NOTES TO THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER Note i66, page loi. PUBLius LiciNlus Crassus Mucianus was Roman Consul in 131 B.C. According to Livy, the incident narrated in the text oc- curred during an unsuccessful campaign against Pergamus, which ended in Crassus's voluntary death. Note 167, page 103. Rome was sacked only the year before The Courtier was first published. Italy had become the plaything of foreign conquest. Note 168, page 103. Darius III was King of Persia 336-330 B.C. This story about his sword seems to be founded on the following passage in Quintus Curtius Rufus's History of Alexander the Great: "At the beginning of his reign, Darius ordered his Persian scabbard to be altered to the form which the Greeks used; whereupon the Chaldeans prophesied that the empire of the Persians would pass to those whose arms he had imitated." Note 169, page 104. It will be remembered that Bembo was a Venetian. Note 170, page 104. The coii [cuffia) here mentioned seems to have been a kind of turban made of cloth wound about the head, with the two ends hang- ing at the ears. Note 171, page 105. These unfortunate creatures still abound near Bergamo. Note 172, page 106. Pylades and Orestes, like Pirithous and Theseus, are the famous friends of Greek legend. The historical and no less tender love between Scipio and Laelius forms the subject of Cicero's De Amicitia. See note 102. Note 173, page log. The fellow's reward is said to have been a measure of the peas. Note 174, page 109. The Italian phrase here rendered 'goes against the grain ' is non gli aTsrh sangue (more usually non ci avra il suo sangue), and might be more precisely translated 'will not suit his humour.' The 'as we say' suggests that the idiom was of recent origin in Castiglione's time. Note 175, page 113. GlACOPO Sannazaro, (born 1458; died 1530), was a na- tive of Naples, and the son of Giacopo Niccol6 and Masella di San Magno. His boyhood was spent with his mother at San Cipriano, near her birthplace Salerno. He soon made such progress in Latin and Greek that he was ad- mitted to the academy of the famous Pontormo, of whom he became the close friend. Their effigies may be seen together in the Neapolitan church of Monte Oliveto. He received a villa and a pension from the scholarly Aragonese dynasty, to which he remained faithful with pen and sword, following Fed- erico III into exile (see note 401) in 1501, and returning to Naples only after his king's death in 1504. He seems to have had a peaceful and honourable old 358
