayman who was crucified.
5
Actors in mimes wore no special shoes.
6 "To sell their deaths" is equivalent
to "to sell their
lives." The word funera
may also suggest that these do-
generate nobles are destroying the old glories of their
families.
7 Nero.
has taken to harp-playing, it is not so very strange
that a noble should act in a mime. Beyond
this,
what will be left but the gladiatorial school? And
here too you have seen scandal in our city: a Grac-
chus fighting, not indeed as a murmillo, nor
with the
round shield and scimitar:1 such
accoutrements he
rejects, yes rejects and detests; nor does a helmet
shroud his face. See what he wields--a trident!
and
when with poised right hand he has cast the trailing
net in vain, he lifts up his bare face to the benches
and flies, for all to recognize, from one end of the
arena to the other.2 We cannot mistake
the golden
tunic that flutters from his throat, and the twisted
cord that dangles from the high-crowned cap; 3
and
so the pursuer who was pitted against Gracchus en-
dured a shame more grievous than any wound.
If free suffrage were granted to the people, who
would he so abandoned as not to prefer Seneca 4
to Nero--Nero, for whose chastisement no single
ape
or adder, no solitary sack,5 should have been
pro-
vided? His crime was like that of Agamemnon's
son;6 but the case was not the same, seeing
that
Orestes, at the bidding of the Gods, was avenging
a father cut down while at his drinking cup.7
Orestes
[cups]
never stained himself with Electra's blood, or with
that of his Spartan wife;8 he never
mixed poison for
[removed "drafts"]
his own kin; he never sang upon the stage,9
he never
1 The
phrase falce supina = "a sickle
on its back"; the
point of the weapon was bent backwards instead of
forwards.
2
It was a disgrace for Gracchus to fight as a
retiarius.
Having no armour, he had to run away if he missed his
throw
with the net. His adversary was fully armed.
3
Galerus or
galerum was probably a kind of helmet or
cap. The Schol. here says
Galerus est humero impositus
gladiatoris. See
Duff and Mayor.
4
Seneca had to open his veins by Nero's order.
5
The ancient punishment for parricide was that the
criminal should be tied up in a sack along with a dog,
an
ape, a snake, and a cock, and then cast into the sea.
[Nero
killed his mother]
6 Orestes
slew his mother Clytemnestra in revenge for the
murder of his father. But he did not slay a
sister or a wife
as Nero slew his wife Octavia and his half-sister
Antonia [as
well as his mother].
7 See Homer,
Od. xi. 409. The tragedian's story is
that
Agamemnon was slain in his bath.
8 Hermione.
9 In the year
A.D. 59 Nero presented himself upon the
stage (Tac. Ann .
xiv. 15). In A.D.
67-8 he made a tour of
the Greek games and won prizes at many musical contests.
wrote an epic upon Troy! Of all the deeds
of
Nero's cruel and bloody tyranny, which was there
that more deserved to be avenged by the arms of
a
Verginius,l of a Vindex 2
or a Galba than this? These
were the deeds, these the graces of our high-born
Prince, whose delight it was to prostitute himself by
unseemly singing upon a foreign stage, and to earn a
crown of Greek parsley! Let thy ancestral
images
be decked with the trophies of thy voice!
Place
thou at the feet of a Domitius 3 the
trailing robe of
Thyestes 4 or Antigone,4
or the mask of Melanippa,4
and hang up thy harp on a colossus 5 of
marble!
Where can be found, O Catiline, nobler ances-
tors than thine, or than thine, Cethegus? 6
Yet you
plot a night attack, you prepare to give our houses
and temples to the flames as though you were the
sons of trousered 7 Gauls, or sprung from
the Senones,8
daring deeds that deserved the shirt of torture.9
But
our Consul 10 is awake, and beats back your
hosts.
Born at Arpinum, of common blood, a municipal
knight new to Rome, he posts helmeted men at
every point to guard the affrighted citizens, and is
alert on every hill. Thus within the walls his toga
won for him as much name and honour as Octavius
1 Verginius Rufus, Legate of
Upper Germany, defeated
Vindex, who was in revolt, and refused to be named
emperor after Galba's death in
A.D. 69.
2
C. Julius Vindex, propraetor of the province Lugdu-
nensis, revolted against Nero in
A.D. 68, and was defeated
by Verginius.
3
Not the father of Nero, but one of his distinguished
ancestors on his father's side. Nero's name before
his
adoption by Claudius was Domitius Ahenobarbus.
4
Tragic parts acted by Nero.
5 This is doubtless meant as a
hit at the famous bronze
Colossus of Nero.
6
C. Cornelius Cethegus was the most prominent associate
of Catiline in the long-nursed conspiracy which was
crushed
by Cicero as consul in B.C.
63.
7
Narbonese Gaul was called bracata
because its inhabi-
tants wore trousers.
8
The Gauls who defeated the Romans in the battle of the
Allia, B.C.
390.
9
A shirt lined with pitch in which the victims were burnt
to death. See [reference to "the burning of the
early Christians"]
and Tac. Ann. xv.
44.
10 Cicero.
gained by battle [near] Leucas;1 as much as
Octacius
won by his sword wet from relentless slaughter on the
plains of Thessaly;2
but then Rome was still free when
she styled Cicero the Parent and Father of his coun-
try! Another son of Arpinum 3 used to
work for hire
upon the Volscian hills, toiling behind a plough not
his own; after that, a centurion's knotty staff
would
be broken over his head 4 if his pick were
slow and
sluggish in the camp's trench. Yet it is he who faces
the Cimbri,5 and the mightiest perils; alone
he saves
the trembling city. And so when the ravens, who
had never before seen such huge carcasses, flew
down
upon the slaughtered Cimbri, his high-born colleague
is decorated with the second laurel.
Plebeian were the souls of
the Decii,6 plebeian
were their names; yet they were accepted by the
Gods beneath and by Mother Earth in lieu of all
the
Legions and the allies, and all the youth of Latium,
for the Decii were more precious than the hosts
whom they saved.
It was one born of a slave who won the robe
and diadem and fasces of Quirinus--the last he
was of
our good Kings 7--whereas the Consul's own
sons,
who should have dared some great thing for en-
dangered liberty--some deed to be marvelled at by
1 The
island of Leucas here stands for the battle of Ac-
tium, though it was many miles distant from the place
where the battle was fought.
2
The battle of Phillipi (B.C.
42) is meant, though Philippi
was in Macedonia, not in Thessaly. The battle
fought in
Thessaly was the battle of Pharsalia.
B.C. 49. The Roman
poets confound the two battles.
3 C.
Marius.
4 i.e . he
served as a private soldier.
5 Cimbri includes
Teutones . The latter were destroyed by
Marius at Aquae Sextiae, B.C.
102, the former by Marius
and his colleague Q. Lutatius Catillus on the Raudian
plain in B.C.
101. Catulus shared in the triumph, but all
the honour was given to Marius.
6 P. Decius Mus, in the Latin
War, B.C. 340, gained
the
victory for the Romans by sacrificing himself to save
the
Roman army; his son did the same in the battle of Sen-
tinum, B.C.
295.
7
Servius Tullius.
Musius or Cocles,l or
by the maiden 2 who swam
across the Tiber, the river-boundary of our realm--
instead were known for traitorously loosing the bolts
of the city gates to the exiled tyrants. It was a slave--
well worthy he to be bewailed by matrons--who re-
vealed the secret plot to the Senators, while the sons
met their just punishment from scourging and from the
axe, then used for the first time in the cause of Law.
I would prefer that Thersites were your
father
and that you were like the grandson of Aeacus,3
and
could wield the arms of Vulcan, than that you should
have been begotten by Achilles and be like Thersites.
Yet, after all, however far you may trace back your
name, however long the roll, you derive your race
from an ill-famed asylum: the first of your
ancestors,
whoever he was, was either a shepherd or something
that I would rather not name.
1 Horatius
Cocles, who "kept the bridge so well"; Mucius
Scaevola, to show his courage, put his hand into the
flames in
Porsena's camp.
2
Cloelia, the hostage who escaped by swimming across
the
Tiber.
3
Achilles is called Aeacides as he
was the grandson of
Aeacus. Thersites is a low-born upstart in the
Iliad.
Lepidi :
A famous aristocratic line: the most famous was .. "Marcus Aemilius
Lepidus .. a patrician Roman politician of the 1st century BC who rose
to become a member of the Second Triumvirate and Pontifex Maximus..
When in February 44 BC Caesar was elected dictator for life by the
senate, he made Lepidus "Master of the Horse", effectively deputy in
the dictatorship"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aemilius_Lepidus_%28triumvir%29
Allobrogicus : The Romans gave titles
derived from the area or enemy from where or against whom a person
excelled in combat; in this case against the Allobroges tribe of Gaul.
smooth : This refers to the deliberate practice
of removing hair from the body with pumice.
Cecropidae : i.e. Athenians, after
Cecrops, said to be the first king of Athens.
standards : aquilas: "silver eagle on
pole, standard of a legion." Whitaker
Gaetulicus : "The interior of Northern
Africa, south of
Mauretania, Numidia, and the region bordering on the Syrtes , reaching
to the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and of very indefinite extent
towards
the east and south. The pure Gaetuli were not an Aethiopic (i. e.
Negro),
but a Libyan race, and were most probably the ancestors of the Berbers
(Ritter,
Erdkunde , i. pp. 1034 foll.). Cossus Lentulus brought the
Gaetulians
under Roman rule, receiving for this a triumph and the surname
Gaetulicus."
Peck
lick : Roman lamps were fueled by olive oil which
is
digestible. The dog may have just wanted the last few drops as
food and/or the oil may have helped with his mange.
Creticus : A Consul who conquered Crete.
Camerinus : Camerini : "... the most ancient
Roman gentes, producing a succession of distinguished men, from the
foundation of the Republic to the imperial period. The chief families
of the Sulpicii during the republican period bore the names of
Camerīnus, Galba, Gallus, Rufus, and Saverrio." Peck
Juli : Julius Caesar's famous line.
Batavians : The Batavi were a Germanic tribe.
Hermes : There may be reference to Hermes as
effeminate as he is comparing him to a Greek. But saying that Hermes'
head is of marble is a reference to the limbless busts of Hermes that
served as boundary markers.
Cilicians : an implication may be overlooked
the way this was translated; Miller has it "robbing the Robbers" - the
Robbers being the Cilicians.
Coan : from the Greek island of Cos.
Ganymede : An attractive boy and the object of
homosexual desire. "(Ganumêdês). The son of Tros,
king of Dardania, brother of Ilus and Assaracus. According to Homer he
was carried away by the gods for his beauty, to be the cup-bearer of
Zeus, and one of the immortals ... The rape of Ganymede was represented
in a group by the sculptor Leochares.." Peck
Gallic : It actually reads Santonico: "The Santones
were the people who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans
derived the use of hoods or cowls covering the head and
face" http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3588/3588.txt
Numa's : meaning, that while he sacrifices in
traditional fashion (presumably for appearance sake), but his real devotion
is to horse racing. There actually was a goddess by
the the name of Epona.
Ostia : Rome's harbor - at the mouth of the Tiber.
timbrels : A forerunner of the
tambourine. The instrument was popular with women (and
eunuchs?). Cybele's eunuch priests used them in their devotion.
murmillo : "A
murmillo was
a gladiator equipped as a Gaulish warrior in heavy armor" - Note from
Satire VI.
Electra : his sister.
Plebeian : a commoner; not a patrician.
fasces : "The Latin name for a bundle of rods,
tied together by a
red strap, and enclosing an axe, with its head outside. The fasces were
originally the emblem of the king's absolute authority over life and
limb, and as such passed over to the high magistrates of the
Republic.... Peck
Quirinus :
"The Sabine name of Mars, as the god who brandished the
lance
(from the Sabine curis = Latin quiris , the lance).
The Sabines worshipped him under
this name as the father of the founder of their old capital, Cures,
just as the Romans honoured Mars as the father of Romulus . When the
Sabines migrated to Rome, they took the cult and the name of the god of
their race to their new home on the Quirinal Hill. In this way
Quirinus, though identical with Mars, had a distinct and separate
worship on the slope of the Quirinal. He possessed a temple with
priests (see Flamen; Salii ) and a special festival. When, in the
course of time, their
connection was forgotten, Quirinus was identified with the
deified Romulus , the son of Mars. The name is also applied to the
Ianus or something in the Forum, which it seems to designate as the “
Ianus of the Roman people” ( Suet. Aug.22)." Peck.
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