r is a Greek word with an Etruscan termination; aisa
signifying fate.

[253] Astura stood not far from Terracina, on the road to Naples.
Augustus embarked there for the islands lying off that coast.

[254] "Puteoli"--"A ship of Alexandria." Words which bring to our
recollection a passage in the voyage of St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 11-13.
Alexandria was at that time the seat of an extensive commerce, and not
only exported to Rome and other cities of Italy, vast quantities of corn
and other products of Egypt, but was the mart for spices and other
commodities, the fruits of the traffic with the east.

[255] The Toga has been already described in a note to c. lxxiii. The
Pallium was a cloak, generally worn by the Greeks, both men and women,
freemen and slaves, but particularly by philosophers.

[256] Masgabas seems, by his name, to have been of African origin.

[257] A courtly answer from the Professor of Science, in which character
he attended Tiberius. We shall hear more of him in the reign of that
emperor.

[258] Augustus was born A.U.C. 691, and died A.U.C. 766.

[259] Municipia were towns which had obtained the rights of Roman
citizens. Some of them had all which could be enjoyed without residing
at Rome. Others had the right of serving in the Roman legions, but not
that of voting, nor of holding civil offices. The municipia retained
their own laws and customs; nor were they obliged to receive the Roman
laws unless they chose it.

[260] Bovillae, a small place on the Appian Way, about nineteen miles
from Rome, now called Frattochio.

[261] Dio tells us that the devoted Livia joined with the knights in
this pious office, which occupied them during five days.

[262] For the Flaminian Way, see before, p. 94, note. The superb
monument erected by Augustus over the sepulchre of the imperial family
was of white marble, rising in stages to a great height, and crowned by a
dome, on which stood a statue of Augustus. Marcellus was the first who
was buried in the sepulchre beneath. It stood near the present Porta del
Popolo; and the Bustum, where the bodies of the emperor and his family
were burnt, is supposed to have stood on the site of the church of the
Madonna of that name.

[263] The distinction between the Roman people and the tribes, is also
observed by Tacitus, who substitutes the word plebs, meaning, the lowest
class of the populace.

[264] Those of his father Octavius, and his father by ado