and birds: for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody-looking pole stretched out from my frightful middle: but a reed fixed upon the crown of my head terrifies the mischievous birds, and hinders them from settling in these new gardens.[1] Before this the fellow-slave bore dead corpses thrown out of their narrow cells to this place, in order to be deposited in paltry coffins. This place stood a common sepulcher for the miserable mob, for the buffoon Pantelabus, and Nomentanus the rake. Here a column assigned a thousand feet[2] [of ground] in front, and three hundred toward the fields: that the burial-place should not descend to the heirs of the estate. Now one may live in the Esquiliæ,[3] [since it is made] a healthy place; and walk upon an open terrace, where lately the melancholy passengers beheld the ground frightful with white bones; though both the thieves and wild beasts accustomed to infest this place, do not occasion me so much care and trouble, as do [these hags], that turn people’s minds by their incantations and drugs. These I can not by any means destroy nor hinder, but that they will gather bones and noxious herbs, as soon as the fleeting moon[4] has shown her beauteous face.
I myself saw Canidia, with her sable garment tucked up, walk with bare feet and disheveled hair, yelling together with the elder Sagana. Paleness had rendered both of them horrible to behold. They began to claw up the earth with their nails, and to tear a black ewe-lamb to pieces with their teeth.
- ↑ Octavius, willing to correct the infection of this hill, which was a common burial-place for all the poor of Rome, got the consent of the senate and people to give part of it to Mæcenas, who built a magnificent house there with very extensive gardens. Hence the poet calls them novis hortis San.
- ↑ Mille pedes in fronte. Such was the title of the grave-yard, preserved on a pillar of stone, cippus, to show its extent, and to declare it was never to return to the heirs of the estate. We have numberless inscriptions of this king, Ita ne unquam de nomine Famillæ nostræ exeat hoc monumentum. Hoc monumentus heredes non sequitur. In Fronte Lat. ped. XX. et dig. II. In agr. long. ped. XX. In fronte signifies to the road: in agro, to the fields. Dabat is for indicabat, testabatur. Torr.
- ↑ The air was afterward so healthy, that Augustus was carried thither when he was ill. Torr.
- ↑ The moon presided over all enchantments, and was believed to be most favorable when in the full, decorum os, because she then infused a stronger spirit into the magical herbs. Torr.
