CHAPTER X.

1. _To strangle lions or embrace statues._--Hercules did the former, and ostentatious philosophers sometimes did the latter in winter-time, by way of showing their power of endurance.

2. _The stamp of Nero._--I believe there is no other record than this of any rejection of Nero's coins, and those which have come down to us are of perfectly good quality. He was declared a public enemy by the Senate, and possibly it was decreed at the same time that his coins should be withdrawn from circulation. Dion, quoted by Wise (_apud_ Schweighäuser), reports that this was done in the case of Caligula, after the death of that tyrant.

3. _Lions at home, but in Ephesus foxes._--"A proverb about the Spartans, who were defeated in Asia," notes the Scholiast on Aristoph. Pac., 1188-90.