[472] _Nec dubitant._ No doubt a spurious line.
[473] _Gladios._ This is the usual interpretation. Perhaps it would be better to take "gladios" for the _death_ that awaits you if you refuse to comply: as iv., 96; x., 345. So Badham:
"Place here the tyrant's sword, and there the scene; Gods! can a Roman hesitate between!"
[475] _Ludus._ Properly, "school of gladiators."
[477] _Tunicæ._ Cf. ii., 143, tunicati fuscina Gracchi. Suet., Cal., 30. The Retiarii wore a tunic only. The gold spira was the band that tied the tall conical cap of the Salii; who wore also a gold fringe round the tunic.
[478] _Seneca._ There is said to be an allusion here to the plot of Subrius Flavius to murder Nero and make Seneca emperor. It was believed that Seneca was privy to it. Tac., Ann., xv., 65.
[479] _Simia._ Cf. xiii., 155, "Et deducendum corio bovis in mare cum quo clauditur adversis innoxia simia fatis." The punishment of parricides was to be scourged, then sewn up in a bull's hide with a serpent, an ape, a cock, and a dog, and to be thrown into the sea. The first person thus punished was P. Malleolus, who murdered his mother. Liv., Epit. lxviii.
[480] _Culeus._ Cf. Suet., Aug., 33. Nero murdered his mother Agrippina, his aunt Domitia, both his wives, Octavia and Poppæa, his brother Britannicus, and several other relations.
[481] _Agamemnonidæ._ Grangæus quotes the Greek verse current in Nero's time, Νέρων, Ὀρέστης, Ἀλκμαίων μητροκτόνοι. Cf. Suet., Nero, 39.
[482] _Virginius_ Rufus, who was legatus in Lower Germany, Julius Vindex, proprætor of Gaul, and Sergius Galba, præfect of Hispania Tarraconensis, afterward emperor, were the chiefs of the last conspiracy against Nero. In August, A.D. 67, Nero was playing the fool in Greece; in March, 68, he heard with terror and dismay of the revolt of Vindex, who proclaimed Galba. Dio., lxiii., 22.
"What but such acts did Rome indignant see Perform'd in Nero's savage tyranny?" Hodgson.
"To prostitute his voice for base renown, And ravish from the Greeks a parsley crown." Gifford.
Nero was in Greece A.D. 67, into which year (though not an Olympiad) he crowded all the games of Greece, "Certamina omnia et quæ diversissimorum temporum sunt cogi in unum annum jussit." Suet., Ner., 23. "Romam introiit coronam capite gerens Olympiam dextrâ manu Pythiam," c. 25.