general cessation of business at
Rome; the calendar exhibiting a constant succession of festivals. The
month of December, in particular, was devoted to pleasure and relaxation.]

[Footnote 170: Causes are mentioned, the hearing of which was so
protracted that lights were required in the court; and sometimes they
lasted, we are told, as long as eleven or twelve days.]

[Footnote 171: Orcini. They were also called Charonites, the point of
the sarcasm being, that they owed their elevation to a dead man, one who
was gone to Orcus, namely Julius Caesar, after whose death Mark Antony
introduced into the senate many persons of low rank who were designated
for that honour in a document left by the deceased emperor.]

[Footnote 172: Cordus Cremutius wrote a History of the Civil Wars, and
the Times of Augustus, as we are informed by Dio, 6, 52.]

[Footnote 173: In front of the orchestra.]

[Footnote 174: The senate usually assembled in one of the temples, and
there was an altar consecrated to some god in the curia, where they
otherwise met, as that to Victory in the Julian Curia.]

[Footnote 175: To allow of their absence during the vintage, always an
important season in rural affairs in wine-growing countries. In the
middle and south of Italy, it begins in September, and, in the worst
aspects, the grapes are generally cleared before the end of October. In
elevated districts they hung on the trees, as we have witnessed, till the
month of November.]

[Footnote 176: Julius Caesar had introduced the contrary practice. See
JULIUS, c. xx.]

[Footnote 177: A.U.C. 312, two magistrates were created, under the name
of Censors, whose office, at first, was to take an account of the number
of the people, and the value of their estates. Power was afterwards
granted them to inspect the morals of the people; and from this period the
office became of great importance. After Sylla, the election of censors
was intermitted for about seventeen years. Under the emperors, the office
of censor was abolished; but the chief functions of it were exercised by
the emperors themselves, and frequently both with caprice and severity.]

[Footnote 178: Young men until they were seventeen years of age, and
young women until they were married, wore a white robe bordered with
purple, called Toga Praetexta. The former, when they had completed this
period, laid aside the dress of minority, and assumed the Toga Virilis, or
manly habit. The