Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 · Plutarch
FOOTNOTES:
Another Licinia, a Vestal, had broken her vow, and was punished B.C. 113.] [Footnote 9: This may hardly be a correct translation of [Greek: argurognômonas] ἀργυρογνωμόνας: but it is something like the meaning.] [Footnote 13: The Greek is [Greek: stegastrou] στέγαστρου, 'something that covers;' but whether cloak or hat, or covered couch, or sedan, the learned have not yet determined.] [Footnote 15: This is Plutarch's word; but the father of Crassus was Proconsul in Spain. When Cinna and Marius returned to Rome, B.C. 87, Crassus and his sons were proscribed. Crassus and one of his sons lost their lives: the circumstances are stated somewhat differently by different writers. (Florius, iii. 21; Appian, _Civil Wars_, i. 72.) Drumann correctly remarks that Plutarch and other Greek writers often use the word [Greek: stratêgos] στρατηγός simply to signify one who has command, and that [Greek: stratêgos] is incorrectly rendered 'Prætor' by those who write in Latin, when they make use of the Greek historians of Rome. But Plutarch's [Greek: stratêgos] στρατηγός sometimes means prætor, and it is the word by which he denotes that office; he probably does sometimes mean to say 'prætor,' when the man of whom he speaks was not prætor. Whether [Greek: stratêgos] στρατηγός in Plutarch is always translated prætor or always Commander, there will be error. To translate it correctly in all cases, a man must know whether the person spoken of was prætor or not; and that cannot always be ascertained. But besides this, the word 'Commander' will not do, for Plutarch sometimes calls a Proconsul [Greek: stratêgos] στρατηγός, and a Proconsul had not merely a command: he had a government also.]
Cassius was defeated in the neighbourhood of Mutina (Modena) as we learn from Florus (iii. 20).] [Footnote 45: The conspiracy of Catiline was in B.C. 63, the year when Cicero was consul. See the Life of Cicero. There seems to be no evidence that Crassus was implicated in the affair of Catiline. Dion Cassius (37. c. 31) speaks of anonymous letters about the conspiracy being brought to Crassus and other nobles; and Plutarch states on the authority of Cicero that Crassus communicated the letters to Cicero. Dion Cassius in another passage (37. c. 35) mentions the suspicion against Crassus, and that one of the prisoners informed against him, "but there were not many to believe it." If Dion did not believe it, we need not; for he generally believes anything that is to a man's discredit. Sallustius (_Bellum Catilin._ c. 48) has given us a statement of the affair, but his own opinion can scarcely be collected from it. He says, however, that he had heard Crassus declare that Cicero was the instigator of this charge. The orations of Cicero which Plutarch refers to are not extant.] [Footnote 50: The first 'house' ([Greek: oikia] οἰκία) is evidently the house of Domitius. The second house ([Greek: oikêma] οἴκημα), which may be more properly rendered 'chamber,' may, as Sintenis says, mean the Senate-house, if the reading is right. Kaltwasser takes the second house to be the same as the first house; and he refers to the Life of Pompeius, c. 51, 52, where the same story is told.
In place of [Greek: oikêma] οἴκημα some critics have read [Greek: bêma] βῆμα the Rostra.] [Footnote 51: Appian (_Civil Wars_, ii. 18) says that Pompeius received Iberia and Libya. The Romans had now two provinces in the Spanish peninsula, Hispania Citerior or Tarraconensis, and Ulterior or Bætica. This arrangement, by which the whole power of the state was distributed among Pompeius, Crassus and Cæsar, was in effect a revolution, and the immediate cause of the wars which followed. Appian (_Civil Wars_, ii. 18) after speaking of Crassus going on his Parthian expedition in which he lost his life, adds, "but the Parthian History will show forth the calamity of Crassus." Appian wrote a Parthian History; but that which is now extant under the name is merely an extract from Plutarch's Life of Crassus, beginning with the sixteenth chapter: which extract is followed by another from Plutarch's Life of Antonius. The compiler of this Parthian History has put at the head of it a few words of introduction. The extract from Crassus is sometimes useful for the various readings which it offers.] [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 Arsakidæ. The name Arsakes occurs among the Persian names in the Persæ 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. Crassus replied that he would give his answer in Seleukeia, the large city on the Tigris, which was nearly pure Greek. The later Parthian capital was Ktesiphon, in the neighbourhood of Seleukeia, on the east bank of the Tigris and about twenty miles from Bagdad. The foundation of Ktesiphon is attributed by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6, ed. Gronov.) to Bardanes, who was a contemporary of the Roman emperor Nero, if he is the Arsakes Bardanes who appears in the list of Parthian kings. But Ktesiphon is mentioned by Polybius in his fifth book, in the wars of Antiochus and Molon, and consequently it existed in the time of Crassus, though it is not mentioned in his Life. Ktesiphon is mentioned by Dion Cassius (40. c. 14) in his history of the campaign of Crassus, but this alone would not prove that Ktesiphon existed at that time.]
Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv. 1) speaks of a violent storm at Anatha (Annah) on the Euphrates, during the expedition of the Emperor Julian. It blew down the tents and stretched the soldiers on the ground.] [Footnote 66: A place struck with lightning was considered religious (religiosus), that is, it could no longer be used for common purposes. "The deity," says Festus (v. _Fulguritum_), "was supposed to have appropriated it to himself." Dion Cassius (40. c. 17, &c.) gives the story of the passage of the river. The eagle, according to him, was very obstinate. It stuck fast in the ground, as if it was planted there; and when it was forced up by the soldiers, it went along very unwillingly. The Roman eagle was fixed at one end of a long shaft of wood, which had a sharp point at the other end for the purpose of fixing it in the ground. The eagle was gold, or gilded metal; and, according to Dion Cassius, it was kept in a small moveable case or consecrated chapel. The eagle was not moved from the winter encampment, unless the whole army was put in motion. The Vexilla ([Greek: sêmeia] σημεῖα of the Greek writers) were what we call the colours. (See the note of Reimarus on Dion Cassius, 40. c. 18.)] [Footnote 68: This is the translation of Plutarch's word [Greek: pelatês] πελάτης, which word [Greek: pelatês] πελάτης is used by the Greek writers on Roman history to express the Latin Cliens. It is not here supposed that Parthian clients were the same as Roman clients; but as Plutarch uses the word to express a certain condition among the Parthians, which was not that of slavery, it is proper to retain his word in the translation.]
Peras imposuit Iuppiter nobis duas: Propriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit, Alienis ante pectus suspendit gravem. Hac re videre nostra mala non possumus: Alii simul delinquunt, censores sumus. Two wallets Juppiter has placed upon us: Our own faults fill the bag we bear behind, Our neighbour's heavy wallet hangs in front. And so we cannot see our own ill deeds; But if another trips, forthwith we censure. ] [Footnote 95: Pentheus, king of Thebes, son of Agave; would not recognise the divinity of Bacchus, whereupon Bacchus infuriated the women, and among them Agave, who killed her own son. She is introduced in the Bacchæ with his head in her hand, exulting over the slaughter of the supposed wild beast. The passage which is cited is from the Bacchæ of Euripides, v. 1168, ed. Elmsley. The exact meaning of the word [Greek: helika] ἕλικα in the passage is uncertain. See Elmsley's note.] [Footnote 96: The word is Exodium ([Greek: exodion] ἐξόδιον), a kind of entertainment common among the Romans, though it is a Greek word. Plutarch means that this exhibition before the kings was like the farce which is acted after a tragedy. It seems as if Jason was first playing the part of Agave, and was then going to play that of Pentheus; but on seeing the head he put aside the mask and dress of Pentheus, and recited the words of the frantic mother. Plutarch sometimes leaves things in a kind of mist: he gives his reader opportunity for conjecture.]
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