Book ii

. c. 110, and B. v. c. 1. It is supposed to have been some portion of the Atlas chain; but the subject is involved in the greatest obscurity.

[747] Or the “Western Horn.” It is not known whether this was Cape de Verde, or Cape Roxo. Ansart thinks that it is the same as Cape Non. It is mentioned in c. 1 of B. v. as the “promontorium Hesperium.”

[748] See notes to B. v. c. 1, in vol. i. p. 378.

[749] Marcus says that these islands are those called the “Two Sisters,” situate to the west of the Isle of Socotra, on the coast of Africa. They are called by Ptolemy, Cocionati.

[750] The position of this island has been much discussed by geographers, as being intimately connected with the subject of Hanno’s voyage to the south of Africa. Gosselin, who carries that voyage no further south than Cape Non, in about 28° north lat., identifies Cerne with Fedallah, on the coast of Fez, which, however, is probably much too far to the north. Major Rennell places it as far south as Arguin, a little to the south of the southern Cape Blanco, in about 20° 5′ North latitude. Heeren, Mannert, and others, adopt the intermediate portion of Agadir, or Souta Cruz, on the coast of Morocco, just below Cape Ghir, the termination of the main chain of the Atlas. If we are to trust to Pliny’s statement, it is pretty clear that nothing certain was known about it in his day.

[751] The “Pillars.” Marcus thinks that these were some small islands near the Isle of Socotra.

[752] Hardouin says that this is not the Atlantis rendered so famous by Plato, whose story is distantly referred to in B. ii. c. 92 of this work. It is difficult to say whether the Atlantis of Plato had any existence at all, except in the imagination.

[753] Medusa and her sisters, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. The identity of their supposed islands seems not to have been ascertained. For the poetical aspect of their story, see Ovid’s Met., B. iv.

[754] It is not improbable that these were the skins of a species of uran-outang, or large monkey.

[755] The Purpurariæ, or “Purple Islands,” probably the Madeira group.

[756] Or Islands of the Blessed—the modern Canaries.

[757] Supposed to be the modern island of Fuerteventura.

[758] Supposed to be that now called Ferro.

[759] Probably the modern Gomera. In B. iv. c. 36, Pliny mentions them as six in number, there being actually seven.

[760] He does not appear on this occasion to reckon those already mentioned as belonging to the group of the Fortunatæ Insulæ.

[761] The present Isle of Teneriffe.

[762] Supposed to be that now called Gran Canaria.

[763] The smoothness of its surface.

[764] It is impossible to see clearly what he means. Littré says that it has been explained by some to mean, that from the Purpurariæ, or Madeira Islands, it is a course of 250 miles to the west to the Fortunatæ or Canary Islands; but that to return from the Fortunatæ to the Purpurariæ, required a more circuitous route in an easterly direction.

[765] Or Pluvialia, the Rainy Island, previously mentioned.

[766] Salmasius thinks that the sugar-cane is here alluded to. Hardouin says that in Ferro there still grows a tree of this nature, known as the “holy tree.”

[767] Or the Lesser Junonia; supposed to be the same as the modern Lanzarote.

[768] Or “Snow Island,” the same as that previously called Invallis, the modern Teneriffe, with its snow-capped peak.

[769] So called from its canine inhabitants.

[770] As to the silurus, see B. ix. c. 17.

[771] Hardouin takes this to mean, both as to the continent, with the places there situate, and the seas, with the islands there found; the continent being the interior, and the seas the exterior part. It is much more likely, however, that his description of the _interior_ of the earth is that given in the 2nd Book, while the account of the exterior is set forth in the geographical notices contained in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th.

[772] The Straits of Gades or Cadiz.

[773] The Straits of Gades.

[774] Littré has the following remark: “Is it possible that Pliny can have imagined that the extent of a surface could be ascertained by adding the length to the breadth?” It is just possible that such may not have been his meaning; but it seems quite impossible to divine what it was.

[775] He means to say that the interior is not inhabited beyond a distance of 250 miles from the sea-coast.

[776] See B. v. c. 9.

[777] He is probably speaking only of that part of Asia which included Egypt, on the eastern side of the river Nile, according to ancient geography. His mode, however, of reckoning the breadth of Asia, _i. e._ from south to north, is singular. See p. 104.

[778] On a rough calculation, these aliquot parts in all would make 42643/42900 parts of the unit. It is not improbable that the figures given above as the dimensions are incorrect, as they do not agree with the fractional results here given by Pliny.

[779] B. iv. c. 26.

[780] In p. 111.

[781] See end of B. iii.

[782] See end of B. ii.

[783] See end of B. iii.

[784] See end of B. ii.

[785] See end of B. iii.

[786] See end of B. iii.

[787] See end of B. iii.

[788] See end of B. v.

[789] See end of B. ii.

[790] See end of B. v.

[791] See end of B. iii.

[792] See end of B. ii.

[793] See end of B. iii.

[794] The famous Roman historian, a native of Padua. He died at his native town, in the year A.D. 17, aged 76. Of his Annals, composed in 142, only 35 Books have come down to us.

[795] L. Annæus Seneca, the Roman philosopher and millionnaire. He was put to death by Nero.

[796] P. Nigidius Figulus, a Roman senator, and Pythagorean philosopher, skilled in astrology and other sciences. He was so celebrated for his knowledge, that Aulus Gellius pronounces him, next to Varro, the most learned of the Romans. He was an active partisan of Pompey, and was compelled by Cæsar to live at a distance from Rome. He died in exile, B.C. 44. There is a letter of consolation addressed to him by Cicero in his Epistles “ad Familiares,” which contains a warm tribute to his worth and learning.

[797] See end of B. v.

[798] For Hecatæus of Miletus, see end of B. iv. Hecatæus of Abdera was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Lagides. He is thought to have accompanied the former in his Asiatic expedition as far as Syria. He was a pupil of the sceptic Pyrrho, and is called a philosopher, critic, and grammarian. He was the author of a History of Egypt, a work on the Hyperborei, and a History of the Jews.

[799] See end of B. iv.

[800] See end of B. iv.

[801] For Eudoxus of Cnidos, see end of B. ii. Eudoxus of Cyzicus was a geographer and a native of Egypt, who was employed by Ptolemy Euergetes and his wife Cleopatra in voyages to India. He made attempts to circumnavigate Africa by sailing to the south, but without success. He is supposed to have lived about B.C. 130. See B. ii. c. 67 of the present work.

[802] See end of B. ii.

[803] See end of B. v.

[804] See end of B. iv.

[805] He commanded the fleets of Ptolemy Philadelphia, and of Seleucus Nicator, by whose orders he paid a visit to the coasts of India. Strabo speaks of his account of India as the best guide to the geography of that country.

[806] A native of Miletus—see the tenth Chapter of this Book. He appears to have written a geographical work on Asia, from which Pliny derived considerable assistance.

[807] Son of Deinon, the historian; he accompanied Alexander in his Asiatic expedition, and wrote a history of it. Quintus Curtius censures him for his inaccuracy. Cicero, Quintilian, and Longinus, also speak in slighting terms of his performance.

[808] See end of B. ii.

[809] He alludes to the letters of that monarch, and the journals which were kept on the occasion of his expeditions. In the middle ages several forged works were current under his name.

[810] See end of B. iv.

[811] See end of B. ii.

[812] See end of B. v.

[813] See end of B. iv.

[814] See end of B. ii.

[815] See end of B. iv.

[816] See end of B. iv.

[817] See end of B. iv.

[818] See end of B. iv.

[819] See end of B. iv.

[820] See end of B. iii.

[821] See end of B. ii.

[822] A Greek writer of uncertain date, who wrote, as Pliny tells us, (c. 20 of the present Book), a work on the people called Attaci or Attacori. He also wrote another, describing a voyage, commenced at Memphis in Egypt.

[823] See end of B. iii.

[824] See end of B. ii.

[825] See end of B. ii.

[826] The admiral of Alexander, who sailed down the river Indus, and up the Persian Gulf. It is not known when or where he died. After the death of Alexander, he supported the cause of Antigonus. He left a history or journal of his famous voyage.

[827] See end of B. v.

[828] Mentioned by Pliny in c. 21. He measured the distances of the marches of Alexander the Great, and wrote a book on the subject.

[829] See end of B. v.

[830] A native of Soli. He is mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, as the author of a work on Æthiopia, of which some few fragments are preserved. Varro and Pliny mention him, also, as a writer on agriculture.

[831] A writer on geography and botany, again mentioned by Pliny in B. xx. c. 73. He is supposed to have lived in the first century after Christ. See also c. 35.

[832] Said to have been a native of Meroë, and to have written a History of Æthiopia; nothing else seems to be known of him.

[833] The author of a work on India, of which the second Book is quoted by Athenæus. From what Pliny says, in c. 35, he seems to have also written on Æthiopia. He is mentioned by Agatharchides as one of the writers on the East: but nothing more seems to be known of him.

[834] See end of B. iii.

[835] We here enter upon the third division of Pliny’s Natural History, which treats of Zoology, from the 7th to the 11th inclusive. Cuvier has illustrated this part by many valuable notes, which originally appeared in Lemaire’s _Bibliotheque Classique_, 1827, and were afterwards incorporated, with some additions, by Ajasson, in his translation of Pliny, published in 1829; Ajasson is the editor of this portion of Pliny’s Natural History, in Lemaire’s Edition.—B.

[836] This remark refers to the five preceding books, in which these subjects have been treated in detail.—B.

[837] We have a similar remark in Cicero, De. Nat. Deor, ii. 47.—B.

[838] Ajasson remarks, that trees have two barks, an outer, and an inner and thinner one; but seems to think that by the word “gemino” here, Pliny only means that the bark of trees is sometimes double its ordinary thickness.

[839] It seems to have been the custom among the ancients to place the newborn child upon the ground immediately after its birth.

[840] Pliny appears to have followed Lucretius in this gloomy view of the commencement of human existence. See B. v. l. 223, _et seq._

[841] This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle, in his Natural History, as also by some modern physiologists.—B.

[842] We may hence conclude, that the practice of swathing young infants in tight bandages prevailed at Rome, in the time of Pliny, as it still does in France, and many parts of the continent; although it has, for some years, been generally discontinued in this country. Buffon warmly condemned this injurious system, eighty years ago, but without effect.—B.

[843] “Feliciter natus;” this appears so inconsistent with what is stated in the text, that it has been proposed to alter it into _infeliciter_, although against the authority of all the MSS.; but it may be supposed, that Pliny, as is not unusual with him, employs the term ironically.—B.

[844] This reminds us of the terms of the riddle proposed to Œdipus by the Sphinx: “What being is that, which, with four feet, has two feet and three feet, and only one voice; but its feet vary, and where it has most it is weakest?” to which he answered, That it is man, who is a quadruped (going on feet and hands) in childhood, two-footed in manhood, and moving with the aid of a staff in old age.

[845] He alludes to the gradual induration of the bones of the head which takes place in the young of the human species, and imparts strength to it. Aristotle, in his Hist. Anim., states the general opinion of the ancients, that this takes place with the young of no other class of animated beings.

[846] There is little doubt that new forms and features of disease are continually making their appearance among mankind, and even the same peoples, and have been from the earliest period; it was so at Rome, in the days of the Republic and of the Emperors. It is not improbable that these new forms of disease depend greatly upon changes in the temperature and diet. The plagues of 1348, 1666, and the Asiatic cholera of the present day, are not improbably various features of what may be radically the same disease. At the first period the beverage of the English was beer, or rather sweet-wort, as the hop does not appear to have been used till a later period. At the present day, tea and coffee, supported by ardent spirits, form the almost universal beverage.

[847] Pliny forgets, however, that infants do _not_ require to be taught how to suck.

[848] According to Cicero, this opinion was more particularly expressed by Silenus and Euripides. Seneca also, in his Consolation to Marcia, expresses a very similar opinion. It was a very common saying, that “Those whom the gods love, die young.” It will be observed that Pliny here uses the significant word “aboleri,” implying utter annihilation after death. It will be seen towards the end of this Book, that he laughed to scorn the notion of the immortality of the soul.

[849] By the use of the word “luctus” he may probably mean “tears;” but there is little doubt that all animals have their full share of sorrows, brought upon them either by the tyranny and cruelty of man, or their own unrestrained passions.

[850] This is said hyperbolically by Pliny. The brutes of the field have as strong a love of life as man, although they may not be in fear of death, not knowing what it is. That they know what pain is, is evident from their instinctive attempts to avoid it.

[851] Under this name he evidently intends to include all systems of religion, which he held in equal contempt.

[852] Ajasson seems to think that he alludes to man’s craving desire for posthumous fame; but it is pretty clear that he has in view the then prevalent notions of the life of the soul after the death of the body.

[853] Pascal has a similar thought; he says that “Man is a reed, and the weakest reed of nature.” The machinery of his body is minute and complex in the extreme, but it can hardly be said that his life is exposed to as many dangers dependent on the volition of, or on accidents arising from, other animated beings, as that of minute insects.

[854] Ajasson refers to various classical authors for a similar statement. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is contrary to many well-known facts.—B. The cravings of hunger and of the sexual appetite, are quite sufficient to preclude the possibility of such a happy state of things among the brutes as Pliny here describes.

[855] It was this feeling that prompted the common saying among the ancients, “Homo homini lupus”—“Man to man is a wolf;” and most true it is, that

“Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”

[856] He alludes to the description already given in his geographical Books, of man taken in the aggregate, and grouped into nations.

[857] These are less known, as being less easy of access to travellers, and it is accordingly in connection with these, that we always meet with the most wonderful tales.—B.

[858] This feeling is well expressed in the old and hackneyed adage, “Omne ignotum pro mirifico”—“Everything that is unknown is taken for marvellous.”

[859] Cuvier remarks, that Pliny generally employs this kind of oratorical language when he is entering upon a part of his work in which he betrays a peculiar degree of credulity, and a total want of correct judgment on physical topics.—B.

[860] Being debarred from holding converse, the first great tie of sociality.

[861] Ajasson does not hesitate to style this remark, “ridiculum sane;” as every one knows that the Greeks were more noted for their lively imagination, than for the correctness of their observations.—B. Surely Ajasson must have forgotten the existence of such men as Aristotle and Theophrastus!

[862] Pliny has previously denominated the Scythians “Anthropophagi;” and in B. iv. c. 26, and B. vi. c. 20, he employs the word as the proper name of one of the Scythian tribes.—B.

[863] See B. iii. c. 9.

[864] See B. xxxvi. c. 5.

[865] There can be no doubt, that cannibalism has existed at all times, and that it now exists in some of the Asiatic and Polynesian islands; but we must differ from Pliny in his opinion respecting the near connection between human sacrifices and cannibalism; the first was strictly a religious rite, the other was the result of very different causes; perhaps, in some cases, the want of food; but, in most instances, a much less pardonable motive.—B. Still, however, if nations go so far as to sacrifice human beings, there is an equal chance that a religious impulse may prompt them to taste the flesh; and when once this has been done, there is no telling how soon it may be repeated, and that too for the gratification of the palate. According to Macrobius, human sacrifices were offered at Rome, down to the time of Brutus, who, on the establishment of the Republic, abolished them. We read, however, in other authorities, that in 116, B.C., two Gauls, a male and a female, were sacrificed by the priests in one of the streets of Rome, shortly after which such practices were forbidden by the senate, except in those cases in which they had been ordered by the Sibylline books. Still we read, in the time of Augustus, of one hundred knights being sacrificed by his orders, at Perusia, and of a similar immolation in the time of the emperor Aurelian, A.D. 270. These, however, were all exceptional cases, and do not imply a custom of offering human sacrifices.

[866] Pliny, in describing the Riphæan mountains, B. iv. c. 26, calls them “gelida Aquilonis conceptacula,” “the cold asylum of the northern blasts;” but we do not find the cavern mentioned in this or any other passage. The name here employed has been supposed to be derived from the Greek words, γης κλειθρον, signifying the limit or boundary of the earth.—B. “Specuque ejus dicto,” most probably means “the place called its cave,” and not the “cave which I have described,” as Dr. B. seems to have thought.

[867] They are merely enumerated among other tribes of Scythians, inhabiting the country beyond the Palus Mæotis. See B. iv. c. 26, and B. vi. c. 19.—B.

[868] The figures of the Gryphons or Griffins are found not uncommonly on the friezes and walls at Pompeii. In the East, where there were no safe places of deposit for money, it was the custom to bury it in the earth; hence, for the purpose of scaring depredators, the story was carefully circulated that hidden treasures were guarded by serpents and dragons. There can be little doubt that these stories, on arriving in the western world, combined with the knowledge of the existence of gold in the Uralian chain and other mountains of the East, gave rise to the stories of the Griffins and the Arimaspi. It has been suggested that the Arimaspi were no other than the modern Tsheremis, who dwelt on the left bank of the Middle Volga, in the governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov, not far from the gold districts of the Uralian range.

[869] It has been conjectured, that these fabulous tales of the combats of the Arimaspi with the Griffins, were invented by the neighbouring tribes of the Issedonæ or Essedones, who were anxious to throw a mystery over the origin of the gold, that they might preserve the traffic in their own hands. The Altai Mountains, in the north of Asia, contain many gold mines, which are still worked, as well as traces of former workings. The representation of an animal, somewhat similar to the Griffin, has been found among the sculptures of Persepolis, and is conceived to have had some allegorical allusion to the religion of the ancient inhabitants of the place. Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 27, gives an account of the Griffin, and its contests with the Indians, for the gold, similar to that here given.—B.

[870] We have an account of the Arimaspi, and of Aristeas, in Herodotus, B. iv. cc. 13, 15, and 27. Most of the wonderful tales related in this Chapter may be found in Aulus Gellius, B. ix. c. 4. We have an account, also, of the Arimaspi in Solinus, very nearly in the words of Pliny. We have some valuable remarks by Cuvier, on the account given by Pliny of the Arimaspi and the Griffins, and on the source from which it appears to have originated, in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 16, and Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 164, 165.—B.

[871] The modern Himalaya range.

[872] Aulus Gellius relates this, among other wonderful tales, which are contained in his Chapter “On the Miraculous Wonders of Barbarous Nations,” B. ix. c. 4. He cites, among his authorities, Aristeas and Isigonus, whom he designates as “writers of no mean authority.”—B.

[873] In B. iv. c. 26, and B. vi. c. 29.

[874] One of the pleasures promised to the Gothic warriors, in the paradise of Odin, was to drink out of the skulls of their enemies.—B.

[875] The variety of the human species to which the term Albino has been applied, from the whiteness of their hair and skin, is supposed by Cuvier to be more frequently found in the close valleys of mountainous districts, and may therefore have been very often met with in Albania, which is composed of valleys in the Caucasian range.—B.

[876] “Tertio die;” literally, “on the third day.” In reckoning the time between two periods, the Romans included both of those periods in the computation, whereas we include but one of them.

[877] In countries where serpents abound, there have been, at all times, jugglers, who profess to have a supernatural power, by which they are rendered insensible to the poison of these animals. This is the case with the Egyptians, and some of the oriental nations. They remove the poison-fang from the serpent, and in this way render it perfectly harmless. Some of the feats which were performed by the magicians in the court of Pharaoh, seem still to be practised in Egypt; by pressing upon the upper part of the spine, the animal is rendered rigid, while on removing the pressure, the animal is restored to its original state. These jugglers were also in the habit, much to the surprise of the ignorant spectators, of sucking the poison from the wounds produced by the bite of the serpent, which they accompanied by various ceremonies and incantations: but it is a well-known fact, that this may be done with perfect safety, in reference to poisons of all kinds, provided there be no breach in the cuticle of the mouth or lips.—B.

[878] See B. xxviii. c. 7. The best account, probably, of the Psylli, is that found in Lucan’s Pharsalia, B. ix. c. 890, _et seq._

[879] This custom is referred to by Lucan, in his account of the Psylli, B. ix. l. 890, _et seq._; and by Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. i. c. 57, and B. xvi. c. 27, 28.—B.

[880] Herodotus, B. iv. c. 173, gives a somewhat different account; see also Aulus Gellius, B. xvi. c. 11, who follows the narrative of Herodotus. Gellius also gives an account of the Marsi, which is similar to that of Pliny.—B.

[881] It is scarcely necessary to remark, that this alleged effect of the human saliva is without foundation. The saliva of a person who has fasted for some time, is still, in this country, a popular remedy for ophthalmia. It contains a greater proportion of saline matter than saliva under ordinary circumstances.—B.

[882] The Nasamones have been enumerated among the inhabitants of the northern part of Africa, near the Greater Syrtis, v. 5. See also Herodotus, B. ii. c. 32, and B. vi. c. 172 and 190.—B.

[883] Certain individuals are occasionally met with, whose generative organs exhibit an unusual formation, so as to give the idea of their uniting both sexes in the same person; and there are instances, where parts peculiar to both sexes actually appear to exist, but always in an imperfect or rudimentary state; all beyond this is undoubtedly fabulous. See _Todd’s Cyclop. of Anat._ _in loco_.—B.

[884] There are, at the present day, individuals among the negroes, who profess to have the power of enchantment, which, however, appears to consist in their possessing the knowledge of various poisons, which they not unfrequently administer, and by these means obtain great influence over the minds of the people.—B.

[885] This power of the eye is referred to by Virgil, Ecl. iii. l. 103:

“What eye is it that has fascinated my tender lambs?”

The evil eye is still an article of belief in Egypt and in some parts of the East. Witchcraft, in various forms, was greatly credited in the most enlightened parts of Europe, not more than two centuries ago, and is not yet excluded from the vulgar creed.—B.

[886] It is well known that nothing of this kind was ever observed in any human eye, nor have we any method of accounting for the origin of this singular notion.—B. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, says that he has no doubt whatever that the common expression “no one can say ‘black is my eye’” [or rather “black is the white of my eye”]—meaning that no one can justly speak ill of me, was derived from the notion of the _enchanting_, or _bewitching_, eye. He quotes from Reginald Scott’s “Discovery of Witchcraft:” “Many writers agree with Virgil and Theocritus in the effect of bewitching eyes, affirming ‘that in Scythia there are women called the Bythiæ, having two balls, or rather _blacks_, in the apples of their eyes.’ These, forsooth, with their angry looks, do bewitch and hurt, not only young lambs, but young children.” See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. iii. pp. 44-46. See also Ennemoser’s Hist. of Magic, vol. ii. pp. 160, 161. _Bohn’s Editions._

[887] Some of the commentators have supposed, that Pliny, or Phylarchus, from whom he borrows, was misled by the ambiguity of the Greek term ἵππος, which signifies either a horse, or a tremulous motion of the eye. But, even admitting this to be the case, the wonder is scarcely diminished; for we have the double pupil in one eye, while this supposed tremulous motion is confined to the other.—B.

[888] In all ages, it has been a prevalent superstition, that those endowed with magical qualities will not sink in water, encouraged, no doubt, by the cunning of those who might wish to make the charge a means of wreaking their vengeance. If they sank, they were to be deemed innocent, but were drowned; if, on the other hand they floated, they were deemed guilty, and handed over to the strong arm of the law. In reference to this usage, Brand says (“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii.), “Swimming a witch was another kind of popular ordeal. By this method she was handled not less indecently than cruelly: for she was stripped naked and cross bound, the right thumb to the left toe, and the left thumb to the right toe. In this state she was cast into a pond or river, in which, if guilty, it was thought impossible for her to sink.”

[889] This is probably the meaning of the word “tabem” here; though it may possibly signify “rottenness,” or “putrefaction.”

[890] This remark is not contained in any of the works of Cicero now extant.—B.

[891] Cuvier observes, that these people probably exercise some deception, analogous to that practised by a Spaniard, who exhibited himself in Paris, and professed to be incombustible, but who, eventually, was the dupe of his own quackery, and paid the penalty with his life. It would appear, that the Hirpi were not confined to one district, but dispersed over different parts of Italy. See the note of Heyne, on the prayer of Aruns, Æn. B. xi. l. 785, _et seq._—B.

[892] Plutarch relates these supposed facts in his life of Pyrrhus; this statement may be considered analogous to what has been recorded in modern times, respecting the efficacy of the royal touch in curing certain diseases, especially what has been termed the “King’s evil.”—B.

[893] Horace, Odes, B. i. O. 22, characterises the Hydaspes, a river of India, by the title of “fabulosus.”—B.

[894] See B. viii. c. 40.

[895] Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xvi. c. 11, and B. xvii. c. 26, refers to the large size of many of the animals of India; and in B. iv. c. 19, he especially describes the size and fierceness of the Indian dog.—B.

[896] The _Ficus religiosa_ of Linnæus, the branches of which have the property of taking root when they are bent down to the ground, and of forming new stems, which again produce other branches, that may be bent down in the same way, so as to cover an indefinite space.—B. More popularly known as the “banyan tree.” See B. xii. c. 11.

[897] The _bambos arundinacea_, or bamboo cane, is a reed or plant of the gramineous kind, which frequently grows to the height of the tallest trees. The stem is hollow, and the parts of it between the joints are used by the natives to form their canoes. We have an account of them in Herodotus, B. iii. c. 98.—B. See also B. xvi. c. 65 of this work.

[898] It does not appear that the stature of the Indians exceeds that of the inhabitants of the temperate zones.—B.

[899] Some practices very similar to these exist in certain parts of India, by the Fakirs, a peculiar class of devotees, and are regarded either in the light of religious ceremonies, or of modes of performing penance.—B.

[900] Henderson states, in his “Biblical Researches,” that there is a race of people found in the Caucasus, and known as the Ingusch, and that it is their belief that a race of dæmons exists, which assume the appearance of armed men, and have the feet inverted.

[901] Cuvier remarks, that these wonderful tales are generally related of the inhabitants of mountainous districts, as being less known and less accessible to travellers.—B.

[902] This account probably originated in a species of monkey, with a projecting muzzle, called, from this circumstance, “cynocephalus,” or the “Dog’s head.” This account of the cynocephali is repeated by Aulus Gellius, B. ix. c. 4.—B. The cynocephalus is generally considered to be the baboon.

[903] So called, ἀπὸ τοῦ μονοῦ κώλου, “from having but one leg.” It is not improbable that these stories were first told of these nations from the resemblance of their names to the Greek words having these significations.

[904] We have no method of explaining the origin of this story. It is to be regretted, that Pliny should have adopted so many ridiculous fables, on the doubtful authority of Ctesias.—B.

[905] From Σκιαποῦς, “making a shadow with his foot.”—B.

[906] Or “dwellers in caves.”

[907] It has been conjectured, that this account may have originated in the dwarfish stature and short necks of the northern tribes, according to the usual exaggerated statements of the ancient travellers. Aulus Gellius also repeats this fable, B. ix. c. 4.—B.

[908] These are the great apes, which are found in some of the Oriental islands; this name was given them from their salacious disposition, which, it would seem, they have manifested in reference to even the human species. We have an account of the Satyrs in Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xvi. c. 21.—B.

[909] We may suppose that this description is taken from some incorrect account of a large kind of ape; but it seems impossible to refer it to any particular species.—B.

[910] “Sparrow,” or “ostrich-footed;” it does not appear that the commentators have attempted to explain this passage; may we not conjecture that it refers to the Chinese? With respect to the word employed, it has been generally derived from στροῦθος, “a sparrow;” Dalechamps, however, as it would appear, with much plausibility, thinks that it is derived from “struthio,” the ostrich.—B. It is not improbable, however, that these were so called, from the resemblance of their gait to that of a sparrow, as they would be unable to step out, and be obliged to jump from place to place.

[911] Or “wandering tribes.”

[912] On this subject see B. vi. c. 20. It is clear that either silk or cotton is here alluded to.

[913] In Eastern stories we find not uncommonly, wonderful effects attributed to the smell of the apple. See the Arabian Nights, _passim_.

[914] Cuvier remarks, that these accounts of the Struthopodes, the Scyritæ, and the Atomi, are not capable of any explanation, being mere fables.—B.

[915] From τρεῖς, “three,” and σπιθαμαὶ, “spans,” the span being about nine inches English.

[916] He alludes to the wars between the Cranes and the Pygmies in the Iliad, B. iii. l. 3-6. Their story is also referred to by Ovid and Juvenal.

[917] On the subject of the Pygmies, Cuvier remarks, “I am not surprised at finding the Pygmies in the works of Homer; but to find them in Pliny, I am surprised, indeed.”—B.

[918] Or the “long livers,” from the Greek μακρὸς, “long,” and βίος, “life.”

[919] Of course, there is no truth in this statement; there are, no doubt, various circumstances in these countries favourable to longevity; but these are more than counter-balanced by certain peculiarities in their mode of life, and by the fatal epidemics to which they are occasionally subject.—B.

[920] Pliny, in B. xxix. c. 38, speaks of the use of vipers’ flesh as an article of diet, and gives some minute directions for its preparation. It was supposed to be peculiarly nutritive and restorative, and it has been prescribed for the same purpose by modern physicians. There is a medal in existence, probably struck by the Emperor Commodus, in order to commemorate the benefit which he was supposed to have derived from the use of the flesh of vipers.—B.

[921] See B. ii. c. 75.

[922] The cubitus and the palmus of the Romans, estimated, respectively, at about one foot and-a-half and three inches; this would make the height of these people eight feet.—B.

[923] From the Greek Γυμνητὴς, “one who takes much exercise of the body.”

[924] There appears to be no foundation for this statement.—B.

[925] See B. vi. c. 35.

[926] In many of the warmer climates, where the locusts are of large size and in great abundance, they are occasionally used as food; but we have no reason to believe that they constitute the sole, or even the principal article of the food of any tribe or people.—B.

[927] In warm climates, the females arrive at maturity considerably earlier than in the more temperate regions, but the age here mentioned is an exaggeration. The female also, in such climates, ceases to bear at an earlier age, probably before the fortieth year.—B.

[928] This is the Island of Ceylon, of which Pliny has given an account in the last Book, c. 24.

[929] Such unnatural unions may have taken place occasionally, but nothing has ever been produced from them.—B.

[930] This is a still greater exaggeration than that mentioned above, in Note 95.—B.

[931] Cuvier remarks that this story must have been originally told with reference to the race of large apes. He says, however, that some men have the “os coccygis” greatly prolonged, and mentions a painter of celebrity in Paris who had this malformation. “But from this to an actual tail,” says he, “the distance is very great.” In these times we have the (perhaps doubtful) account by M. de Couret, of the Niam Niams, a race in Abyssinia or Nubia, with tails at least two inches in length. Few will fail to recollect Lord Monboddo’s theory, that mankind originally had tails, but wore them off in lapse of time by climbing up the trees.

[932] As far as there is any truth in this account, it must refer to certain kinds of apes: but with respect to the size of the ears, it is, of course, greatly exaggerated.—B.

[933] Or Cophes, see B. vi. c. 25.

[934] There are many tribes who live on the sea-coast, and who inhabit a barren country, with a bad climate, whose diet is almost confined to fish, and who feed their cattle on it. This is the case in some parts of Iceland, and even, to a certain extent, among the people of the Hebrides.—B.

[935] Or dog’s-headed ape, the baboon: see B. vi. c. 35, and Note [902], p. 130.

[936] Perhaps these appearances may be referred to effects of what is termed “mirage,” a phenomenon which is described by travellers in different parts of the torrid zone.—B. And in the temperate regions as well; Switzerland and the Hartz mountains, for instance.

[937] Columella, B. viii. c. 8, speaks of the fecundity of the Egyptians, but without ascribing any particular cause for it.—B.

[938] “Quinos.” The old reading was “binos,” “two” children only; but Aristotle, in reference, no doubt, to the same circumstance, says, Hist. Anim. B. vii., “One woman, at four births, gave birth to twenty children. For she brought forth five at a time, and the greater part of them were reared.”

[939] It was a very general opinion, that the waters of the Nile possess the property of promoting fecundity. Seneca mentions it as an acknowledged fact, Nat. Quæst. B. iii. c. 25.—B.

[940] There are well-authenticated accounts of four children having been produced at one birth; but, beyond this, we have no statements in which we can place much confidence. In a note by Dalechamps, we have an example of the credulity of the authors who have treated on this topic, as well modern as ancient.—B. In the recent volumes, however, of “Notes and Queries,” we find some apparently well-authenticated cases of women being delivered of five children at a birth. Nathaniel Wanley, in his “Wonders of the Little World,” also gives some apparently authentic instances of as many as five children being born at a birth: but we must be excused giving credit to the story, quoted by him, of Matilda or Margaret, Countess of Henneberg, who was said to have been delivered, on the Friday before Palm-Sunday, in 1276, “of 365 children, half sons and half daughters, with the exception of one, which was an hermaphrodite, all complete and well-fashioned, of the bigness of chickens new hatched, saith Camerarius.”

[941] From Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes or Mercury, and Aphrodite or Venus. According to the poetic story as told by Ovid, Met. B. iv., he was united in one body, which bore the characteristics of both sexes, with the nymph Salmacis.

[942] Two cases of this description are mentioned by Livy, B. xxvii. c. 37, and B. xxxi. c. 12. In this latter passage, Livy enumerates the following prodigious births; among the Sabines, two children of doubtful sex; at Frusino, a lamb with a sow’s head; at Sinuessa, a pig with a human head; and among the Lucani, a foal with five feet. He informs us that the hermaphrodites were thrown into the sea.—B.

[943] Cuvier says, “From time to time we do see persons of this nature; and it is not long ago that such a being was exhibited in Paris, though certainly not of a nature to have been ‘in deliciis,’ at the present day.”

[944] Pliny gives further particulars of this theatre in B. xxxvi. c. 24. It was the first stone theatre erected at Rome, and was built B.C. 55, and contained 40,000 spectators.

[945] Solinus, the ape of Pliny, absolutely takes the meaning of this passage to be, that Eutychis herself was exhibited on the stage by the orders of Pompey.

[946] For Tralles, in Asia Minor, see B. v. c. 29.

[947] Cuvier speaks of the wife of a porter at the Jardin du Roi, at Paris, who, to his knowledge, had been the mother of thirty children.

[948] It seems doubtful whether Pliny means that the statue of Alcippe was also to be seen in the Theatre of Pompey. Tatianus tells the same story of one Glaucippe, and it is not improbable that under that name he refers to the same person. He says that a bronze statue of her was made by Niceretus, the Athenian. Hardouin suggests that this is the story alluded to by Livy, B. xxvii., and by Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 6, in their statement that, among other portents, a boy was born with the head of an elephant.

[949] Cuvier remarks, that it is not an uncommon circumstance, both in man and in other animals, for an atrophy of the maxillary bones to cause the nose to sink down, and produce some resemblance to the trunk of an elephant. To this circumstance, he refers the tales met with, of women, sows, and dogs having produced elephants; see also Val. Maximus, B. vi. c. 5.—B.

[950] As to this war, see B. ii. c. 85. The portents observed on this occasion were collected by the historian Sisenna, as we learn from Cicero, De Divin. B. ii.

[951] We find that this incredible tale is not only told by Julius Obsequens, but, according to Dalechamps, by Cornelius Gemma, a comparatively modern writer.—B.

[952] Cuvier remarks, that, in certain quadrupeds, individuals are occasionally born with the upper jaw preternaturally small, so much so, that the lower jaw, by its projection, bears some resemblance to a human chin. He had seen a case of this description at Geneva, in a calf, supposed, even by persons of information, to be the produce of an unnatural connection of a cow with a Savoyard shepherd. This subject is treated very philosophically by Lucretius, B. v. c. 876, _et seq._ With respect to the supposed Hippocentaur of Thessaly, Cuvier remarks upon the successive additions which the story had gained, in the writings of various authors. Cicero, in various parts of his writings, refers to the account of the Hippocentaur as a fabulous tale; Tusc. Quæst. B. i. c. 27; de Nat. Deor. B. i. c. 38, and B. ii. c. 2; De Divin. B. ii. c. 21.—B.

[953] Consuls A.U.C. 581.

[954] See B. iii. c. 9. Hardouin remarks that Aulus Gellius, in copying from this passage, seems to have read the word “Casini,” as though it were C. Asinii, meaning that the boy belonged to one C. Asinius. However, it is pretty clear that the reading adopted is the right one, Pliny having been careful to give the various localities at which these wonderful facts occurred.

[955] Phlegon tells us that this happened in the first year of Nero, and that the name of the youth, while supposed to be a girl, was Philotis.

[956] See B. v. c. 4, 5.

[957] A case of this description is mentioned by Ambrose Paré. The individual was brought up as a girl, but, in consequence of a sudden muscular exertion, the organs of the male were developed, which had previously been concealed internally. It may be remarked, that a great proportion of the well-authenticated cases of a supposed change of sex have been from the female to the male, evidently of the kind mentioned by Paré, where the male organs have been concealed in childhood, and become subsequently developed. Cases, however, have occasionally occurred of the contrary kind, arising probably from the unusual size of the clitoris; there are also certain cases, where, from the malformation of the parts, the sex is actually doubtful, or where even a certain degree of the two may exist, as has been stated above, in Note 51 to Chapter 2. This paragraph of Pliny is quoted by Aulus Gellius, B. ix. c. 4.—B.

[958] This does not correspond with the fact, as it exists in our time; a circumstance which may probably depend upon our improvement in the obstetrical art. Nor is the opinion, that both twins are less likely to live, if of different sexes, sanctioned by modern experience.—B.

[959] “Feminas gigni celerius quam mares;” there has been much discussion among the commentators, both with respect to the meaning of these words, and the fact to which they are supposed to refer. Hardouin interprets the phrase, “crescere, perfici, vigere, adolescere;” Cuvier translates it, “les filles sont portées moins long-temps par leur mère.” There is, however, no foundation for this opinion as to a difference in the period of the gestation.—B.

[960] There may be some ground for this opinion; it is maintained by Aristotle in his Hist. Anim.—B. As also by Galen.

[961] This statement is made upon the authority of Hippocrates, Aphor. B. v. c. 48, and Aristotle, Hist. Anim.; but is probably without foundation.—B.

[962] Animals have a certain period for generation, because they are more immediately affected by the seasons, whereas, in the human race, the arts of life render these fixed terms unnecessary.—B.

[963] Notwithstanding all the observations of the moderns, the question is scarcely decided respecting the length of time to which pregnancy may be prolonged. Cuvier says, that the experiments of Tessier have shewn, that there is a greater latitude in animals than had previously been supposed; he also remarks, that the same animals when domesticated, become less regular in this respect than in the wild state.—B.

[964] Dalechamps has collected authorities to prove, that a child may survive, when born even at an earlier period; but this, although not absolutely impossible, is improbable in the highest degree.—B.

[965] Ajasson expresses himself at a loss to identify this Pomponius; but thinks that it may have been either Julius Pomponius Græcinus, consul A.U.C. 759, or L. Pomponius, consul A.U.C. 794, A.D. 41.

[966] Caius Caligula. The name of this woman, who was first his mistress and then his wife, was Milonia Cæsonia. She was neither handsome nor young when Caligula first admired her: but was noted for her extreme licentiousness, and at the time when she first became intimate with Caligula, had already had three children. She and her daughter, by him, were put to death on the day on which he was murdered. Corbulo has been mentioned in B. vi. c. 8.

[967] Celsus, B. ii. c. 1, speaks of the fortieth day, as one of the critical periods of childhood; the others are the seventh month, the seventh year, and the period of puberty.—B.

[968] Who appears to have urged the great lapse of time that had intervened between the death of the alleged father and the birth of his opponent.

[969] Questions of this nature, of great importance, involving property and title, have been the subject of judicial consideration in our times; the longest period to which pregnancy may be protracted seems still not to be determined, but the general result has been to shorten it. Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 16, has collected the opinions of many of the ancients on this subject.—B.

[970] Most of the statements made in this Chapter appear to be taken from Aristotle’s History of Animals; they are, however, either without foundation or much exaggerated, and very incorrect.—B.

[971] This opinion, although without foundation, is supported by the authority of Hippocrates, Aphor. B. v. c. 42.—B.

[972] This singular opinion is referred to by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 16.—B.

[973] Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 54, mentions the smell of an extinguished lamp, as producing abortion in a mare.—B.

[974] “Tinctoria mens;” there has been much discussion, whether the text does not require correction here; and various conjectural emendations have been proposed, but not with much success. If the word “tinctoria” was employed by Pliny, it may be regarded as one of those bold, and somewhat metaphorical expressions, which are not unfrequently found in his writings.—B.

[975] Valerius Maximus makes the same statement as to the death of Anacreon, and says that “having lived to an extreme old age, he was supporting his decayed strength by chewing raisins, when one grain, more obstinate than the rest, stuck in his parched throat, and so ended his life.” This story has been looked upon by some of the modern scholars as a fiction of the poets.

[976] This explanation of the name is given by Aulus Gellius, B. xvi. c. 6.—B. It is very doubtful what are the roots from which it is formed; though Pliny evidently thinks that the word is only a corruption of the Latin “ægre partus,” “born with difficulty;” a notion savouring of absurdity.

[977] M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, having married his dissolute daughter, Julia. He was the son of Lucius Agrippa, and was descended from a very obscure family. He divorced his wife Marcella, to marry Julia, the widow of Marcellus, and the daughter of Augustus, by his third wife, Scribonia.

[978] Agrippina, the daughter of Agrippa and Julia, was the mother of the Emperor Caligula; and of a second Agrippina, who became the mother of Nero, by whose order she was put to death.—B.

[979] Julia, the daughter of Augustus, so notorious for her depravity, who, as already stated, was the wife of Agrippa.—B. See c. 46 of the present Book.

[980] From cædo, “to cut,” apparently. The Cæsones were a branch of the Fabian family. There has been considerable difference of opinion among the commentators respecting the individuals referred to in this Chapter. The subject is discussed at length in the Notes of Hardouin, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 62.—B. So in Macbeth, act v. sc. 7, Macduff says to Macbeth—

“And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d, Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d.”

[981] The commentators are not agreed respecting the origin of this name; Dalechamps suggests, that it was originally Opiscus, from ὀπίσθιον, “because one follows close upon another.”—B.

[982] Hardouin says, that this is the case with the hare and the dasypus, which is a species of hare; but there is probably no foundation for the statement. Pliny repeats it in a subsequent passage, B. viii. c. 81.—B.

[983] Pliny evidently considers this a case of superfœtation, and looks upon it as not uncommon in the human species: whereas it is now considered impossible.

[984] This refers to the mythological tale of Jupiter and Amphitryon.—B.

[985] See B. v. c. 44.

[986] Most of these statements appear to be taken from Aristotle, Hist. Anim.—B.

[987] There has been much discussion respecting the meaning of this passage and the fact to which it refers. Aristotle, Hist. Anim., says, that marks made on the arm are transmitted for three generations; and Pliny, in B. xxii. c. 2, informs us, that the Daci and the Sarmatæ “make written marks upon their bodies.” The same custom prevails among the lower orders, sailors especially, in our own times. We may also remark the analogy which it hears to the practice of tattooing, so general among the Polynesian and other barbarous nations.—B.

[988] The reader may be amused by a perusal of the collection of wonderful cases of this kind, which has been made by Dalechamps; see Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 65, note 4.—B.

[989] Aristotle, in his History of Animals, relates a similar, but not the same, story; he says that it occurred in Sicily, though he afterwards speaks of it as having happened in Elis. It is conjectured by Ajasson, that the individual might have been born in Sicily, and have exhibited himself in Elis, as a wrestler. If we are really to believe that his complexion was that of an Æthiopian, it is much more probable that his mother may have had connection with a negro.—B.

[990] Few readers will fail here to recall to mind the story about the clock, in the opening chapter of “Tristram Shandy.”

[991] Dalechamps refers us to a remark of the same kind in Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. B. i. c. 80; but Ajasson remarks, that the resemblance mentioned by Cicero refers to the mind and manners, not to the body; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 67.—B.

[992] Aulus Gellius says, that he was one of the royal family.

[993] This man resembled Antiochus III., surnamed the Great, to such a degree, that when that monarch had been slain in a tumult by his people, his wife, Laodice, daughter of Mithridates V., King of Pontus, put Artemon into a bed, pretending that he was the king, but dangerously ill. Many persons were admitted to see him; and all believed that they were listening to the words of their king, when he recommended to them Laodice and her children.

[994] This circumstance is related by Valerius Maximus, but he speaks of Vibius as being “ingenuæ stirpis,” “of good family.”—B.

[995] Hardouin expands the words “os probum,” into “liberale, venustum, gratum, venerandum, probandum,” B. xxxvii. c. 6.—B.

[996] See B. xxxvii. c. 6.

[997] The Latin word “strabo,” means “squinting,” or “having a cast” or “defect in the eye.”

[998] The word “mimus” was applied by the Romans to a species of dramatic performance, as well as to the persons who acted in them. The Roman mimes were imitations of trivial and sometimes indecent occurrences in life, and scarcely differed from comedy, except in consisting more of gestures and mimicry than of spoken dialogue. Sylla was very fond of these performances, and they had more charms for the Roman populace than the regular drama. As to the mime Salvitto, here mentioned, see B. xxxv. c. 2.

[999] This anecdote, and the one respecting Spinther and Pamphilus, are mentioned also by Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 24.—B.

[1000] A celebrated orator and satirical writer of the time of Augustus and Tiberius. He is mentioned in the Index of authors at the end of B. xxxvi., where he is called Longulanus, as being a native of Longula, a town of Latium. It was even thrown in his teeth, that he was the offspring of adultery, and that this low-born person was his father.

[1001] “Mirmillonis.” Many of the editions make this word to be a proper name, and “Armentarius” to signify the calling of the person described, as being a herdsman. The “Mirmillones” were a peculiar class of gladiators, said to have been so called from their having the image of a fish, called “mormyr,” on their helmets.

[1002] We assume the sestertium to be equivalent to somewhat more than eight pounds sterling; this sum will be about £1600.—B.

[1003] “Proscripter animus.” According to Hardouin, this means “delighting in proscription,” alluding to the well-known proscriptions of the triumvirate, in which Antony acted so conspicuous a part.—B.

[1004] This opinion is maintained by Hippocrates, and by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vii. c. 8, and is referred to by Lucretius, B. iv. c. 1242, _et seq._—B.

[1005] The case of Livia and that of Agrippina, referred to by Pliny, are mentioned by Suetonius, in the Life of Augustus, c. 63; and that of Caligula, c. 7.—B.

[1006] M. Junius Silanus, consul under Claudius, A.D. 46, with Valerius Asiaticus. He was poisoned by order of the younger Agrippina, that he might not stand in the way of Nero.

[1007] He is first mentioned in B.C. 168, when he was serving in the army of Æmilius Paulus, in Macedonia, and was sent to Rome with two other envoys to announce the defeat of Perseus. He united with the aristocracy in opposing the measures of the Gracchi; and the speech which he delivered against Tiberius Gracchus, is spoken of by Cicero in high terms, as replete with true eloquence.

[1008] He left four sons and two daughters; some writers say three. The ten individuals, over and above his children and grandchildren, may have consisted of the wives and husbands of his sons and daughters _then_ living, as also of others who had died in his lifetime.

[1009] 11th of April.

[1010] See B. iii. c. 8.

[1011] This fact is mentioned by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13. There is some variation in the spelling of the name of the son of Masinissa; Solinus calls him Mathumannus.—B.

[1012] Hardouin gives a detailed account of the children of Cato, by which it appears that the Licinian branch descended from the issue by his wife Licinia, and the Saloniani, of whom Cato of Utica was one, from his son Salonianus, by his second wife, Salonia.—B.

[1013] Volusius Saturninus is again mentioned in the 49th Chapter, as a remarkable instance of longevity; also by Tacitus, B. xiii. c. 30.—B.

[1014] This reading seems preferable to sixty-second, adopted by Sillig; as there would be nothing very remarkable in a man becoming a father when sixty-two years of age.

[1015] Some of the “simiæ” are subject to a periodical discharge, analogous to that of the human female; but, according to Cuvier, it is in smaller quantity, and not at stated periods. The females of various other animals, when in a state to receive the male, have a discharge from the same parts, but totally different in its properties, and the mode in which it makes its appearance. Virgil, Geor. B. iii. l. 280, _et seq._, refers to this subject.—B.

[1016] Pliny makes some further remarks on these substances in a subsequent place, see B. x. c. 84; where he says they are produced without the intercourse of the male; this point has been much discussed, and is perhaps scarcely yet decided.—B.

[1017] There is no actual resemblance between moles and schirri; they are produced by different causes, and exist in different parts of the body. Moles are always formed in the womb, and probably have some connection with the generative functions; while schirri are morbid indurations, which make their appearance in various parts of the body. Hippocrates gives some account of moles, in his work on the Diseases of Women. They are also noticed by Aristotle.—B.

[1018] All the poisonous and noxious effects which were attributed by the ancients to the menstrual discharge, are without the slightest foundation. The opinions entertained on this point by the Jews, may be collected from Leviticus, c. xv. ver. 19, _et seq._ Pliny enlarges upon this subject in a subsequent place. See B. xxviii. c. 23.—B.

[1019] Both Josephus, Bell. Jud. B. iv. c. 9, and Tacitus, Hist. B. v. c. 6, give an account of this supposed action of this fluid on the bitumen of Lake Asphaltites; the statement is no doubt entirely unfounded, but it is a curious instance of popular credulity.—B.

[1020] There are still somewhat similar superstitions in existence, even in this country among others; it is not uncommonly believed that meat will not take salt from the hands of a female during the discharge of the catamenia.

[1021] This statement is without foundation.—B.

[1022] The fact is true, that females in whom the menstrual discharge does not take place, are seldom, if ever, capable of conception; but it does not depend on the cause here assigned. See the remarks of Cuvier, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 82, and Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 173.—B.

[1023] Pliny clearly alludes to an opinion expressed by Galen, in which he says, “that if women while giving suck, have sexual intercourse, the milk becomes tainted.” Hardouin remarks, that Pliny shows considerable caution here in bringing forward Nigidius as the propounder of these opinions, the truth of which he himself seems to have doubted.

[1024] It is generally admitted, that the female is more disposed to conceive just after the cessation of each periodical discharge. We are informed by the French historians, that their king, Henry II., and his wife Catharine, having been childless eleven years, made a successful experiment of this description, by the advice of the physician Fernel; see Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 83.—B.

[1025] This is one of the many idle tales referred to by Pliny, entirely without foundation.—B.

[1026] This account is correct, to the extent that the first teeth that appear are the two central incisors of the upper jaw; the next are the two lower central incisors, then the upper lateral incisors, the lower lateral incisors, and the upper and lower canines. The molars follow a different order, the lower ones appearing before the upper.—B.

[1027] Hardouin mentions a number of authors who relate cases of this nature. It is said to have taken place with our king Richard III. See Shakespeare, Richard III., Act i. Scene 4. An individual of very different character and fortune, Louis XIV., is said to have been born with two teeth in the upper jaw.—B.

[1028] A town of Latium; we learn from Livy, B. i. c. 53, that it was captured and plundered by Tarquinius Superbus, but he makes no mention of Valeria. See B. iii. c. 9.

[1029] It is stated by Seneca, De Consol. c. 16, that Cornelia survived a large family of children, all of whom were carried off early in life; of these the two celebrated Gracchi, Tiberius and Caius, met with violent deaths. The peculiarity here referred to, probably consisted in an imperforated hymen, a mal-formation which not very unfrequently exists, and requires a surgical operation.—B.

[1030] This circumstance is mentioned by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8.—B. We learn from Plutarch, that the same was the case also with Pyrrhus, king of Epirus: Euryphæus also, the Cyrenian, and Euryptolemus, the king of Cyprus. Herodotus, B. ix., speaks of a skull found on the plain of Platæa, with a similar conformation.

[1031] Although the teeth, and especially their enamel, form the most indestructible substance which enters into the composition of the body, it is not absolutely so; a certain proportion of them consisting of animal matter, which is consumed, when exposed to a sufficient heat; the earthy part may also be dissolved by the appropriate chemical re-agents.—B.

[1032] Powerful acids for instance; but they destroy the enamel. Lord Bacon recommends the ashes of tobacco as a whitener of the teeth; but that has been found to have a similar effect.

[1033] We find in Haller, El. Phys. B. ix. c. 2, 4, 8, and in other physiologists, a minute account of the effects produced by the teeth in the articulation of the various letters which compose the alphabet.—B.

[1034] See B. iii. c. 3, and B. iv. c. 35. He does not say how many teeth the Turduli naturally had, but no doubt he is mistaken.

[1035] Pliny repeats this statement in B. xi. c. 63, and extends it to the females of the sheep, goat, and hog. In the natural condition of the mouth, the number of the teeth is the same in both sexes; but, according to the observations of Cuvier, what are called the “wisdom” teeth, though occasionally deficient in both sexes, are most frequently so in the female.—B.

[1036] He seems to allude to the younger Agrippina, the mother of the emperor Domitius Nero; neither her life, her character, nor her ultimate fate seem, however, to have entitled her to be called a favourite of Fortune. Her mother, the first Agrippina, grand-daughter of Augustus, appears, on the other hand, to have been a woman of virtuous character, and spotless chastity, without a vice, with the exception, perhaps, of ambition.

[1037] See B. x. c. 10.

[1038] It was one of the tenets of the Stoics, that the world was to be alternately destroyed by water and by fire. The former element having laid it waste on the occasion of the flood of Deucalion, the next great catastrophe, according to them, is to be produced by fire. Pliny has previously alluded to this opinion, B. ii. c. 110.—B.

[1039] Cuvier remarks, that in the alluvial tracts throughout Europe, Siberia, and America, and probably also in other parts of the world, bones have been found, which have belonged to very large animals, such as elephants, mastodons, and whales; and when discovered, the common people, and sometimes even anatomists, have mistaken them for the bones of giants. He especially mentions the case of the bones of an elephant, found near Lucerne, in the sixteenth century, and supposed by Plater to have belonged to a man seventeen feet in height. Cuvier conceives that no man in modern times has exceeded the height of seven feet, and even these cases are extremely rare; for further information he refers to his _Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles_. Some of the best authenticated facts of unusually tall men are in Buffon, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 276, and vol. iii. p. 427.—B. The skeleton of O’Brien, in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, in London, is about seven feet and a half in height.

[1040] The story of the birth of Orion is beautifully told by Ovid, Fasti, B. v. l. 493. _et seq._ He was often represented by the poets as of gigantic stature, and after his death was fabled to have been placed among the stars, where he appears as a giant. It is not improbable that, like the Cyclopes, Hercules, and Atlas, he may have been one of the earliest benefactors of mankind, and an assiduous improver of their condition; whence the story of his gigantic size.

[1041] A gigantic son of Poseidon or Neptune, and Iphimedeia, one of the Alöeidæ.

[1042] We have an account of this supposed discovery of the body of Orestes in Herodotus, B. i. c. 68, and a reference to it, with some pertinent remarks, in Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 10.—B.

[1043] Il. B. v. l. 303, 4, B. xii. l. 449: this opinion of Homer was adopted by many of the Latin poets; for example, by Virgil, B. xii. l. 900; by Juvenal, Sat. xv. l. 69, 70; and by Horace, Od. B. iii. O. 6, _sub finem_.

[1044] Columella speaks of Cicero as mentioning this Pollio, and stating that he was a foot taller than any one else. It is most probably in Cicero’s lost book, “De Admirandis,” that this mention was made of him.

[1045] Hardouin supposes that this was not an individual name, but a term derived from the Hebrew, descriptive of his remarkable size.—B. He supposes also that not improbably this was the same individual that is mentioned by Tacitus, Annals, B. xii. c. 12, as Acharus, a king of the Arabians.

[1046] According to our estimate of the Roman measures, this would correspond to about nine feet four and a half inches of our standard.—B.

[1047] “Conditorio Sallustianorum.” The more general meaning attributed to the word “conditorium,” is “tomb” or burial-place. We learn from other sources that the famous “gardens of Sallust” belonged to the emperor Augustus, and it is not improbable that there was a museum there of curiosities, in which these remarkable skeletons were kept.

[1048] “Loculis.” It is not quite clear whether this word has the meaning here of chest or coffin, or of a niche or cavity made in the wall of the tomb.

[1049] Among the objects of curiosity which were exhibited by Augustus to the Roman people, as related by Suetonius, c. 43, was a dwarf named Lucius, who is there described; but he would appear to be a different person from any of those here mentioned.—B.

[1050] Seneca also mentions him in his Consolation to Marcia, c. 23.

[1051] The procurator of a province was an officer appointed by the Cæsar to perform the duties discharged by the quæstor in the other provinces.

[1052] We have an ingenious dissertation by Ajasson, the object of which is to show, that the Tacitus here referred to, is not the historian, but his father, and consequently, that the boy prematurely born must have been the historian’s brother, not his son.—B.

[1053] It is not clear whether Pliny intended to apply all these three observations to the female, or only the last of them; it appears, however, that the remark is, in either case, without foundation.—B. He appears to intend that his observations should apply more especially to the strength of the arm.

[1054] This is incorrect; the human body, after death, does not float until decomposition has commenced, when it becomes more or less buoyant, in consequence of the formation of gases, which partially distend the cavities; but we do not observe any difference in the two sexes in this respect.—B.

[1055] This statement is altogether incorrect.—B.

[1056] The total abstinence from liquids in dropsy, was a point much insisted upon by medical practitioners, even in modern times; but it is now generally conceived to have been derived from a false theory, and not to be essential to the cure of the disease, while it imposes upon the patient a most severe privation. A moderate use of fluids is even favourable to the operation of the remedies that are employed in this disease.—B.

[1057] From the Greek ἀγελαστὸς, “one who does not laugh.” Cicero refers to this peculiarity in the character of Crassus, in his treatise De Finibus, B. v. c. 92; and in the Tusc. Quest. B. iii. c. 3, he informs us, on the authority of Lucilius, that Crassus never laughed but once in his life.—B. And then, on seeing a donkey eating thistles; upon which he exclaimed, “Similem habent labia lactucam,” “Like lips, like lettuce.”

[1058] “Without passion;” equivalent to our English word “apathetical.”—B.

[1059] The daughter of M. Antony by Octavia. She was the mother of Germanicus Cæsar, and the grandmother of the emperor Caligula, whom she lived to see on the throne, and who is supposed to have hastened her death. She was celebrated for her beauty and chastity—a rare virtue in those days.

[1060] Pliny, B. xxxi. c. 45, says, that this state of the bones is found in fishermen, from their being exposed to the action of the sea and salt water; but both the fact and the supposed cause are without foundation.—B.

[1061] “Cornei.”

[1062] It would appear that the Samnites were not only one of the most warlike people, with whom the Romans had to contest in the infancy of their state, but that they were particularly celebrated as gladiators.—B.

[1063] The gladiators, called Samnites, were armed with the peculiar “scutum,” or oblong shield, used by the Samnites, a greave on the left leg, a sponger on the breast, and a helmet with a crest.

[1064] The term “nervus” was generally applied by the ancients to the sinews or tendons; they had a very indistinct knowledge of what are properly called the “nerves.”—B.

[1065] Pintianus suggests another reading here, which would appear to be much more consistent with probability. “Inermi dextrâ superatum, et uno digito postremo correptum in castra,” &c.—“Conquered him with the right hand, and that unarmed, and then with a single finger dragged him to the camp.”

[1066] “Rusticellus.”

[1067] Philonides has been already mentioned, B. ii. c. 73, as being in the habit of going from Sicyon to Elis in nine hours.—B.

[1068] We may consult the learned notes of Ajasson, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 99, respecting the exact distances here indicated by Pliny. We may remark, that a stadium is about one-eighth of a mile, according to which estimate, Philippides must have gone 142 miles in two days, and the other 150 miles in one day; as it is implied, that these journeys were performed on foot, even the former of them is obviously impossible.—B. Query, however, as to this last assertion; according to recent pedestrian feats, it does not appear to be absolutely impossible.

[1069] See B. ii. c. 72.

[1070] This feat is no less incredible than those mentioned above.—B.

[1071] We have an account of this journey of Tiberius in Dion Cassius. Val. Maximus, B. v. c. 6, also enumerates this among the extraordinary examples of fraternal affection.—B. We learn also from Suetonius, that on learning the accident, a fall from his horse, which had happened to his brother Drusus, Tiberius took horse at Ticinum, and travelled night and day till he reached his brother, who was then in Germany, near the Rhine. He accompanied the body to Rome, preceding it on foot all the way. There is extant a “Consolation to Livia Augusta,” written on this occasion, some have thought, by Pedo Albinovanus, but it is more likely to have been the work of Ovid.

[1072] This statement must have been in some of his lost works.

[1073] Pliny probably here refers to a passage in the Acad. Quæst. B. iv. c. 81, where Cicero speaks of a person who could see objects, it was said, at a distance of 1800 stadia, equal exactly to 125 miles.—B.

[1074] The actual distance between the promontory of Sicily and the nearest part of Carthage is between fifty and sixty miles. The acute vision of Strabo is mentioned by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8.—B.

[1075] See also B. xxxvi. c. 4. He was a Lacedæmonian sculptor, who, according to Athenæus, also executed embossed work on vases.

[1076] His works in ivory were said to have been so small, that they could scarcely be seen without placing them on black hair.

[1077] Cicero, Acad. Quæst. B. iv. c. 120, speaks of “one Myrmecides, a maker of minute objects of art;” Ælian, Vac. Hist. B. i. c. 17, also speaks of these minute performances of Myrmecides, and styles them “a waste of time.” Pliny, in a subsequent part of his work, B. xxxi. c. 4, speaks of similar minute works, executed by these artists in marble; but the account which he gives is scarcely credible.—B.

[1078] See B. xxxvi. c. 5.

[1079] It would appear that there is a little confusion here of events. Sybaris, so noted for its luxury and effeminacy, was destroyed by the people of Crotona, under the command of the athlete Milo, B.C. 510. In B.C. 360. the Crotoniats were defeated at the river Sagras, by the Locrians and Rhegians, 10,000 in number, although they are said to have amounted to 130,000. Now it was on the occasion of this _latter battle_, that, according to Cicero, De Nat. Deor. B. ii., the noise was heard at Olympia, where the games were being celebrated. Be it as it may, the story is clearly fabulous.

Evelyn is much more deserving of credit, where we find him stating in his Diary, that in his garden, at Say’s Court, at Deptford, he heard the guns fired in one of our engagements with the Dutch fleet, at a distance thence of nearly 200 miles.]

[1080] Ajasson discusses at some length, the possibility of the fact here mentioned, and concludes, that it is not to be credited: he estimates the distance between these two places at 120 miles.—B.

[1081] As to the miraculous annunciation of the victory of Marius and Catulus over the Cimbri, see B. ii. c. 58.

[1082] Meaning, thereby, the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux; who were said to have announced at Rome the victory gained the day before by Paulus Æmilius over King Perseus.

[1083] This circumstance is mentioned by Pausanias, in his Attica. She was an Athenian hetæra, or courtesan, beloved by Aristogiton, or, according to Athenæus, by Harmodius. On the murder of Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, she was put to the torture, being supposed to have been privy to the conspiracy; but she died under her sufferings without making any disclosure, and, according to one account, bit off her tongue, that no secret might be betrayed by her. The Athenians erected in her honour a bronze statue of a lioness (in reference to her name), without a tongue, in the vestibule of the Acropolis.

[1084] This story is related by Val. Maximus, B. iii. c. 3, it is also alluded to by Cicero, Tus. Quæst. B. ii. c. 22, and De Nat. Deor. B. ii. c. 33; but he only speaks of his tortures, without mentioning what Pliny states of his biting off his tongue.—B. He was a philosopher of Abdera, of the school of Democritus, and flourished about B.C. 340. Towards Alexander the Great, whom he accompanied into Asia, he acted the part of a base flatterer. He was pounded to death in a mortar, by order of Nicocreon, king of Cyprus.

[1085] This statement is also made by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 7. Xenophon, Cyropædia, B. v., speaks of the retentive memory of Cyrus, but considerably qualifies the account here given: he says that Cyrus knew the names of all his commanders or prefects, and of all those to whom he had occasion to give particular orders.—B.

[1086] This account is similar to that given by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 7, and by Aulus Gellius, B. xvii. c. 7. We have a learned dissertation by Ajasson, in which he discusses the possibility of one individual understanding so great a number of languages, as well as the question, whether it is possible that so great a number of languages were spoken by the subjects of Mithridates. His conclusions greatly tend to prove both these points; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 295.—B.

[1087] This invention is referred to by Cicero, De Nat. Deor., B. ii. c. 86. Cicero also speaks of the remarkable powers of memory possessed by Charmidas and Metrodorus, De Oratore, B. ii. c. 88, and Tusc. Quæst. B. i. c. 24.—B.

[1088] Ajasson gives an account of some of the principal writers in what has been termed the science of Mnemonics, or artificial memory: he particularly commends the lectures of Aimé of Paris on the subject; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 310, _et seq._—B.

[1089] This circumstance is related by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8.—B.

[1090] This is not always the case. In dreams we often recollect past events and localities; we know in what part of the world we are, and even remember the substance of former dreams, and the fact that we have dreamt of a similar subject before.

[1091] The conqueror of Syracuse, and five times consul at Rome. He was Born B.C. 268, and was slain in an engagement with Hannibal, B.C. 208, in the vicinity of Venusia.

[1092] Ajasson remarks concerning the number of battles in which Cæsar is said to have been engaged, that it has probably been much exceeded by some of the great warriors of later times. He says that an individual, “who was raised over our heads and over all Europe, and so reigned much too long,” was personally engaged in nearly 300 battles.—B.

[1093] Who infested the coasts of Cilicia, and whom he dislodged from their strongholds, and almost utterly extirpated.

[1094] This fact is mentioned by Seneca, de Ira, B. ii. c. 26. Plutarch mentions a similar circumstance with respect to Pompey.—B.

[1095] Or Bacchus.—“Father Liber” is the name always given to him by Pliny.

[1096] “Magnus.” Plutarch states, that, on his return from Africa, Sylla saluted him with the name of “Magnus,” which surname he ever afterwards retained.—B.

[1097] Plutarch says, that the law did not allow a triumph to be granted to any one who was not either consul or prætor.—B.

[1098] Sertorius had joined the party of Marius and Cinna, in opposition to that of Sylla. He fled into Spain, and maintained the war successfully in that country, until he was treacherously assassinated by one of his supposed partisans. This may appear a sufficient reason for his not being mentioned by Pompey.—B.

[1099] “Toties imperator antequam miles.” He had been raised to the highest rank without passing through the various gradations of military life.—B.

[1100] Speaking of this honorary crown, Pliny says, B. xvi. c. 4, “At the present day it is not given to the victor himself, but proclamation is made that he confers the crown upon his country.”

[1101] It is noticed by the commentators, that Aulus Gellius, speaking of this building, calls it the Temple of Victory, B. x. c. 1; the error, it is supposed, may have arisen from Pompey having placed a statue of Victory in the Temple.—B.

[1102] 29th of September.

[1103] Pliny, referring to these events, in a subsequent place, B. xxvii. c. 6, says that it took place “pridie Kalend. Octob. die natalis sui.” Plutarch informs us, that the triumph lasted two days, a circumstance which may assist us in reconciling these dates. The same author gives a very minute detail of all the transactions here referred to.—B.

[1104] According to the chronology ordinarily adopted, this would be in the year of the City 692.—B.

[1105] By Asia, as we see from the geographical portion of this work, the ancients often designated not the large tract to which we now apply the name, but a comparatively small district lying on the east of the Ægean sea.—B.

[1106] See B. xiv. c. 5.

[1107] Val. Maximus adds, that he was the best lawyer of his time.—B.

[1108] We meet with a passage in Livy, B. xxxix. c. 44, illustrative of this view of Cato’s character. In Cicero’s treatise, De Senectute, where Cato bears a prominent part, frequent allusion is made to the strictness and even severity of his principles, although the general impression which we receive of his character and manners is highly interesting, and, upon the whole, not unamiable.—B.

[1109] Plutarch says, that nearly fifty impeachments were brought against him, the last when he was eighty-six years of age.—B.

[1110] There has been considerable difficulty in ascertaining who was the individual here referred to; the subject is discussed at some length by Hardouin, who shows that it is probable, that it was Lucius Cæcilius, who was slain in a battle with the Gauls, A.U.C. 470, and in the consulship of Dolabella and Domitius.—B.

[1111] The name of this consul has been the subject of much discussion among the commentators. Livy, B. iii. c. 31, has been referred to, as calling him Atermius; but in some of the best editions, he is named Aterius. The tribunate of Dentatus took place A.U.C. 299, fifty-five years after the expulsion of the kings.—B.

[1112] When a Roman overcame an enemy with whom he had been personally engaged, he took possession of some part of his armour and dress, which might bear testimony to the victory; this was termed the “spolium.”—B.

[1113] “Hasta pura;” these words, according to Hardouin, signify a lance without an iron head. We are told that it was given to him who gained the first victory in a battle; it was also regarded as an emblem of supreme power, and as a mark of the authority which one nation claimed over another.—B.

[1114] “Phaleris.” These were bosses, discs or crescents of metal, sometimes gold. They were mostly used in pairs, and as ornaments for the helmet; but we more commonly read of them as attached to the harness of horses, and worn as pendants from the head, so as to produce a terrific effect when shaken by the rapid movements of the horse.

[1115] The “torques” was an ornament of gold, twisted spirally and bent into a circular form, and worn among the upper classes of the Persians, the Gauls, and other Asiatic and northern nations. They are often found both in France and Ireland, as well as in this country, but varying greatly in size and weight.

[1116] Golden “armillæ,” or bracelets, were worn by the Gauls on the arms and the legs. The Sabines also wore them on the left arm, at the time of the foundation of Rome.

[1117] The word “fiscus” signifies a wicker basket or pannier, probably of peculiar construction, in which the Romans were accustomed to keep and carry about large sums of money. In process of time the word came to signify a treasure or money-chest.

[1118] We have nearly the same detail of the honours bestowed on Dentatus by Val. Maximus, B. iii. c. 2. Pliny again speaks of Dentatus, and the honours bestowed upon him, B. xxii. c. 5; and especially notices the “corona graminea,” the grass or obsidional crown, as the highest of his honours. The different kinds of honorary crowns are very fully described in B. xvi. c. 3, 4, and 5; in B. xxii. c. 4, we have a particular account of the “corona graminea;” in c. 5, mention is made of its having been given to Dentatus, and, in the next, other individuals are enumerated to whom it had been presented.—B.

[1119] T. Romilius Rocus Vaticanus was consul B.C. 455. Having defeated the Æqui, and gained immense booty, instead of distributing it among the soldiers, he and his colleague sold it, on account of the poverty of the treasury. They were, in consequence, brought to trial, and Veturius was sentenced to pay 10,000 asses. He was, however, elected augur in 453, as some compensation for the ill-treatment he had experienced.

[1120] Livy, B. iii. c. 31, gives an account of the conviction of Romilius, but says, that it was effected by C. Claudius Cicero, the tribune of the people. To obviate the discordance in the names, some commentators have proposed to substitute the words “Lucio Siccio” for “Claudio Cicerone.”—B.

[1121] We have an account of the victories, honours, and unfortunate fate of Manlius in Livy, B. vi. c. 14-20. In enumerating the honours conferred upon him, the numbers are given somewhat differently in c. 20; thirty spoils of enemies slain, forty donations from the generals, two mural and eight civic crowns.—B.

[1122] M. Sergius Silus. He was one of the city prætors B.C. 197.

[1123] Among the Jews and other nations of antiquity, it was considered an essential point for the priests to be without blemish, perfect and free from disease.—B.

[1124] In allusion to the compliment paid by the senate to the consul, M. Terentius Varro, by whose rashness the battle of Cannæ was lost. On his escape and safe return to Rome, instead of visiting him with censure, he received the thanks of the senate, “that he had not despaired of the Republic.”

[1125] It appears somewhat remarkable, considering the extraordinary acts of valour here enumerated, as performed by Sergius, that we hear so little of him from other sources.—B.

[1126] Hardouin takes the meaning to be, that though ill fortune overtook the Romans in their wars with Hannibal, nevertheless Sergius defeated Fortune herself, in dying before his country was overwhelmed by those calamities.

[1127] Pliny informs us, B. xiii. c. 1, that the art of making perfumes originated with the Persians.—B.

[1128] The city was taken by him by assault, and all its buildings, with the exception of the house of Pindar, levelled to the ground; most of the inhabitants were slaughtered, and the rest sold as slaves.

[1129] Stagirus, or Stagira, a town of Macedonia, in Chalcidice, on the Strymonic Gulf. It was a colony of Andros, founded B.C. 656, and originally called Orthagoria. It was destroyed by Philip, and, according to some accounts, was rebuilt by _him_, as having been the native place of Aristotle.

[1130] Archilochus of Paros was one of the earliest Ionian lyric poets, and was the first who composed in Iambic verse according to fixed rules. He flourished about 714-676 B.C. Pliny speaks here of his murderers; but it is generally stated by historians that he was murdered by one individual by some called Calondas, or Corax, a Naxian, by others Archias.

[1131] We may here refer to some remarks by Hardouin and Ajasson on the actual sum obtained by Isocrates; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 126, 127.—B.

[1132] This anecdote is related by Cicero, De Oratore, B. iii. c. 56, and by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 10.—B.

[1133] This is rather a strong expression, and it is doubtful if the great historian at all deserves it. The facts of the case seem to have been as follow. Thucydides was employed in a military capacity, and was in command of an Athenian squadron of seven ships at Thasos, B.C. 424, when Eucles, who commanded in Amphipolis, sent for his assistance against Brasidas, who was before that town with an army. Fearing the arrival of a superior force, Brasidas offered favourable terms to Amphipolis, which were readily accepted, as there were but few Athenians in the place. Thucydides arrived at Eion, on the mouth of the Strymon, the evening of the same day on which Amphipolis surrendered: and though too late to save Amphipolis, prevented Eion from falling into the hands of the enemy. It was in consequence of this failure, that he became voluntarily an exile, perhaps to avoid the still severer punishment of death, which appears to have been the penalty of such a failure as that which he had, though unavoidably, committed. It is most probable that he returned to Athens about B.C. 403, the period of its liberation by Thrasybulus.

[1134] The following passage in Livy, B. vi. c. 34, may serve to illustrate this remark of Pliny:—“The lictors of Sulpicius, the military tribune, when he went home from the forum, knocked at the door with his staff, as the usual custom is.”

[1135] Of Cyrene, the Academic philosopher. In B.C. 155, being then fifty-eight years old, he was chosen with some others to deprecate the fine of 500 talents which had been imposed on the Athenians for the destruction of Oropus. It was then that, in presence of Cato the Elder, he delivered his famous orations on Justice. The first oration was in commendation of the virtue, and on the ensuing day the next was delivered, by which all the arguments of the first were answered, and justice shown to be not a virtue, but only a matter of compact for the maintenance of civil society. The honesty of Cato was greatly shocked at this, and he moved the senate to send the philosopher back to his school, and save the Roman youth from his demoralizing doctrines. He lived twenty-eight years after this, and died at Athens B.C. 129, aged eighty-five, or, according to Cicero, ninety.

[1136] This is related by Plutarch, in his Life of Cato. His general dislike of the Grecian character is again mentioned, B. xxix. c. 7.—B.

[1137] See B. xxxiv. c. 19.

[1138] We have an account of this embassy in Plutarch. Pliny informs us, B. xxxiv. c. 20, that the only article which Cato retained, of the works of art that he brought from Cyprus, was the statue of Zeno, “not for its intrinsic merit, but because it was the statue of a philosopher.” Valerius Paterculus, B. ii. c. 45, and Plutarch refer to this transaction.—B.

[1139] This circumstance is related by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 14, and is referred to by Cicero in his defence of Archias, sec. 9.—B.

[1140] M. Varro, the philosopher, sometimes called “the most learned” of the Romans. His command under Pompey, in the war against the Pirates, has been already mentioned in B. iii. c. 16. He also served under him against Mithridates, and was his legatus in Spain, at the first outbreak of the civil wars.

[1141] Pliny refers to the same subject: in B. xxxv. c. 2, he speaks of Pollio as “qui primus, bibliothecam dicando, ingenia hominum rempublicam fecit”—“The first who, by forming a public library, made public property the genius of learned men.” Aulus Gellius, B. vi. c. 18, informs us, that the first library, formed for the use of the public, was that collected at Athens by Pisistratus.—B. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the king of Pergamus, and Lucullus, had formed extensive libraries, but solely for their own use, and not that of the public.

[1142] Some of these are given by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 15.—B. It is very doubtful, however, if Greece did not greatly excel Rome in this respect.

[1143] Meaning Cicero, the orator and philosopher.

[1144] Cicero, in an Epistle to Atticus, B. ii. c. i., enumerates what he styles his consular orations: the total number is twelve, and among them we find all those here referred to by Pliny.—B.

[1145] The individual referred to is L. Roscius Otho; by his law the Roman equites, who, before this time, sat mingled with the people generally, had appropriate seats allotted to them. Cicero designates this oration, “De Othone.”—B.

[1146] This title was bestowed upon him by the general acclamation of the people, at the end of his consulship. We have an account of it in Plutarch.—B.

[1147] This remark is not found in any of Cæsar’s works now extant.—B.

[1148] These terms signify “acute” and “judicious;” they are derived respectively from “cautus” and “cor.”—B.

[1149] Son of Damagetus, and one of the Seven Sages. He flourished towards the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Herodotus says that he held the office of Ephor Eponymus in Ol. 56. He was a man remarkable for his wisdom and his sententious brevity, so characteristic of his Spartan origin.

[1150] It appears somewhat doubtful to which of the Grecian sages the credit of this maxim is due.—B.

[1151] We have an account of Melampus, probably the same as the person here styled Melampodes, in Herodotus, B. ii. c. 49, and B. ix. c. 34; Ajasson, in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 135, has given a list of writers who have referred to him as an eminent soothsayer. Pliny mentions him in a subsequent passage, B. xxv. c. 21, as celebrated for his skill in the art of divination.—B.

[1152] Marcius is said by Cicero, De Divin. B. i. c. 50, to have given his predictions in verses.—B.

[1153] We have an account of this in Livy, B. xxix. c. 14, and B. xxxvi. c. 40; it is also referred to by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 15.—B.

[1154] In consequence of the number of eminent men who bore the name of Scipio, it is not easy, in all cases, to decide to which of them certain transactions ought to be referred. In this instance, it has been doubted, whether it was the same Scipio who was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship, and who died in a foreign country. Livy, B. xxxv. c. 24, remarks, “P. Corn. Cn. F. Scipio” had been an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship; and afterwards, B. xxxix. c. 40, that “P. and L. Scipio” were unsuccessful candidates for the office of censor. Val. Maximus expressly states, B. v. c. 3, that it was Scipio Nasica, who, in consequence of the little estimation in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, went to Pergamus, and “lived there the remainder of his life, without feeling any regrets for his ungrateful country.”—B.

[1155] We have this anecdote related by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 15. He informs us, that it was the statue of Venus Verticordia which was ordered to be consecrated; the more readily to win the hearts of the maidens and matrons from wanton thoughts to a life of chastity.—B.

[1156] Her story is told at great length by Ovid, in the Fasti, B. iv. l. 305, _et seq._ Her name was Claudia Quinta, and she is supposed to have been the sister of Appius Claudius Pulcher, and grand-daughter of Appius Claudius Cæcus. The vessel which was conveying the statue of Cybele from Pessinus to Rome having stuck fast on a shallow at the mouth of the Tiber, the soothsayers declared that none but a really chaste woman could move it. Claudia, who had been previously accused of unchastity, being in the number of the matrons who had accompanied Scipio to Ostia to receive the statue, immediately presented herself, and calling upon the goddess to vindicate her innocence, seized the rope, and the vessel moved forthwith. A statue was afterwards erected to her in the vestibule of the temple of the goddess.

[1157] Solinus and Festus differ somewhat from Pliny, in stating that it was her father whose life was thus saved by the affectionate daughter. Valerius Maximus, who tells the story, says that the family was “ingenui sanguinis,” meaning “of genteel origin.” Such families were, however, sometimes reduced, even among the Romans, to a level with the plebeian classes.

[1158] A.U.C. 604.

[1159] This theatre is again mentioned in B. xxxvi. c. 12. It was built of stone, and erected by Augustus in honour of his nephew Marcellus. This is related by Valerius Maximus, B. v. c. 8, somewhat more in detail, and with a degree of animation, which is not frequently to be met with in that author.—B.

[1160] Cicero, De Divin. B. i. c. 18, Val. Maximus, B. iv. c. 6, and Plutarch, relate this more circumstantially. The serpents were of different sexes; if the male serpent was killed, his own death was to be the consequence; if the female, that of his wife, Cornelia.—B.

[1161] Pliny gives an account of the circumstances which attended the death of Lepidus, in the 54th Chapter. He was the father of the triumvir.—B.

[1162] Or Rutilius, consul B.C. 132, the year after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, whose adherents he prosecuted with the greatest cruelty. He also obtained a triumph for bringing to a conclusion the Servile war. He was an intimate friend of the younger Scipio Africanus, who obtained the consulship for him, but failed in gaining that honour for his brother Lucius. About the same period, he was condemned, in the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, for his illegal acts in the prosecution of the adherents of Tiberius Gracchus. It has been suggested that this indignity may have had a greater share than the ill success of his brother in causing his death.

[1163] Pliny again speaks of the great talents of Hippocrates, B. xxvi. c. 6, and B. xxix. c. 2.—B.

[1164] We have an account of the origin of these games in Livy, B. xxix. c. 14.—B.

[1165] Cleombrotus is supposed to be the same person who is mentioned in B. xxix. c. 3, as Erasistratus, the grandson of Aristotle. From Suidas we learn that a near relative of his was called Cleombrotus, though, from his perplexed language, it is impossible to say whether father or uncle. The story to which Pliny is supposed here to refer is a curious one. Antiochus, the son of Seleucus Nicator, fell in love with Stratonice, whom his father had married in his old age, but struggled to conceal his passion. The skilful physician discovered the nature of his disease; upon which he reported to Seleucus that it was incurable, for that he was in love, and it was impossible that his passion could be gratified. The king, greatly surprised, inquired who the lady was; to which Erasistratus replied that it was his own wife; whereupon Seleucus began to try and persuade him to give her up to his son. The physician upon this asked him if he would do so himself, if it were his own wife. Seleucus declared that he would; upon which Erasistratus disclosed to him the truth. Seleucus not only gave up Stratonice to his son, but resigned to him several provinces. Erasistratus was one of the most famous physicians and anatomists of antiquity.

[1166] It was on this occasion that a label was said to have been fastened on the arrow, inscribed, “To Philip’s right eye.” The inhabitants were permitted to depart, however, when the city was taken, with one garment to each person.

[1167] This accident occurred to Philip, at the siege of Methone, of which we have a brief account in Diodorus Siculus, B. xvi. c. 7, and in Justin, B. vii. c. 6; but neither of these authors makes any mention of Critobulus. Quintus Curtius, B. ix. c. 5, informs us, that Critobulus exhibited great skill in relieving Alexander the Great from the effects of a dangerous wound, which he received in India; but he does not refer to the fact here mentioned.—B.

[1168] At the present day, this mode of treatment would have figured as the “wine-cure.”

[1169] See B. xxvi. c. 8.

[1170] Pliny again speaks of Asclepiades, in B. xxvi. c. 7, and B. xxix. c. 5. The anecdote respecting the man who was saved from the funeral pile is referred to by Celsus, B. ii. c. 6.—B. Pliny says, in B. xxvi. c. 7, that Asclepiades first came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, and that being unsuccessful, he turned his attention to medicine. Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, also met his death by falling down stairs. Rabelais, in the prologue to his Fourth Book, refers to this peculiar death of Asclepiades.

[1171] This is related more at large by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 7, and by Plutarch.—B.

[1172] Mentioned in B. xxxvi. c. 31.

[1173] Val. Maximus refers to Philon and his public works, in B. viii. c. 12.—B. He was an architect of eminence in the reign of the successors of Alexander. He built for Demetrius Phalereus, about B.C. 318, the portico of twelve Doric columns to the great temple at Eleusis. He also formed a basin in the Piræus, which was destroyed at the taking of Athens by the Romans under Sylla.

[1174] See B. v. c. 11, and B. xxxiv. c. 42.

[1175] Plutarch, in his life of Alexander, mentions the restriction made in favour of Lysippus, but does not extend it to Apelles; he does not speak of Pyrgoteles. We have an apposite allusion to this circumstance by Horace, Ep. B. i. l. 239, 240. Boileau has elegantly imitated Horace, in his “Discours au Roi.”—B. For further particulars of him, see B. xxxiv. c. 17 and 19. He was a native of Sicyon, and at first a simple worker in bronze, but eventually obtained the highest rank among the Grecian statuaries.

[1176] According to the usual estimate of the value of the Attic talent, £193 12_s._, the sum given for this picture would be about £19,000.—B.

[1177] Nearly all the topics here treated of are again mentioned in B. xxxv., which is devoted to the fine arts. The 34th, 35th, and 36th Chapters of that Book, contain an account of all the celebrated painters of antiquity, and their principal works.—B.

[1178] Between £15,000 and £16,000.—B.

[1179] “Poliorcetes.”

[1180] We have a further account of this artist in B. xxxiv. c. 19, B. xxxv. c. 39 and 40, and B. xxxvi. c. 4.

[1181] This is referred to by Pliny, B. xxxvi. c. 4, and by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 4.—B.

[1182] He is again mentioned in B. xxxiv. c. 19, B. xxxv. c. 34, and B. xxxvi. c. 4.—B.

[1183] Mentor is noticed for his skill in carving, B. xxxiii. c. 55.—B. Littrè says, on referring to that passage, “we find that he was a worker in silver, and a maker of vases of great value.” He seems disinclined to believe that he was a statuary. As Pliny tells us, _ubi supra_, none of his public works were in existence in Pliny’s time. Some small cups, however, existed, which were highly prized, though some were undoubtedly spurious.

[1184] Now Pesaro.

[1185] We have the same difficulty in ascertaining the sums here mentioned, as in all former cases. Holland estimates the sum given for Daphnus at 300,700 sesterces, vol. i. p. 175.—B.

[1186] “Dispensator;” we have an explanation of this term, B. xxxiii. c. 13.—B.

[1187] Holland estimates the sum paid for the enfranchisement of this man at 120,000 sesterces, vol. i. p. 175.—B.

[1188] In his capacity, probably, of contractor for provisions and stores.

[1189] Holland estimates the price paid on this occasion at 3,500 sesterces, _ubi supra_, thus differing exceedingly from Ajasson’s estimate.—B.

[1190] “Quam quidam injuriam lucri fecit ille mercatus in luctu civitatis, quoniam arguere nulli vacabat.” We can see the meaning of this passage, but a literal translation of it, as it stands, is out of the question.

[1191] “Virtus”—“manliness,” that being esteemed by the Romans the ideal of true virtue.

[1192] It appears that a similar custom prevailed among the Scythians, according to Phylarchus, from whom Pliny probably took his account of it; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 151.

[1193] As being fraught with an intensity of pain, which no number of days passed in pleasure can compensate.

[1194] She was the daughter of Leotychides, and the wife of Archidamas, and mother of Ægis. Ajasson expresses his surprise, that so diligent a collector of facts as Pliny, should have been acquainted with only one example of this kind.—B. “The following are additional instances collected by Ajasson:—1. Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, wife of Philip II., king of Macedon, and mother of Alexander the Great, king of Macedon. 2. Roxana, daughter of king Darius Codomannus, and wife of Alexander the Great; her son by whom was proclaimed king by certain generals of Alexander, but was shortly after slain at Amphipolis. 3. Laodice the Younger, daughter of king Antiochus Soter, sister and wife of Antiochus Theös, and mother of king Seleucus Callinicus. 4. Berenice, daughter of king Ptolemy Philadelphus; married to her brother king Ptolemy Euergetes, and mother of Ptolemy Philopater, by whom she was put to death. 5. Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus the Great, king of Syria: she became the wife of king Ptolemy Epiphanes, and was mother of king Ptolemy Philometor. 6. Cleopatra Cocce, daughter of Ptolemy Philometor, married her uncle, king Ptolemy Physcon, and became mother of kings Ptolemy Lathyrus and Alexander I. 7. Cleopatra, another daughter of Ptolemy Philometor, married first to Alexander Balas, the usurper of the throne of Scythia, then to king Demetrius Nicator, and then to Antiochus Venator. Her sons by Nicator were Seleucus V. and Antiochus Gryphus, both of whom became kings of Syria; and her son Cyzicenius by Antiochus Venator, likewise became king of Syria. 8. Selene or Cleopatra, daughter of king Ptolemy Physcon, was married, first, to king Ptolemy Lathyrus, secondly, to king Antiochus Gryphus, and thirdly, to king Antiochus Eusebes. She was mother of king Antiochus Asiaticus. In all, she had nine kings as her near relations or connections. 9. Stratonice, daughter of king Demetrius Poliorcetes, was married first to king Seleucus Nicator, and then to king Antiochus Soter, and was mother of king Antiochus Therös.

[1195] Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 15, gives nearly the same account of a person whom he calls Pherenice; from the resemblance of the names, it has been supposed, that they may both refer to the same individual.—B.

[1196] He alludes to the three persons, father, son, and grandson, known by the name of C. Scribonius Curio. The first was prætor B.C. 121, one of the most distinguished orators of his time. His son, who acquired some reputation as an orator, was tribune of the people B.C. 90, prætor B.C. 82, and consul in B.C. 76, with Cn. Octavius. He is represented as being possessed of great eloquence, and of extreme purity and brilliancy of diction, but to have had none of the other requisites of an orator. Like his son, he enjoyed the friendship of Cicero. The younger Curio was an orator of great talents, which, from want of industry, he left uncultivated. Cicero endeavoured to direct his talents into a proper channel, but all in vain, and he remained to the end a man of worthless and profligate character. He was married to Fulvia, who afterwards became the wife of Antony.

[1197] Hardouin observes, that M. Fabius Ambustus was three times consul, Quintus Fabius Rullianus five times, and Q. Fabius Gurges three times.—B.

[1198] We have a similar account of the fate of Fidustius in Dion Cassius, by whom he is named Filuscius.—B. He was at length slain by order of Antony.

[1199] We have an account of the vicissitudes in the life of Ventidius Bassus in A. Gellius, B. xv. c. 4, and in Valerius Paterculus, B. ii. c. 65. We learn from these writers, that Ventidius was a native of Picenum, and that, when that city was taken by Cneius Pompeius, in the Social war, Ventidius, then an infant, was carried in his mother’s arms, before the car of the conqueror.—B.

[1200] The passage of Cicero referred to, occurs in a letter to Plancus, Ep. ad Fam. B. x. Ep. 18, where, speaking of Ventidius, who had united himself to the party of Antony, he says, “And I look down upon the camp of the mule-driver, Ventidius.”

[1201] “Caliga.” A strong heavy sandal worn by the Roman soldiers and centurions; but not by the superior officers. The term “a caligâ,” therefore, had the same meaning as our expression, “from the ranks.” The Emperor Caligula received that surname when a boy, in consequence of wearing the caliga, and being inured to the life of a common soldier.

[1202] In the year A.U.C. 704.

[1203] He was a native of Gades, in Spain. A party of the Roman nobles induced an inhabitant of Gades to accuse him of having illegally assumed the privileges of a Roman citizen. The cause was tried B.C. 55, and he was supported by Pompey and Crassus, and defended by Cicero. One of the tests of the being a Roman citizen, was the immunity from being scourged, according to the provisions of the Porcian law. So St. Paul, who, as a citizen of Tarsus, enjoyed the rights of a Roman citizen, says to the centurion, Acts xxii. 25, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?”

[1204] The accusation against Balbus appears to have been his illegal usurpation of the rights of a Roman citizen, being born a foreigner. Pliny has previously informed us, B. v. c. 5, that he was a native of Gades or Cadiz. He was elected consul A.U.C. 713.—B.

[1205] L. Fulvius Curius, consul B.C. 322. In B.C. 313 he was master of the horse to the dictator, L. Æmilius.

[1206] “Felix.” Hardouin informs us, that he transmitted this surname to his descendants; among them was Felix, the governor of Judæa, before whom St. Paul was taken for judgment.—B.

[1207] “Infelix.”

[1208] According to Pliny, B. xi. c. 39, and Plutarch, Sylla was affected by what has been termed the “Morbus pediculosus” or “Lousy disease.” Plutarch, however, ascribes his death to the bursting of an internal abscess; and the same cause is assigned by Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 3.—B. It was probably of a similar disease that Herod Agrippa died, whom we find mentioned in Acts xii. 23, as being eaten of worms.

[1209] Plutarch refers to a dream which Sylla had a short time before his death, but it does not seem to correspond to the one here alluded to.—B. “Plutarch relates that shortly before his death, Sylla dreamed that his son Cornelius, who died before his wife, Cecilia Metella, appeared to him, and summoned him away to join his mother. Appian also states that just before his death, Sylla beheld a spirit in a dream, which summoned him by name; upon which he called together his friends, made his will, and died soon after of a fever. Only two days before his death he finished the twenty-second book of his Memoirs, in which, foreseeing his end, he boasted of the prediction of the Chaldæans, that it was his fate to die after a happy life, and in the height of his prosperity.

[1210] This is referred to by Tacitus, Hist. B. iii. c. 73.—B. Plutarch tells us that Catulus performed this ceremony of dedication.

[1211] His consulships were A.U.C. 502 and 506.—B.

[1212] Hardouin informs us, that a certain number of public officers, which varied from three to twenty, were appointed to divide the lands of the conquered people among the Roman colonists. Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 159.—B.

[1213] The commentators have endeavoured to prove, and not without some success, that Pliny is not correct in the remark, that the first elephants brought to Rome, were those which followed in the triumph of Metellus. He has himself informed us, B. viii. c. 6, that they were introduced by Curius Dentatus, in his triumph over Pyrrhus, some years before that of Metellus. The same fact is also stated by Florus, B. i. c. 18.—B.

[1214] Ovid, Fast. B. vi. l. 436, _et seq._, and Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 4, allude to this circumstance.—B.

[1215] This fact has been supposed by Hardouin to be controverted by the statement of Aulus Gellius, who says, B. iii. c. 18, that all the senators, who had passed the curule chair, were carried to the curia or senate-house, in a chariot. But, as Ajasson correctly observes, Aulus Gellius does not assert that the senators were carried at the public expense, which was the case with Metellus.—B.

[1216] Val. Maximus, B. vii. c. 1, details the various fortunate circumstances which occurred to Q. Metellus; he makes no mention, however, of the violent attack made upon him by Labeo; indeed, he expressly states, that his good fortune continued to the last moments of his life.—B.

[1217] Val. Maximus, _ubi supra_, and Velleius Paterculus, B. i. c. 11, speak of the honours obtained by the four sons of Q. Metellus; they are also alluded to by Cicero in his 8th Philippic, sec. 4., and his Tusc. Quæst. B. i. c. 35.—B.

[1218] Dalechamps remarks, that we find in the ancient historians a similar account relative to M. Drusus, who, when tribune of the people, hurried off the consul Philippus with such violence to prison, that the blood started from his nostrils: also of P. Sempronius, the tribune of the people, who, had it not been for the opposition offered by his colleague, would have carried the censor Appius Claudius to prison.

[1219] This attack of Labeo on Metellus is mentioned in the Epitome of Livy, B. lix. The tribunes of Rome were styled “sacrosancti,” and it was considered a capital crime to offer personal violence to them, under any circumstances. Hardouin remarks, that the tribune who came to the rescue of Metellus must have been a military tribune, who, in virtue of his office, had a right to claim the services of Metellus for the army.—B.

[1220] Cicero, in his oration “Pro Domo suâ,” sec. 47, refers to the consecration of the property of Metellus, as a case analogous to that of his own house, which had been similarly consecrated by Clodius.—B. It seems to have been the custom, when a person had been capitally condemned, for the tribune of the people to consecrate his property, with certain formalities, to some god or goddess; after which it could not, under ordinary circumstances, be recovered, whether the sentence was revoked or not. Cicero had been capitally condemned through the instrumentality of Clodius, and obliged to fly from Rome.

[1221] It was a common expression among the Romans, for a person, “obtorto collo ad prætorem trahi,” “to be dragged to the prætor with his neck wrenched;” and we meet with it repeatedly in the writings of Plautus. It would appear that it was customary for the lictors or officers of justice to seize criminals in a peculiar manner, perhaps with a rope, and with the exercise of great violence, whatever their rank.

[1222] According to the remark of Dalechamps, it appears to have been not unusual with the Roman magistrates, when resistance was offered to their order, to seize the party by the throat, as is here stated to have been done by Labeo.—B.

[1223] There has been considerable difficulty in ascertaining the names which should be given to the sons of Metellus, as the MSS. differ, and there appears to be no means of coming to any accurate decision, by a reference to other authorities. The essential circumstance, however, is, that two of the sons had obtained the honour of a triumph, and had acquired appropriate surnames.—B. Metellus Diadematus has been much confounded with his cousin, Metellus Dalmaticus. Diadematus was so called, from his wearing, for a long time, a bandage round his forehead, in consequence of an ulcer. He was consul B.C. 117.

[1224] By being dragged, and not proceeding willingly, in order to gain time for succour, and so save himself from being hurled from the Tarpeian rock.

[1225] Which allowed the laws to take their course, even against an individual of the first consequence in the state.—B.

[1226] In the class of those who were considered peculiarly fortunate; “hâc censurâ,” literally, “in this assessment,” in allusion to the classification of the citizens of Rome, according to the estimate of their property.—B.

[1227] In B.C. 45, when, being but about eighteen years of age, he had the presumption to ask his uncle for the office of “magister equitum;” upon which Julius Cæsar bestowed it on M. Lepidus, probably being of opinion that his nephew was not yet fit for the office.

[1228] In his triumvirate with Antony and Lepidus, he showed himself no less cruel than his colleague, Antony, notwithstanding the gloss which Pliny attempts to throw over his actions. Two thousand equites and three hundred senators are said to have been put to death during this proscription.

[1229] Augustus was detained at Dyrrhachium for some time before the battle of Philippi by illness, and had not recovered when the battle took place.

[1230] In the first engagement at Philippi, Brutus defeated the army of Augustus, while Cassius was defeated by Antony. Appian speaks also of his concealment in a marsh to the south of Philippi.

[1231] In his war against Sextus Pompeius, his fleet was twice shattered by shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, and he suffered several defeats by sea.

[1232] C. Proculeius, a member of the equestrian order, and a familiar friend of Augustus. It is of him that Horace speaks in the lines (II. Ode 2),

“Vivet extento Proculeius ævo Notus in fratres animi paterni.”

He was one of the Romans to whom Augustus thought of giving his daughter Julia in marriage. The mode of his death is mentioned in B. xxxvi. c. 59.

[1233] This circumstance is stated more fully by Suetonius in his Life of Augustus; he tells, that “in crossing from Sicily to Italy to rejoin his forces, Augustus was unexpectedly attacked by Demochares and Apollophanes, two of Pompey’s captains, and only escaped in a small vessel with the greatest difficulty.”

[1234] L. Antonius having raised an army at Præneste, took possession of the town of Perusia, which was blockaded by Augustus, and Antonius was at last obliged to surrender. During this siege Augustus encountered several dangers, and was once nearly killed while sacrificing beneath the walls, by a band of gladiators, who came upon him unawares.

[1235] The victory was long doubtful, and it was only the sudden panic of Cleopatra, that finally ensured it to Augustus.

[1236] The exact nature of the accident here alluded to, is discussed by Hardouin, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 169; he concludes, from the account of Suetonius and of Dion Cassius, that it was owing to the fall of a gallery, which extended between two towers.—B.

[1237] These are fully described by Suetonius, in his Life of Augustus, c. 80 and 81.

[1238] M. Claudius Marcellus, the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus. He was adopted by Augustus. Tacitus seems to hint that he was greatly beloved by the Roman people, and it is not improbable that Augustus may have become suspicious or jealous of him; his decease took place in his twentieth year.

[1239] To Mitylene. This refers to the jealousy between Marcellus and his brother-in-law, M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Pliny probably uses the term “pudenda,” implying that Augustus showed neither firmness nor gratitude on this occasion; for anxious, at any cost, to prevent these differences, he sent Agrippa, against his will, as proconsul to Syria; immediately on which Agrippa left Rome, but stopped at Mitylene, and left the government of Syria to his legatus. Upon the death of Marcellus, Agrippa returned to Rome.

[1240] Dion Cassius mentions three conspiracies, the first by Fabius Cæpio and Muræna, a second, of which he does not name the authors, and a third by Cornelius Cinna.

[1241] Said in allusion to the suspicious deaths of his grandchildren Lucius and Caius, the children of his daughter Julia by Agrippa. They were probably removed by the criminal acts of Livia; but some historians have hinted that Augustus was privy to their destruction, the object of which was to remove all obstacles that lay in the way of Tiberius to the throne.

[1242] Implying that he was conscience-stricken at his share in their death, as well as struck with sorrow and remorse.

[1243] She was his only child; Scribonia was her mother. She was first married to her cousin Marcellus; on his death to L. Vipsanius Agrippa, and after his decease to Tiberius Nero, the son of Livia. Her profligacy was universally known, and Augustus did not scruple to enlarge upon it before the senate; but Pliny is the only writer who states that she contemplated an attempt on the life of his father; though Suetonius says that she became, at a late period of her reign, an object of interest to those who were disaffected. Julia was first banished to Pandataria, off the coast of Campania, and then to Rhegium, which she was never allowed to leave. Her death took place A.D. 14.

[1244] Tiberius Nero, afterwards emperor. Pliny here alludes to his retirement to Rhodes, where he remained seven years. Tacitus represents that his chief reason for leaving Rome was to escape the society of his wife Julia, who treated him with the utmost contempt, and whose licentious life was not unknown to him. During this retreat he devoted himself to the study of astrology. He left Rome without the consent of Augustus, who was equally unwilling to allow of his return.

[1245] Julia, one of the daughters of Julia and Agrippa, and the wife of L. Æmilius Paulus. She fully inherited the vices of her mother. For an adulterous intercourse with D. Silanus she was banished, by Augustus to Tremerus, off the coast of Apulia, where she survived twenty years, dependent on the bounty of the empress Livia. A child born after her disgrace, was, by order of Augustus, exposed as spurious. She is supposed by some to be the Corinna of Ovid’s amatory poems.

[1246] He probably alludes to the rising of some tribes in the provinces on the north-eastern coast of the Adriatic, in B.C. 35, who refused to pay their tribute. They were finally vanquished by Statilius Taurus, B.C. 33.

[1247] After the defeat of his general Varus, by Arminius, in Germany.

[1248] This pestilence is also mentioned by Dion Cassius; it took place A.U.C. 732.—B.

[1249] We have an account of the disastrous expedition of Varus in Florus, B. iv. c. 12.—B.

[1250] Suetonius speaks of calumnious pamphlets (libelli), that were circulated about, even in the senate-house, to his extreme disparagement.

[1251] A posthumous son of M. Vipsanius Agrippa by Julia, the daughter of Augustus, by whom he was adopted together with Tiberius. He was afterwards banished to Planaria, off the coast of Corsica, on account of his savage and intractable character, though guilty of no crime. Augustus is said to have privately visited him there, which, coming to the ears of Livia, increased her enmity against this youth, and he was murdered by her orders or those of Tiberius.

[1252] Tacitus, Ann. B. i. c. 3, says that he was banished by the artifices of Nero.—B.

[1253] After his death his solemn apotheosis took place in the Campus Martius. In some of the coins which were struck even during his life-time, he was called “Divus,” or “the god.”

[1254] For Tiberius Nero, the father of Tiberius Cæsar, took the side of M. Antonius in the Civil War.—B.

[1255] We have no mention of Pedius, or Phedius, as he is named in some of the MSS., in any of the ancient authors. A story of the same import is related of Solon and Tellus, by Herodotus, B. i. c. 30, and by Plutarch.—B.

[1256] A town of Arcadia. See B. iv. c. 10.

[1257] This is also related by Valerius Maximus, B. vii. c. 1.—B.

[1258] This is very similar to Virgil’s beautiful description of the old man Corycius, in the Georgics, B. iv. l. 125, _et seq._

[1259] We have some account of Euthymus in Pausanias, B. vi., and in Ælian, Var. Hist. B. viii. c. 18.—B.

[1260] It has been conjectured by Poinsinet, that the word “Callimachus” does not refer to the well-known poet of that name, nor to any other individual, but that it was the title of the president of the Olympic games. The opinion is not without plausibility, but is scarcely sanctioned by sufficient authority.—B.

[1261] Pliny here alludes to the doctrine of astrology, which forms the especial subject of the next Chapter.—B.

[1262] These statements are not found in any of the works of Hesiod now extant; it is scarcely necessary to observe, that they are entirely without foundation, and contrary to all observation and experience.—B.

[1263] The great age of Arganthonius is referred to by Lucian, in his treatise “De Macrobiis,” “on Long-lived Men;” by Herodotus, B. i. c. 163; by Cicero, de Senect. sec. 19; and by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13; the three latter writers agree in making his age 120 years, and hence Pliny assigns to him the same age in the next page.—B. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, B. xv., quotes this passage of Pliny, and mentions the age of Arganthonius, as stated by him, to have been 152 years. For Tartessus, in Spain, see B. iii. c. 3, and B. iv. c. 36.

[1264] His story is told by Ovid, Met. B. x., where he is said to have become unwittingly the father of Adonis, by his own daughter Myrrha (or Smyrna), in consequence of the anger of Venus or Aphrodite. He was said to have founded the city of Cinyra in Cyprus.

[1265] Callimachus mentions a person of this name, who wrote a treatise on the art of making cheesecakes. There was also a physician so called, who flourished in the fifth century B.C., and who is said by Galen to have been the first who wrote a treatise on the probe. Whether either of these individuals is the person here alluded to, is unknown.

[1266] We have the same statement as to the age of Epimenides, in Valerius Maximus, B. viii. s. 13; he also, in the same section, gives an account of the Epii, of Pictoreus, of Dandon, and of the king of the island of the Tyrians, all of which agree with the present statement, except that the person mentioned by Damastes is called Literius, and the last-named individual is styled the king of the island of the Lutmii.—B.

[1267] The king of the Tartessi, mentioned above.—B.

[1268] Pliny has already spoken of the vigorous old age of Masinissa, in the 12th Chapter of the present Book.—B.

[1269] We have an account of Gorgias in Cicero, de Senect. sec. 9; in Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13, and in Lucian.—B.

[1270] Valerius Maximus, _ubi supra_, reduces this to sixty-two years.—B.

[1271] We have the same statement respecting Perperna in Valerius Maximus, but he does not mention his age.—B.

[1272] The names of the succeeding censors were C. Claudius Pulcher, and T. Sempronius Gracchus.

[1273] V. Maximus gives the same account of the age of Corvinus, but he states the interval between his consulships to have been forty-seven years. According to the Fasti, in Dr. Smith’s _Dictionary of Antiquities_, the interval was forty-eight years, from A.U.C. 406 to A.U.C. 455.—B.

[1274] The honour of the curule-chair—“sella curulis.” It was attached to the offices of consul, prætor, and ædile; Corvinus had, therefore, been elected to one or other of these offices twenty-one times.—B.

[1275] Valerius Maximus gives the same account of Metellus. He also informs us that Metellus, although of an advanced age when created pontiff, held the office for twenty-two years; so also Cicero, de Senect. sec. 9.—B.

[1276] We have the same account of these females in Valerius Maximus. He adds, that Clodia survived all her children; Seneca, Epist. 77, also refers to the great age of Statilia.—B.

[1277] “Emboliaria,” an actress in the “embolium,” or interlude of the Roman stage; also called “acroama,” by Cicero. It appears to have been a concert of musical instruments, perhaps accompanied by dancing.

[1278] Their consulship was A.U.C. 761.—B.

[1279] Their consulship was A.U.C. 671, which would leave an interval of ninety years between her first appearance and her appearance at the votive games.—B.

[1280] “Togatus saltare instituit.” He acted in the “togatæ fabulæ,” comedies representing Roman life, or the life of those who wore the toga, the civic costume of the Romans. The Greek comedies were called “palliatæ.”

[1281] The secular games of Augustus are stated by Suetonius, in his Life of Augustus, c. 31, and by Dion Cassius, to have taken place A.U.C. 739.—B.

[1282] “We have an account of Epigenes, by Hardouin, Lemaire, vol. i. pp. 86, 87, where he is designated Rhodius. He is referred to by Varro, Columella, and Seneca; Pliny mentions him in other parts of his work.—B.

[1283] Berosus has been referred to in the 37th Chapter of the present Book.—B.

[1284] For some account of Petosiris and Necepsos, see end of B. ii.

[1285] Literally, the fourth part; according to Hardouin’s explanation, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 186.—B.

[1286] Literally ... “repetitions.” Dalechamps explains it as indicating, “that part of the heavens which is distant thirty parts; that is to say, two signs from the horoscope;” Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 187.—B.

[1287] Ajasson refers us to Jul. Firmicus for an explanation of the difference which may exist in the length of the lives of individuals as depending on their natal day; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 186. It appears to have been one of the leading tenets of the astrologers, that the favourable influence of the ascending sign is diminished or counteracted by the rays of other planets, or of the sun, falling upon the sign in certain directions or at certain angles, and that the length of the life of the individual is shortened in proportion to this injurious effect.—B.

[1288] This term means, literally, “increasing by a regular scale,” or, “according to a proportional series of numbers;” the multiples of 7 have been generally supposed to be the critical periods of human life, and, more especially, 63, or 9 times 7, which was accordingly termed “the grand climacteric.”—B.

[1289] This census appears to have taken place A.D. 74, under the fifth consulship of Vespasian, and the third of Titus; according to Censorinus, it was the last of which we have any distinct account.—B.

[1290] “Vasaria;” it is said, by the commentators, to be a term of German origin, derived from a word which signified the bark of a tree. It does not appear, however, from what cause it was appropriated to the sense in which it is used by Pliny. The word is found in Cicero’s oration against Piso, sec. 35; but is there applied to a totally different object.—B.

[1291] Now Brigella or Brescella. Parma still retains its ancient name, Placentia is now Piacenza, and Faventia the modern Faenza.

[1292] Probably the same as the Velia, mentioned by Phlegon Trallianus as famous for the longevity of its inhabitants.

[1293] “Marcus Mucius, M. Filius, Galeria, Felix.” It has been doubted by the commentators, whether the word Galeria refers to the name of the mother of Mucius, or to the tribe to which he belonged. The latter is, perhaps, the more natural interpretation. Hardouin and Ajasson, however, adopt the opinion, that Galeria was the mother of Marcus; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 191, 192. We meet with a precisely similar construction of words in Cicero, 9th Philip. sec. 7; “Ser. Sulpicius, Q. Filius, Lemonia Rufus.”—B.

[1294] The son of Panthöus, and friend of Hector. He was famous for his wisdom and prudence in giving counsel. See Iliad, B. xviii. l. 249-52.

[1295] The passage referred to is in the Iliad, B. xviii. l. 249-51.—B.

[1296] Respecting Cælius [formerly called Cæcilius in most editions] Hardouin informs us that he was the accuser of Calpurnius, that he was prætor during the consulship of P. Lentulus Spinther and L. Metellus Nepos, and was oppressed by Clodius. Pliny refers to Cælius, and his accusation of Calpurnius, in a subsequent passage, B. xxvii. c. 2.—B. Licinius Calvus Macer was by some considered, as an orator, to rival even Cicero himself; and as a poet, is generally mentioned by the side of Catullus. He exhausted his constitution by his severe application, and died in his thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth year. He was remarkable for the extreme shortness of his stature. Cælius was a partisan of Pompey, and was eventually put to death at Thurii.

[1297] Consul A.U.C. 463; he is generally called Rufinus.—B.

[1298] This anecdote is mentioned by Cicero, De Nat. Deor. B. iii. c. 28, and by Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 8.—B. He was tyrant of Pheræ and Tagus in Thessaly, and was finally assassinated.

[1299] He was consul A.U.C. 633; in consequence of the victories which he obtained over the Allobroges, he obtained the agnomen of “Allobrogicus.”—B.

[1300] Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13, refers to the great age of Xenophilus, but designates him “Pythagoræus;” he says that he obtained his information respecting him from Aristoxenus, the musician, which may have led to an inaccuracy on the part of Pliny. Poinsinet endeavours to reconcile the discrepancy, by the circumstance, that music formed a prominent part of the Pythagorean discipline.—B.

[1301] “Per sapientiam mori.” Many conjectures have been formed respecting the meaning of this passage, which is obscure. Attempts have been made to amend the reading of the text, but, as it appears, without success; see the notes of Hardouin, Ajasson, and others, Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 197, 8.—B. It is pretty clear, however, that Pliny here refers to what, in the next Chapter, he calls “sapientiæ ægritudo,” the malady by the Greeks called “phrenesis,” and by us “frenzy,” which attacks the seat of wisdom, the understanding. Many pages have been written upon the meaning of this passage, obvious as it seems to be.

[1302] The same doctrine is advanced in B. xxviii., which treats of medicine, see c. 10.—B.

[1303] Among the ancients, all the manufactures and mechanical arts were carried on by slaves; they were, consequently, subjected to the same kinds of morbid causes which are found, in modern times, to be so detrimental to certain descriptions of workmen.—B.

[1304] Our own experience has taught us the truth of this observation in the case of the cholera; and the great plague of 1348, which is thought to have swept off one-third of mankind, is supposed to have travelled to Europe from the vicinity of the Ganges.

[1305] Dalechamps correctly remarks, that the laughter here referred to, is not the indication of mirth, but what has been termed the “risus Sardonicus,” the “Sardonic laugh,” produced by a convulsive action of the muscles of the face; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 201.—B.

[1306] “Sapientiæ ægritudine.” See Note [1301] above.

[1307] Pliny probably took this notion from Celsus, who speaks of this as being a fatal symptom, B. ii. c. 6; “si manibus qui in febre, &c., in veste floccos legit, fimbriasque diducit....”—B.

[1308] “Venarum percussa;” the ancients were not acquainted with the relation which exists between the arteries and the veins, or the appropriate functions of these parts.—B.

[1309] In Seneca, Contr. B. ii., we find the remark, “Such genius, at so early an age, bodes no long life.” Apuleius, quoting from some Greek writer, says, “Odi puerulos præcoci sapientiâ.” “I hate your bits of boys, with their precocious wisdom.” We have a somewhat similar saying to the above passage from Seneca, “He is too wise,” or “too clever to live long.”

[1310] This remark has been confirmed by various writers, ancient and modern; it appears to depend upon an unnatural development of the cerebral and nervous system, which renders it more liable to disease, and less able to bear the impressions to which it is ordinarily exposed.—B.

[1311] This was probably Phthiriasis, or the “morbus pediculosus,” which has been previously mentioned in this book with reference to Sulla, and of which, probably, Herod Agrippa died. Some authors state that Pherecydes put an end to his life by throwing himself from a rock at Delphi; others give other accounts of his death.

[1312] This circumstance is mentioned by Seneca, De Provid. c. 3.—B.

[1313] We have the same account of Antipater in Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 8. He was the preceptor of Cato of Utica; Cicero makes honourable mention of him, De Oratore, B. iii. c. 50.—B.

[1314] We have an account of the death of Aviola, in Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 8. This name occurs in the Consular Fasti, A.U.C. 806; but it could not be that of the person referred to by Valerius Maximus, as his work was published under the reign of Tiberius, who died A.U.C. 789. We have also an account of the death of Lamia in Valerius Maximus, as occurring under the same circumstances with that of Aviola.—B.

[1315] Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 251, 252, supposes, that Messala and Rufus are the names of two writers, and not, as usually supposed, of one only. The conjecture appears not improbable.—B.

[1316] Plutarch, “De Deo Socratis,” gives us the same account of Hermotinus. Ajasson has remarked, not inaptly, that this story is very similar to the modern statements as to the effect of animal magnetism, Lemaire, iii. 207.—B. Apuleius, in his “Defence,” has a passage which is remarkable as clearly bearing reference to the doctrines inculcated by the mesmerists of modern times; be says, “Quin et illud mecum reputo, posse animum humanum, præsertim puerilem et simplicem seu carminum avocamento, sine odorum delenimento, soporari et ad oblivionem præsentium externari; et paulisper remotâ corporis memoriâ, redigi et redire ad naturam suam quæ est immortalis scilicet et divina; atque ita veluti quodam sopore futura rerum præsagire.”

[1317] We have no notice of any people, under this appellation, in Greece; Cantharus, however, occurs as the name of an individual, and possibly these may have been his descendants, or the members of his family.—B.

[1318] See B. v. c. 44.

[1319] We have an account of Aristeas in Herodotus, iv. 13, but somewhat different from that here given; Aristeas is also mentioned by Apollonius in his Hist. Mirab., and A. Gellius, B. ix. c. 4.—B. He was an epic poet, who flourished in the time of Crœsus and Cyrus. Herodotus mentions a story that he reappeared at Metapontum, in Italy, 340 years after his death. He is generally represented as a magician, whose soul could leave, and re-enter his body at pleasure.

[1320] A poet and prophet of Crete. The story was, that being sent by his father to fetch a sheep, he went into a cave, and fell into a sleep, from which he did not awake for fifty-seven years. On awaking, he sought for the sheep, and was astonished on finding everything altered. On returning home, he found that his young brother had in the meantime become an aged man. His story is only equalled by the famous one of the Seven Sleepers of Damascus, who fell asleep in the time of the Decian persecution of the Christians, and slept in a cave till the thirtieth year of the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, 196 years. It is not improbable that it is to this story about Epimenides, that we are indebted for the amusing story of Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving.

[1321] We have the life of Epimenides by Diogenes Laertius, who gives an account of this long-continued sleep. It is also mentioned by other writers, but there is some difference in their statements as to its length.—B.

[1322] According to the interpretation of Dalechamps, “spiritus et animæ interceptioni ac privationi,” “the interception and privation of the breath and faculties;” Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 208.—B.

[1323] He probably alludes to what are known among us as hysteria, or hysterical affections.

[1324] We have an account of Heraclides in Diogenes Laertius; he was a native of Pontus, and a pupil of Aristotle.—B.

[1325] This circumstance is not mentioned in either of the two works of Varro which have come down to us, “De Re Rusticâ,” and “De Linguâ Latinâ.”—B.

[1326] They were a body of commissioners appointed for the distribution of lands in Campania; Julius Cæsar, when consul, having caused a law to be passed, dividing that territory among such of the Roman citizens as should have three or more children.

[1327] We are not informed, whether these persons of the name of Corfidius, were in any way connected, nor, indeed, do we appear to have any certain knowledge of their history.—B. L. Corfidius, a Roman eques, is mentioned by Cicero, in his oration for Ligarius, B.C. 46, as one of the distinguished men who were then interceding with Cæsar on behalf of Ligarius; but after the oration was published, Cicero was informed that he had made a mistake in mentioning the name of Corfidius, as he had died before the speech was delivered. It does not appear certain that he was one of the parties here mentioned: but it is not improbable that he was the brother whose sudden death is mentioned below.

[1328] Among the ancients, servants used to be summoned by clapping the hands, as they are, in modern times, by ringing of bells.—B. The same practice still prevails in the east.

[1329] In the twenty-third Chapter of the present Book.—B.

[1330] Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 12, and Diodorus Siculus, B. xiii. c. 14, gives the same account. It has been said, that, when he heard the news, he called for a draught of wine, and was choked with a grape-stone; this incident forms the subject of an epigram by Simonides, quoted by Hardouin, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 210.—B.

[1331] There is reason to believe, that the prize was given rather to the rank, than to the poetry of Dionysius; see the remarks of Ajasson, Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 210, 211.—B.

[1332] This anecdote is related by Livy, B. xxii. c. 7; by Valerius Maximus, B. ix. c. 12; and by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 15; the two former, however, state, that it occurred after the battle of Thrasymenus.—B.

[1333] Cicero, De Fato, sec. 6, styles Diodorus, “valens dialecticus.”—B.

[1334] According to Hardouin, these were Lucius, the prætor, and Caius, the father of the dictator; they were brothers, and the sons of C. Cæsar.—B.

[1335] Thirty-first of December; consequently his tenure of office was for a few hours only. Cicero indulged in several jokes upon his consulship, remarking that no one had died during it; and that the consul was extremely vigilant, for that he had never slept during his term of office.

[1336] This took place A.U.C. 708; Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, gives us an account of the jests passed by Cicero and others on the brief duration of his office.—B.

[1337] He is supposed to have been the same person who was consul A.U.C. 732.—B.

[1338] The Comitium was a place in the forum at Rome, where the “comitia curiata” were held, and certain offences tried and punished. It was here also that the tribunal, or “suggestum,” was situate.

[1339] We are informed by Hardouin, that he held the office of Prætor A.U.C. 660.—B.

[1340] “A puero;” not necessarily a slave, as Littrè seems to think.

[1341] On Hardouin’s authority, we learn that A. Pompeius was surnamed Bithynicus, and was prætor A.U.C. 680.—B.

[1342] The death of Thalna is given somewhat more in detail by Valerius Maximus, B. ix. c. 12; it took place A.U.C. 590.—B.

[1343] The ancients reckoned the hours from sun-rise; in summer, the second hour of the day would be six o’clock A.M., and in the winter, a quarter past eight.—B.

[1344] Bankers, and usurers more especially, had their shops in the Roman Forum.

[1345] “Cum vadimonium differri jubet.”—B.

[1346] Augustus built a third Forum, because the old one and that of Julius Cæsar, were not found sufficient for the great increase of business. He adorned it with a temple of Mars, and the statues of the most distinguished Romans.

[1347] According to Hardouin, this ivory statue was in the eighth region of the city.—B.

[1348] “Specillum;” this instrument is mentioned by Celsus, B. vi. c. 6, 25, _et alibi_. There has been a considerable discussion among the commentators respecting the “specillum;” see Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 213, 214. From the uses to which it was applied by Celsus, we can have little doubt upon the subject. Poinsinet and Ajasson employ the equivalent French term “eprouvette.”—B.

[1349] “Mulsum” was the most universally esteemed of all the beverages used among the Romans. It seems to have been of two kinds: in the one case honey was mixed with wine, in the other with must. Massic or Falernian wine was preferred for the purpose, and new Attic honey. The proportions were four measures of wine to one of honey; and various perfumes and spices were added. See B. xxii, c. 4. It was especially valued as the most appropriate draught on an empty stomach.

[1350] The Cornelius Gallus here mentioned could not have been the poet of the same name, because, as we are informed, he died by his own hand. The death of the poet Gallus is alluded to by Ovid, Amores, B. iii. El. 9, l. 64.—B. A similar fate is said, by Tertullian, to have overtaken Speusippus, the Platonic philosopher. The same was also said by some of the poet Pindar.

[1351] Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 12, gives the same account of the death of Gallus and Haterius.—B.

[1352] Which was usually worn by the Romans at their entertainments.

[1353] Considering _some_ of the above cases, Pliny must have had a curious notion of a happy death. Ovid would have agreed with him in one respect; for in his amatory poems, he expresses a wish that he may die of a surfeit of sensual enjoyment.

[1354] The great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero. We have a reference to his death by Seneca, De Benef. B. iii. c. 24, and a more full account of it by Suetonius, Life of Nero, c. 2.—B.

[1355] The charioteers at Rome were divided into four companies, or “factiones,” each distinguished by a colour, representing the season of the year. These colours were green for the spring, red for the summer, azure for autumn, and white for the winter. Domitian afterwards increased them to six, adding the golden and the purple. The most ardent party spirit prevailed among them, and the interest in their success extended to all classes and both sexes.

[1356] In the thirty-sixth Chapter of this Book.—B.

[1357] It would appear, from Dalechamps and Hardouin, that this statement, respecting the period when the custom of burning the body after death was first adopted by the Romans, is incorrect, Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 219. There is much uncertainty as to its origin, and the source from which they borrowed it. We learn from Macrobius, that the practice was discontinued in his time, _i. e._ in the fourth century after Christ.—B.

[1358] We have the same remarks, respecting the antiquity of the custom of interring the body, the continued adoption of it by the Cornelian family, and the supposed notion of Sylla, in ordering his own body to be burnt, in Cicero, De Leg. B. ii. c. 22, from whom it is probable Pliny may have borrowed them.—B.

[1359] We have no English term that will preserve the distinction which Pliny makes between the two modes of disposing of the body after death.—B.

[1360] He views the state after death in the same light as Democritus and Epicurus, utterly denying the immortality of the soul; though it cannot be said that he looks upon life in the same cheerful, laissez-faire manner in which it was regarded by the latter of these philosophers.

[1361] Hardouin remarks, that the ancients made a distinction between the souls of the dead, and their spirits or shades, “umbræ.” The former were supposed to remain on the earth, while the latter were removed either to Elysium or to Tartarus, according to the character or actions of the deceased.—B.

[1362] According to Varro, Democritus directs, that the body shall not be burnt after death, but preserved in honey; on which Varro remarks, how greatly such a practice would tend to raise the price of that article.—B.

[1363] It has been conjectured, that Bacchus derived his name from the Greek word Βάσκω, on account of his numerous journies into different parts of the world; it was during these that he conveyed to the various nations which he visited the arts of civilized life.—B.

[1364] We have a long discussion by Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 234, 235, on the derivation of the name of Ceres, in which he endeavours to explain the various attributes that were ascribed to her. The character in which she was generally regarded by the writers of antiquity, was the one here given to her by Pliny; in proof of which we may refer, among other authorities, to Virgil, Geor. B. i. l. 147. and to Ovid, Metam. B. iii. l. 341.—B.

[1365] The earliest method of reducing corn to the state proper for the food of man, was by pounding it in a mortar; afterwards, when it was ground between stones, they were moved by the hand, as is still the practice in many parts of the East. It was not until a comparatively late period that water was employed as the moving power for mills.—B.

[1366] It has been supposed by some commentators, that the character of legislator was bestowed upon Ceres, in consequence of the name by which she was designated, in the ancient northern languages, being incorrectly transferred to the Greek. Others have thought that it might be referred to the connection which may be supposed to exist between an advance in the arts of life generally and an improvement of the laws.—B.

[1367] We do not find the circumstance here referred to in the “Noctes Atticæ” of Aulus Gellius.—B.

[1368] It would appear that there were two individuals of this name, who were confounded with each other; Simonides, the celebrated poet, lived as late as the fifth century before Christ, so that it has been thought improbable that the Greek language could have existed without the four letters here mentioned, until so recent a period.—B.

[1369] The account of the original introduction of the alphabet into Greece, here given, is the one generally adopted in his time. Most readers will be aware, that the actual invention of letters, the share which the Egyptians and the Phœnicians had in it, the identification of Cadmus, and still more of Mercury, with any of the heroes or legislators of antiquity, of whom we have any correct historical data, and the connection which the Greek alphabet had with those of other nations, are among the most curious questions of literary discussion, and are still far from being resolved with any degree of certainty.—B.

[1370] It seems to have been the general opinion, that the Greek language had, originally, sixteen or eighteen letters, the source of which was very uncertain, and of high antiquity; and to these, additional letters were, from time to time, appended by different individuals. Upon the whole, the claim of the Egyptians to the invention of letters, seems to rest upon, at least, a very plausible foundation.—B.

[1371] Epicharmus was born in the fifth century B.C., in the island of Cos, but removed, probably at an early age, to Sicily, where he passed a considerable portion of his life. His original profession was that of a physician, but he appears to have devoted his attention principally to general science and literature, and is more especially remarkable as the inventor of regular comedy. A few fragments only of his dramas remain, but the titles of no less than forty are preserved. From a line in the Prologue to the Menæchmi of Plautus, where it is said that the plot of the play, “non Atticissat verum Sicilicissat” “is not Attic, but Sicilian;” it has been conjectured, that Plautus took the plot of the piece from Epicharmus.

[1372] Phoroneus was the son of Inachus, and the second king of Argos; he began to reign about 1807 B.C.—B.

[1373] Epigenes has already been referred to in the fifty-fourth chapter of this Book.—B.

[1374] There has been much discussion respecting the interpretation of this passage. In the first place, the numbers in the text have extended from 720 and 490 to as many thousands, by the addition of the letter M., against the authority, however, of some MSS. In the next place, in order to curtail the enormous periods thus formed, the years have been supposed to be only lunar, or even diurnal periods. The opinion of Hardouin and Marcus is perhaps the better founded, who reject the proposed alteration, and consider these numbers to indicate, according to their natural signification, periods of years. The principal consideration that has been urged in favour of the alteration of the text is derived from two passages in Cicero’s Treatise de Divin. B. i. c. 19, and B. ii. c. 46, where he refers to the very long periods which the Babylonians employed in their calculations, but which he justly regards as entirely without foundation, and even ridiculous. Pliny, however, professes to follow the opinion of Epigenes whom he styles “gravis auctor,” and who, we may premise, would reject these improbable tales.—B. The reading, 720 _thousands_, is the one adopted by Sillig.

[1375] Pausanias, in his “Attica,” calls the two brothers Agrolas and Hyperbius. Some commentators have supposed, that these names, as well as Doxius and Cælus, mentioned below, are merely symbolical, and that the personages are fictitious.—B.

[1376] The Gellius here mentioned had the prænomen of Cneius; he is not to be confounded with the more noted Aulus Gellius, by whom he is quoted in the Noct. Att. B. xiii. c. 29.—B.

[1377] There is a number of ancient legends attached to the name of Cecrops, yet we have but little authentic information respecting him. What appears to be the best established is, that he was born in the city of Sais, in Egypt, and that, about 1556 B.C., he conducted a colony to Attica, where he built a fortress, on the Acropolis of Athens, and that his descendants continued, for some generations, to be kings of Attica.—B.

[1378] If this is the Cinyra previously mentioned in c. 49, he is more generally represented as the son of Apollo, or of Paphos, a priest of the Paphian Aphrodite or Venus. The true reading, however, is uncertain.

[1379] Hardouin informs us, that in all the MSS. which he has consulted, this person is named Agricola, while in the printed editions of Pliny he is styled Agriopa, or Agriopas. Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 250, 251, endeavours to explain this, by supposing, that the word “Agricola” was the one employed by Pliny, but was used by him as a generic, not as an appellative term. Some of the earlier editors, however, conceiving that no agricultural operations could be carried on, before the invention of the necessary implements, had changed the name into Agriopa, derived from two Greek words, signifying “a man in the savage state, who is only capable of uttering inarticulate sounds.” This method of solving the difficulty will probably appear fanciful and too refined, but it is the only one which has been proposed.—B.

[1380] The copper-mines of Temesa, supposed to have been in Cyprus, are mentioned by Homer. There was another place of that name in Bruttium, and another in India, both equally famous for their copper.

[1381] Danaus is said to have migrated from Egypt into Greece about 1485 B.C. He may have introduced wells into Greece, but they had, long before his time, been employed in Egypt and in other countries. The term “Dipsion,” “thirsting,” which it appears had been applied to the district of Argos, may seem to render it probable, that, before the arrival of Danaus, the inhabitants had not adopted any artificial means of supplying themselves with water.—B. But this country, we are told, is naturally well supplied with water.

[1382] Nothing is known respecting this individual; it does not appear that he is mentioned by any other of the ancients.—B.

[1383] There is so much fable mixed up with the account of the Cyclopes, that it is difficult to ascertain their real history. It seems probable, that there was a people of high antiquity, who were

## particularly skilful in the erection of stone edifices of various

kinds, and more especially of those which served for the defence of cities. The remains of walls and other structures, which have obtained the name of Cyclopian, are found in various parts of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, and may be regarded as among the oldest works of man in existence, although they are probably of less antiquity than those of Egypt and of some parts of Asia.—B.

[1384] We have sufficient evidence of the early period at which the art of weaving was practised in Egypt, from the figures to be found on their monuments, and from the specimens of their manufactures, some of very delicate texture, which have been found in the most ancient of their tombs. It was doubted, at one time, whether these fine stuffs were formed from the fibres of flax or of cotton, or, in other words, whether they were cambric or muslin; but it is now generally admitted that they are made of flax. We have frequent mention of the products of the loom in the Pentateuch; we may select the 13th chapter of Leviticus, where linen and woollen stuffs are especially mentioned, and distinguished from each other.—B.

[1385] It is very difficult, probably impossible, in the present day, to determine to which of the nations of antiquity we are indebted for the invention of the art of dyeing. We have notices of coloured stuffs in various parts of the Pentateuch, and there is reason to suppose, that the art was practised, at a very early period, by the Egyptians, the Phœnicians, and the Indians. They had even arrived at the knowledge of partial dyeing, or what is technically termed “printing,” as applied to cotton or linen.—B.

[1386] According to Justin, B. ii. c. 6, the Athenians introduced the use of wool among their countrymen; but it has been supposed that they learned it from the Egyptians.—B.

[1387] Arachne is said to have been a native of Hypæpæ, near Colophon, in Asia Minor, and has been celebrated for her skill in embroidery by Ovid, Metam. B. vi. As we have sufficient evidence that linen was manufactured by the Egyptians at a very early period, we may presume that this account of Arachne is either fabulous, or that, in some way or other, she was instrumental in the introduction of linen into Greece.—B.

[1388] Nothing is known of this individual, nor have we any further information respecting the discovery ascribed to him.—B.

[1389] Homer, Il. B. vii. l. 221, and Ovid, Fasti, B. iii. l. 824, speak of Tychius, as particularly skilful in making shoes, and other articles of leather.—B.

[1390] It is difficult to determine, how far we are to regard the names here mentioned as belonging to real or only to fictitious personages, nor is it easy for us to ascertain what should be regarded as the actual invention of medicine. A certain kind of medical, or rather surgical practice, must have existed in the rudest state of society and in the earliest ages, which was improved and refined by the gradual experience and increased civilization of each successive generation.—B.

[1391] In this, as in so many others of the arts, the original invention has been given to the Egyptians, while the introduction of it into Greece is ascribed to Cadmus. The word _æs_, which is generally translated “brass,” as well as the Greek word χαλκὸς, was applied by the ancients, either to copper, or what is properly bronze, _i. e._ a mixture of copper and tin. Brass, the compound of copper and zinc, does not appear to have been known to them. With respect to the claim of the Scythians to the discovery of the use of copper, it has been justly remarked, that it is natural to suppose it to have been first known in those countries, where the ore of the metal is found in large quantities, which is the case in the region that was anciently named Scythia.—B.

[1392] According to Pausanias, the art of forging iron was discovered by Glaucus of Chios. Strabo ascribes it to the Idæan Dactyli, and the art of manufacturing utensils of bronze and iron to the Telchines; the former were inhabitants of Crete, the latter of Rhodes.—B.

[1393] According to Hyginus, silver was first discovered in Scythia by Indus, and introduced into Attica by Erichthonius. Æacus is said by Cassiodorus to have been the discoverer of gold.—B.

[1394] Pangæus is generally described as a mountain on the confines of Macedonia and Thrace; but Marcus says that it was a mountain of Abyssinia, near the source of the Nile, and he adduces various passages from the ancients to prove that the Egyptians had an extensive traffic there in gold at a very early period; Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 191, 192.—B.

[1395] Thoas was the king of the Tauric Chersonnesus, and Panchaia was a district of Arabia Felix; it does not appear what connection Thoas could have with Panchaia.—B.

[1396] We have no account of any individual bearing this name, and it has been proposed by Hardouin to substitute for it “Midas Phrygius,” who is said, both by Hyginus and by Cassiodorus, to have been the discoverer of lead.—B.

[1397] From the accounts of Pliny, B. iv. c. 36, as well as of Strabo, and the other ancient geographers, it appears, that he here alludes to the Scilly Isles, including, probably, the western extremity of Cornwall. We are informed by Herodotus, B. iii. c. 115, that tin was brought from them, and they were hence named the “tin islands,” from the Greek word for tin, κασσίτερος.—B.

[1398] On this subject we may refer to Note 72.—B.

[1399] Pliny, in B. xxxv. c. 45, informs us, that Choræbus invented the art of making pottery, and that it was first exercised, as a trade, by Chalcosthenes. He says, that a certain district of Athens obtained the name of “Ceramicos,” from his manufactory of earthen-ware, derived from κέραμος, “potter’s clay.”—B.

[1400] The inventions here ascribed to Dædalus, are, by many of the ancients, given to his nephew; see Isidorus, Hyginus, Diodorus Siculus, and Ovid, Metam. B. viii. l. 234, _et seq._—B.

[1401] “Ichthyocolla,” perhaps more properly, “Fish-glue.”

[1402] Pausanias ascribes also to Theodorus the invention of forging iron and copper. According to Vitruvius, the square was invented by Pythagoras.—B.

[1403] The same statement is made by Strabo, and other writers of antiquity, and is confirmed by the Arundelian Marbles.—B.

[1404] See B. xiii. c. 42.

[1405] Marcus informs us, that, according to the Arundelian Marbles, Erichthonius, the fourth king of Athens, was the inventor of chariots.—B. See p. 229.

[1406] Hardouin remarks, that Pliny, in the beginning of this Chapter, ascribes the invention of commerce to Bacchus; we may suppose, that the commerce there referred to, was the conveyance of goods by land, while that of the Carthaginians was traffic by sea.—B.

[1407] Eumolpus was a native of Thrace; but being expelled from his native country, he invaded Attica, and, after various contests with Erichthonius, obtained the office of high-priest of Ceres, which was continued to his descendants.—B.

[1408] We learn from the writings of Moses, that the planting of the vine, and the conversion of the juice of the grape into wine, was practised by Noah immediately after the Flood. The mixing of water with wine would seem to be a very obvious and natural mode of procuring a pleasant and refreshing beverage.—B.

[1409] From the writings of Moses, we learn that the use of oil and of honey was known to the inhabitants of Palestine and Egypt, at a very early period.—B.

[1410] “Buzyges” is a Greek term, signifying “one who yokes oxen;” according to Hardouin, the real name of the person here referred to was Epimenides.—B.

[1411] For an account of Triptolemus, the reader may consult Hyginus, and Pausanias, B. vii. Achaica.—B. Also the Fasti of Ovid, B. iv. l. 507, _et seq._

[1412] Phalaris is supposed to have been contemporary with Servius Tullius, who reigned from 577 to 533 B.C.—B.

[1413] Meaning a citizen who obtained the sovereignty by violence and usurpation.

[1414] This is supposed to have taken place 1000 years before Christ, when the Lacedæmonians conquered the Helots. But Moses had given the Jews a code of laws, respecting the treatment of slaves, between 400 and 500 years before that event, and we have various intimations of the existence of slavery, in his writings, long before his time. It appears, indeed, that in the different countries of the East, and in Africa, slavery has existed from time immemorial.—B.

[1415] This is confirmed by Ælian, Var. Hist. B. iii. c. 38.—B.

[1416] According to the same fabulous account of the early Grecian history, they were twin brothers, kings of the Argives; after much contention, Acrisius succeeded in expelling Prœtus from Argos; they are said to have lived 1400 years B.C. Athamas was a king of Thebes, and the contemporary of Acrisius.—B.

[1417] According to Hardouin, the Lacedæmonians had the helmet, the sword, and the spear, of a peculiar form, different from that used by the other natives of Greece.—B.

[1418] This account of the invention of the bow and arrow seems to have been derived from the high character which the Scythians and Persians had acquired for their dexterity in the use of those weapons.—B.

[1419] The “amentum” was a leather thong tied to the middle of the javelin, to assist in throwing it, though it is unknown how it added to the effect. It has been suggested that it was by imparting rotation, and consequent steadiness.

[1420] Ætolus was said to have been the son of Endymion, of Elis, who, having accidentally killed one of his countrymen, left his native place, and settled in the part of Greece named after him, Ætolia.—B.

[1421] See B. xxviii. c. 6. This was the Roman “veru,” or “verutum,” so called from its resemblance to a spit. Its shaft was three feet and a half long, and its point five inches. The “Velites” did not form part of the Roman legion, but fought in scattered parties wherever they were required.

[1422] The “pilum” was short and thick; its shaft, often made of cornel, was partly square, and five feet and a half long. The head was nine inches long. It was used either to throw or thrust with, and, in spite of what Pliny says, was peculiar to the Romans.

[1423] Julius Firmicus ascribes the invention of the apparatus used in hunting to the Cretans; and Gratius, Cyneg. l. 108, that of the hunting spear, with its iron spike, to Dercylus, of Amyclæ.—B.

[1424] Vitruvius informs us, that the catapulta and the balista were instruments formed upon the same principle, the former being adapted for the discharge of arrows, and the latter, masses of stone. Cæsar, however, in his account of the siege of Massilia, Bell. Civ. B. ii. c. 8, speaks of stones being thrown by the catapulta. Ælian, Hist. Var. B. vi. c. 12, says, that it was invented by Dionysius, the first king of Syracuse.—B.

[1425] Strabo ascribes the invention of the sling to the Ætolians; he informs us, that the inhabitants of the Balearic Isles, so famous for their dexterity in the use of this instrument, originally obtained it from the Phrygians.—B.

[1426] According to Hyginus, Tyrrhenus, the son of Hercules, invented the trumpet; Clemens, of Alexandria, and Athenæus, ascribe the invention to the Tyrrhenians.—B. Virgil speaks, B. viii. l. 526, of the “clangor of the Tyrrhenian trumpet.”

[1427] The “tortoise.” He probably means a military machine, moved on wheels and roofed over, used in besieging cities, and under which the soldiers worked in undermining the walls. It was usually covered with raw hides or other materials, which could not easily be set on fire. The same name was also applied to the covering formed by a compact body of soldiers, who placed their shields over their heads, and linked them together, to secure themselves against the darts of the enemy. The latter kind of “testudo” was sometimes formed, by way of an exercise, in the games of the Circus.

[1428] This has been supposed to have been the real origin of the Trojan horse, on which Virgil has built one of his most interesting episodes; the horse, as described by Virgil, was, however, in every respect, different from the battering ram.—B.

[1429] In consequence of some false charges brought against him, Bellerophon was sent to combat with a monster called the Chimæra, in the expectation that he would perish in the attempt; but Minerva, pitying his situation, provided him with a winged horse, named Pegasus, by means of which he accomplished his perilous task in safety.—B.

[1430] Pelethronius is said to have been a king of the Lapithæ, a people of Thessaly, who were celebrated for their skill in the management of the horse.—B.

[1431] According to Cicero, De Nat. Deor. B. iii. c. 23, Minerva was the first who used a chariot with four horses. Hardouin supposes that the Erichthonius here mentioned was not the king of Athens, but the son of Dardanus, the king of Troas; he does not state the ground of his opinion, and Ælian, Hist. Var. B. iii. c. 38, expressly speaks of him as an Athenian. Virgil, Geor. B. iii. ll. 113, 114, speaks of Erichthonius as the inventor of the chariot with four horses; he is supposed to have lived about 1450 B.C. As Hardouin justly remarks, we have an account, in the writings of Moses, of chariots being used by the Egyptians long before this period. It is not, however, stated what was the number of horses used for these chariots.—B.

[1432] “Tesseræ,” in the original, which is also the name of the dice used in various games. But the connection in which the word is here placed makes it more probable that it refers to some military operation; Virgil employs it in this sense, Æneid, B. vii. l. 637, as also Livy, B. vii. c. 35. There is, however, a tradition that Palamedes invented the games in which dice are used, during the siege of Troy.—B.

[1433] The words are “auguria ex avibus,” while the art which is said to have been taught by Tiresias, is termed “extispicio avium.” The first of these consists in foretelling future events, by observing the flight, the chirping, or the feeding of birds, the latter by the inspection of their entrails. But it appears that this distinction is not always observed; see Cicero, De Divin. B. i. c. 47. The observation of the auguries was committed to a body or college of priests, regarded as of the highest authority in the Roman state. The “Haruspices,” whose office it was to inspect the entrails of sacrificed animals, and from their appearance to foretell future events, were considered as an inferior order.—B.

[1434] Amphiaraüs was reputed to be the son of Apollo, and was famous for his knowledge of futurity; he was one of the Argonauts, and joined in the expedition of the Epigoni against Thebes, in which he perished. Divine honours were paid to him after his death, and a temple erected to his memory, which was resorted to as an oracle.—B.

[1435] Amphictyon established the celebrated council named after him, and which consisted of delegates from the principal cities of Greece, who assembled at stated periods to decide upon all public questions. He is supposed to have lived about 1500 B.C.—B.

[1436] It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the actual history of Atlas from the mythological and fabulous tales mixed up with it. We may, however, conclude that he was a king of Libya, or of some part of the north of Africa; that he was an observer of the heavenly bodies, and one of the first who gave any connected account of them. Under the term “astrology,” Pliny probably intended to comprehend both the supposed science, now designated by that name, and likewise astronomy, or the physical laws of the heavenly bodies.—B.

[1437] Pliny has previously stated, B. ii. c. 6, that the sphere was invented by Atlas, and that Anaximander discovered the obliquity of the ecliptic, by which he is said “to have opened the doors of knowledge.”—B.

[1438] The simplest and most common musical instrument used by the Greeks, was the “tibia,” or pipe.—B.

[1439] According to Hardouin, the Phrygians invented the pipes employed by hired mourners at funerals, or, more probably, were the first to adopt the use of the pipes at that ceremony.—B.

[1440] Which was played on the side, like the German flute of the present day.

[1441] It was not uncommon for two “tibiæ,” or pipes, to be played upon by one performer at the same time, one being held in each hand.

[1442] Apuleius, Flor. B. i. c. 4, characterizes the different kinds of music, termed “moduli” by Pliny, as follows: the Æolian, as simple, the Asiatic varied, the Lydian plaintive, the Phrygian solemn, and the Doric warlike.—B.

[1443] According to the mythological traditions, Mercury, when a child, found the shell of a tortoise on the banks of the Nile, and made it into a lyre, by stretching three strings across; he presented it to Apollo, and he gave it to Orpheus, who added two strings to it; after the death of Orpheus, his lyre was placed among the stars, and forms the constellation still known by that name.—B.

[1444] He was a native of Miletus, and contemporary with Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. The fact of Timotheus having accompanied Alexander in his expedition to Asia, which forms the basis of Dryden’s immortal Ode, is not supported by any historical authority.—B.

[1445] Pausanias (Corinth) informs us, that he was the son of Vulcan, and invented the tibia, but he does not mention his vocal powers.—B.

[1446] According to Hardouin, the first of these, the “saltatio armata,” or “armed dance,” was performed on foot, and with wooden armour; the second, the Pyrrhic dance, was performed on horseback, and consisted in the dextrous management of the animals. Pyrrhus, from whom the dance received its name, was the son of Achilles.—B.

[1447] The honour of the invention has been given to Phemonoë, a priestess of the oracle of Delphi.—B.

[1448] Apuleius, Flor. B. ii. c. 15, says that Pherecydes was the first to disregard the fetters of verse, and to write in desultory language. Pliny, however, in B. v. c. 31, has ascribed the invention of prose to Cadmus. Hardouin endeavours to reconcile this inconsistency, by supposing that Cadmus was the first prose writer of history, and that Pherecydes first applied prose to philosophical subjects. But Cicero, De Orat. B. ii. c. 12, speaks of Pherecydes as a writer of simple annals.—B.

[1449] There are several persons of this name among the kings and heroes of the semi-fabulous periods; but the one here mentioned is said to have been the son of Phoroneus, and to have lived about 1400 B.C. These games were celebrated in honour of Pan; the combatants were naked, and had the body anointed with oil; the Lupercalia of the Romans, in many respects, resembled the games of Lycaon. We are informed by Livy, B. i. c. 5, that the Lupercalia were introduced into Italy by Evander, the Arcadian.—B. Ovid, in the Fasti, B. i., states to the same effect.

[1450] Iolcos was a city of Thessaly, from which place the Argonauts embarked on their expedition to Colchis; Acastus was one of them; the funereal games which he instituted were in honour of his father, Pelias.—B.

[1451] See B. iv. c. 10.

[1452] The Isthmian games were originally instituted by Sisyphus, king of Corinth; after having been interrupted for some time, they were re-established by Theseus, who celebrated them in honour of Neptune.—B.

[1453] These were the celebrated Olympic games; Diodorus Siculus, B. iv. c. 3, Pausanias, and other ancient writers, as well as Pliny, ascribe their origin to Hercules; Pausanias, however, says, that some supposed them to have been instituted by Jupiter.—B.

[1454] “Pila lusoria.” There have been many conjectures respecting the person to whom this invention is attributed, as well as respecting the nature of the game itself; in either case it appears that we have nothing but mere conjecture to direct our opinion.—B. Among the Romans, the games with the “pila, or ball,” were those played with the “pila trigonalis,” so called, probably, from the players standing in a triangle: the “follis” was a large ball inflated, and used for football. “Paganica” was a similar ball, but harder, being stuffed with feathers, and used by rustics. “Harpastum” was a small ball, used by the Greeks, and was scrambled for on reaching the ground.

[1455] The MSS. differ as to the name of the person to whom the invention of painting is ascribed; but, in those which are considered the most worthy of credit, he is called Gyges Ludius. Marcus endeavours to prove, that the term “Ludius” refers to the country of Lud or Ludim, to the south of Egypt; and he points out some analogies between the name Gyges, and some words which are found in ancient inscriptions, or which are still in use among the Nubians and Abyssinians. Pliny, B. xxxv. c. 5, attributes the invention of painting to the Egyptians, and says, that “it was practised by them long before it was known in Greece.”—B.

[1456] The term Euchir, Εὔχειρ, which is literally “dextrous or handy,” would rather seem to be a prefix to a name, than a proper name itself. With respect to Polygnotus, and the share which he had in the invention of painting, the reader may examine what Pliny says in a subsequent part of his work, B. xxxv. c. 35.—B.

[1457] The vessel in which Danaüs came into Greece, may, probably, have been of a much superior construction, or much larger than those previously seen in that country; but it is generally supposed, that Cecrops, Cadmus, and the other Egyptian and Phœnician colonists, had come by sea to Greece, long before the arrival of Danaüs. In the ancient Egyptian monuments there are representations of different kinds of vessels of considerable size, which would imply a knowledge of the art of navigation at a very remote period. The same is proved by the traditionary annals of the Egyptians.—B.

[1458] The word here used, “ratis,” would appear to be applied to any species of slightly built vessel, of whatever form. The term _raft_ is not altogether appropriate, but we have no English word which exactly corresponds to it.—B.

[1459] According to the generally received account, Erythras migrated from Persia to Tyrrhina, an island in the Red Sea. See B. vi. c. 28 and 32.—B.

[1460] It has been conjectured, that the ancient Britons borrowed the peculiar form of their vessels from the Phœnicians, who were known to have frequented the south-west coasts of our island. Small vessels, not unlike those here described by Pliny, were used very lately, by the fishermen in the Bristol channel.—B. They are still used by the Welsh fishermen, and are made of oil-cloth or leather stretched on a frame. They are called by the Welch _cwrwgle_, whence our word “coracle.”

[1461] By the term “longa navis,” here used, Pliny probably designates a vessel which was propelled by a number of rowers, ranged side by side, in contradistinction to the small skiffs which were moved along, either by a sail or a single pair of oars, and were more of a rounded form.—B.

[1462] Ctesias has already been referred to, in c. 2 of the present Book.—B.

[1463] One of her most remarkable exploits was her expedition against India, of which we have an account in Diodorus Siculus, B. ii.; he says that she fitted out a fleet of between 2000 and 3000 vessels.—B.

[1464] From the account of Damastes, given by Hardouin, he was a native of Sigæum, whose works appear to have been held in considerable estimation by the ancients.—B.

[1465] There were at least three ancient cities of the name Erythræ, but the one most noted was situate on the coast of the Ægean Sea, opposite to the Isle of Chios.—B.

[1466] The passage in Thucydides here referred to, is in B. i. c. 13.—B.

[1467] There appears to be much uncertainty respecting the statements made in the concluding part of this paragraph, in consequence of the variation of the MSS.—B.

[1468] The position of the rowers, in the vessels of the ancients, and, more especially, the mode in which the ranks, or “ordines,” were disposed with respect to each other, has been a subject of much discussion. From the incidental remarks in the classical writers, and from the representations which still remain, particularly those on Trajan’s Column, and on certain coins, it would appear that they were disposed in stages, one above the other, and provided with oars of different lengths, in proportion to their distance from the water. But, although we may conceive that this was the case with two or three rows, it is impossible that a greater number could have been disposed in this manner.—B.

[1469] It is not easy to determine what was the construction and form of the four kinds of vessels here mentioned, which he designates respectively by the terms “lembus,” “cymba,” “celes,” and “cercurus.” The “lembus” is mentioned by Livy, B. xxiv. c. 40, as a vessel with two benches of oars, “biremis;” and in B. xl. c. 4, he describes it as a small vessel used for towing large ships. The “cymba” has been supposed to have been a still smaller vessel, answering to our idea of a common boat; the “celes,” we may suppose, was named from “celer,” being especially adapted for quick motion, and the “cercurus” from κερκὸς, “a tail,” from its long narrow form, or from its having a tail-like appendage attached to it.—B.

[1470] Hardouin conjectures, that the cities of Copæ and Plateæ derived their names, respectively, from the inventions here ascribed to them, κωπὴ and πλατὴ.—B.

[1471] Pausanias ascribes this invention to Dædalus; Diodorus, B. v. c. 1, to Æolus, who gave his name to the Æolian islands.—B.

[1472] “Hippagus.”—B.

[1473] “Tecta longa;” Cæsar, Bell. Civ. B. i. c. 56, says that the Massilians fitted out long ships, of which eleven were “tectæ.”—B.

[1474] Ships of war had their prows armed with brazen beaks, to which sharp spears were attached; these were used in their naval engagements as instruments of attack, and, when the vessels were captured, were considered the trophies of victory. The tribunal, in the Roman Forum, from which the orators harangued the people, obtained its name of “Rostra,” from its being ornamented with the beaks of captured ships.—B.

[1475] The “harpago” and the “manus ferrea” are mentioned by Cæsar, Bell. Civ. B. i. c. 57, and by Livy, B. xxx. c. 10; Quintus Curtius also speaks of them, but considers them as only different names for the same instrument, B. iv. c. 2, 12.—B.

[1476] Tiphys was the pilot of the vessel of the Argonauts; he died before the expedition reached Colchis.—B.

[1477] Hardouin remarks upon this passage, that Pliny probably means to speak of the persons who first killed oxen or other animals for what may be styled profane purposes; as they had long before this been employed for sacrifice.—B.

[1478] Herodotus, B. v. c. 59, says that the Phœnician letters were very similar to the Ionian; and we are informed by Hardouin, that Scaliger, in his Dissertation upon an ancient inscription on a column discovered in the Via Appia, and removed to the Farnese Gardens, has proved that the Ionians borrowed their letters from the Phœnicians.—B.

[1479] Herodotus confirms this opinion by a reference to an ancient tripod at Thebes, written in what he terms Cadmæan letters, having a strong resemblance to those used by the Ionians.—B.

[1480] Tacitus, Ann. B. ix. c. 14, says, “The Latin letters have the same form as the most ancient Greek ones.”—B.

[1481] There is scarcely a letter of this inscription which has not been controverted, and no two editions hardly agree.—B.

[1482] Probably the earliest existing reference to the practice of shaving is in Genesis, xli. 14, where Joseph is said to have shaved and changed his raiment, when brought from prison into the presence of Pharaoh; in this case, we may presume that it was the head, and perhaps not the beard, which was shaven.—B.

[1483] The ancients had two methods of arranging the beard; in one it was cut close to the skin, in the other it was trimmed by means of a comb, and left of a certain length. These two methods are alluded to by Plautus, Capt. ii. 2, 16:—B. “Now the old fellow is in the barber’s shop; at this very instant is the other handling the razor—but whether to say that he is going to shave him close, or to trim him through the comb, I know not.”

[1484] Varro, De Re Rus. B. ii., states this fact in almost the same words. He remarks, in continuation, that the old statues prove that there were formerly no barbers, by the length of their beard and hair.—B.

[1485] “Africanus sequens;” he was the son of Paulus Æmilius, the conqueror of Perseus, and the adopted son of Scipio Africanus. In consequence of his conquest of Carthage, he was named Africanus the Younger. His custom of shaving is alluded to by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 4. From the remarks of these writers, we may conclude that the Romans were not generally in the habit of shaving until after the age of forty.—B.

[1486] “Cultus.” Suetonius gives a different account of the method in which Augustus managed his beard. After remarking upon his carelessness as to his personal appearance, he says, that Augustus sometimes cropped, “tonderet,” and sometimes shaved, “raderet,” his beard. Dion. Cassius mentions the period when Augustus began to shave, the consulship of L. Marcius Censorinus and C. Calvicius Sabinus, A.U.C. 714; he was then in his twenty-fourth year.—B.

[1487] In B. ii. c. 78; where Pliny says, that the first clock was made at Lacedæmon, by Anaximander; he was the contemporary of Servius Tullius, who commenced his reign 577 B.C.—B.

[1488] “Accensus;” he was one of the public servants of the magistrates, and was so called from his office of summoning the people to the public meetings (acciere).—B.

[1489] See also B. xxxiii. c. 6. This was a place in Rome appropriated to the Greek ambassadors; it is mentioned by Cicero, in a letter to his brother, Quintus, B. ii. c. 1.—B. It stood on the right side of the Comitium, being allotted to the Greeks from the allied states, for the purpose of hearing the debates in the comitia curiata.

[1490] This column is supposed to have stood near the end of the Forum, on the Capitoline Hill. It was C. Mænius (in whose honour it was erected) who defeated the Antiates, and adorned the Forum with the “rostra,” or beaks of their ships, from which the “rostrum,” or orator’s stage, took its name. His statue was placed on the column. He was consul in B.C. 338. See B. xxxiv. c. 11.

[1491] Hardouin supposes that this event took place in the consulship of Papirius Cursor, A.U.C. 461, B.C. 292. According to the commonly received Chronology, Pyrrhus came into Italy, B.C. 280, twelve years after the consulship of Papirius Cursor.—B.

[1492] According to Censorinus, in his treatise, De Die Natali, it was difficult to decide which was the most ancient dial in Rome; some writers agreeing with Pliny, that it was the one in the Temple of Quirinus, others that in the Capitol, and others the one in the Temple of Diana, on the Aventine.—B.

[1493] Marcus conjectures, that this account of the dial was contained in the work of Varro, De Rebus Humanis, referred to by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 2, but not now extant.—B.

[1494] Owing to the circumstance of the dial having been adapted to the latitude of Catina, now Catania, about four degrees south of Rome.—B.

[1495] Vitruvius describes this instrument. Marcus, Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 218, 219, gives us an account of two kinds of clepsydræ, or water-clocks, which were constructed by the Greeks.—B. See also the account of clocks in Beckmann’s History of Inventions, vol. i.

[1496] See end of B. iii.

[1497] He was a contemporary of the Gracchi, and was author of a History of Rome, down to B.C. 145 at least; supposed to have been very voluminous and full in its details of the legendary history of the Roman nation. Livy probably borrowed extensively from it.

[1498] See end of B. ii.

[1499] A hearer of Ateius Capito, and celebrated as a jurist under Tiberius and later emperors. From him a school of legists, called the Sabiniani, took their rise. He wrote some works on the Civil Law. Pliny quotes him, as we have seen, in c. 4, to show the possibility of gestation being to the thirteenth month.

[1500] Daughter of the elder Agrippina and Germanicus, and the mother of Nero. Her memoirs of her life are quoted by Tacitus, but we have no remains of them.

[1501] The great Roman orator and philosopher.

[1502] A distinguished orator, poet, and historian of the Augustan age. He was an active partisan of Cæsar, and the patron of Horace and Virgil, whose property he saved from confiscation. He wrote a history of the civil war in seventeen books, but none of his works have come down to us. His tragedies are highly spoken of by Virgil and Horace.

[1503] See end of B. ii.

[1504] Nothing whatever seems to be known relative to this author, who is mentioned in c. 53 of this Book. See the Note to that passage.

[1505] See end of B. ii.

[1506] The author of the Æneid and the Georgics, the friend of Augustus, Pollio, and Mæcenas, one of the most virtuous men of ancient time, and the greatest probably of the Latin poets.

[1507] See end of B. vi.

[1508] Cremutius Cordus, a Roman historian, who was impeached before Tiberius, by two of his clients, for having praised Brutus, and styled Cassius “the last of the Romans,” his real offence being the freedom with which, in his work, he had spoken against Sejanus. He starved himself to death, and the senate ordered his works to be burnt. Some copies, however, were preserved by his daughter, Marcia, and his friends.

[1509] C. Mæcenas Melissus, a native of Spoletum. He was of free birth, but exposed in his infancy, and presented to be reared by Mæcenas. He was afterwards manumitted, and obtained the favour of Augustus, who employed him to arrange the library in the portico of Octavia. At an advanced age he commenced the composition of a collection of jokes and bon-mots. He also wrote plays of a novel character, which he styled “Trabeatæ.”

[1510] See end of B. ii.

[1511] A. Cornelius Celsus, the celebrated writer on medicine. Little is known of his age or origin, or even his profession. It is supposed, however, that he lived in the time of Augustus and Tiberius. His treatises on Medicine and Surgery are still used as hand-books for the medical student, and his style is much admired for its purity.

[1512] Or Valerius Maximus. He is supposed to have lived in the time of Tiberius, and wrote nine books on memorable deeds and sayings, which still survive, and are replete with curious information.

[1513] Trogus Pompeius, the Roman Historian, on whose work Justin founded his history. His grandfather, who was of the Gaulish tribe of the Vocontii, received the citizenship of Rome during the war against Sertorius; and his father was a private secretary of Julius Cæsar. Except as set forth in the pages of Justin, no portion of his history, except a few scattered fragments, exists. The quotations from him in Pliny, are thought to have been all taken from a treatise of his, “De Animalibus,” mentioned by Charisius, and not from his historical works.

[1514] See end of B. vi.

[1515] The friend and correspondent of Cicero, descended from one of the most ancient equestrian families of Rome. His surname was, probably, given to him from his long residence at Athens, and his intimate acquaintance with the Greek language and literature. Though, generally, of a virtuous character, he neglected no means of making money, and was, consequently, a man of great opulence. He wrote a book of Annals, or rather an Epitome of Roman History, which, like the rest of his works, has perished.

[1516] He lived in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, and is mentioned by the Eusebian Chronicle, as becoming blind in his seventy-third year, during the reign of Vespasian, and attaining the age of eighty-five. He wrote a work on the Life of Sallust, another on the Censurers of Virgil, and commentaries on the speeches of Cicero, of which alone a few portions are still extant, and are of considerable value in a historical as well as a grammatical point of view.

[1517] Probably Papirius Fabianus. See end of B. ii.

[1518] See end of B. iii.

[1519] See end of B. v.

[1520] Nothing whatever is known relative to this author.

[1521] See end of B. ii.

[1522] He is said to have written an epic poem, called Arimaspeia, full of marvellous stories respecting the Arimaspi and the golden regions. See c. 2 of the present Book, and Note [1319] in p. 211, where some further particulars relative to him will be found.

[1523] See end of B. v.

[1524] He was a native of Nicæa, in Bithynia, and the author of some works, characterized as being full of incredible stories. Cyril, however, says, that he was born at Cittium, and Gellius styles him a writer of no small authority. He is generally looked upon as belonging to the class of writers called Paradoxographi.

[1525] See end of B. iv.

[1526] Or Agatharchus, a Greek grammarian of Cnidos. He was, as we learn from Strabo, attached to the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and wrote several historical and geographical works. He was living in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, who died B.C. 146. His works, which were very numerous, are enumerated by Photius.

[1527] See end of B. iii.

[1528] See end of B. ii.

[1529] See end of B. iii.

[1530] Strabo, in B. ii. speaks of a Periplus of Europe, written by a person of this name. There was also a physician called Apollonides, a native of Cos, who practised at the court of Artaxerxes Longimanus, where he was eventually put to death.

[1531] A Greek historian of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, and said by different authors to have been a native of Athens, Naucratis in Egypt, and Sicyon. He wrote a work on history, of considerable value, though his credit as an historian has been violently attacked by Polybius.

[1532] Of Cyrene, an author of uncertain date. He wrote a work on the philosophers.

[1533] See end of B. v.

[1534] See end of B. ii.

[1535] Nothing is known of this writer.

[1536] For Eudoxus of Cnidos, see end of B. ii: and for Eudoxus of Cyzicus, see end of B. vi.

[1537] See end of B. ii.

[1538] See end of B. vi.

[1539] Of Samos, a descendant of Alcibiades, who flourished in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. When a boy, he gained a pugilistic victory at Olympia. He eventually became tyrant of Samos; but nothing further is known of his career. From what Pliny says, in c. 40. of B. iii., he is supposed to have been living in the year B.C. 281. He was the author of a history of Greece, and other historical works, of which, however, we possess no remains.

[1540] See end of B. ii.

[1541] Of Cos, the father of the medical art, and in many respects the most celebrated physician of ancient or modern times. It is supposed that he flourished in the fifth century before Christ. A great number of medical works, still extant, have been attributed to him: but there were many other physicians who either had, or assumed, this name.

[1542] Of Prusa, in Bithynia. He is mentioned in c. 37 of this Book. See Note [1170] in p. 183.

[1543] Of Ascra, in Bœotia, the earliest of the Greek poets, with the exception of Homer. His surviving works, are his “Works and Days,” and the “Theogony.”

[1544] Of Teos, in Asia Minor, famous for his amatory and lyric poems; he died at the age of eighty-five. Pliny mentions the supposed mode of his death, in c. 5, of the present Book.

[1545] See end of B. ii.

[1546] See end of B. iv.

[1547] See end of B. iv.

[1548] See end of B. iv.

[1549] See end of B. ii.

[1550] A priest of Belus, at Babylonia, and a historian of the time of Alexander the Great. He wrote a History of Babylonia, of which some fragments are preserved by the ecclesiastical writers.

[1551] See end of B. ii.

[1552] See end of B. ii.

[1553] See end of B. iii.

[1554] See end of B. iv.

[1555] See end of B. iv.

[1556] See end of B. ii.

[1557] An Athenian, who wrote a history of Greece and Sicily in twenty-six or twenty-seven books, coming down to B.C. 298, from which time Psaon of Platæa continued it.

[1558] Of Lampsacus, a Peripatetic philosopher, and tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He succeeded Theophrastus, B.C. 288, as head of that school. He devoted himself to the study of natural science, and appears to have held a pantheistic system of philosophy. By Cudworth, Leibnitz, and others, he has been charged with atheism. The “Euremata” of Ephorus, here mentioned, was a book which treated of inventions.

[1559] See end of B. iv.

[1560] Of Tragilus, in Thrace, a disciple and contemporary of Isocrates. His book, here mentioned, treated on the subjects chosen by the Greek tragic writers, and the manner in which they had dealt with them.

[1561] Of Cyrene, the friend or disciple of Callimachus. He flourished under Ptolemy Philadelphus, about B.C. 249. He wrote works on places in Asia, on Rivers, and on Islands; but none of his compositions have survived.

[1562] A native of Magnesia, who wrote on rhetoric and history, probably in the early part of the third century B.C. Strabo speaks but slightingly of him; and Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus agree in looking upon him as a downright blockhead. Upon the other hand, Varro rather admires his style. The history of Alexander the Great was his favourite theme; and he is represented by Aulus Gellius as dealing rather largely in the marvellous.

[1563] Mentioned by Athenæus as having written a history of Eubœa.

[1564] See end of B. iii.; and see c. 31 of the present Book, and Note [1133] in p. 175.

[1565] Nothing whatever appears to be known of this writer.

[1566] See end of B. iv.

[1567] See end of B. iii.

[1568] See end of B. iv.

[1569] See end of B. ii.

[1570] Cuvier remarks, that this account of its superior intelligence is exaggerated, it being no greater than that of the dog, if, indeed, equal to it. The opinion may perhaps have arisen from the dexterity with which the animal uses its trunk; but this is to be ascribed not to its own intelligence, but to the mechanical construction of the part. The Indians, from whom we may presume that Pliny derived his account, have always regarded the elephant with a kind of superstitious veneration.—B.

[1571] Some would read this “Amilo,” and others “Annulo.” Hardouin considers it the same with the river Valo, which is mentioned by Ptolemy, B. iv. c. 1, and said to have its rise in the mountains known as the Seven Brothers, and mentioned in B. v. c. 1.

[1572] “Præ se ferentes,” probably alluding to the use which the animal makes of its trunk in seizing and carrying bodies.—B.

[1573] “Alienæ religionis.” The meaning of this is doubtful. It may mean “differences in religion,” or “religious feeling in others,” or perhaps, to judge from the context, “the religious regard for their oath which others feel.”

[1574] “Veluti tellure precibus alligata,” one of the harsh metaphorical expressions occasionally occurring in Pliny, which it is very difficult to translate, and even perhaps fully to comprehend.—B.

[1575] “Nothi.”

[1576] Cuvier remarks, that there are two kinds of elephants, one of which attains sixteen feet, and is chiefly known in Cochin China and Tonquin, while those that are domesticated in India are seldom more than half that height. They are supposed, however, to be only varieties of the same species. Pliny, in B. vi. c. 22, gives an account of the uses which the Indians made of the elephant, and of their different sizes, but he does not state there that it is the smaller ones only that are employed in agriculture.—B.

[1577] Plutarch informs us, that Pompey had resolved to have his chariot drawn by four elephants, but finding the gate too narrow, he was obliged to use horses.—B.

[1578] See an account of this, and of the feats performed by the elephants, in Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 11.—B.

[1579] The Pyrrhic dance has been referred to in the last Book, c. 57. p. 231. It is not improbable that the elephants employed in this dance were caparisoned with armour.

[1580] However ill adapted the elephant may appear, from its size and form, for this feat, we have the testimony of Seneca, Suetonius, Dion Cassius, and Julian, to the truth of the fact.—B.

[1581] Plutarch, in his treatise on the Shrewdness of Animals, tells us that this wonderful circumstance happened at Rome.

[1582] “Eadem illa meditantem,” is the expression. It would be curious to know in what way the elephant showed that he was “conning” over his lesson.

[1583] Suetonius is supposed to allude to this circumstance.—B. He tells us that a horseman ascended a tight rope on an elephant’s back.

[1584] Ælian informs us, that he had seen an elephant write Latin characters. Hardouin remarks, that the Greek would be Αὐτὸς ἐγὼ τάδ’ ἔγραψα, λαφυρά τε Κελτ’ ἀνέθηκα.

[1585] See B. iii. c. 9.

[1586] As to the tusks of the elephant, no doubt the opinion of Herodotus, B. iii. c. 97, is correct, that they are teeth, and not horns. They are essentially composed of the same substance with the other teeth, and, like them, are inserted into the jaw, and not into the os frontis, as is the case with horns.—B.

[1587] Not improbably, the great quantity of fossil ivory which has been found, may have given rise to this tale. We have in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 581, a long extract from Cuvier’s “_Recherches sur les ossements fossiles_,” in which he gives an account of the parts of the world in which the bones of the elephant have been discovered.—B.

[1588] Tables and bedsteads were not only covered or veneered with ivory among the Romans, but, in the later times, made of the solid material, as we learn from Ælian and Athenæus.

[1589] Plutarch, in his treatise on the Shrewdness of Animals, gives the same statement respecting the whiteness of the teeth in the young animal.—B.

[1590] It is scarcely necessary to remark, that these statements respecting the sagacity of the elephant in connection with their teeth, are without foundation.—B.

[1591] The word employed is _vestigium_; it is explained by Ælian to refer to the herbage, which has received both the visible impression as well as the odour of the foot.—B.

[1592] In the case of a footstep, this must mean the ground with which the foot has come in contact.

[1593] It is a general opinion, and one founded upon observations of daily occurrence, that animals have an instinctive dread of man. We have, however, facts stated by travellers of undoubted veracity, which would lead to an opposite conclusion. One of the most remarkable is the account which Denham gives of the tameness of the birds in Lake Tchad.—B.

[1594] Cuvier observes, that this is correct; see Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 408, and Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 338.—B.

[1595] “Novere ea.” It is doubtful whether these words do not mean something more than merely “knew their names,” as Hardouin explains it, for that would be nothing wonderful in an elephant. On the other hand, to say that they were aware of the honour which had been conferred on them, in giving the names of famous men, would be to make a statement which exceeds belief; for how could the elephants _show_ that they appreciated this honour, even supposing that they did appreciate it? Pliny’s elliptical style repeatedly gives rise to doubts of this nature.

[1596] “Phaleris.” See Notes to B. vii. c. 29, p. 170.

[1597] Pliny informs us, in B. xxii. c. 4, that this was done by those conquered in battle.—B.

[1598] We may conclude, from the account given by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 2, and by Ælian, B. viii. c. 17, that this opinion was generally adopted by the ancients.—B. We learn from Cuvier, who mentions the results of M. Corse’s observations, that there is no such modesty in the elephant, and that the two at the Museum of Natural History at Paris gave proof of the fact.

[1599] This is erroneous; the males do not arrive at puberty before the females, which takes place about the fourteenth or fifteenth year. In the elephant which was under the inspection of M. Corse, the period of gestation was between twenty and twenty-one months, so that there may be some foundation for the biennial period, but the term of five days is entirely imaginary. Aristotle makes the interval three years.—B.

[1600] There is a passage in Suetonius, in his Life of Augustus, and one in Macrobius, where the custom of offering pieces of money to elephants, which they took up with the proboscis, is referred to.—B.

[1601] In the Epitome of Livy, B. xiii., it is said, that Valerius Corvinus was unsuccessful in his engagements with Pyrrhus, in consequence of the terror produced by the elephants.—B.

[1602] Varro, De Ling. Lat. B. vi. calls the elephant “Lucas bos,” “the Lucanian ox,” from the fact of this large quadruped being first seen by the Romans in the Lucanian army.—B.

[1603] According to Seneca, Manius Curius Dentatus was the first who exhibited elephants in his triumph over Pyrrhus. See also Florus, B. i. c. 18.—B.

[1604] There are coins extant struck to commemorate this victory, in which there is the figure of an elephant.—B.

[1605] The number of elephants brought to Rome by Metellus is differently stated; Florus, B. ii., says that they were “about a hundred;” in the Epitome of Livy, B. xix., they are one hundred and twenty, and the same number is mentioned by Seneca.—B.

[1606] Who were their allies, or rather vassals; for in such case, they might make a dangerous use of them.

[1607] Val. Maximus, B. ix. c. 2, gives an account of the brutality of Hannibal on this occasion, in forcing the Roman captives to fight against each other, until only one was left; but he does not make mention of the combat with the elephant.—B.

[1608] Florus, B. i. c. 18, states, that this was practised in the later engagements with Pyrrhus, and that by these means the elephants were either destroyed or rendered useless. Cuvier remarks, that the trunk is composed of small muscles and fatty matter, enveloped by a tendinous membrane, and covered with skin.—B.

[1609] A.U.C. 678.—B.

[1610] “Venus the Conqueror.” This temple was dedicated by Pompey, after his conquests in the East, in his second consulship, B.C. 55.

[1611] Pliny here refers to an art, practised among the Romans, of throwing up a shield into the air, in such a manner that, after performing a circuit, it would fall down on a certain spot; this trick is also alluded to by Martial, B. ix. Ep. 39.—B. The exercise with the boomerang, which was known to the ancient Assyrians, and has been borrowed in modern times from the people of Australasia, seems to have been somewhat similar to this.

[1612] “Clathri.” These were gratings of iron trellis-work, placed in front of the lowest row of the spectators, to protect them from the wild beasts. This exhibition took place in Pompey’s Amphitheatre, in the Campus Martius. The arena of the amphitheatre was mostly surrounded by a wall, distinguished by the name of “podium,” which was generally about eighteen feet in height, and the top of which was protected by this trellis-work. In the present instance, however, the “podium” can hardly have been so much as eighteen feet in height.

[1613] “Euripis.” Julius Cæsar caused a canal, ten feet wide, to be formed in the Circus Maximus, around the bottom of the “podium,” to protect the spectators from the wild beasts. These “euripi” probably took their name from the narrow channel so called, which lay between Bœotia and the island of Eubœa.

[1614] We learn, however, from Lampridius, in his Life of Heliogabalus, that this euripus was afterwards restored to the Circus.

[1615] Tacitus and Suetonius mention this separation of the equites from the rest of the spectators: it took place A.U.C. 816.—B. Up to the time of Augustus, A.U.C. 758, the senators, equites, and people sat indiscriminately in the Circus; but that emperor, and after him Claudius, Nero, and Domitian, separated the senators and the equites from the commons.

[1616] There are coins which bear the figure of an elephant and the word Cæsar, probably struck in commemoration of these games.—B.

[1617] The practice of placing towers filled with soldiers on the backs of the elephants is alluded to by Lucretius, B. v. l. 1301, and by Juvenal, Sat. xii. l. 110.—B. It still prevails in India.

[1618] “Consummation gladiatorum.” There is some doubt about the exact meaning of this. It may mean, “at the conclusion of the gladiatorial games,” as exhibited; or, what is more probable, “as the crowning exploit of the gladiators,” who wished thereby to secure their manumission, which was granted after remarkable feats of valour. Cælius Rhodiginus, B. xi. c. 11, prefers this last meaning: Dalechamps, with whom Ajasson coincides, the first.

[1619] “Postea singulis.” Those who coincide with Dalechamps and Ajasson, as to the meaning, would read it, that at the end of the gladiatorial games, the elephants fought singly one against another, the gladiators having retired from the arena.

[1620] Pliny here uses the word “manu,” “hand,” which although, as he afterwards remarks, it may not be an inappropriate metaphor, could scarcely be admitted in our language.—B.

[1621] This trait has been observed in all ages; the elephant has been known to remove with its trunk a child lying in its way, and in danger of being injured. It appears to have an instinctive dread of trampling on a living animal; the same has also been observed in the horse.—B.

[1622] “Hordeo succo;” the exact meaning has been the subject of much discussion; it probably refers to some preparation of barley used by the ancients, perhaps a maceration of the corn in water; it is scarcely to be supposed, however, that the words are to be taken literally.—B.

[1623] Albertus Magnus, in his work on Animals, B. viii. c. 3, gives a fuller account of this method of taking the wild elephant. He says: “A man, riding on a tame elephant, guides him to the woods, and when he has met with some wild ones, drives the tame one against them, and makes it strike them with its trunk: the tame one, being better fed, soon conquers the wild elephant, and throws him to the ground; upon which, the man leaps upon him, and flogs him with a whip, and immediately the other becomes quiet.” Strabo, B. xv., gives a different account of the mode of catching and taming the elephant in India.

[1624] This appears to have been taken from Plutarch; and we have the same statement in Ælian, who particularly speaks of the sagacity of the animal, in endeavouring to extricate itself from the trench.—B.

[1625] We have the same account given by Ælian and by Strabo.—B.

[1626] Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 18, remarks, that the violence of the animal, which is produced by an accidental cause, as also that arising from venereal excitement, are counteracted by opposite modes of treatment; the one by depriving it of food, the other by over-feeding it; the former, in order to break its strength, and the latter, to divert it into a different channel.—B.

[1627] Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. i. c. 38, states that the Romans employed this mode of terrifying the elephants brought against them by Pyrrhus.—B.

[1628] That this was the general opinion among the ancients, we learn from Polybius, Ælian, Livy, Diodorus Siculus, and others. Cuvier remarks, that this may have been the case with the animals from Barbary, or the north of Africa, but that it is not so with those from the middle or south of that continent.—B.

[1629] It has been stated, in a Note to chap. 5, that Mr. Corse found the period of the gestation of the elephant to be between twenty and twenty-one months.—B.

[1630] Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iv. c. 31, considers the age of sixty to be the prime period of their life, not the commencement of their prime.—B.

[1631] This remark is incorrect; when the water is sufficiently deep, it swims with ease; and if the end of the trunk remains exposed to the atmosphere, it can dive below the surface, or swim with the body immersed.—B.

[1632] Cuvier remarks, that this statement is incorrect. He dissected three elephants at Paris, and found that their death had been caused by inflammation of the lungs and chest. The species of elephant, which now inhabits Asia and Africa, is certainly not adapted to a cold climate; but the numerous remains of elephants found in the north of Asia, prove that a species formerly existed, capable of enduring great cold. It is to be observed, that this species was covered with a thick, furry coat of wool and hair.—B.

[1633] This is from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 26; but it is scarcely necessary to remark, that it is without foundation. Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 18, refers to it, and explains it by supposing that the oil was not drunk, but applied externally; which is less improbable.—B.

[1634] They suck the fluid into the cavity of the trunk, and bend the trunk into the mouth, where it is received and swallowed in the usual manner.—B.

[1635] This dislike is confirmed by Cuvier.—B.

[1636] “Sanguisuga.”

[1637] Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 1, remarks, that the elephant is the least hairy of all animals.—B.

[1638] Cuvier remarks, that the trunk, being composed of a mixture of delicate muscular fibres and rich fat, would, when properly prepared, afford an article of food that might be very palatable.—B.

[1639] We learn from Livy, B. xlii. c. 23, that Gulussa was the son of Massinissa.—B.

[1640] In c. 8 of this Book.—B.

[1641] We learn from Cuvier, that the elephants of Africa and Asia belong to different species, distinguished by the form of the head, and some peculiarities in the structure of the teeth.—B.

[1642] By the term “dragon,” we may suppose that Pliny refers to some of the great serpents which exist in hot climates, and are of such vast size, that they might perhaps be able to perform some of the exploits here ascribed to the dragon.—B.

[1643] This account appears to be entirely without foundation.—B.

[1644] The idea of the elephant’s blood being cold, and sought after by the dragon, is, of course, without foundation; its blood being of the same temperature with that of other quadrupeds.—B.

[1645] Cuvier states, that in India and America there are serpents of the genus boa, or python, thirty feet or more in length. He observes, that there are various species of aquatic reptiles in the seas of India, but that they never swim twisted together, or with their heads elevated. Ælian gives an account of the great size of the dragons in Æthiopia.—B.

[1646] Cuvier remarks, that there are no serpents with crests on the head, and that Juba must have been thinking probably of some animal of the genus lacertus, when he made this statement. We may here remark, that the “basiliscus,” or “king of serpents,” was said by the poets to have a crown on its head, as denoting its kingly rank. See c. 33 of this Book.

[1647] It is well known, that certain serpents have the jaws and fauces so constructed, that they will allow of the passage of an animal more bulky than themselves; they first crush its bones, and form it into a kind of pulp, and then pass it, without further change, into the stomach, where it is slowly dissolved by the gastric juices.—B.

[1648] Supposed to have been in Mysia, or Bithynia, considerably to the west of Pontus.—B.

[1649] This account is entirely without foundation. The same statement is made by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 21, who probably copied it from Metrodorus. There are stories of the power which serpents possess of fascinating birds by the eye, but they are not improbably without foundation.—B. There is little doubt, however, that some serpents have the power, by some means or other, of fascinating the birds which they make their prey.

[1650] This is referred to by many ancient writers; among others, by Livy, B. xviii.; Florus, B. ii. c. 2; Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 8; and Aulus Gellius, B. vi. c. 3.—B.

[1651] As Cuvier remarks, it is difficult to conceive what he means by the boa of Italy. At the present day, the longest Italian serpents are the Æsculapian serpent (a harmless animal), and the “Coluber quadrilineatus” of Linnæus, neither of which exceeds ten feet in length. The one here mentioned, was probably, as Cuvier suggests, one of the genuine boa or python species; but, as he says, where did it come from? and how did it get there?

[1652] It is doubtful whether any one ever witnessed a serpent sucking a cow, but it seems to have been generally believed, and it is therefore probable, that the name of the animal was derived from this circumstance.—B. It is still believed of the common snake in some parts of this country. The reading “primo” has been preferred to “trimo,” that adopted by Sillig.

[1653] Cuvier remarks upon the two animals here mentioned, the bison and the urus, that Europe, at the present time, contains only one species of wild ox, the bison, or aurochs of the Germans, which still exists, although in small numbers only, in the forests of Lithuania. There are, however, fossil remains, in different parts of the north of Europe, of other animals of the same genus, which may have been the urus of Pliny, and not extinct when he wrote. Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 413, 414; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 365. The description by Cæsar of the urus of Gaul, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 26, seems to agree with the remains of the fossil animal, and may, therefore, be considered as confirming the opinion, that both animals were in existence when Pliny wrote.—B.

[1654] This appears to have been a species of antelope, the Antelope bubalus of Linnæus. Cuvier observes, that Strabo places it among the gazelles, and Aristotle associates it with the stag and the deer, while Oppian’s description of the urus, agrees with those of the gazelle.—B.

[1655] We learn from various travellers, that there are troops of wild horses and asses in many parts of Tartary and the neighbouring countries; but it is doubtful whether they have proceeded from an original wild stock, or may not have been the produce of some individuals which had accidentally escaped from the domestic state.—B.

[1656] No doubt Pliny has fallen into an error on this subject, and his elk and achlis are, in reality, the same animal. The description of the latter, for the most part, applies to the former, with the exception of the want of joints in the legs, which is entirely without foundation. Cæsar’s account of the elk, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 27, agrees generally with Pliny’s account of the achlis; he also says, that the legs of the alces are “without articulations and joints.”

[1657] The Romans had but a very imperfect knowledge of the Scandinavian peninsula. They supposed it to be surrounded by the ocean, and to be composed of many islands, which Ptolemy calls Scandiæ. Of these, the largest bore especially the name of Scandia or Scandinavia, by which name the modern Sweden was probably indicated. See B. iv. c. 30.

[1658] Pliny’s account is from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 45, but, as is often the case, with considerable exaggerations. Aristotle says, that these animals eject their excrements to a distance of four feet, and that it is of so acrid a nature, as to cause the hair of the dog to fall off. The word jugerum is generally used as a measure of superficial surface.—B.

[1659] Pliny here renders the Greek πλέθρον, by “jugerum,” which is ordinarily a measure of superficies. In the present case, therefore, it must mean a measure of _length_, of 100 Grecian, or 104 Roman feet.

[1660] The pard of Pliny, as we shall find stated below, is the male of the panther.

[1661] Cuvier remarks, that all the feline animals have retractile claws, drawn by an elastic ligament into a sheath, and protruded when required for the purpose of prehension. The sheath is formed of a duplicature or fold of the skin and the subjacent cellular membrane.—B.

[1662] What Pliny states here, is without foundation. He supposes that the leopard is the produce of a pard, or male panther, and the female of the lion; but this is incorrect, the leopard being a distinct species of animal.—B.

[1663] Herodotus, B. iii. c. 108, gives the same account, which is refuted by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 31. Aulus Gellius, B. xiii. c. 7, refers to Herodotus, and the refutation by Aristotle.—B.

[1664] The account here given of the lioness generally, Aristotle gives respecting the Syrian lioness only, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 31; there is some reason to believe that Aristotle is not correct in what he says. The account given by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iv. c. 33, is nearly the same with that of Pliny.—B.

[1665] There is much in this account that is incorrect. It is well ascertained that the cubs of the lion are proportionably as large and as perfectly formed as the young of other animals that belong to the same family.—B.

[1666] Herodotus, B. vii. c. 126, and Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 28, give a similar account of the district in which lions are found.—B. Littré remarks, that this statement of Pliny is probably formed, as originally suggested by M. Maury, upon the fact, that the lions of Europe, as we learn from Herodotus, attacked the camels of Xerxes, on his invasion of Europe.

[1667] Cuvier remarks, that we have no knowledge of the lion with curled hair, so frequently spoken of by the ancients. He suggests that there may have been a peculiar variety between the rivers Achelous and Nestus or Mestus, or perhaps, more probably, that it was altogether imaginary. He states also, that we no longer see lions without manes, but that Olivier had seen some at Bagdat. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 44, speaks of the two species of lions, and describes them nearly as Pliny has done.—B.

[1668] According to Cuvier, this is not the case; the lion passes its urine just as the other animals of the same family. Pliny again refers to the odour of the lion’s breath, in B. xi. c. 115.—B.

[1669] The lion, like other carnivorous animals, is able to receive a large quantity of food into the stomach, and to remain for a proportionably longer period without eating; but the statement respecting its taking food on alternate days, is without foundation. There does not appear to be any ground for the account of the mode by which it relieves the stomach when overcharged.—B.

[1670] We learn from Cicero, Ep. Fam. B. v. Ep. 12, that Polybius wrote a history of the Numantine war, in which we may presume the account here referred to was contained.—B.

[1671] Although these accounts of the generosity and clemency of the lion are in a great measure fabulous, still the accounts of those who have had the best opportunity of becoming acquainted with the character of different animals, agree in ascribing to it less ferocity and brutality, in proportion to its size and strength, than to other animals of the same family.—B.

[1672] In various countries, and more especially in Egypt, the magicians profess to charm serpents by incantations; and it appears that they are able to acquire some power over them by imitating their natural cries. Cuvier informs us, that Geoffroi St. Hilaire had witnessed the fact, and was himself able to produce the effect.—B.

[1673] Aristotle says, a matter of a _yellow_ colour, ἰχῶρες ὠχροὶ.

[1674] Probably, there is no foundation for this opinion: it does not appear that any animal, except man, has the faculty of weeping, i. e. of shedding tears, in connection with a peculiar condition of mind and feeling.—B. But query as to the horse. See c. 64 of the present Book, and the Introduction to vol. i. p. xvii.

[1675] This supposed fear is without foundation, but appears to have been a generally received opinion, as it is referred to by Lucretius, B. iv. l. 714-725.—B.

[1676] Seneca gives an account of this exhibition; he says that the lions were turned loose into the Circus, and that spearmen were sent by king Bocchus, who killed them with darts. Sylla was prætor A.U.C. 661, B.C. 92.—B.

[1677] “Sagum.” This was the cloak worn by the Roman soldiers and inferior officers, in contradistinction to the “paludamentum“ of the general and superior officers. It was open in the front, and usually, though not always, fastened across the shoulders by a clasp. It was thick, and made of wool.

[1678] This story is given also by Plutarch, in the life of Demetrius. Lysimachus was a Macedonian by birth, but son of Agathocles, a serf of Thessaly. Through his great courage, he became one of the body-guard of Alexander. Quintus Curtius tells us that, when hunting in Syria, he killed a lion of immense size single-handed, though not without receiving severe wounds in the contest. The same author looks upon this as the probable origin of the story here referred to by Pliny.

[1679] This is mentioned by many ancient authors; by Plutarch, Pausanias, Seneca, Justin, and by Quintus Curtius, who thinks that the account usually given is fabulous.—B.

[1680] Related by Plutarch, as among the acts of extravagance and folly, committed by Antony, which gave much disgust to the grave and respectable citizens of Rome.—B.

[1681] A famous courtezan of the time of Cicero; being originally the freedwoman and mistress of Volumnius Eutrapelus, and then successively the mistress of Antony and the poet Gallus, who mentioned her in his poems under the name of Lycoris; she did not, however, continue faithful to him.

[1682] Aulus Gellius, B. v. c. 14, and Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. viii. c. 48, relate a similar anecdote of Androclus or Androcles, who extracted a thorn from the foot of a lion.—B.

[1683] The text is in a state of extreme confusion here, and so hopelessly mangled, that we can only guess at the sense of it. In Sillig’s edition, which is generally followed, it runs to this effect: “Neque profugienti, cum potuisset, fera institerat et procumbens ad arborem hiatu quo terruerat miserationem quærebat. Os morsu avidiore inhæserat dentibus cruciabatque inedia, tum pœna in ipsis ejus telis suspectantem ac velut mutis precibus orantem, dum fortuitu fidens non est contra feram; multoque diutius miraculo quam metu cessatum est.” Thus paraphrased by Sillig, who devotes a long Note to it: “The lion, therefore, being tormented by hunger and excessive pain, and thus punishing himself for his greediness in his own weapons (his teeth), looked up, and besought Elpis with silent prayers, as it were, not, as he trusted to the protection fortuitously given by the branches, to show himself distrustful of a wild beast.”

[1684] This remark refers to what Pliny has related in c. 5, respecting the sagacity of the elephant.—B.

[1685] Cuvier remarks, that this “panthera” is not the same as the πάνθηρ of the Greeks. From the description of its spots and other circumstances, he thinks that it was one of the African animals, known by modern naturalists as the leopard, which appear to have been confounded by the Romans with the panther. The term “leopardus” is not met with until after the age of Pliny; it was supposed to be the produce of the pardus, or male panther, and the lioness.—B.

[1686] “Assectatoris sapientiæ”—“A follower of wisdom;” meaning a “philosopher.”

[1687] This word here signifies, simply, a “serpent.”

[1688] Ælian, Var. Hist. B. xiii. c. i., relates an occurrence of this kind, about Atalanta, and Justin, B. xliv. c. 4, about Habis, a king of Spain. As to the account of Romulus having been suckled by a wolf, it was generally regarded as a legendary tale by the Romans themselves. See Livy, B. i. c. 4, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiq. Rom. B. i.—B.

[1689] Pliny, in B. xiii. c. 15, speaks of “tables of tiger and panther pattern,” as articles of ornamental furniture among the Romans, named from the peculiar patterns of the veins in the citrus wood, of which they were formed.—B.

[1690] This, though mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 8, is probably incorrect; and still more the addition made by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. v. c. 40, that this odour is grateful to man. It has, however, induced some to conjecture, that the animal here described might be the civet; but the description given is inapplicable to that animal; nor, indeed, does the civet appear to have been known to the ancients. For further information, see the remarks of Cuvier, Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 420, and Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 386. Pliny, in B. xxi. c. 18, says that no animal, except the panther, has any odour.—B.

[1691] Meaning the “spotted” or “parti-coloured” female.

[1692] Xenophon, in his Cynegeticon, says, that the pard is found on Mount Pangæus, in Macedonia; the truth of which is denied by Aristotle, who says that it is not to be found in Europe.

[1693] He was tribune A.U.C. 670. Cicero says, Tusc. Quæst. B. iv. c. 39, that Aufidius, although blind, was eminent for his political and literary talents. He wrote a History of Greece.—B.

[1694] 4th of May, A.U.C. 696.—B.

[1695] See also Suetonius, Life of Augustus. Martial, Spect. Ep. 18, relates a circumstance respecting a tame tiger, which occurrence appears to have taken place at the time when he wrote. Heliogabalus yoked tigers to his car, in imitation of Bacchus, as we are informed by Lampridius.

[1696] “In cavea.” In the arena or centre of the amphitheatre. This word often signifies, however, the place where the senators, equites, and plebeians, sat in the theatre: and in the later writers it is used to signify the whole amphitheatre.

[1697] A.U.C. 742.—B.

[1698] In the winter of 1809 and 1810, an antique mosaic pavement was discovered at Rome, in which four tigers are represented, and which, it has been supposed, might possibly have some reference to those exhibited by Claudius. Martial, who lived a little after Pliny, speaks of tigers exhibited at Rome, by Domitian, in considerable numbers. Epig. B. viii. Ep. 26.—B.

[1699] Cuvier remarks, that the account given of the two kinds of camels, and his description generally, is correct, with the exception of their antipathy to the horse. The caravans, he says, present a constant mixture of the two animals, and even, in Arabia, the young foals are occasionally suckled by the female camel.—B.

[1700] We have a similar statement in Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 1. Indeed, the account here given generally, is taken from him.—B.

[1701] See B. xi. c. 62.

[1702] Mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 17, and by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iii. c. 7; but, as stated above, it is incorrect.—B.

[1703] At the time of rutting, according to Solinus.

[1704] He speaks here of only _one_ of the animals which resemble the camel; the giraffe, namely. The other, which he for the present omits, is the ostrich.

[1705] The description of the giraffe, here given, is sufficiently correct, but we have a more minute account of it by Dion Cassius, B. xliii. In the time of the Emperor Gordian, ten of these animals were exhibited at Rome at once; a remarkable fact, when we bear in mind that so few have been imported into Europe for many centuries past. The giraffe is figured in the mosaic at Præneste, and under it is inscribed its name, nabi.—B. It has been found that it is unable to bear the winters of Europe.

[1706] Its form being like that of the camel, while its spots resemble those of the leopard. Horace refers to it, when speaking of an object calculated to excite the vulgar gaze; “Diversum confusa genus panthera camelo”—“The race of the panther mingled with the camel,” Ep. B. ii.; Ep. i. l. 195.

[1707] According to Dion Cassius, B. xliii., these games were celebrated A.U.C. 708.—B.

[1708] This comparison can only be employed to indicate the mild nature of the giraffe.—B.

[1709] In the older editions, the names here given to this animal were “chaus” and “ruphius;” the alteration was made by Hardouin from a MS. in the Royal Library of Paris, which he deemed of high authority, and has been adopted by all the modern editors. There is considerable doubt respecting the animal here designated by the name of “chama;” it appears to have been an inhabitant of Gaul, and in c. 34, is styled “lupus cervarius;” but the account does not enable us to identify it with any animal known to exist in that country.—B. It is generally supposed to have been a species of lynx.

[1710] No doubt this description refers to some species of the monkey tribe, but it is uncertain to what one in particular. Its having been seen only once at Rome, shows that it was not of the most common kind; Cuvier, however, thinks it probable, that Pliny may have been incorrect in this; he supposes that it was the “Simia sphinx” of Linnæus, Lem. vol. iii. p. 395. According to Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 8, κηβος is merely a monkey with a tail; see also the account of Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. xvii. c. 8.—B.

[1711] Cuvier says, that this was the single-horned rhinoceros of India. The commentators have been at a loss to reconcile this description with the Epigram of Martial, Spect. Ep. xxii., where he speaks of the rhinoceros exhibited by Domitian, as having two horns. It has been proved that this latter was of the two-horned species, by the medals of that emperor, now in existence. Martial, Spect. Ep. ix., seems also to have been acquainted with the single-horned species. That with two horns is mentioned by Pausanias as the Æthiopian bull. We learn from modern naturalists, that the two-horned species is a native of the southern parts of Africa, while that with one horn is from Asia.—B.

[1712] The other enemy is the dragon, as described in c. 11 and 12 of the present Book.—B.

[1713] According to Cuvier, the lynx of Pliny is the Felis caracal of Linnæus: it is common in many parts of Asia and Africa, in the retired forest districts, and still exists in the Pyrenees and the mountains of Naples.—B.

[1714] As far as the accounts of the sphinx are to be regarded as not entirely fabulous, we must suppose it to have originated in some species of the monkey tribe; perhaps the Simia troglodytes or chimpanzé.—B.

[1715] Of course the winged horse is an imaginary being, nor does it appear what is the origin of the fable; the horns are an unusual appendage to the pegasus.—B. The pegasus and the rhinoceros together may have given rise to that fabulous animal, the unicorn. See, however, the Monoceros, mentioned in c. 31.

[1716] Although a hybrid animal is produced by the union of the wolf and the dog, it does not form a permanent species. But, as Cuvier remarks, by the insertion of “velut,” Pliny seems to imply that the crocotta unites the physical properties of the two animals. Ctesias, Indic. c. 32, gives an account of the cynolycus, or “dog-wolf,” from which Pliny seems to have taken his crocotta.—B.

[1717] It does not seem possible to determine what species of monkey is here designated; it is most probable that he himself had no accurate knowledge.—B.

[1718] We may here refer to the judicious remarks of Cuvier, Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 427, 428, and Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 399, on the leucrocotta. It seems impossible to identify Pliny’s description with any known animal, and it is not unlikely that he has confused the accounts of authors who were speaking of different animals. Some of the characteristics of the leucrocotta agree with those of the Indian antelope, while others seem to resemble those of the hyæna.—B.

[1719] Perhaps the eale may have been the two-horned rhinoceros, as some naturalists say that there is a degree of mobility in the horns of that animal; the same observation has been made with respect to the wild or forest bulls, the description of which animal, in Pliny, is probably from Diodorus Siculus.—B.

[1720] This description of the mantichora appears to be taken from the Indica of Ctesias; it has been also adopted by Aristotle and Ælian, but they have qualified their accounts by some expressions of doubt, which are omitted by Pliny. It has been conjectured, that Ctesias took his description from the hieroglyphic figures in his time, probably common in the East, and still found in the ruins of the Assyrian and Persian cities, Nineveh and Persepolis, for instance.—B.

[1721] Probably meaning, “not cloven.”

[1722] Cuvier conjectures, that this is from Ctesias, and says, that a similar animal is to be seen on one of the sculptures of Persepolis.—B.

[1723] Probably the stag of the Ganges, the “Cervus axis” of Linnæus; but if so, Pliny has omitted to mention the horns.—B.

[1724] White apes are now unknown, as a distinct species, but individuals are occasionally found nearly without colour.—B.

[1725] The “one-horned,” or the unicorn.

[1726] We have a discussion by Cuvier, respecting the existence of the unicorn, or of any animal similar to that here described, with a single horn. He remarks, that the only single-horned quadruped of which we have any certain knowledge, is the rhinoceros, and that the only horns which have been discovered, and which can have been single horns, belong to it. There are five animals mentioned by the ancients, as having single horns, the Indian ass, the single-horned horse, the single-horned ox, the monoceros, described in the text, and the oryx of Africa, which Pliny speaks of in c. 79 of this Book, and in B. xi. c. 106. There are many curious accounts given by travellers of acknowledged veracity, respecting animals seen in the more remote parts of Asia and Africa, answering to the description of the unicorn, and there are representations of the same in ancient sculptures; but they do not amount to that kind of evidence which can at all supply the place of direct proof.—B.

[1727] These will be found in B. v. c. 10.

[1728] From καταβλέπω, “to look downwards.”

[1729] Ælian describes this animal more in detail, Anim. Nat. B. vii. c. 5. Cuvier thinks it probable that it is the Antelope gnu; he remarks, that it has a very peculiar and mournful appearance; Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 435; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 405.—B.

[1730] This account of the basilisk’s eye, like that of the catoblepas, is entirely devoid of foundation.—B.

[1731] Many species have certain marks on the head, which were supposed to resemble a crown.—B.

[1732] There is probably no foundation for this account of the action of the effluvium of the weasel upon the basilisk or any other species of serpent.—B.

[1733] Hence the proverbial expression applied to a person who is suddenly silent upon the entrance of another; “Lupus est tibi visus.”

[1734] Cuvier says, that the wolves of Africa are of the ordinary size, and conjectures that this remark probably applies to the chakale, or “Canis aureus” of Linnæus, which is of the colour of the wolf, and the size of the fox, and is common throughout all Africa.—B.

[1735] The opinion that men were converted into wolves by enchantment, or a preternatural agency, was at one time so generally received, as to have led to judicial processes, and the condemnation of the supposed criminal.—B. To the relator of the above story that men lose their voice on seeing a wolf, Scaliger wishes as many blows as at different times he had seen a wolf without losing his voice.

[1736] This literally means “changing the skin;” was applied by some ancient medical writers to a peculiar form of insanity, where the patient conceives himself changed into a wolf, and named λυκανθρώπια, “lycanthropy.” The word appears to have been in common use among the Romans, and to have been applied by them to any one who had undergone a remarkable change in his character and habits; in this sense it is used by Plautus, Amphitryon, Prol. l. 123, and Bacchides, A. iv. sc. 4, l. 12.—B.

[1737] It is not known who is here referred to; it is not probable that it is Fabius Pictor, the Roman historian.—B.

[1738] It is rather curious to find Pliny censuring others for _credulity_; indeed he loses no opportunity of a hit at the Greeks, to whom, after all, he is greatly indebted. See Introduction to vol. i. p. 17.

[1739] An account of the victories gained at the Olympic games.—B.

[1740] It has been conjectured, that the epithet, “Lycæan,” Λύκαιος, was given to Jupiter by the Arcadians, for this supposed conversion of men into wolves, which was conceived to be effected by divine interposition.—B.

[1741] It does not appear what is the foundation of this opinion; of course, it is without truth.—B.

[1742] Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 35, says that they couple once only in the year. Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iv. c. 4, says that their bringing forth continues twelve days.—B.

[1743] See c. 28 of the present Book. He alludes probably to the lynx.

[1744] It is not easy to say whence this opinion was derived; the general character of the wolf is that of quickness and watchfulness, rather than stupidity.—B. But it would appear that it is the lynx that is alluded to.

[1745] The cerastes, or horned serpent, is mentioned by Lucan, in his description of serpents, Pharsalia, B. ix. l. 716. One of the Scholiasts on Lucan relates a story that when Helen was eloping with Paris, she trod on the back of a cerastes, and broke it; from which circumstance, the whole race moved with a crooked course.

[1746] Cuvier has observed this animal burying itself in the sand, and has seen the motion of its horns, but does not credit its alleged power of attracting birds; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 412.—B.

[1747] The amphisbæna is mentioned by Lucan, B. ix. l. 719. “The dangerous amphisbæna, that moves on at either of its heads.”

[1748] The account of the two heads is obviously incorrect; the idea has risen from the two extremities being nearly of the same size and appearance. It has been supposed, that there were certain serpents, with the power of moving with equal facility in both directions; and that the name, Ἀμφίσβαινα, was derived from this circumstance.—B.

[1749] Lucan mentions the jaculus, B. ix. l. 720, and l. 822. In the last passage he says: “Behold! afar, around the trunk of a barren tree, a fierce serpent—Africa calls it the jaculus—wreathes itself, and then darts forth, and through the head and pierced temples of Paulus it takes its flight: nothing does venom there affect, death seizes him through the wound. It was then understood how slowly fly the stones which the sling hurls, how sluggishly whizzes the flight of the Scythian arrow.”

[1750] There is an account of the jaculus, or, as it is called in Greek, Ἀκοντίας, Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 18; it is mentioned by Galen, Theriaca, c. 8.—B.

[1751] In B. ix. l. 701, Lucan says: “Here the gore (of the Gorgon Medusa) which first from the sand lifted a head, raised the drowsy asp with its puffed-out neck.” The whole of this passage in Lucan is well worth the attention of those desirous to know something of the serpent-lore of the ancients.

[1752] Cuvier says, that Geoffroi St. Hilaire has identified this animal with the Coluber haje of Linnæus, which has, from the earliest ages, been known as a native of Egypt, and where it still exists. Its two most remarkable characteristics are those here referred to; the puffing out of the neck when enraged, and its capacity of being tamed, or, as it is styled, enchanted. This last has been taken advantage of by the jugglers of that country from the most remote antiquity, as appears from the writings of Moses, and something of a similar nature is still practised. They remove the poison fangs, so as to render the animal harmless, and by certain sounds render it obedient to their call. It appears, also, that by pressing on the upper part of the spine, the animal is rendered paralytic, and may be said to be changed into a rod; this fact was witnessed by St. Hilaire. The asp is described by Aristotle, and is frequently mentioned by Ælian. Galen speaks of its deadly poison, in his Theriaca, c. 8. See Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 437-9; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 414, 415.—B. Pliny mentions, however, in B. xxiii. c. 27, that the bite of the asp may be cured with vinegar.

[1753] Both Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 29, and Ælian, _ubi supra_, speak of the extreme virulence of the poison of the asp, and Cuvier remarks that the haje, and the haga, which are species of the asp, are among the most formidable of the serpent tribe.—B.

[1754] The method of attracting this serpent, by imitating the voice of the female, proves that there is some foundation for this statement.—B.

[1755] The ichneumon of the ancients, the “Viverra ichneumon“ of Linnæus, is still common in Egypt, and renders essential service by destroying the eggs of serpents. With respect to what is here said of its covering its body with mud, to protect itself against the asp, the fact appears to be, that in searching for the eggs, which are deposited in the mud, its body becomes more or less covered with that substance, and may possibly in this way be less exposed to the attacks of the asp. The contest of the asp and the ichneumon is mentioned by Ælian, B. iii. c. 22.—B.

[1756] Many of the ancients have described the crocodile; of these, the most important, for the correctness of the description, are Herodotus, B. ii. c. 68; Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 10, _et alibi_; and Diodorus Siculus, B. i.—B.

[1757] The tongue of the crocodile is flat, and, as afterwards stated, B. xi. c. 65, adheres to the lower jaw, so as to be incapable of motion.—B.

[1758] This account was first given by Herodotus, _ubi supra_; and, from the form of the head and the neighbouring parts, depicts what would naturally occur to the observer; but it is not correct. The actual state of the parts, and their connection with each other, as Cuvier informs us, were first satisfactorily explained by Geoffroi Saint Hilaire.—B.

[1759] Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. v. c. 52, observes, that this is the case with the tortoise, and similar animals.—B.

[1760] Cuvier says, that when it leaves the egg, the young animal is only six inches long, and that it ultimately attains a size of from thirty to forty feet.—B.

[1761] Herodotus says, that it remains all night in the water, as being warmer than the external air. So also Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 10.—B.

[1762] The water of the Nile abounds with small leeches, which attach to the throat of the crocodile, and, as it has no means of removing them, it allows a little bird to enter its mouth for this purpose; this is described by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 6, and by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iii. c. 2.—B.

[1763] Although this account is sanctioned by all the ancient naturalists, it is called in question by Cuvier; Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 441; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 421.—B.

[1764] There is a small lizard, called by the modern naturalists the Lacerta scincus; but Cuvier conceives that this cannot be the animal here referred to, because it is so very much smaller than the ichneumon, that no one would have thought of comparing them; and, what seems a better reason, because it is not found in the Nile. From the account of the scincus in B. xxviii. c. 30, it is probable that the animal here referred to is a species of monitor, popularly called the land crocodile. Herodotus, B. iv. c. 192, speaks of the land crocodile as found in Libya; it is also mentioned by Pausanias, Corinthiaca, c. 20, and by Prosper Alpinus, Ægypt. B. iv. c. 5.—B. The scincus is probably the “Lacerta ouaran” of Cuvier.

[1765] Cuvier remarks, that this account cannot really apply to the dolphin, because none of the cetacea possess the spines here described. He investigates the subject with his usual sagacity, and concludes, with much probability, that the animal here referred to was a squalus, the Squalus centrina, or spinax of Linnæus; Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 443, 444; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 422, 423. We have an account of the contest between the crocodile and the dolphin in Seneca, Nat. Quæst. B. iv. c. 2.—B.

[1766] We have some account of the Tentyritæ in Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. x. c. 21.—B. See B. xxviii. c. 6.

[1767] See B. vii. c. 2. The best description of the Psylli is that given by Lucan in B. ix. l. 892, _et seq._, where he describes the march of Cato’s army across the burning coasts of the Syrtes.

[1768] This, as Cuvier remarks, is the case with the crocodiles of North America, which, like other reptiles, become torpid during the cold season; Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 444; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 424.—B.

[1769] Cuvier remarks, as singular, that the descriptions given by the ancients of the hippopotamus should have been incorrect, more especially with reference to Herodotus, who had visited Egypt, and who has described some of the animals of that country with considerable accuracy; Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 444, 445; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 425. Pliny has copied the description of Herodotus, B. ii. c. 71, almost verbatim, and the same has been done by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 7. Even the Latin authors, such as Diodorus Siculus and Ælian, who might have seen the animal in Rome, continued to transcribe the account of Herodotus.—B.

[1770] Herodotus and Aristotle, _ubi supra_, assert, that his hide is so hard, that spears and other missiles are formed from it; the statement of Pliny is, however, much more correct.—B.

[1771] “Euripo.” See the Notes to c. 7 of this Book.

[1772] Pliny, speaking of the hippopotamus, in B. xxviii. c. 31, styles it, “the discoverer of the art of letting blood.”—B.

[1773] Cuvier remarks upon this and the following Chapter, that they are entirely fabulous. The diseases, remedies, and instructions given by the animals are equally imaginary, although Pliny has taken the whole from authors of credit, and it has been repeated by Plutarch, De Iside, and by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. ii. c. 35, and many others. Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 446; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 426.—B.

[1774] Cuvier has given an interesting account of the ibis, the opinions entertained of it by various travellers and naturalists, and a detail of the examination which he made of two of its mummies, which were brought by Grobert to Paris, from the wells of Sakhara. These mummies were found to be similar to those previously examined by Buffon, Shaw, and others, and proved the ibis of the ancient Egyptians to have been a species of curlew. This opinion he further supports by a reference to various sculptures and mosaics, where this bird is represented, and he remarks upon the errors into which most travellers and historians have fallen as to it; the only correct account he conceives to be that of the African traveller, Bruce, who describes and figures it under the name of Abou hannès. See the extract in Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 633, _et seq._, from his _Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles_, vol. i. p. 141, _et seq._ Herodotus gives an account of the ibis, B. i. c. 75, 76, but it is not correct.—B.

[1775] The fabulous account of the powers of this herb is referred to in B. xxv. c. 53, and supported by the highest authorities; among others, by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 6.; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. B. ii. c. 50; Virgil, Æn. B. xii. c. 412.—B.

[1776] See B. xxii. c. 45, for a similar cure. It is not known what plant is here alluded to, but it has been thought to be the cinara, or artichoke.

[1777] The Chelidonium majus of Linnæus. It probably derived its name from the swallow, χελίδων, because its flowers appear at the time that bird makes its first appearance in the spring. This supposed property is mentioned by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iii. c. 25. Pliny speaks of its efficacy in diseases of the eyes, B. xxv. c. 50, and c. 91.—B.

[1778] Pliny speaks of the medical virtues of cunile bubula, in B. xx. c. 61; Columella, B. vi. c. 13, says that it is a cure for scabies. It is not certain what is the plant here referred to; it is considered identical with origanum, by Hardouin, and has been supposed by some to be marjoram, or pennyroyal. The effect of the cunile on the tortoise is mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 6; by Plutarch, Nat. Quæst.; Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 12; and by Albertus Magnus, B viii. Tr. ii. c. 2; but there is some difference in their statements. Some speak of it as an antidote, enabling the tortoise to counteract the poison of the serpent, while others regard it as giving the tortoise increased vigour to resist the attacks.

[1779] Aristotle, _ubi supra_, and Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iv. c. 14, refer to this supposed fact, which is without foundation, so far, at least, as the contest of the weasels with the serpents and the rue are concerned. The hostility of the weasel to the mouse is probably correct. Pliny again refers to it, B. xx. c. 51, and it forms the subject of one of Phædrus’s Fables, B. iv. c. 2.—B.

[1780] We have the same account in Plutarch.—B. Plutarch speaks, however, of the _river_ crab.

[1781] Pliny refers to this effect, B. xx. c. 95; he speaks also of its application to the eyes of the animal; it is probable, that feniculum and marathrum both refer to the same plant; the latter being the ordinary Greek, and the former the Latin, name. This effect of the feniculum is also mentioned by Ælian, B. ix. c. 16.—B.

[1782] “Si vero squamæ obtorpuere;” Hardouin supposes that this applies

## particularly to the eyes.—B. There can be little doubt that he is

correct in that supposition.

[1783] Aristotle, _ubi supra_, and Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 4, state that the dragon takes the juice of the _picris_ into the stomach, when overloaded with food. The exact plant referred to, under that name, cannot be ascertained for certain; but it appears probable, that it is a wild lettuce or endive, or some plant belonging to that family.—B.

[1784] This effect of aconite, and the antidote for it, are mentioned in B. xxvii. c. 2; they are also mentioned by Aristotle, _ubi supra_; and by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. iv. c. 49, and alluded to by Cicero, De. Nat. Deor. B. ii. c. 50. It appears from a statement of Tavernier, as referred to by Hardouin, that the same antidote against poisoned weapons is still employed in the island of Java.—B.

[1785] From the Greek παρδαλιαγχὴς, “pard-strangle.”

[1786] This is again referred to, B. xxix. c. 39.—B.

[1787] “Quod persequi immensum est æque scilicet quam reliquam cum singulis hominum societatem.” The meaning of this passage is obscure, and extremely doubtful.

[1788] This is alluded to by Cicero in his letters to Atticus, and is mentioned by Ælian, Anim. Nat. B. vi. c. 41; B. xi. c. 19; and Var. Hist. B. i. c. 11.—B. The same is still said of rats, whence our expression “to rat,” _i. e._ to desert a falling cause.

[1789] The priests of this college, or augurs, were among the most important public functionaries in the Roman state, both from the rank of the individuals and the political power which they derived from their office.—B. The augurs, or diviners by birds, held the highest rank in the state; but the power of their college greatly declined in the later period of the Roman history. It was finally abolished by the Emperor Theodosius.

[1790] Other instances are mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, B. iii. Justin, B. xv. c. 2, and Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xvii. c. 41.—B. Showers of frogs are a thing not unknown in England even. They are probably caused by whirlwinds acting upon waters which are the haunt of these animals.

[1791] The ravages of locusts have been known in all ages; their destructive effects in Egypt and Judea, have formed the subject of a very elaborate dissertation by Bochart, in his work on the “Animals of Scripture,”