places of more
reputable trade: this was called _inscriptio_ or _titulus_.

v. 10. _Scorpionibus_. Indecent inscriptions scribbled on the walls and
door with burnt sticks.

v. 11. Catullus's mistress had, it seems, run away from him to a common
brothel, in front of which it was the custom, not only for women but even
for men, to sit down and offer themselves for prostitution.

v. 16. _Semitarii moechi_. Whoremongers who take up with common women who
offer themselves at every corner of the streets for a mere trifle.

v. 20. _Hibera Urina_. We are assured by Strabo, _Lib._ 3, that this filthy
custom prevailed greatly in Spain: teeth were not only washed in stale
urine, the acid of which must necessarily render them white, but they were
also rubbed with a powder of calcined human excrement. Persons sometimes
even bathed their whole bodies in urine.

C. xxxxi. v. 3. _Turpiculo naso_. The kind of nose alluded to is such as
sheep or goats have. Cf. Lucretius, _lib._ iv. v. 1152.

C. xxxxvii. v. 6. _In trivio_, i.e., in the most public places, in hopes of
finding some host.

v. 7. This hunting for invitations does not, according to modern notions,
place the two friends of Catullus in a respectable light; but it was a
common and avowed practice at Rome.

C. liii. v. 5. _Salaputium_. A pet name for the male virile member. This
word has been the subject of much debate among the learned. Some read
_solopachium_, meaning a "mannikin eighteen inches high"; Saumasius
proposes salopygium, a "wagtail"; several editors have _salaputium_, an
indelicate word nurses used to children when they fondled them, so that the
exclamation would mean, "what a learned little puppet!" Thus Augustus
called Horace _purissimum penem_.

C. liiii. I find it an impossibility to make any sense out of this poem.

v. 5. _Seni recocto_. Horace applies this epithet to one who has served the
office of _quinquevir_, or proconsul's notary, and who was therefore master
of all the arts of chicanery. These are his words, Sat. v. lib. 2:

_Plerumque recoctus_
_Scriba ex quinqueviro corvum deludit hiantem._

A seasoned scrivener, bred in office low,
Full often dupes and mocks the gaping crow. FRANCIS.

The modern Italians say of a man of this stamp, _Egli ha cotto il culo ne'
ceci rossi_. The phrase _seni recocto_ may imply one who enjoys a green and
vigorous old age, as if made young again, as the old woman was by wine, of
whom