ring works of the Roman people.]

[Footnote 161: It had formed a sort of honourable retirement in which
Lepidus was shelved, to use a familiar expression, when Augustus got rid
of him quietly from the Triumvirate. Augustus assumed it A.U.C. 740, thus
centring the last of all the great offices of the state in his own person;
that of Pontifex Maximus, being of high importance, from the sanctity
attached to it, and the influence it gave him over the whole system of
religion.]

[Footnote 162: In the thirty-six years since the calendar was corrected
by Julius Caesar, the priests had erroneously intercalated eleven days
instead of nine. See JULIUS, c. xl.]

[Footnote 163: Sextilis, the sixth month, reckoning from March, in which
the year of Romulus commenced.]

[Footnote 164: So Cicero called the day on which he returned from exile,
the day of his "nativity" and his "new birth," paligennesian, a word which
had afterwards a theological sense, from its use in the New Testament.]

[Footnote 165: Capi. There is a peculiar force in the word here adopted
by Suetonius; the form used by the Pontifex Maximus, when he took the
novice from the hand of her father, being Te capio amata, "I have you, my
dear," implying the forcible breach of former ties, as in the case of a
captive taken in war.]

[Footnote 166: At times when the temple of Janus was shut, and then only,
certain divinations were made, preparatory to solemn supplication for the
public health, "as if," says Dio, "even that could not be implored from
the gods, unless the signs were propitious." It would be an inquiry of
some interest, now that the care of the public health is becoming a
department of the state, with what sanatory measures these becoming
solemnities were attended.]

[Footnote 167: Theophrastus mentions the spring and summer flowers most
suited for these chaplets. Among the former, were hyacinths, roses, and
white violets; among the latter, lychinis, amaryllis, iris, and some
species of lilies.]

[Footnote 168: Ergastulis. These were subterranean strong rooms, with
narrow windows, like dungeons, in the country houses, where incorrigible
slaves were confined in fetters, in the intervals of the severe tasks in
grinding at the hand-mills, quarrying stones, drawing water, and other
hard agricultural labour in which they were employed.]

[Footnote 169: These months were not only "the Long Vacation" of the
lawyers, but during them there was a