Agric. xv. 1, xvi. 1; and Annal. xiv. 29.]

[Footnote 579: The dominions of Cottius embraced the vallies in the chain
of the Alps extending between Piedmont and Dauphiny, called by the Romans
the Cottian Alps. See TIBERIUS, c. xxxvii.]

[Footnote 580: It was a favourite project of the Caesars to make a
navigable canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, to avoid the
circumnavigation of the southern extremity of the Morea, now Cape Matapan,
which, even in our days, has its perils. See JULIUS CAESAR, c. xliv. and
CALIGULA, c. xxi.]

[Footnote 581: Caspiae Portae; so called from the difficulties opposed by
the narrow and rocky defile to the passage of the Caucasus from the
country washed by the Euxine, now called Georgia, to that lying between
the Caspian and the sea of Azof. It commences a few miles north of
Teflis, and is frequently the scene of contests between the Russians and
the Circassian tribes.]

[Footnote 582: Citharoedus: the word signifies a vocalist, who with his
singing gave an accompaniment on the harp.]

[Footnote 583: It has been already observed that Naples was a Greek
colony, and consequently Greek appears to have continued the vernacular
tongue.]

[Footnote 584: See AUGUSTUS, c. xcviii.]

[Footnote 585: Of the strange names given to the different modes of
applauding in the theatre, the first was derived from the humming of bees;
the second from the rattling of rain or hail on the roofs; and the third
from the tinkling of porcelain vessels when clashed together.]

[Footnote 586: Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose
incestuous intercourse with her brother having been detected, in
consequence of the cries of the infant of which she was delivered, she
killed herself. It was a joke at Rome, that some one asking, when Nero
was performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a wag replied. "He
is labouring in child-birth."]

[Footnote 587: A town in Corcyra, now Corfu. There was a sea-port of the
same name in Epirus.]

[Footnote 588: The Circus Maximus, frequently mentioned by Suetonius, was
so called because it was the largest of all the circuses in and about
Rome. Rudely constructed of timber by Tarquinius Drusus, and enlarged and
improved with the growing fortunes of the republic, under the emperors it
became a most superb building. Julius Caesar (c. xxxix) extended it, and
surrounded it with a canal, ten feet deep and as many broad, to protect
the spectators again