[Footnote 176:  This name was common to a series of Armenian, and to a series of Parthian kings.  One Arsaces is considered to be the founder of the dynasty of the Parthian kings, which dynasty the Greeks and Romans call that of the Arsacidae.  This Arsaces is reckoned the ninth in the series, and was the son and successor of Arsaces the Eighth.  He is placed in the series of Parthian kings as Arsaces IX.  Mithridates II. (On the series of Parthian Arsacidae, see “Arsaces,” in Biograph.  Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) From the time of this interview of Sulla to a late period under the Roman Empire, the Romans and Parthians were sometimes friends, oftener enemies.  No name occurs so frequently among the Roman writers of the Augustan period as that of the Parthians, the most formidable enemy that the Romans encountered in Asia, and who stopped their victorious progress in the East.]

[Footnote 177:  The MSS. have “a native of Chalkis” ([Greek:  Chalkideus]), a manifest blunder, which has long since been corrected.]

[Footnote 178:  Censorinus was a family name of the Marcii.  This appears to be C. Censorinus, whom Cicero (Brutus, c. 67) speaks of as moderately versed in Greek Literature.  He lost his life in the wars of Sulla B.C. 81.]

[Footnote 179:  Timotheus distinguished himself during the period of the decline of the power of Athens.  In the year B.C. 357 he and Iphicrates were sent with a fleet to reduce to obedience the Athenian subject states and especially the island of Samos.  The expedition was unsuccessful, and Timotheus and other generals were brought to trial on their return home.  Timotheus was convicted, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine, but as he was unable to pay it, he withdrew to Chalkis in Euboea, where he died B.C. 354. (Penny Cyclopaedia, art.  “Timotheus.”) This story of the painting is told by AElianus, Var.  Hist. xiii. 43.]

[Footnote 180:  The original has “the daemon” ([Greek:  daimonion]), which is Fortune, as the context shows.  It is not very easy to unravel all the ancient notions about Fortune, Nemesis, and the like personifications.  The opinion that the deity, or the daemon, looks with an envious eye on a man’s prosperity and in the end pays him off with some equivalent loss, is very common in the Greek writers.  One instance of it occurs in the letter of Amasis, the cunning King of Egypt, to Polykrates the tyrant of Samos. (Herodotus, iii. 40.) The Egyptian King tells Polykrates plainly that his great good luck would certainly draw upon him some heavy calamity, for “the daemon ([Greek:  to theion]) is envious;” and so it was, for Polykrates died a wretched death.  Timotheus, according to Plutarch, provoked Fortune by his arrogance.]

[Footnote 181:  This word ([Greek:  daimon]) often occurs in Plutarch.  In order to understand it, we must first banish from our minds the modern notions attached to the word Daemon.  A little further, Sulla speaks of what the daemon ([Greek:  to daimonion]) enjoins during the night.  People in ancient times attached great importance to dreams, because they were considered as a medium by which the gods communicated with men.  There is great difficulty in translating an ancient writer on account of the terms used in speaking of superhuman powers.