XXIII. The people received the news of his death with indifference, but the soldiers were greatly grieved and at once attempted to call him the Deified Domitian; while they were prepared also to avenge him, had they not lacked leaders. This, however, they did accomplish a little later by most insistently demanding the execution of his murderers. The senators on the contrary were so overjoyed, that they raced to fill the House, where they did not refrain from assailing the dead emperor with the most insulting and stinging kind of outcries. They even had ladders brought and his shields" and images torn down before their eyes and dashed upon the ground; finally they passed a decree that his inscriptions should everywhere be erased, and all record of him obliterated. A few months before he was killed, a raven perched on the Capitolium and cried "All will be well," an omen which some interpreted as follows: 66 High on the gable Tarpeian a raven but lately alighting, Could not say 'It is well,' only declared 'It will be.'" Domitian himself, it is said, dreamed that a golden hump grew out on his back, and he regarded this as an infallible sign that the condition of the empire would be happier and more prosperous after his time; and this was shortly shown to be true through the uprightness and moderate rule of the succeeding emperors. not, however, the original name of the hill, as some Roman antiquarians supposed. VOL. II. C C PREFATORY NOTE THE manuscripts of the Dialogus and Agricola of Tacitus contain also a treatise "On Grammarians and Rhetoricians," attributed to Suetonius. This work was used by Gellius (Noct. Att. 15. 11) and by Hieronymus, but after the latter's day was lost for many centuries. About the middle of the fifteenth century,1 in the course of a journey through Germany and Denmark, Enoc of Ascoli 2 found the two works of Tacitus and the treatise on Grammarians and Rhetoricians, apparently at Hersfeld and in a single codex, and brought them to Italy. This codex is now lost,3 but some eighteen copies of the De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus are in existence, all belonging to the fifteenth century, which show remarkable differences in reading, considering that they are derived from a single archetype, and are separated from it by so short a time. These manuscripts, not all of which have been collated, fall into two classes, distinguished from each other by the presence or absence of the index of names at the beginning of the treatise. 1 The date is variously given: 1455, Teuffel, Gesch. d. röm. Lit.6; 1457-8, Gudeman, Grund. z. Gesch. d. kl. Phil.; etc. 2 Enoc's discovery of this manuscript has been doubted by some, but is now accepted by most scholars. 3 Except for one quaternio, now at Esinus (Jesi). Roth in his edition of 1858 asserted the superiority of the former class, and Ihm is inclined to agree with him.1 For a list of the better codices with their sigla see footnote on p. 395. Owing to the late date of all the manuscripts, the early printed editions are of some value in the criticism of the text; see the Bibliographical Note, p. 394. The work begins with an index, containing a list of the grammarians and rhetoricians who are to be discussed, which, as has been said, is omitted by some of the manuscripts. This is followed by an introduction on the origin and development of grammatical studies at Rome, and the connection of grammar with rhetoric, after which the individual representatives of the subject are treated. part devoted to rhetoricians also begins with an introduction on the history of the study, but the work comes to an end after dealing with five of the fifteen persons named in the index. on The It has been generally recognized that this treatise "Grammarians and Rhetoricians" formed part of a larger work by Suetonius, entitled De Viris Illustribus, which treated of Romans who were eminent in the field of literature.2 It seems to have consisted of five divisions, devoted respectively to Poets, Orators, Historians, Philosophers, and Grammarians and Rhetoricians under one head. The order of the various divisions, or books, cannot be determined.3 1 Rhein. Museum, 61 (1906), p. 543. 2 See Volume I, p. xi. 3 Hieronymus used the De Viris Illustribus of Suetonius as his model in the composition of a work of the same title, |