Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

Plutarch's Lives Volume III. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 810 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives Volume III..

[Footnote 360:  Pompeius returned to Dyrrachium, which it had been the object of Caesar to seize.  As he had not accomplished this, Caesar posted himself on the River Apsus between Apollonia and Dyrrachium.  The fights in the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium are described by Caesar (Civil War, iii. 34, &c.).]

[Footnote 361:  The Athamanes were on the borders of Epirus and Thessalia.  In place of the Athamanes the MSS. of Caesar (Civil War, iii. 78) have Acarnania, which, as Drumann says, must be a mistake in the text of Caesar.]

[Footnote 362:  Q. Metellus Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, who had been appointed to the government of Syria by the Senate.  Scipio had now come to Thesaalia (Caesar, Civil War, iii. 33, and 80).]

[Footnote 363:  Cato was left with fifteen cohorts in Dyrrachium.  See the Life of Cato, c. 55; Dion Cassius (12. c. 10).]

[Footnote 364:  Or Tusculanum, as Plutarch calls it, now Frascati, about 12 miles S.E. of Rome, where Cicero had a villa.]

[Footnote 365:  Lentulus Spinther, consul of B.C. 57, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul B.C. 54.  This affair is mentioned by Caesar himself (Civil War, iii. 83, &c.).  We have the best evidence of the bloody use that the party of Pompeius would have made of their victory is the letters of Cicero himself (Ad Atticum, xi. 6).  There was to be a general proscription, and Rome was to see the times of Sulla revived.  But the courage and wisdom of one man defeated the designs of these senseless nobles.  Caesar (c. 83) mentions their schemes with a contemptuous brevity.]

[Footnote 366:  The town of Pharsalus was situated near the Enipeus, in one of the great plains of Thessalia, called Pharsalia.  Caesar (iii. 88) does not mention the place where the battle was fought.  See Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 75.]

[Footnote 367:  Pompeius had dedicated a temple at Rome to Venus Victrix.  The Julia (Iulia) Gens, to which Caesar belonged, traced their deecent from Venus through Iulus, the son of AEneas. (See the Life of Caesar, c. 42.)]

[Footnote 368:  Caesar does not mention this meteor in his Civil War.  See Life of Caesar, c. 43, and Dion Cassius, 41. c. 61.]

[Footnote 369:  A place in Thessalia north of Pharsalus where Titus Quinctius Flaminius defeated King Philip of Macedonia, B.C. 197.]

[Footnote 370:  [Greek:  ton phoinikoun chitona].  Shakspere has employed this in his Julius Caesar, Act V. Sc. 1: 

     “Their bloody sign of battle is hung out.”

Plutarch means the Vexillum.  He has expressed by his word ([Greek:  protheinai] ) the ‘propono’ of Caesar (Bell.  Gall. ii. 20; Bell.  Hispan. c. 28, Bell.  Alexandr. c. 45).  The ‘hung out’ is a better translation than ‘unfurled.’]

[Footnote 371:  Plutarch in this as in some other instances places the Praenomen last, instead of first which he ought to do; but immediately after he writes Lucius Domitius correctly.  The error may be owing to the copyists.

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