Plutarch's Lives, Volume II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 680 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives, Volume II.

Plutarch's Lives, Volume II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 680 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives, Volume II.

[Footnote 52:  Some understand the word ([Greek:  eikon]) to mean a bust here.  The word is used in both senses, and also to signify a picture.  When the statue of Tiberius Gracchus the father is spoken of (Caius Gracchus, c. 10), Plutarch uses a different word ([Greek:  andrias]).  Plutarch speaks of Ravenna as in Gaul, which he calls Galatia; but though Ravenna was within the limits of Cisalpine Gaul, the name of Italy had been extended to the whole Peninsula south of the Alps about B.C. 44.]

[Footnote 53:  Literally “shows:”  they might be plays or they might be other amusements.]

[Footnote 54:  This is probably a corrupt name.  The territory of Arpinum, now Arpino, was in the Volscian mountains.  Arpinum was also the birth-place of Cicero.  Juvenal in his rhetorical fashion (Sat. viii. 245) represents the young Marius as earning his bread by working at the plough as a servant and afterwards entering the army as a common soldier.]

[Footnote 55:  Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Caecilius Metellus were consuls B.C. 119, in which year Marius was tribune.  The law which Marius proposed had for its object to make the Pontes narrower.  The Pontes were the passages through which the voters went into the Septa or inclosures where they voted.  After passing through the pontes they received the voting tablets at the entrance of the septa.  The object of the law of Marius was to diminish the crowd and pressure by letting fewer persons come in at a time.  Cicero speaks of this law of Marius (De Legibus, iii. 17).  As the law had reference to elections and its object was among other things to prevent bribery, Plutarch’s remark is unintelligible:  the text is corrupt, or he has made a mistake.]

[Footnote 56:  The higher magistrates of Rome, the curule aediles, praetors, consuls, censors, and dictator had a chair of office called a Sella Curulis, or Curule seat, which Plutarch correctly describes as a chair with curved feet (See the cut in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, “Sella Curulis").  The name Curule is derived from Currus, a chariot, as the old writers say, and as is proved by the expression Curulis Triumphus, a Curule Triumph, which is opposed to an Ovatio, in which the triumphing general went on foot in the procession.

The Plebeian AEdiles were first elected B.C. 494, at the same time as the Plebeian tribunes.  They had various functions, such as the general superintendence of buildings, the supply of water, the care of the streets and pavements, and other like matters.  Their duties mainly belonged to the department of police, under which was included the superintendence of the markets, and of buying and selling.  The Plebeian AEdiles were originally two in number.

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Plutarch's Lives, Volume II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.