artificers. Their talents procuring their manumission, they became the
freedmen of their former masters. Vespasian, it appears from Suetonius,
purchased the freedom of some persons of ability belonging to these
classes.

[762] The Coan Venus was the chef-d'oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the
island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of
Alexander the Great. If it was the original painting which was now
restored, it must have been well preserved.

[763] Probably the colossal statue of Nero (see his Life, c. xxxi.),
afterwards placed in Vespasian's amphitheatre, which derived its name
from it.

[764] The usual argument in all times against the introduction of
machinery.

[765] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxix.

[766] At the men's Saturnalia, a feast held in December attended with
much revelling, the masters waited upon their slaves; and at the women's
Saturnalia, held on the first of March, the women served their female
attendants, by whom also they sent presents to their friends.

[767] Notwithstanding the splendour, and even, in many respects, the
refinement of the imperial court, the language as well as the habits of
the highest classes in Rome seem to have been but too commonly of the
grossest description, and every scholar knows that many of their writers
are not very delicate in their allusions. Apropos of the ludicrous
account given in the text, Martial, on one occasion, uses still plainer