rom Tivoli, which are supposed, with reason,
to mark its site. At least, the features of the neighbouring country, as
often sketched by the poet--and they are very beautiful--cannot be
mistaken.]

[Footnote 973: Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus were consuls
A.U.C. 688. The genial Horace, in speaking of his old wine, agrees with
Suetonius in fixing the date of his own birth:

O nata mecum consule Manlio Testa.--Ode iii. 21.

And again,

Tu vina, Torquato, move Consule pressa meo.--Epod. xiii. 8.]

[Footnote 974: A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not
his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.]

[Footnote 975: It may be concluded that Horace died at Rome, under the
hospitable roof of his patron Mecaenas, whose villa and gardens stood on
the Esquiline hill; which had formerly been the burial ground of the lower
classes; but, as he tells us,

Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico
spatiare.--Sat. i. 8.]

[Footnote 976: Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca's
brother.]

[Footnote 977: This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the
text to be imperfect.]

[Footnote 978: They had good reason to know that, ridiculous as the
tyrant made himself, it was not safe to incur even the suspicion of being
parties to a jest upon him.]

[Footnote 979: See NERO, c. xxxvi.]

[Footnote 980: St. Jerom (Chron. Euseb.) places Lucan's death in the
tenth year of Nero's reign, corresponding with A.U.C. 817. This
opportunity is taken of correcting an error in the press, p. 342,
respecting the date of Nero's accession. It should be A.U.C. 807, A.D.
55.]

[Footnote 981: These circumstances are not mentioned by some other
writers. See Dr. Thomson's account of Lucan, before, p. 347, where it is
said that he died with philosophical firmness.]

[Footnote 982: We find it stated ib. p. 396, that Lucan expired while
pronouncing some verses from his own Pharsalia: for which we have the
authority of Tacitus, Annal. xv. 20. 1. Lucan, it appears, employed his
last hours in revising his poems; on the contrary, Virgil, we are told,
when his death was imminent, renewed his directions that the Aeneid should
be committed to the flames.]

[Footnote 983: The text of the concluding sentence of Lucan's life is
corrupt, and neither of the modes proposed for correcting it make the
sense intended very clear.]

[Footnote 984: Although this brief m