58
Is it because they used to call those senators originally assigned to that body by Romulus fathers and patricians, that is to say well-born, since they could point out their fathers, Cf. Livy, x. 8. 10. while they called those who were later enrolled from the commoners conscript fathers?
59
Why did Hercules and the Muses have an altar in common?
59
Is it because Hercules taught Evander’s people the use of letters, as JubaMüller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470. has recorded? And this action was held to be noble on the part of men who taught their friends and relatives. It was a long time before they began to teach for pay, and the first to open an elementary school was Spurius Carvilius, Cf. 277 d, supra. a freedman of the Carvilius Cf. the note on 267 c, supra. who was the first to divorce his wife.
60
Why, when there are two altars of Hercules, do women receive no share nor taste of the sacrifices offered on the larger altar?
60
Is it because the friends of Carmenta carne late for the rites, as did also the dan of the Pinarii? Wherefore, as they were excluded from the banquet while the rest were feasting, they acquired the name Pinarii (Starvelings).An attempt to derive the word from Greekπεινῶ, be hungry: see further Livy, i. 7; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 40. Or is it because of the fable of Deianeira and the shirt?The shirt anointed with the blood of Nessus which Deianeira supposed to be a love charm. She sent the shirt to Heracles and thereby brought about his death; hence Heracles may be supposed to hate all women; see Sophocles, Trachiniae, or Ovid, Heroides, ix.
61
Why is it forbidden to mention or to inquire after or to call by name that deity, whether it be male or female, whose especial province it is to preserve and watch over Rome? Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 9. 3; Pliny, Natural History, xxviii. 4 (18). This prohibition they connect with a superstition and relate that Valerius Soranus carne to an evil end because he revealed the name.
