﻿82 THE AGE OF PETROXIUS ARBITER. 



11. C. 48. 3: " Xuuc conjungere agellis Sicilian! volo." This instance of tlie pas- 

 sion for extended landed possessions does not sufficiently characterize any period. The 

 cravino- for extensive estates was of an early origin, and continued late. Livy (3-1. 4) 

 represents M. Porcius Cato, consul with L. Valerius Flaccus, 195 B. C. (559 U. C), as 

 opposing the repeal of the " lex Oppia," which had been enacted eighteen years before 

 for the purpose of restricting female extravagance in dress and ornaments. Speaking 

 in his argument of various kinds of extravagance, he also refers to the excessive love 

 of landed property as a vice of long standing ; for he says : " Quid legem Liciniam 

 excitavit de quingentis jugeribus nisi ingens cupido agros continuandi 1 " It appears, 

 then, that this insatiable desii-e of landed property had, nearly two hundred years before 

 Cato, called for the enactment of the Liciuian law " de modo agrorum, ne quis plus 

 quingenta jugera agri (publici) possideret," which was proposed 3T6 B. C. (378 U. C), 

 and passed nine years later, 367 B. C. (387 U. C). The mention of a propensity 

 which, nearly four hundred years before Christ, called for legal restrictions, and which, 

 after having been one of the principal causes of the subversion of the republican con- 

 stitution, extended far iato the times of the imperial government, furnishes no indica- 

 tion of a particular period. 



12. C. 51. 1: "Fuit tamen faber, qui fecit fialam vitream, quae non frangebatur."* 



* The substance of the story, although with some inaccuracies, yet generally in the very words of Petro- 



nius, is given in the Origines (or Etymologise) of Isidorus, 16. 15. Isidorus was born in Sevilla (Ilispalis), 



the capital of Andalusia, and succeeded, in 603, his brother Leander in the office of archbishop of Sevilla. 



He derived the story undoubtedly from Petronius, although he does not mention him. — John of Salisbury, 



in his Polycraticus, 4. 5, in relating the same story, adheres less closely to the language of Petronius, yet he 



himself states that he derived it from Petronius. Neither John of Salisbury nor Isidorus intended to give 



the language of their authority ; yet both retained enough to indicate the source whence they drew. It will 



be best to give both passages. Isid. Orig. 16. 15 : " Fertur autem sub Tibcrio Caesare quendam artificem 



excogitasse vitri temperamentum, ut flexibile esset et ductile. Qui dum admissus fuisset ad Caesarem, por- 



rexit phialam Caesari. Quam ille indignatus in pavimentum projecit. Artifex autem sustulit phialam de 



pavimento, quae complicaverat se tamquam vas acneum : deinde malleum de sinu protulit et phialam cor- 



rexit. Hoc facto Caesar dixit artifici, numquid alius scit hanc condituram vitrorum ? Postquam ille jurans 



negavit alterum hoc scire, jussit eum Caesar decoUari, ne, dum hoc cognitum fieret, aurum pro luto habere- 



tur, et omnium metallorum pretia abstraherentur. Eevera, quia si vasa vitrea non frangerentur, meliora 



essent quam aurum et argentum." — Jo. Saresberiensis Polycrat. 4. 5: "Apud Petronium Trimalchio refert, 



fabrum fuisse, qui vitrea vasa faceret tenacitatis tantae, ut non magis quam aurea vel argentea frangerentur. 



Cum ergo phialam hujusmodi de vitro purissimo, et solo, ut putabat, dignam Caesare, fabricasset, cum mu- 



nere suo Caesarem adiens admissus est. Laudata est species muncris, commendata manus artificis, acceptata 



est devotio donantis. Faber vero, ut admirationem intuentium verteret in stuporem et sibi plenius gratiam 



conciliaret imperatoris, petitam de manu Caesaris phialam recepit, eamque validus projecit in pavimentum 



