order, which they made
with great splendour through the city, every year, on the fifteenth of
July. They rode on horseback from the temple of Honour, or of Mars,
without the city, to the Capitol, with wreaths of olive on their heads,
dressed in robes of scarlet, and bearing in their hands the military
ornaments which they had received from their general, as a reward of
their valour. The knights rode up to the censor, seated on his curule
chair in front of the Capitol, and dismounting, led their horses in
review before him. If any of the knights was corrupt in his morals, had
diminished his fortune below the legal standard, or even had not taken
proper care of his horse, the censor ordered him to sell his horse, by
which he was considered as degraded from the equestrian order.

[180] Pugillaria were a kind of pocket book, so called, because
memorandums were written or impinged by the styli, on their waxed
surface. They appear to have been of very ancient origin, for we read of
them in Homer under the name of pinokes.--II. z. 169.

Graphas en pinaki ptukto thyrophthora polla.
Writing dire things upon his tablet's roll.

[181] Pullatorum; dusky, either from their dark colour, or their being
soiled. The toga was white, and was the distinguishing costume of the
sovereign people of Rome, without which, they were not to appear in
public; as members of an university are forbidden to do so, without the
academical dress, or officers in garrisons out of their regimentals.

[182] Aen. i. 186.

[183] It is hardly necessary to direct the careful reader's attention to
views of political economy so worthy of an enlightened prince. But it
was easier to make the Roman people wear the toga, than to forego the cry
of "Panem et Circenses."

[184] Septa were enclosures made with boards, commonly for the purpose
of distributing the people into distinct classes, and erected
occasionally like our hustings.

[185] The Thensa was a splendid carriage with four wheels, and four
horses, adorned with ivory and silver, in which, at the Circensian games,
the images of the gods were drawn in solemn procession from their
shrines, to a place in the circus, called the Pulvinar, where couches
were prepared for their reception. It received its name from thongs
(lora tensa) stretched before it; and was attended in the procession by
persons of the first rank, in their most magnificent apparel. The
attendants took delight in puttin