The works of the ancients in miniature were excellent. Archytas, who was
contemporary with Plato, constructed a wooden pigeon, which imitated the
flight and motions of a living one. Cicero saw the whole of Homer’s
Iliad written in so fine a character that it could be contained in a
nutshell.[515] Myrmecides, a Milesian, made an ivory chariot, so small
and so delicately framed, that a fly with its wing could at the same
time cover it; and a little ivory ship of the same dimensions.
Callicrates, a Lacedemonian, formed ants and other little animals out of
ivory, so extremely small, that their component parts were scarcely to
be distinguished. One of these artists wrote a distich in golden
letters, which he enclosed in the rind of a grain of corn.
MICROSCOPES, &c.
Whether, in such undertakings as our best artists cannot accomplish
without the assistance of microscopes, the ancients were so aided, is
doubtful, but it is certain that they had several ways of helping and
strengthening the sight, and of magnifying small objects. Jamblichus
says of Pythagoras, that he applied himself to find out instruments as
efficacious to aid the hearing, as a ruler, or a square, or even optic
glasses, διοπτρα, were to the sight. Plutarch speaks of mathematical
instruments which Archimedes made use of, to manifest to the eye the
largeness of the sun; which may be meant of telescopes. Aulus Gellius
having spoken of mirrors that multiplied objects, makes mention of those
which inverted them; and these of course must be concave or convex
glasses. Pliny says that in his time artificers made use of emeralds to
assist their sight, in works that required a nice eye; and to prevent us
from thinking that it was on account of its green colour only that they
had recourse to it, he adds, that they were made concave the better to
collect the visual rays; and that Nero used them in viewing the combats
of the gladiators.