CHAPTER I.

1. Simplicius explains that the oath was to be refused, because to call God to witness in any merely personal and earthly interest implies a want of reverence towards Him; but that if there were a question of pledging one's faith on behalf of friends, or parents, or country, it was not improper to add the confirmation of an oath.

2. Upton quotes allusions to these recitations from Juvenal, Martial, and Pliny. Authors would read their own works and invite crowds of flatterers to attend. Epict. _Diss._ iii. 23. (Schweighäuser) is a scornful diatribe against the pretentious people who held forth on these occasions, and the people who assembled to hear and applaud them. He contrasts with fashionable reciters and lecturers his own master, Rufus. "Rufus was wont to say, _I speak to no purpose, if ye have time to praise me_. And, verily, he spoke in such a way that every man who sat there thought that some one had accused him to Rufus, he so handled all that was going on, he so set before each man's eyes his faults."

3. Into vulgarity--[Greek: eis idiôtismon].