[451] _Santonico._ The Santones were a people of Aquitania, between the Loire and Garonne. Cf. Mart., xiv., Ep. 128, "Gallia Santonico vestit te bardocucullo."
[452] _Sufflamine._ "The introduction of the drag-chain has a local propriety: Rome, with its seven hills, had just so many necessities for the frequent use of the sufflamen. This necessity, from the change of the soil, exists no longer." Badham.
[453] _Testes._ Cf. vi., 311, Lunà teste.
[454] _Damasippus_ (cf. Hor., ii., Sat. iii., 16) was a name of the Licinian gens. "Damasippus was sick," says Holyday, "of that disease which the Spartans call horse-feeding."
[455] _Hordea._ Horses in Italy are fed on barley, not on oats.
[456] _Eponam_ (cf. Aristoph., Nub., 84), the patroness of grooms. Some read "Hipponam," which Gifford prefers, from the tameness of the epithet "solam." Cf. Blunt's Vestiges, p. 29.
"On some rank deity, whose filthy face We suitably o'er stinking stables place." Dryden.
[457] _Amomo_, an Assyrian shrub. Cf. iv., 108.
[458] _Idumeæ._ The gate at Rome near the Arch of Titus, through which Vespasian and Titus entered the city in triumph after their victories in Palestine.
[459] _Dominum._ Cf. Mart., i., Ep. 113, "Cum te non nossem dominum regemque vocabam." Cf. iv., Ep. 84, 5.
[460] _Inscripta lintea._ Perhaps "curtains, having painted on them what was for sale within." Others say it means "embroidered with needlework;" or "towels," according to Calderinus, who compares Catull., xxv., 7.
[461] _Armeniæ._ The allusion is to Corbulo's exploits in Parthia and Armenia in Nero's reign, A.D. 60. Cf. ad iii., 251. There were great disturbances in the same quarters in Trajan's reign, which caused his expedition, in A.D. 114, against the Armenians and Parthians. In A.D. 100, Marius Priscus was accused by Pliny and Tacitus. Vid. Plin., ii., Ep. xi. Probably half way between these two dates we may fix the writing of this Satire.
[462] _Mitte Ostia._ So most of the commentators interpret it. "Send your Legatus to take the command of the troops for foreign service, waiting for embarkation at Ostia." But if so, "ad" should be expressed, and either Tiberina added, or Ostia made of the 1st declension. Britann., therefore, and Heinrich explain it, "Pass by his own doors;" omitte quærere illic, "he is far away."
