A Roman Household. By G. Norway. (National Society.)— This is
a fairly good story of life at Rome during the days of Nero, with a special reference to the sufferings of the Christians at that time. There are, perhaps, too many figures on the canvas. A few, vividly treated, have better success in arresting the reader's attention. We cannot understand—and this is not the first time of saying so—why the writers of these classical stories do not take a little more pains to be correct with the names of their characters. Women were known by the feminine form of their gentile name. A Livia with two daughters Emilia and Julia is an impossibility. (Emilia is itself a mistake.) Another feminine name, " Valeria Mantucius," is worse. Theodoric sounds strangely in the first century of our era. And why " Albano" in Roman times, and " puticolo " ? But, above all, why "Cloacus Maximus " ?
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