[Footnote 1: Plin. Epist. i. 18, 24, iii.
8, v. 11, ix. 34, x. 95.]
[Footnote 2: Lycee, part I. liv. III. c.
i.]
[Footnote 3: Julius Caesar Divus. Romulus,
the founder of Rome, had the honour of an apotheosis
conferred on him by the senate, under the title of
Quirinus, to obviate the people’s suspicion of
his having been taken off by a conspiracy of the patrician
order. Political circumstances again concurred
with popular superstition to revive this posthumous
adulation in favour of Julius Caesar, the founder
of the empire, who also fell by the hands of conspirators.
It is remarkable in the history of a nation so jealous
of public liberty, that, in both instances, they bestowed
the highest mark of human homage upon men who owed
their fate to the introduction of arbitrary power.]
[Footnote 4: Pliny informs us that Caius Julius,
the father of Julius Caesar, a man of pretorian rank,
died suddenly at Pisa.]
[Footnote 5: A.U.C. (in the year from the foundation
of Rome) 670; A.C. (before Christ) about 92.]
[Footnote 6: Flamen Dialis. This was an
office of great dignity, but subjected the holder
to many restrictions. He was not allowed to ride
on horseback, nor to absent himself from the city
for a single night. His wife was also under
particular restraints, and could not be divorced.
If she died, the flamen resigned his office, because
there were certain sacred rites which he could not
perform without her assistance. Besides other
marks of distinction, he wore a purple robe called
laena, and a conical mitre called apex.]
[Footnote 7: Two powerful parties were contending
at Rome for the supremacy; Sylla being at the head
of the faction of the nobles, while Marius espoused
the cause of the people. Sylla suspected Julius
Caesar of belonging to the Marian party, because Marius
had married his aunt Julia.]
[Footnote 8: He wandered about for some time
in the Sabine territory.]
[Footnote 9: Bithynia, in Asia Minor, was bounded
on the south by Phrygia, on the west by the Bosphorus
and Propontis; and on the north by the Euxine sea.
Its boundaries towards the east are not clearly ascertained,
Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolemy differing from each other
on the subject.]
[Footnote 10: Mitylene was a city in the island
of Lesbos, famous for the study of philosophy and
eloquence. According to Pliny, it remained a
free city and in power one thousand five hundred years.
It suffered much in the Peloponnesian war from the
Athenians, and in the Mithridatic from the Romans,
by whom it was taken and destroyed. But it soon
rose again, having recovered its ancient liberty by
the favour of Pomnpey; and was afterwards much embellished
by Trajan, who added to it the splendour of his own
name. This was the country of Pittacus, one of
the seven wise men of Greece, as well as of Alcaeus
and Sappho. The natives showed a particular
taste for poetry, and had, as Plutarch informs us,
stated times for the celebration of poetical contests.]
