what ancestry descended each began the contest. The illustrious race of Messius—Oscan:[1] Sarmentus’s mistress is still alive. Sprung from such families as these, they came to the combat. First, Sarmentus: “I pronounce thee to have the look of a mad horse.” We laugh; and Messius himself [says], “I accept your challenge:” and wags his head. “O!” cries he, “if the horn were not cut off your forehead, what would you not do; since, maimed as you are, you bully at such a rate?” For a foul scar has disgraced the left part of Messius’s bristly forehead. Cutting many jokes upon his Campanian disease, and upon his face, he desired him to exhibit Polyphemus’s dance:[2] that he had no occasion for a mask, or the tragic buskins. Cicirrus [retorted] largely to these: he asked, whether he had consecrated his chain[3] to the household gods according to his vow; though he was a scribe, [he told him] his mistress’s property in him was not the less. Lastly, he asked, how he ever came to run away; such a lank meager fellow, for whom a pound of corn [a-day] would be ample.[4] We were so diverted, that we continued that supper to an unusual length.
Hence we proceed straight on for Beneventum; where the bustling landlord almost burned himself, in roasting some lean
- ↑ Osci is a nominative case, and we must construe it, Osci sunt clarum genus Messii. The Oscans gave to Messius his illustrious birth, a sufficient proof that he was an infamous scoundrel. The people who inhabited this part of Campania were guilty of execrable debaucheries. San.
- ↑ Saltaret utì Cyclopa. The raillery is founded on his gigantic size, and the villainous gash that Messius had on his forehead, which made him look so like a Polyphemus, that he might dance the part without buskins or a mask. To dance a Cyclops, a Glaucus, a Ganymede, a Leda, was an expression for representing their story by dancing. Ed. Dubl.
- ↑ Donâsset jamne catenam. Only the vilest slaves, or those who worked in the country, were chained. It appears by an epigram of Martial, that when they were set at liberty, they consecrated their chains to Saturn, because slavery was unknown under his reign. But when Messius asks Sarmentus whether he had dedicated his chain to the Dii Lares, he would reproach him with being a fugitive. These gods were invoked by travelers, because they presided over highways, from whence they were called viales. They themselves were always represented like travelers, as if they were ready to leave the house; succincti. Or Sarmentus was a slave so vile that he knew no other gods, but those who stood on the hearth, and which it was his employment to keep clean. Dac.
- ↑ By the laws of the twelve tables, a slave was allowed a pound of corn a day. "Qui eum vinctum habebit, libras farris in dies dato." Turnebus.
