"Per cuneos (*3 geminatus enim) plebisque patrumque

Corripuit.'

speaking of the feast given to Caesar in Aegypt.

The pride of the antients covered their tables or side-boards with cups of precious stone, as onyx, agate, etc. And probably the dishes and cups of agate, jasper, etc. which are now preserved in treasuries and cabinets, served formerly at the tables of princes and great men. "Appianus testatur Mithridatem "Ponti regem circiter duo millia poculorum ex onyche in suo "thesauro habuisse; verum non solum ex onyche, sed sardonyche, et chalcedonio factitata fuisse certum est." Anselm. Boet. Hist. Gemm. lib. II. c. xcii. "Achates tantâ mole "excrescit ut pocula et scyphi inde fieri possint." Id. lib. II. c. xcvi. Q. whether the vases at Genoa, and Venice, were not of this sort? And likewise the agate cup at the Barberini palace. See Misson's description of it, vol. II. lett. xxix.

The sapphire cup in the treasury of the church of St. John Baptist at Monza near Milan, is likewise supposed to be of this sort. It was left by Theudelinda Queen of the Lombards, who built and endowed the church. It is a tumbler or goblet, two inches three tenths deep, by three inches four tenths diameter.In the treasury of St. Denis is a large cup of oriental agate, with a bas-relief representing a Sacrifice.--Pliny, in his Natural History, tells us, that Petronius, a little before his death, ordered a valuable cup of this sort to be broke, that it might not fall into the hands of Nero.-" T. Petronius con"sularis moriturus invidiâ Neronis, ut mensam ejus exhaere"daret, Truilam Murrhynam ccc. HS. emptam fregit." Lib. XXXVII. c. ii.

2

** Horace mentions the applause given to Maecenas from a crowded theatre, as a mark of the greatest honour and respect that could be paid him by the people :

*Repetition of applause, a mark of the greatest favour; as is our Encore, Encore, in our theatres.-Horace, in one of his compliments to Augustus, says:

VER. 519.

"Venit hiems; teritur Sicyonia bacca trapetis."

* Columella, having directed, in several chapters of his XIIth book, what was to be done by the Villica, or farmer's wife, during the Autumn, concludes thus: "Sequitur autem frigus "hiemis, per quod olivitas, sicut vindemia, curam villicae re"petit." Cap. xlvii. And cap. 1. he says: "Media est olivitas plerumque initium mensis Decembris. Nam et ante hoc tempus acerbum oleum conficitur, quod vocatur aestivum; et "circa hunc mensem viride premitur; deinde postea, maturum."

66

66

VER. 532-535.

1

"Hanc olim *' veteres vitam coluere Sabini, "Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit, "Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma; Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces." *1«Antiquissima gens est Sabinorum, Indigenarum nimi"rum." Strabo, lib. V.

66

It is not improbable that, in the compliment here paid, Virgil not only has respect to the nearest neighbours of Rome, the Sabini and Etrurians, but names the latter preferably to any other country in Italy, out of compliment to Maecenas, who was descended from the old race of the kings of that country; and therefore speaks of Tuscany and Rome almost as if they were both upon the same footing; here, and in the First Georgic, ver. 499.

*The only regions allied to Aeneas in his war against Turnus, is Tuscany, and the territory about Rome. The only place out of these is his favourite Mantua; which he brings in as an appenage of Tuscany. See Aen. III. 170. and X. 199.

GEORGIC THE THIRD.

VER. 1, 2.

"TE quoque, magna *' Pales, et te memorande canemus "Pastor ab Amphryso."

*1 This Goddess is represented by Ovid, in his account of the Palilia, as the supreme power presiding over pastoral affairs; and is therefore very justly called Magna.-See Ovid. Fast.

lib. IV.

2

** Pausanias speaks of a temple of Apollo, where he is represented, "Calceamenta pedibus gerens, et altero pede calvam "premens bovis: Bobus etenim potissimum gaudere Apollinem, "etc. Hujusmodi ob causam non ineptè quis conjiciat haec de "bovis calvâ ita esse facta." Lib. VII. Again, lib. IX. he mentions Apollo called Boidromius.

VER. 8, 9.

« Tentanda via est, quâ me quoque possim "Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora."

*Pliny hints at this passage, lib. V. Epist. viii. and says: "Me autem nihil aequè ac diuturnitatis amor et cupido solici"tat res homine dignissima, praesertim qui, nullius sibi "conscius culpae, posteritatis memoriam non reformidet."— And, lib. V. Epist. iii. offering some reasons for being an author, and publishing; and having named several great men, whose example he followed therein, and amongst others Julius Caesar, and other Emperors, concludes thus: "Neronem enim "transeo, quamvis sciam non corrumpi in deterius quae aliquando etiam à malis, sed honesta manere quae saepiùs à bonis "fiunt. Inter quos vel praecipuè numerandus est P. Virgilius.”

*

VER. 12.

"Primus * Idumaeas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas."

"Arbusto palmarum dives Idume." Lucan. III. 216. VER. 16-18.

"In medio mihi Caesar erit, templumque tenebit. "Illi* victor ego, et Tyrio conspectus in ostro,

"Centum ** quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus."

1

* Virgil had more modesty than to speak of himself, as Ruaeus here interprets him: this passage is designed as a compliment to Augustus, not to himself.-Victor rather refers to the triumphal

dress of the person who presided at the sports. Tacitus tells us (lib. I.) that in the Ludi Augustales, which were decreed by the Senate of Rome in honour of Augustus, as Virgil proposes to do at Mantua, it was ordered "ut per Circum triumphali "veste uterentur." 29

Virgil seems to have given here the first sketch for the Augustalia; and to have laid the plan for those honours which the Romans and others afterwards solemnized to Augustus.

**Strabo, in his account of the Aegyptian temples, lib. XVII. tells us that there was usually a Spóuos or Cursus before the entrance of their temples, the extent of which Spóuos he describes. The temple of Bacchus near Rome, according to the draught of it by Desgodetz, seem to have been built on the Aegyptian plan.

VER. 19, 20.

"Cuncta mihi, Alpheum linquens lucosque Molorchi, "Cursibus et crudo decernet * Graecia caestu."

an

*This proposal of Virgil's to celebrate games, etc. at Mantua, in honour of Augustus, after the Grecian manner, was obliging compliment to the Neapolitans, with whom he lived when he wrote this. They were descended from the Greeks, and, as Strabo expressly tells us, observed many of their customs, particularly in their games: "Plurima ibi (Neapoli) "Graecorum, institutorum supersunt vestigia, ut Gymnasia, "Epheborum coetus, etc. Hoc tempore, Sacrum Quinquennale "certamen Musicum et Gymnicum per aliquot dies agitur, ludis "Graecorum nobilissimis aemulum." Lib. V.

66

VER. 21-25.

Ipse caput tonsae foliis ornatus1 olivae

"Dona feram. Jam nunc solemnes ducere ** pompas

"Ad delubra juvat, caesosque videre juvencos:

"Vel3 scena ut versis discedat frontibus, utque

66

Purpurea intexti tollant aulaea Britanni."

*1 Pliny, speaking of the olive, has this passage: "Oleae "honorem Romana Majestas magnum praebuit, turmas equitum "idibus Juliis ex eâ coronando: item minoribus triumphis "ovantes." Upon which Father Harduin has the following note: "Ovantium igitur corona et oleaginea fuit. Sed et oleagineis coronis, inquit Festus, ministri triumphantium ute“bantur, quod Minerva Dea belli esse putabatur. Quare Virgilius, qui se triumphorum Augusti Caesaris ministrum deligi "et haberi studuit, ita cecinit." Lib. XV. § v. N. 5.

66

Capaccio, in his History of Naples, tells us of a Greek inscription in Museo Cardinalis Carpensis; of which he gives this translation: "Batonem Philonis filium, quoniam per annos duos

praeses creatus ex animi sui et Aliptarum sententiâ justè ac dignè Gymnasium administravit, eâque de causâ Collegium "universum per hosce duos annos ipsum oleaginâcoronâ, summâ "cum celebritate, coronavit," etc. Lib. I. c. xviii.

*2 Dionysius Halicarnasseus, having related the old story of Castor and Pollux bringing the news to Rome of the victory obtained at the Lacus Regillus, observes, that there were several tokens still remaining in his time of the credit given by the Romans to that story, and particularly the pompous procession made through several streets of the city, by the Roman knights on horseback, on the feast-day of Castor and Pollux, viz. the ides of July, to their temple in the Forum, lib. VI. c. xiii.

This cavalcade, as we find by Suetonius, was re-established by Augustus, after it had been neglected for some time: "Equi"tum turmas frequenter recognovit, post longam intercapedi"nem reducto more transvectionis." Aug. 38.

Livy says, that this cavalcade was instituted by Q. Fabius Maximus: Ab eodem institutum dicitur, ut equites idibus Quintilibus transveherentur." Lib. IX. in fine.

This is confirmed by Valerius Maximus: "Trabeatos vero 66 equites idibus Juliis Q. Fabius transvehi instituit." II. c. ii.

Lib.

As Augustus had great regard to, and loved these pompous cavalcades, Virgil alludes to them by saying,

"Solemnes ducere pompas

"Ad delubra juvat.”

And as the horse is one of the principal subjects of this book, it was very proper to make a cavalcade one part of the show he would institute at Mantua in honour of Augustus.

3

The following inscription in one of the windows or openings which gave light to the Porta obscura at Trivoli, over which is supposed to have been the famous temple of Hercules, makes mention of the Scena CXL feet long:

C. LVTIVS. L. F. AVLIAN.

Q. PLAVSVRNIVS. C. F.

VARVS.

L. VENTIDIVS. L. F.

BASSVS.

C. OCTAV. C. F. GRACCHIN.

III VIR

PORTICVS P. CCLV.

ET. EXEDRAM. ET. PRONAON.

ET. PORTICVM. ET. SCAENAM.

LONG. P. CXL.

S. C. F. c.