and afterwards,
Vertit Aristidem Sisenna, nec obfuit illi
Historiae turpes inseruisse jocos:--
_Fasti_, ii. 412-445.
and also from the incident mentioned in the _Plutarchian_ life of Crassus,
that after the defeat at Carrhae, a copy of the Milesiacs of Aristides was
found in the baggage of a Roman officer, and that Surena (who, by the by,
if history has not done him injustice, was not a man to be over scrupulous
in such a case,) caused the book to be brought into the senate house of
Seleucia, and a portion of it read aloud, for the purpose of insulting the
Romans, who, even during war, he said, could not abstain from the perusal
of such _infamous compositions_,--c. 32. The immoral character of these
tales, therefore, may be considered pretty clearly established; they were
the Decameron and Heptameron of antiquity.--ED.]
[Footnote 2: Chap. xxxvii. v. 3.]
_May_ 11. 1830.