'Buskins' were boots with high cork-heels which tragedians wore; SC. (as comedians wore the sock :) hence cothurnus is sometimes put for tragedy' or a tragic style.' 634. vii. 72. xv. 29. R. 509. See 141. R. avrÿ ysírwv Longus iii. p. 77, 20. p. 92, 67. BOI.

510. The only difference is this, that she hates her husband's friends and servants, and plagues him with her bills; which his neighbour does not.' VS. LU.

511. The transition is very abrupt: and we now come to the most curious part of the Satire, and one which the author has laboured with uncommon care; nor is there any portion of his works in which his genius is more conspicuous. G.

512. The frantic votaries of Cybele have been already spoken of; ii. 111. LU. iv. 123 sqq. Lactant. i. 21. Those of Bellona, sister of Mars and goddess of war, were not more sane. They ran up and down, lancing their arms with sharp knives, (like the priests of Baal, 1 Kgs. xviii. 28.) on the 23d or 24th of March, which was her festival, and, in allusion to those sanguinary rites, was called The day of blood. PR. MG. cf. Tib. I. vi. 43 sqq. HY. nec turba cessat entheata Bellona; Mart. XII. lvii. 11.

Enters the house: the sudden transition seems as though the poet had caught the contagion of their enthusiasm, and started off from his former subject unintentionally. R. See note on Her. i. 55. and 174.

513. The lusty eunuch' who officiated as their high priest. PR. 374. ibunt

A personage to be reverenced by his obscene inferior.' femineæ voces et mota insania vino obscoenique greges et inania tympana ; Ov. M. iii. 536 sq. viri molles, obscæni, et semiviri; Liv. xxxiii. 28. R. cf. ii. 9.

514. Who has emasculated himself with a broken shell.' cf. ii. 116. xvi. 6. testa; Plin. xxxv. 12 s 46. xi. 49. ferro; Lactant. v. 9. saxo acuto; Ov. F. iv. 237 sqq. acuto silice; Cat. Ixiii. 5. R.

515. Hoarse' either from continual singing and shouting, see note on i. 2. viii. 59. or from having a cracked voice. Macr. vii. 10. FA. R.

Drums for drummers,' LU. by metonymy. PR.

516. His cheek is covered with the lappets of a Phrygian turban.' VS. GR. Tiara, verbum Græcum est, usu versum in Latinum; de quo et Virgilius" sacerque tiaras" (Æ. vii. 247.) genus pileoli, quo Persarum et Chaldæorum gens utitur; Hieron. on Dan. iii. quartum vestimenti genus est rotundum pileolum, quale pictum in Ulyssæo conspicimus, quasi sphæræ media sit divisa, et pars una ponatur in capite. hoc Græci riágar, nonnulli galerum vocant. non habet acumen in summo, nec totum usque ad comum caput tegit, sed tertiam partem à fronte inopertam relinquit, atque ita in occipitio vitta constrictum est, ut non facile labatur ex capite. est autem byssinum et sic fabrè opertum linteolo, ut nullu acús vestigia extrinsecus appareant; Id. de Vest. Sac. PR. viii. 259. x. 265. Paris, cum semiviro comitatu, Mæonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem subnixus; Virg. Æ.iv. 215 sqq.

juvat indulgere choreis, et habent redimicula mitræ, Id. ix. 615 sq. (HY.) V. Flac. vi. 700. (BU.) Claud. Ruf. i. 198. (GE.) R. See note on κυρβασίας

Her. v. 49.

517. Grande sonat ; cf. 485. ὁ δὲ μάγος δάδα καιομένην ἔχων οὐκ ἔτ ̓ ἠρεμαίᾳ τῇ φωνῇ, παμμέγεθες δὲ, ὡς οἷός τε ἦν, ἀνακραγὼν Δαίμονας τε ὁμοῦ πάντας ἐπεβοᾶτο καὶ Ποινὰς καὶ Εριννύας· Luc. Νεκνομ. 9. The Archigallus, consulted by the superstitious woman, now delivers an oracle, big with menaced evils from the gods to guilty sinners, and urges her to propitiate the wrath of heaven by offerings and penances and expiatory rites. In like manner the priestess of Bellona utters her predictions in Tib. I. vi. 51 sqq. see also the oracles delivered in Arist. Eq. 1010 sqq. Quum sistrum aliquis concutiens ex imperio mentitur, quum aliquis secandi lacertos suos artifex brachia atque humeros suspensa manu cruentat, quum aliqua genibus per viam repens ululat (525) laurumque linteatus senex et medio lucernam die præferens conclamat, iratum aliquem deorum; concurritis et auditis et divinum esse eum, invicem mutuum alentes stuporem, affirmatis; Sen. de V. B. 27. R.

He predicts that danger is to be apprehended from the sultry and damp blasts of autumn.' BRO. iv. 56 sqq. M. It needed no very sapient conjuror to anticipate such perils; but he exaggerated them, no doubt, with all his art. R.

518. Eggs' were commonly used in expiations, especially in those connected with the worship of Isis. BRO. cf. v. 85. Ov. A. A. ii. 330. Hor. Ep. v. 19 sqq. Pers. v. 185. (K.) R. và in cây xala Gya were on no account to be eaten, but to be thrown away out of doors. GR. The priests undertook to see that this was done, and were indebted for many a good omelet to this superstitious notion. ACH.

519. Xerampelinas dresses' so called from being of the colour of a faded leaf.' VS. Engès sere' and äμ≈sλos · a vineleaf. FR. ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς καὶ τοῖς ἐπινικίοις, καὶ παρόντων πρέσβεων, ἐνεδύοντο χιτῶνας καὶ χλαμύδας ποικίλας, ἀπὸ χρυ σοῦ καὶ πορφύρας, καὶ ἄλλως πως πολυτελεῖς, ἐν δὲ ταῖς κοιναῖς συνόδους ξηραμ πελίνας τὸ χρῶμα ἃς ἐκάλουν ἀτραβατικὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ χρώματος· τὸ γὰρ μίλαν, ἄτρον καλοῦσιν ἢ ὅτι μετὰ τραβαίας ταύταις εἰώθασι χρῆσθαι τραβαῖοι δὲ λέγονται αἱ πολυτελείς χλαμύδες. Suid. R.

Veteres cast-off,' modestly insinuating that they were of no further use to the lady.

She gave him,' in order to be suspended in the temple; PR. or for him and the other priests to wear. M. The Galli in ancient sculptures are always represented in the female dress: and they used to wear sad-coloured raiment, and Pliny interprets the colour xerampelinus to be pullus. VO.

520 and 521. Cf. Herod. ii. 39.

522. This kind of penance was one in which much faith was put: Pers. ii. 15 sq. LU. Hor. II S. iii. 290 sqq. PR.

523. Ο μάγος μετὰ τὴν ἐπῳδὴν τρὶς ἄν μου πρὸς τὸ πρόσωπον ἀποπτύσας, περὶ μέσας νύκτας ἐπὶ τὸν Τίγρητα ποταμὸν ἀγαγὼν ἐκάθησέ τί με καὶ ἀπέμαξει Luc. Nix. 7. Thrice:' the number three and three times three were thought much of in all magical and superstitious rites: Pers. Ov. M. vii. 261. Virg. E. viii. 73 sqq. Æ. vi. 229. R. The manner in which toasts are received at our public dinners is one vestige of this very prevalent notion. See also Shaksp. Macbeth.

Mane; Hor. and Pers. Prop. III. x. 13. R.

524. Vortex is the ancient form of vertex, i. e. contorta in se aqua, vel quidquid aliud similiter vertitur; Quint.

VIII. ii. 7. R. In this and many other words the fuller and more ancient sound was softened down and Ovid was the author who took the lead in this refinement of the language. WEI.

་

Timid,' either from nature, M. or timore deorum; Hor. II S. iii. 295. PR. 'Ablutions' were performed to pacify the celestials: respersions' to deprecate the wrath of the infernal deities. MAR. PR.

When the kings were expelled, the land, between the city and the Tiber, belonging to Tarquin the Proud,' was consecrated by Brutus to Mars, and thenceforth called Campus Martius. VS. Liv. ii. 5. PR.

525. This superstitious rite is mentioned, Tib. I. ii. 85. R. Sen. quoted at 517; PR. John Mabilius, in his Travels in Italy, mentions having often seen women crawling on their knees not only to the Holy Stairs,' to which they seldom go up in any other way, but even, from the neighbouring houses, to St Mary the Greater, and to the Basilica which is called the Altar of Heaven;' p. 50. VL. See also Ov. F. vi. 397-412. CAS.

526. Candida; Ov. 743. R.

If the priest asserts that Isis so commanded in his visions of the past night.' cf. 530 sq. R.

lo, the daughter of Inachus, was beloved by Jupiter; who endeavoured to conceal her, under the form of a white' heifer, from Juno's jealousy. That goddess, however, contrived to obtain possession of her rival, and committed her to the custody of Argus, with whose hundred eyes, after he was slain by Mercury, the queen of heaven adorned her peacock's tail. The Argive princess, after many wanderings, reached Egypt; she was there restored to her human form, and was subsequently deified under the name of Isis. VS. Ov. M. i. 588-750. LU. Plut. on Is. and Osir. Diod. i. 2. PR.

The absurd and contemptible ceremonies of the priests of Isis are described with admirable spirit and humour. It is not easy to say by what criterion the Romans judged of the admissibility of foreign divinities into their temples. Cybele, with all her train of wild and furious enthusiasts, found an easy admittance; while Isis and Osiris, deities not more

detestable, were long opposed, and still longer regarded with distrust and aversion. Of a truth, however, this was confined to the men; the women seem to have found something peculiarly fascinating in the worship of Isis, and to have been, from the first, her warmest devotees. Either because the envy of the priests of Cybele, and other exotic divinities, was excited by this marked predilection, or because the attendance on the rites of Isis was made (as it certainly was in aftertimes) a cloak for intrigue; in the consulship of Piso and Gabinius, a furious persecution was raised against her; and she was banished, with all her ridiculous mummery, from the territories of the republic. Some years afterwards, however, her worship was re-established, when Tiberius, on account of an impious farce which was played in one of her temples (Joseph. A. J. xviii.), rased it to the ground, hanged or crucified the priests, and flung the statue of the goddess into the Tiber. Again the temple was rebuilt, again destroyed by a decree of the senate, and again, and again, reconstructed, till the vigilance of the government was finally remitted, or its obstinacy overcome. It was then, that these fanes rose on all sides, and became (what too many of the Roman temples were) the favourite spots for forming assignations. Whenever Juvenal has occasion to mention these Egyptian divinities, he does it with a contemptuous sneer; but in this he is not singular, since almost every ancient writer on the subject does the same. a bitter reproach to his countrymen for their partiality to them, in a pathetic and beautiful apostrophe to Egypt, on the murder of Pompey: nos in templa tuam Romana accepimus Isin, semideosque canes et sistra jubentia luctus et quem tu plangens hominem testaris Osirim: tu nostros, Egypte, tenes in pulvere manes : tu quoque &c. viii. 831 sqq. But it would be endless to quote all the indignant ridicule that has been poured on these brutal superstitions. With all this, however, they continued in full vigour from our author's time to that of Commodus, who, as Lampridius says, enrolled himself among the priests of Isis, and condescended to carry her son (the dog-headed

Lucan conveys