[Footnote 289:  This country was Gordyene. (Dion Cassius, 37. c. 5.)]

[Footnote 290:  This city, the capital of Syria, was built by Seleucus Nicator and called Antiocheia after his father Antiochus.  It is situated in 36 deg. 12’ N. lat. on the south bank of the Orontes, a river which enters the sea south of the Gulf of Scanderoon.]

[Footnote 291:  The meaning of the original is obscure.  The word is [Greek:  to imation], which ought to signify his vest or toga.  Some critics take it to mean a kind of handkerchief used by sick persons and those of effeminate habits; and they say it was also used by persons when travelling, as a cover for the head, which the Greeks called Theristerium.  The same word is used in the passage (c. 7), where it is said that “Sulla used to rise from his seat as Pompeius approached and take his vest from his head.”  Whatever may be the meaning of the word here, Plutarch seems to say that this impudent fellow would take his seat at the table before the guests had arrived and leave his master to receive them.]

[Footnote 292:  Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 53) observes that “Plutarch does not say that Pompeius built his house near his theatre, but that he built it in addition to his theatre and at the same time, as Donatus had perceived, De Urbe Roma, 3, 8, in Graev.  Thes.  T. 3, p. 695.”  But Drumann is probably mistaken.  There is no great propriety in the word [Greek:  epholkion] unless the house was near the theatre, and the word [Greek:  paretektenato] rather implies ‘proximity,’ than ‘in addition to.’

This was the first permanent theatre that Rome had.  It was built partly on the model of that of Mitylene and it was opened in the year B.C. 55.  This magnificent theatre, which would accommodate 40,000 people, stood in the Campus Martius.  It was built of stone with the exception of the scena, and ornamented with statues, which were placed there under the direction of Atticus, who was a man of taste.  Augustus embellished the theatre, and he removed thither the statue of Pompeius, which up to that time had stood in the Curia where Caesar was murdered.  The scena was burnt down in the time of Tiberius, who began to rebuild it; but it was not finished till the reign of Claudius.  Nero gilded the interior.  The scena was again burnt in the beginning of the reign of Titus, who restored it again.  The scena was again burnt in the reign of Philippus and a third time restored. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 521; Dion Cassius 39. c. 88, and the notes of Reimarus.)]

[Footnote 293:  Petra, the capital of the Nabathaei, is about half way between the southern extremity of the Dead Sea and the northern extremity of the AElanitic Gulf, the more eastern of the two northern branches of the Red Sea.  The ruins of Petra exist in the Wady Musa, and have been visited by Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, and last by Laborde, who has given the most complete description of them in his ‘Voyage