The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

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EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK X., SATIRE IX. 475
among the Greeks.—64. Lentissima brachia. "His arms, which seemed
devoid of the least feeling." They were apparently dead to all the poet's
attempts. This, of course, was done on purpose.—>JtfaZe salsus. Sec,
"With crael pleasantry, he laughed and pretended not to understand
me," i. e., not to perceive my object. Observe the employment of the
historical infinitive instead of the imperfect, to give animation and rapid-
ity to the narrative. So urere immediately after.
67-77. 67. Certe nescio quid, Ice. A short dialogue here ensues between
the bard and Aristius Fascus. Nescio guid. " Something or other."—69.
Hodie tricesima Sabbata, 4c. " Today is the thirtieth Sabbath
dost thou wish to ofiFend the circumcised Jews 1" The ancient scholiasts,
as well as the modem commentators, are divided in opinion with regard
to what is here denominated "the thirtieth Sabbath." Some refer it to
the Jewish Passover, which commenced on the thirtieth Sabbath of their
year. It is better, perhaps, to adopt the opinion of Scaliger [ie Emend.
Temp., iii., p. 309) and Selden {de I. N., iii., 15), and understand by tricesima
Sabbata the thirtieth day of the lunar month, in part, at least, kept
sacred by the Jews. Roeder, whom Orelli follows, supposes the Feast
of Tabernacles to be meant, which was about thirty weeks after the begimiing
of the Jewish year in April; while Bretschueider maintains that
there was no such festival at all as that meiitioned in the text, and that
the whole was an impromtu fiction of Fuscus, who was evidently a wag,
to increase the comic embarrassment of his liiend. (Compare Keightley,
ad loc.)—Nulla mihi, inquam, religio est. " I have no religious scruples
on that head, replied I."—71. At mi ; siimpaulo injunnior, &c. " But I
have. I am a little weaker, in that respect, than thou art ; I am one of
the multitude," i. e., I am one of the common herd, not a sage Epicurean
like thee. The Latins use muUi like the ol iroXkoi of the Greeks.— ^73.
^igrwm. In the sense of infaustum..— Surrexe. For surrexisse.— Jmprobns.
" The wicked rogue." Alluding to Fosous.— 74. Sub cultro.
The poet pleasantly compares himself to a victim about to suffer, as it
were, "under the knife" of the saoriflcer. The garrulous man is going to
talk him to death. Cosu venit obvius, Sec. " As good luck would have
it, his adversary meets him." By adoersarius is meant the opposite
party in the law-suit.— ^76. Licet antistari ? " Wilt thou be a witness to
the arrest V According to the rules of the, Roman law, a plaintiff had
the right of ordering his opponent to go with him before the praetor. If
he refused, the prosecutor took some one present to witness, by saying
licet antistari ? If the person consented, he showed his acquiescence by
offering the tip of his ear [aurioulam apporiebat), which the prosecutor
touched, and the latter might drag the defendant to court by force in any
way, even by the neck, according to the law of the Twelve Tables. As
regards the peculiar circumstances which warranted the arrest in the
present instance, compare note on verse 37 of the present satire.—77. Auriculam.
The ancients believed that the seat of the memory was in the
tip of the ear, and hence their custom of touching it, in order to remind
another of a thing, or for the purpose of calling him to witness any cinsomitance
or occorrence.
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