The Romans made many enactments for limiting expense in dress, entertainments, funerals (Sulla, c. 35), amount of debt to be incurred, and so forth, all of which were unavailing.  The notion of regulating private expenditure was not peculiar to the Romans among the states of antiquity; and our own legislation, which in its absurd as well as its best parts has generally some parallel in that of the Romans, contains many instances of sumptuary laws, which prescribed what kind of dress, and of what quality, should be worn by particular classes, and so forth.  The English Sumptuary Statutes relating to Apparel commenced with the 37th of Edward III.  This statute, after declaring that the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers people against their estate and degree is the destruction and impoverishment of the land, prescribes the apparel of the various classes into which it distributes the people; but it goes no higher than knights.  The clothing of the women and children is also regulated.  The next statute, 3rd of Edward IV., is very minute.  This kind of statute-making went on at intervals to the 1st of Philip & Mary, when an Act was passed for the Reformation of Excessive Apparel.  These Apparel Statutes were repealed by the 1st of James I.]

[Footnote 164:  This word does not convey the exact notion, but it is sufficient.  The original is Gephyrists ([Greek:  gephyristai]).  There was, they say, a bridge (Gephyra) on the road between Athens and Eleusis, from which, during the sacred processions to Eleusis, the people (or, as some authorities say, the women) were allowed the liberty of joking and saying what they pleased; and hence the name of such free speakers, Bridgers, Bridge-folk. (See Casaubon’s note on Strabo, p. 400.) Hence the word came to signify generally abusive people.  Sulla did not forget these insults when he took Athens (c. 13).  Plutarch alludes to this also in his Treatise on Garrulity, c. 7.]

[Footnote 165:  Mimus is a name given by the Romans both to an actor and to a kind of dramatic performance, which probably resembled a coarse farce, and was often represented in private houses.  Its distinguishing character was a want of decency.  The word Mimus is of Greek origin, and probably derived its name from the amount of gestures and action used in these performances.  The Greeks also had their Mimi.]

[Footnote 166:  This passage is apparently corrupt.  But the general meaning is tolerably clear. (See Sulla, c. 36.)]

[Footnote 167:  See Marius, c. 10.]

[Footnote 168:  Tribunus Militum, a military tribune.  Plutarch translates the term by Chiliarchus, a commander of a thousand.  At this time there were six tribunes to a Roman legion.]

[Footnote 169:  The Tectosages were a Celtic people who lived at the foot of the Pyrenees west of Narbo (Narbonne).]

[Footnote 170:  Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Roemer, Pt. iii. p. 216) wishes to establish that these Marsi were a German nation, who lived on both sides of the Lippe and extended to the Rhine, and not the warlike nation of the Marsi who inhabited the central Apennines south-east of Rome.  This is the remark of Mannert as quoted by Kaltwasser; but I do not find it in the second edition of Mannert (Pt. iii. 168), where he is treating of the German Marsi.]