392 PROSE HALIETJTICS. 



liiindred thousand sestertii (40 minions) ; and offered openly to 

 prove it out of hand by her books of accounts and reckonings. 

 Yet were not these jewels the gifts and presents of the prodigal 

 prince her husband, but the goods and ornaments from her owne 

 house, fallen unto her by way of inheritance from her grand- 

 father, which he had gotten by the robbing and spoiling of whole 

 provinces. See what the issue and end was of those extortions 

 and outrageous exactions of his : this was it, that M. LoUius, 

 slanderd and defamed for receiving bribes and presents of the 

 Icings in the East, and being out of favor with 0. Caesar, sonne of 

 Augustus, and having lost his amity, dranie a cup of poyson and 

 prevented his judicial trial ; that forsooth his niece LoUia all to 

 be hanged with jewels of 400 hundred thousand sestertii, should 

 be scene glittering, and looked at of every man by candle-light at 

 supper time. 



Juvenal may have tad this Lollian family in his mind 

 vchen he wrote those noble lines of precept and warning 

 to his countrymen in office : — 



If of companions pure a chosen band 

 Assemble in thy halls and round thee stand ; 

 If thy tribunals' favours ne'er were sold 

 By lost effeminates for damning gold ; 

 If thy chaste spouse, from stain of avarice free, 

 Mark not her progress by rapacity, 

 Nor meditate with harpy claws to spring 

 On all the wealth that towns and cities bring. 

 Then thy descent from Pious proudly trace. 

 Take for thine ancestors the Titan race. 

 And at the head of all Prometheus place. 

 But if corruption drag thee in her train. 

 If blood of Home's allies for ever stain 

 Thy lictor's broken scourge, or if the sight 

 Of the worn axe and wearied arm delight. 

 If forged deed thy false right-hand shall sign. 

 If all the temples teem with frauds of thine. 

 If night and the Santonic hood disguise 

 Thy form from some adulterous enterprise, 

 Wlierefore to me the honours of thy race. 

 Which these eternal villanies disgrace ? 



But^ as Pliny says, this is not the greatest example 



