Book 28
4.8
Others, resplendent in silken garments, as though they were to be led to death,Cf. xvi. 5, 5, where Lind. cites reflabilis tori plumeo sepulcro superba from Zeno Veronensis, Orat. de Spiritu et Corp., p. 367. or as if (to speak without any evil omen) they were bringing up the rearAs commanders of the army; see xxv. 1, 5. preceded by an army, are followed by a throng of slaves drawn up in troops, amid noise and confusion.
4.9
When such men, each attended by fifty servants, have entered the vaulted rooms of a bath, they shout in threatening tones: Where on earth are our attendants? If they have learned that an unknown courtesan has suddenly appeared, some woman who has been a common prostitute of the crowd of our city, some old strumpet, they all strive to be the first to reach her, and caressing the new-comer, extol her with such disgraceful flattery as the Parthians do Samiramis, the Egyptians their Cleopatras, the Carians Artemisia, or the people of Palmyra Zenobia. And those who stoop to do such things are men in the time of whose forefathers a senator was punished with the censor’s brand of infamy, if he had dared, while this was still considered unseemly, to kiss his wife in the presence of their own daughter.Plutarch, Cato Maior, 17, 7, says that Manilius, who was thought to have good prospects of the consulship, was expelled from the senate for similar conduct.
