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 54:  C. Ateius Capito Gallus and his brother tribune P. Aquillius Gallius were strong opponents of Pompeius and Crassus at this critical time.  Crassus left Rome for his Parthian campaign at the close of B.C. 55, before the expiration of his consulship (Clinton, Fasti, B.C. 54).]

[Footnote 55:  We learn that Crassus sailed from Brundisium (Brindisi), the usual place of embarkation for Asia, but we are told nothing more of his course till we find him in Galatia, talking to old Deiotarus.]

[Footnote 56:  Zenodotia or Zenodotium, a city of the district Osrhoene, and near the town of Nikephorium.  These were Greek cities founded by the Macedonians.  I have mistranslated the first part of this passage of Plutarch from not referring at the time to Dion Cassius (40. c. 13) who tells the story thus:—­“The inhabitants of Zenodotium sent for some of the Romans, pretending that they intended to join them like the rest; but when the men were within the city, they cut off their retreat and killed them; and this was the reason why their city was destroyed.”  The literal version of Plutarch’s text will be the true one.  “But in one of them, of which Apollonius was tyrant, a hundred of his soldiers were put to death, upon,” &c.]

[Footnote 57:  This was his son Publius, who is often mentioned in Caesar’s Gallic War.]

[Footnote 58:  See Life of Lucullus, c. 22.]

[Footnote 59:  Hierapolis or the ‘Holy City’ was also called Bambyke and Edessa.  Strabo places it four schoeni from the west bank of the Euphrates.  The goddess who was worshipped here was called Atargatis or Astarte.  Lucian speaks of the goddess and her temple and ceremonial in his treatise ‘On the Syrian Goddess’ (iii. p. 451, ed.  Hemsterhuis).  Lucian had visited the place.  Josephus adds (Jewish Antiq. xiv. 7) that Crassus stripped the temple of Jerusalem of all its valuables to the amount of ten thousand talents.  The winter occupation of the Roman general was more profitable than his campaign the following year turned out.]

[Footnote 60:  This was a general name of the Parthian kings, and probably was used as a kind of title.  The dynasty was called the Arsakidae.  The name Arsakes occurs among the Persian names in the Persae of Aeschylus.  Pott (Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 272) conjectures that the word means ‘King of the Arii,’ or ‘the noble King.’  The prefix Ar or Ari is very common in Persian names, as Ariamnes, Ariomardus, and others.

Plutarch in other passages of the Life of Crassus calls this Arsakes, Hyrodes, and other authorities call him Orodes.  He is classed as Arsakes XIV.  Orodes I. of Parthia, by those who have attempted to form a regular series of the Parthian kings.

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Plutarch's Lives Volume III. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.