Misenum

“ Fittest for this seemed the perpetrator of the mother's murder, Anicetus, commander, as I have already mentioned, of the fleet at Misenum, who got but scant gratitude after that atrocious deed, and subsequently all the more vehement hatred, inasmuch as men look on their instruments in crime as a sort of standing reproach to them. The emperor accordingly sent for Anicetus, and reminded him of his former service. "He alone," he said, "had come to the rescue of the prince's life against a plotting mother. ”

“ Vitellius listened to their complaints, and handing over the affairs of Judæa to his friend Marcellus, commanded me to go and justify my proceedings before the Emperor himself. With a heart overflowing with grief and resentment I took ship. Just as I approached the shores of Italy, Tiberius, worn out with age and the cares of empire, died suddenly on the selfsame Cape Misenum, whose peak we see from this very spot magnified in the mists of evening. I demanded justice of Caius, his 11successor, whose perception was naturally acute, and who was acquainted with Syrian affairs. ”

“ In private life he had taken a step which was the source of a lifelong happiness to him. The political marriage with Scribonia in B.C. 40, contracted with the idea of conciliating Sextus Pompeius, had been ended by divorce on the very day of the birth of his only daughter Iulia. The reason alleged was her disagreeable disposition; but, besides the change in the political situation, there was another reason of a more personal nature. The peace of Misenum had permitted many partisans of Brutus, Cassius, or Lucius Antonius, who had fled to Sextus Pompeius, to return to Rome. ”

“ XLIX. With respect to the army, he distributed the legions and auxiliary troops throughout the several provinces, he stationed a fleet at Misenum, and another at Ravenna, for the protection of the Upper and Lower Seas 189. A certain number of the forces were selected, to occupy the posts in the city, and partly for his own body-guard; but he dismissed the Spanish guard, which he retained about him till the fall of Antony; and also the Germans, whom he had amongst his guards, until the defeat of Varus. ”

“ Just as the consular insignia or ornamenta were given in place of the regular office (See Claud. v) , and the triumphal insignia in place of a triumph, so Octavia ought to be content with being the emperor's wife in name only.↑ Anicetus was at the time prefect of the praetorian fleet at Misenum; see Tac. Ann. 14.62.↑ See Claud. xxvii. 1.↑ Seneca's speech and Nero's reply are preserved by Tacitus (Ann. 14.53-56) .↑ Pallas and Doryphorus; see Tac. ”

“ Here the earnest and faithful woman made every possible effort to gain the ear and favor of the emperor and to obtain influence in high places. She unhappily found that Roman officials had no time or thought to waste on fugitive rebels, and that compassion for those who dared oppose the supremacy of Rome was a sentiment that could find no place in the imperial heart. Repelled, disappointed, hopeless, the unhappy woman and her disguised husband retraced their long and weary journey, and Sabinus again sought shelter in the dens and caves which formed his only secure places of refuge. ”

“ Latin
26 Messalina, now grown weary of the very facility of her adulteries, was rushing into strange excesses, when even Silius, either through some fatal infatuation or because he imagined that, amid the dangers which hung over him, danger itself was the best safety, urged the breaking off of all concealment. "They were not," he said, "in such an extremity as to have to wait for the emperor's old age. Harmless measures were for the innocent. Crime once exposed had no refuge but in audacity. They had accomplices in all who feared the same fate. ”

“ Silius was condemned to death for the adultery which he had perpetrated with reluctance; and Messalina was ordered into the emperor’s presence, to answer for her conduct. Terror now operating upon her mind in conjunction with remorse, she could not summon the resolution to support such an interview, but retired into the gardens of Lucullus, there to indulge at last the compunction which she felt for her crimes, and to meditate the entreaties by which she should endeavour to soothe the resentment (336) of her husband. ”

“ Polyphontes
O Merope, the trouble on thy face
Tells me enough thou know'st the news which all
Messenia speaks! the prince, thy son, is dead.
Not from my lips should consolation fall;
To offer that, I come not; but to urge,
Even after news of this sad death, our league.
Yes, once again I come; I will not take
This morning's angry answer for thy last.
To the Messenian kingdom thou and I
Are the sole claimants left; what cause of strife
Lay in thy son is buried in his grave.
Most honourably I meant, I call the Gods [423]
To witness, offering him return and power ”

“ My father, Apollodorus, was a priest of Phoebus, and named me, like himself, from the sungod, whom he worshipped; but I found the party of Isis fashionable at court, so I even changed my name and colours to the winning side. When one is at Rome, you know, he must do as the Romans do."
"Yes, like the degenerate Romans, who forsake the old gods, under whom the State was great and virtuous and strong," said the soldier, with an angry gesture. "The more gods, the worse the world becomes. ”

“ I see in you, I think, a kind of leaning toward Rome."
"It isn't Rome," said Minnie. "I don't lean to Rome. I only lean a little toward a Roman Catholic priest."
"Worse and worse," said Tozer. "Dear! dear! dear! worse and worse. This beats all. Young woman, beware! But perhaps I don't understand you. You surely don't mean that your affections are engaged to any Roman Catholic priest. You can't mean that. Why, they can't marry."
"But that's just what I like them so for," said Minnie. "I like people that don't marry; I hate people that want to marry." ”

“ But sad-faced and with downcast eyes therefrom Æneas goes,
And leaves the cave, still turning o'er those coming things, so dim,
So dark to see. Achates fares nigh fellow unto him,
And ever 'neath like load of cares he lets his footsteps fall:
And many diverse words they cast each unto each withal,160
What was the dead friend and the grave whereof the seer did teach.
But when they gat them down at last upon the barren beach,
They saw Misenus lying dead by death but lightly earned;
Misenus, son of Æolus; no man more nobly learned
In waking up the war with brass and singing Mars alight. ”

“ It makes even the strongest man so insensible for a time, that you might cut off his leg and draw all his teeth without having the slightest resistance offered.'
'Insensible!'
'Ay, as a stone; look at our poor Minnie.'
'The unhanged villain!' exclaimed Callum, swelling with new wrath; 'dioul! why did I not gash his throat with my skene as I would have scored a stag? He had some dark and sinister end in view; he deemed Minnie but a poor, ignorant, and unprotected Highland girl, who knew no language but her native Gaelic, and had no idea of aught beyond the sides of the glen ”

“ He had heard long before that the enthusiast had wandered over many parts of the earth, and had dwelt long in deserts and barren places as a hermit, according to the prevailing superstitions of the day; and the young Roman doubted not, that since he had been driven forth by the partial destruction of Aspalathos, Mizetus had again returned to his erratic life, and found his way to the frontiers of Pannonia. "Go up to him, Cremera," said Theodore--"go up to him, and, telling him who we are, ask him where we can find shelter, for he must surely have some cave or hut wherein to dwell himself." ”

“ Stood Vincen; while, transported by the shock,
Mirèio would have leaped a precipice,
Had such been there. “Old scare-crow, what is this?
“What mean you,” cried Taven, “by swaying so
Your limp head like a poplar to and fro?”{103}
Then turning to the stricken twain, “My dears,
You know the Laundress? Oft-times she appears
On Mount Ventour, and then the common crowd
Are wont to take her for a long, white cloud.
“But shepherds, when they see her, pen their sheep.
The Laundress of destruction, who doth keep
The errant clouds in hand, is known too well. ”

“ When a girl went out and got married, she received a dower of two hundred Roman crowns.
Menicuccio had a sister in the same convent, and was allowed to visit her on Sundays; she came to the grating, followed by her governess. Though Menicuccio was her brother, she was not permitted to see him alone.
Five or six months before the date of which I am writing his sister had been accompanied to the grating by another girl, whom he had never seen before, and he immediately fell in love with her.
The poor young man had to work hard all the week, and could only visit the convent on holidays ”

“ Even the priests themselves do not believe in the existence of the gods at whose altars they minister; so that Cicero, you will remember, said that 'he wondered how one augur could look in the face of another without laughing.'"
"I quite admit," remarked Adauctus, "that the priests are often impostors, deceiving the people; but our wisest philosophers—the thoughtful Pliny, the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even the eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted—teach the probability if not the certainty of a future state, where virtue shall be rewarded and wickedness punished." ”

“ At the outset, however, this first mishnah informs us that some things have no measure, and it is a person’s heart that decides the amount to do or give.
Specifically, this tractate begins by dealing with the "corners of the field" that are left for the poor (Vayikra 19:9, 23:22) . This obligation has no measure according to biblical law, and the size of a field’s "corners" is completely up to the owner of the field. However, rabbinical decree later set a minimum size for the "corner": at least one-sixtieth must be left for the poor (see next mishnah) . ”

“ Though very naturally censured for the freedom with which I exercised this caprice in my version of “Mirèio,” I still clung to it tenaciously as late as 1880, when I made a version of the Georgics of Vergil. I am by no means certain even now that there is not sound musical justification for the idea, but I have grown conservative with years, as we are all apt to do, and I cherish an ever-increasing respect for law—literary and other. ”

“ The features of the minstrels as we trace them obscurely from the sixth to the eleventh century, and then more clearly from the eleventh to the sixteenth, are very largely the features of the Roman mimi as they go under, whelmed in the flood which bore away Latin civilization. But to regard them as nothing else than mimi would be a serious mistake. On another side they have a very different and a far more reputable ancestry. Like other factors in mediaeval society, they represent a merging of Latin and the Teutonic elements. ”

“ But few attending what he said, with vehement gesture, as if he would tear the stars from the skies he fell to crying out so loud that not only Zelmane, but Basilius might hear him. “O unhappy men, more mad than the giants that would have plucked Jupiter out of heaven, how long shall this rage continue? why do you not all throw down your weapons and submit yourselves to our good prince, our good Basilius, the Pelops of wisdom, and Minos of all good government? when will you begin to believe me, and other honest and faithful subjects, that have done all we could to stop your fury.” ”

“ And at first sight it might seem that this influence and criticism Menenius was well fitted to supply. He, too, like Volumnia, puts Rome before all other considerations, as is shown not only by his undertaking the mission to the Volscian camp, but by his action all through the drama. He is ever willing to play the part of mediator. Now we find him soothing [Pg 560] the people, now we find him soothing Coriolanus. When the banishment is an accomplished fact, he endeavours to mitigate the outbursts of Volumnia; and Sicinius bears witness:
O, he is grown most kind of late. ”

“ It finally resolved itself into a tragic scandal, which, if we could believe Suetonius and Tacitus, would certainly have been the most monstrous extravagance to which an imagination depraved by power could have abandoned itself. According to these writers, Messalina, at a loss for some new form of dissipation, one fine day took it into her head to marry Silius, a young man with whom she was very much in love, who belonged to a distinguished family, and who was the consul-designate. ”

“ The gods in Jove's house pity the vain rage of either and all the agonising of mortals. From one side Venus, from one opposite Juno, daughter of Saturn, looks on; pale Tisiphone rages among the many thousand men. But now, brandishing his huge spear, Mezentius strides glooming over the plain, vast as Orion when, with planted foot, he cleaves his way through the vast pools of mid-ocean and his shoulder overtops the waves, or carrying an ancient mountain-ash from the hilltops, paces the ground and hides his head among the clouds: so moves Mezentius, huge in arms. ”

“ Menicuccio went to see his sweetheart every holiday, while I, in my amorous ardour, visited his sister every morning at nine o'clock. I breakfasted with her and Emilie, and remained in the parlour till eleven. As there was only one grating I could lock the door behind me, but we could be seen from the interior of the convent, as the door was left open to admit light, there being no window. This was a great annoyance for me; recluses, young or old, were continually passing by, and none of them failed to give a glance in the direction of the grate ”