opinion that 'the transcriber had inadvertently passed on to the line, Lucius, what book, etc., and when he afterwards perceived his mistake, and drew his pen through the misplaced line, he may have left two words of it not fully blotted out.'
IV. i. 81, 82. Magni dominator poli, etc. Cf. Seneca's Hippolytus, 671, 672:
'Magne regnator deum,
Tam lentus audis scelera? Tam lentus vides?'
The poet is probably trying to quote from memory, and gets his terms confused. Seneca's tragedies abound in such similar epithets as regnator deum, dominator poli, gubernator poli, etc.
IV. i. 87–91. My lord, kneel down . . . Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape. Cf. the very similar lines in the Rape of Lucrece (1846–1848):
'Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;
And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,
He doth again repeat, and that they swore.'
IV. i. 105. Sibyl's leaves. The leaves of the prophetic books of the Cumæan Sibyl, a woman of oracular powers, who, in classical mythology, appeared before Tarquin the Proud, offering him her nine books for three hundred pieces of gold. He refused to buy them, whereupon she burned three of the books and then returned, offering the remaining six for the original price. Tarquin again refused. The Sibyl again burned three books, and returned with a final offer of the remaining three for the price of the original nine. Tarquin, advised by his augur, then paid the three hundred pieces of gold for the three books, and the Sibyl disappeared. In times of political trouble, the Romans used to consult the Sibylline books. Cf. Æneid, VI. 1–75.
IV. ii. 20, 21. Integer vitæ, etc. The beginning of the famous twenty-second ode of the first book of
