Latin Texts & Translations

I cannot exactly say at what period the use of unguents first found its way to Rome. It is a well-known fact, that when King Antiochus and Asia ^[Note] were subdued, an edict was published in the year of the City 565, in the censorship of P. Licinius Crassus and L. Julius Cæsar, forbidding any one to sell exotics; ^[Note] for by that name unguents were then called. But, in the name of Hercules! at the present day, there are some persons who even go so far as to put them in their drink, and the bitterness produced thereby is prized to a high degree, in order that by their lavishness on these odours they may thus gratify the senses of two parts ^[Note] of the body at the same moment. ^[Note] It is a well-known historical fact, that L. Plotius, ^[Note]

the brother of L. Plancus, who was twice consul and censor, after being proscribed by the Triumvirs, was betrayed in his place of concealment at Salernum by the smell of his unguents, a disgrace which more than outweighed all the guilt ^[Note] attending his proscription. For who is there that can be of opinion that such men as this do not richly deserve to come to a violent end?