[Footnote 297:  Valeria was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala.  She could not be the sister of Hortensius, for in that case her name would be Hortensia.  The sister of the orator Hortensius married a Valerius Messala.]

[Footnote 298:  Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the Greek Autocrator ([Greek:  Autokrator]), “one who has absolute power;” the title Autocrator under the Empire is the Greek equivalent of the Roman Imperator, but hardly an equivalent at this time. (See the Life of Caesar.)]

[Footnote 299:  This was the Quintus Roscius whom Cicero has so often mentioned and in defence of whom he made a speech which is extant.  The subject of the action against Roscius is not easy to state in a few words. (See the Argument of P. Manutius, and the Essay of Unterholzner in Savigny’s Zeitschrift, &c. i. p. 248.) Roscius is called Comoedus in the title of Cicero’s oration and by Plutarch, but he seems to have acted tragedy also, as we may collect from some passages in Cicero.  The general name at Rome for an actor was histrio; but the histrio is also contrasted by Cicero (Pro Q. Roscio, c. 10) with the comoedus, as the inferior compared with the higher professor of the art.  Yet Roscius is sometimes called a histrio.  Roscius was a perfect master of his art, according to Cicero; and his name became proverbial among the Romans to express a perfect master of any art. (Cicero, De Oratore, i. 28.) Cicero was intimate with Roscius, and learned much from him that was useful to him as an orator.  Roscius wrote a work in which he compared oratory and acting.  His professional gains were immense; and he had a sharp eye after his own interest, as the speech of Cicero shows.]

[Footnote 300:  The original is [Greek:  lusiodos], which is explained by Aristoxenus, quoted by Athenaeus (p. 620), as I have translated it.]

[Footnote 301:  Appian does not mention this disease of Sulla, though other writers do.  Appian merely speaks of his dying of fever.  Zachariae (Life of Sulla) considers the story of his dying of the lousy disease as a fabrication of Sulla’s enemies, and probably of the Athenians whom he had handled so cruelly.  This disease, called Morbus Pediculosus or Pthiriasis, is not unknown in modern times.  Plutarch has collected instances from ancient times.  Akastus belongs to the mythic period.  Alkman lived in the seventh century B.C.:  fragments of his poetry remain.  This Pherekydes was what the Greeks called Theologus, a man who speculated on things appertaining to the nature of the gods.  He is said to have been a teacher of Pythagoras, which shows that he belongs to an uncertain period.  He was not a Philosopher; his speculations belonged to those cosmogonical dreams which precede true philosophy, and begin again when philosophy goes to sleep, as we see in the speculations of the present day.  Kallisthenes is mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, c. 55.  He was thrown into prison on a charge of conspiring against Alexander.  This Mucius the lawyer ([Greek:  nomikos]), or jurisconsultus, as a Roman would call him, is the P. Mucius Scaevola who was consul in the year in which Tiberius Gracchus was murdered.