The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

18.  The scenery of Pulcher must have been regularly painted, since the birds are said to have attempted to perch on the tiles (Plin.  H. N. xxxv. 4, 23; Val.  Max. ii. 4, 6).  Hitherto the machinery for thunder had consisted in the shaking of nails and stones in a copper kettle; Pulcher first produced a better thunder by rolling stones, which was thenceforth named “Claudian thunder” (Festus, v.  Claudiana, p. 57).

19.  Among the few minor poems preserved from this epoch there occurs the following epigram on this illustrious actor:—­

-Constiteram, exorientem Auroram forte salutans, Cum subito a laeva Roscius exoritur.  Pace mihi liceat, coelestes, dicere vestra; Mortalis visust pulchrior esse deo-.

The author of this epigram, Greek in its tone and inspired by Greek enthusiasm for art, was no less a man than the conqueror of the Cimbri, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 652.

20.  IV.  XII.  Course of Literature and Rhetoric

21. -Quam lepide —­legeis—­ compostae ut tesserulae omnes Arte pavimento atque emblemate vermiculato-.

22.  The poet advises him—­

-Quo facetior videare et scire plus quant ceteri—–­to say not -pertaesum- but -pertisum-.

23.  IV.  III.  Its Suspension by Scipio Aemilianus

24.  The following longer fragment is a characteristic specimen of the style and metrical treatment, the loose structure of which cannot possibly be reproduced in German hexameters:—­

-Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum
Queis in versamur, queis vivimu’ rebu’ potesse;
Virtus est homini scire quo quaeque habeat res;
Virtus scire homini rectum, utile, quid sit honestum,
Quae bona, quae mala item, quid inutile, turpe, inhonestum;
Virtus quaerendae finem rei scire modumque;
Virtus divitiis pretium persolvere posse;
Virtus id dare quod re ipsa debetur honori,
Hostem esse atque inimicum hominum morumque malorum,
Contra defensorem hominum morumque bonorum,
Hos magni facere, his bene velle, his vivere amicum;
Commoda praeterea patriai prima putare,
Deinde parentum, tertia iam postremaque nostra-.

25.  IV.  XIII.  Dramatic Arrangements, second note

26.  III.  X. Measures of Security in Greece

27.  IV.  I. Greece

28.  Such scientific travels were, however, nothing uncommon among the Greeks of this period.  Thus in Plautus (Men. 248, comp. 235) one who has navigated the whole Mediterranean asks—­

-Quin nos hinc domum Redimus, nisi si historiam scripturi sumus-?

29.  III.  XIV.  National Opposition

30.  The only real exception, so far as we know, is the Greek history of Gnaeus Aufidius, who flourished in Cicero’s boyhood (Tusc, v. 38, 112), that is, about 660.  The Greek memoirs of Publius Rutilius Rufus (consul in 649) are hardly to be regarded as an exception, since their author wrote them in exile at Smyrna.

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