«The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.»

«Enriched beyond the dreams of any normal person's avarice, she accumulated possessions with a single-minded lust that calls to mind those ancient Romans who gorged themselves, then vomited so they could gorge again.»

«INFERIAE,n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for propitation of the _Dii Manes_, or souls of the dead heroes; for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the matter might be different; and to that I bow --wow.»

«QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.He extracted from his quiver, Did the controversial Roman, An argument well fitted To the question as submitted, Then addressed it to the liver, Of the unpersuaded foeman. --Oglum P. Boomp»

«PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.»