LAPIS TN TVMVLO NVNC JACET ECCE MATER C. Julius Maximus, Two years, five months old.

Harsh Fortune, that in cruel death finds't joy, Why is my Maximus thus sudden reft, So late the pleasant burden of my breast? Now in the grave this stone lies:

To Maximus, for the invocation of demons.

" "It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting object of reverence.

Alexander VII, Pontifex Maximus, wrote him into the number of holy and blessed martyrs on the 17th day of April in the year 1664.

Upon which Quintus Fabius Maximus said, "that never was any subject introduced into the senate at a juncture more unseasonable than the present, when a question had been touched upon which would still further irritate the minds of the allies, who were already hesitating and wavering in their allegiance.

At the close of the year, Quintus Fabius Maximus requested of the senate, that he might be allowed to dedicate the temple of Venus Erycina, which he had vowed when dictator.

Meanwhile Quintus Fabius Maximus and Titus Otacilius Crassus were created duumvirs for dedicating temples, Otacilius to Mens, Fabius to Venus Erycina.

Upon Marcellus's abdicating his office, Fabius Maximus, for the third time, was elected in his room.

The triumphal procession passed along the Sacra via to the Capitol, and thence again to the Circus Maximus, where the ludi were held.

Thus the idea was kept up that the greatness and prosperity of Rome were especially due to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, who, since the days of the Tarquinii, had looked down on his people from his temple on the Capitol.[470] The Ludi Plebeii in November seem to have been a kind of plebeian duplicate of the Ludi Romani.

The Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus Maximus: in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and eventually extended to eight, viz.

These had originally consisted entirely of shows of a military character, as we have seen in the case of the Ludi Romani, and especially of chariot-racing in the old Circus Maximus.

It is probable that the position of the Circus Maximus in the vallis Murcia was due to horse-racing near the underground altar of Consus, a harvest deity, and the oldest religious calendar has Equirria (horse-races) on February 27 and March 14, no doubt in connexion with the preparation of the cavalry for the coming season of war.

The Ludi Cereales certainly included circenses, and plays are only mentioned as forming part of their programme under the Empire; but on the last day, April 19, there was a curious practice of letting foxes loose in the Circus Maximus with burning firebrands tied to their tails,a custom undoubtedly ancient, which may have suggested the venationes (hunts) of later times, for one of which Caelius wanted his panthers.

How carefully he studied the varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of the orator Hortensius.

In his young days he was intimate with the famous Pontifex Maximus, Mucius Scaevola, who held that there were three religions,that of the poets, that of the philosophers, and that of the statesman, of which the last must be accepted and acted on, whether it be true or not.

But in that generation no one had the shrewdness or experience of Augustus, and no one but Julius had the necessary free hand; and we may be almost sure that Julius, Pontifex Maximus though he was, was entirely unfitted by nature and experience to undertake a work that called for such delicate handling, such insight into the working of the ignorant Italian mind.

At the head of the whole system was Jupiter, the greatest of Roman gods, whose title of Optimus Maximus might well have suggested that no other deity could occupy this place.

See Fabulae togatae Tragedy Tributum Triclinia Triumph, a Trofei di Mario Tullia (Cicero's daughter) Tullianum, the Tunica Turia, the story of Tusculum, Cicero's villa at Tutela Tutor Twelve Tables, the Usus Valerius Maximus Varro Varro, Terentius (consul)

[Footnote 218: These details are drawn chiefly from the sixth book of Valerius Maximus, de Pudicitia.]

44, Valerius Maximus vi. 7. 2, and the Laudatio.

[Footnote 535: Valerius Maximus, Epit.

[Footnote 573: Valerius Maximus ii.

Petro'nius Max'imus "poisoned" the emperor, and the empress killed Maximus.