MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.
CHAP. 1.—MAN.
Such then is the present state of the world, and of the countries,
nations, more remarkable seas, islands, and cities which it
contains.[836] The nature of the animated beings which exist upon it,
is hardly in any degree less worthy of our contemplation than its other
features; if, indeed, the human mind is able to embrace the whole of so
diversified a subject. Our first attention is justly due to Man, for
whose sake all other things appear to have been produced by Nature;
though, on the other hand, with so great and so severe penalties for
the enjoyment of her bounteous gifts, that it is far from easy to
determine, whether she has proved to him a kind parent, or a merciless
step-mother.
In the first place, she obliges him alone, of all animated beings, to
clothe himself with the spoils of the others; while, to all the rest,
she has given various kinds of coverings, such as shells, crusts,
spines, hides, furs, bristles, hair, down, feathers, scales, and
fleeces.[837] The very trunks of the trees even, she has protected
against the effects of heat and cold by a bark, which is, in some
cases, twofold.[838] Man alone, at the very moment of his birth
cast naked upon the naked earth,[839] does she abandon to cries, to
lamentations, and, a thing that is the case with no other animal
whatever, to tears: this, too, from the very moment that he enters upon
existence.[840] But as for laughter, why, by Hercules!—to laugh, if but
for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth
day[841] from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of
precocity. Introduced thus to the light, man has fetters and swathings
instantly put upon all his limbs,[842] a thing that falls to the lot of
none of the brutes even that are born among us. Born to such singular
good fortune,[843] there lies the animal, which is destined to command
all the others, lies, fast bound hand and foot, and weeping aloud! such
being the penalty which he has to pay on beginning life, and that for
the sole fault of having been born. Alas! for the folly of those who
can think after such a beginning as this, that they have been born for
the display of vanity!
The earliest presage of future strength, the earliest bounty of time,
confers upon him nought but the resemblance to a quadruped.[844] How
soon does man gain the power of walking? How soon does he gain the
faculty of speech? How soon is his mouth fitted for mastication? How
long are the pulsations of the crown of his head to proclaim him
the weakest of all animated beings?[845] And then, the diseases to
which he is subject, the numerous remedies which he is obliged to
devise against his maladies, and those thwarted every now and then by
new forms and features of disease.[846] While other animals have an
instinctive knowledge of their natural powers; some, of their swiftness
of pace, some of their rapidity of flight, and some again of their
power of swimming; man is the only one that knows nothing, that can
learn nothing without being taught; he can neither speak, nor walk,
nor eat,[847] and, in short, he can do nothing, at the prompting of
nature only, but weep. For this it is, that many have been of opinion,
that it were better not to have been born, or if born, to have been
annihilated[848] at the earliest possible moment.
To man alone, of all animated beings, has it been given, to
grieve,[849] to him alone to be guilty of luxury and excess; and that
in modes innumerable, and in every part of his body. Man is the only
being that is a prey to ambition, to avarice, to an immoderate desire
of life,[850] to superstition,[851]—he is the only one that troubles
himself about his burial, and even what is to become of him after
death.[852] By none is life held on a tenure more frail;[853] none are
more influenced by unbridled desires for all things; none are sensible
of fears more bewildering; none are actuated by rage more frantic and
violent. Other animals, in fine, live at peace with those of their
own kind; we only see them unite to make a stand against those of
a different species. The fierceness of the lion is not expended in
fighting with its own kind; the sting of the serpent is not aimed at
the serpent;[854] and the monsters of the sea even, and the fishes,
vent their rage only on those of a different species. But with man,—by
Hercules! most of _his_ misfortunes are occasioned by man.[855]
(1.) We have already given[856] a general description of the human race
in our account of the different nations. Nor, indeed, do I now propose
to treat of their manners and customs, which are of infinite variety
and almost as numerous as the various groups themselves, into which
mankind is divided; but yet there are some things, which, I think,
ought not to be omitted; and more particularly, in relation to those
peoples which dwell at a considerable distance from the sea;[857] among
which, I have no doubt, that some facts will appear of an astounding
nature, and, indeed, incredible to many. Who, for instance, could ever
believe in the existence of the Æthiopians, who had not first seen
them? Indeed what is there that does not appear marvellous, when it
comes to our knowledge for the first time?[858] How many things, too,
are looked upon as quite impossible, until they have been actually
effected?[859] But it is the fact, that every moment of our existence
we are distrusting the power and the majesty of Nature, if the mind,
instead of grasping her in her entirety, considers her only in detail.
Not to speak of peacocks, the spotted skins of tigers and panthers,
and the rich colours of so many animals, a trifling thing apparently
to speak of, but of inestimable importance, when we give it due
consideration, is the existence of so many languages among the various
nations, so many modes of speech, so great a variety of expressions;
that to another, a man who is of a different country, is almost the
same as no man at all.[860] And then, too, the human features and
countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more,
are so fashioned, that among so many thousands of men, there are no two
in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another, a result
which no art could possibly have produced, when confined to so limited
a number of combinations. In most points, however, of this nature, I
shall not be content to pledge my own credit only, but shall confirm it
in preference by referring to my authorities, which shall be given on
all subjects of a nature to inspire doubt. My readers, however, must
make no objection to following the Greeks, who have proved themselves
the most careful observers, as well as of the longest standing.[861]
CHAP. 2.—THE WONDERFUL FORMS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.
We have already stated, that there are certain tribes of the Scythians,
and, indeed, many other nations, which feed upon human flesh.[862] This
fact itself might, perhaps, appear incredible, did we not recollect,
that in the very centre of the earth, in Italy and Sicily, nations
formerly existed with these monstrous propensities, the Cyclopes,[863]
and the Læstrygones, for example; and that, very recently, on the other
side of the Alps, it was the custom to offer human sacrifices, after
the manner of those nations;[864] and the difference is but small
between sacrificing human beings and eating them.[865]
In the vicinity also of those who dwell in the northern regions,
and not far from the spot from which the north wind arises, and the
place which is called its cave,[866] and is known by the name of
Geskleithron, the Arimaspi are said to exist, whom I have previously
mentioned,[867] a nation remarkable for having but one eye, and that
placed in the middle of the forehead. This race is said to carry on a
perpetual warfare with the Griffins, a kind of monster, with wings, as
they are commonly[868] represented, for the gold which they dig out of
the mines, and which these wild beasts retain and keep watch over with
a singular degree of cupidity, while the Arimaspi are equally desirous
to get possession of it.[869] Many authors have stated to this effect,
among the most illustrious of whom are Herodotus and Aristeas of
Proconnesus.[870]
Beyond the other Scythian Anthropophagi, there is a country called
Abarimon, situate in a certain great valley of Mount Imaus,[871]
the inhabitants of which are a savage race, whose feet are turned
backwards,[872] relatively to their legs: they possess wonderful
velocity, and wander about indiscriminately with the wild beasts. We
learn from Beeton, whose duty it was to take the measurements of the
routes of Alexander the Great, that this people cannot breathe in any
climate except their own, for which reason it is impossible to take
them before any of the neighbouring kings; nor could any of them be
brought before Alexander himself.
The Anthropophagi, whom we have previously mentioned[873] as dwelling
ten days’ journey beyond the Borysthenes, according to the account
of Isigonus of Nicæa, were in the habit of drinking out of human
skulls,[874] and placing the scalps, with the hair attached, upon their
breasts, like so many napkins. The same author relates, that there
is, in Albania, a certain race of men, whose eyes are of a sea-green
colour, and who have white hair from their earliest childhood,[875]
and that these people see better in the night than in the day. He
states also that the Sauromatæ, who dwell ten days’ journey beyond the
Borysthenes, only take food every other day.[876]
Crates of Pergamus relates, that there formerly existed in the vicinity
of Parium, in the Hellespont, a race of men whom he calls Ophiogenes,
and that by their touch they were able to cure those who had been
stung by serpents, extracting the poison by the mere imposition of the
hand.[877] Varro tells us, that there are still a few individuals in
that district, whose saliva effectually cures the stings of serpents.
The same, too, was the case with the tribe of the Psylli,[878] in
Africa, according to the account of Agatharchides; these people
received their name from Psyllus, one of their kings, whose tomb is
in existence, in the district of the Greater Syrtes. In the bodies of
these people there was by nature a certain kind of poison, which was
fatal to serpents, and the odour of which overpowered them with torpor:
with them it was a custom to expose children immediately after their
birth to the fiercest serpents, and in this manner to make proof of
the fidelity of their wives, the serpents not being repelled by such
children as were the offspring of adultery.[879] This nation, however,
was almost entirely extirpated by the slaughter made of them by the
Nasamones, who now occupy their territory.[880] This race, however,
still survives in a few persons who are descendants of those who either
took to flight or else were absent on the occasion of the battle. The
Marsi, in Italy, are still in possession of the same power, for which,
it is said, they are indebted to their origin from the son of Circe,
from whom they acquired it as a natural quality. But the fact is, that
all men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents, and
the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they
had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said,
destroys them the moment it enters their throat, and more particularly
so, if it should happen to be the saliva of a man who is fasting.[881]
Above the Nasamones,[882] and the Machlyæ, who border upon them, are
found, as we learn from Calliphanes, the nation of the Androgyni, a
people who unite the two sexes in the same individual, and alternately
perform the functions of each. Aristotle also states, that their right
breast is that of a male, the left that of a female.[883]
Isigonus and Nymphodorus inform us that there are in Africa certain
families of enchanters,[884] who, by means of their charms, in the
form, of commendations, can cause cattle to perish, trees to wither,
and infants to die. Isigonus adds, that there are among the Triballi
and the Illyrii, some persons of this description, who also have the
power of fascination with the eyes, and can even kill those on whom
they fix their gaze for any length of time, more especially if their
look denotes anger; the age of puberty is said to be particularly
obnoxious to the malign influence of such persons.[885]
A still more remarkable circumstance is, the fact that these persons
have two pupils in each eye.[886] Apollonides says, that there are
certain females of this description in Scythia, who are known as
Bythiæ, and Phylarchus states that a tribe of the Thibii in Pontus,
and many other persons as well, have a double pupil in one eye, and in
the other the figure of a horse.[887] He also remarks, that the bodies
of these persons will not sink in water,[888] even though weighed down
by their garments. Damon gives an account of a race of people, not
very much unlike them, the Pharnaces of Æthiopia, whose perspiration
is productive of consumption[889] to the body of every person that it
touches. Cicero also, one of our own writers, makes the remark, that
the glances of all women who have a double pupil is noxious.[890]
To this extent, then, has nature, when she produced in man, in common
with the wild beasts, a taste for human flesh, thought fit to produce
poisons as well in every part of his body, and in the eyes even of
some persons, taking care that there should be no evil influence in
existence, which was not to be found in the human body. Not far from
the city of Rome, in the territory of the Falisci, a few families are
found, who are known by the name of Hirpi. These people perform a
yearly sacrifice to Apollo, on Mount Soracte, on which occasion they
walk over a burning pile of wood, without being scorched even. On this
account, by virtue of a decree of the senate, they are always exempted
from military service, and from all other public duties.[891]
Some individuals, again, are born with certain parts of the body
endowed with properties of a marvellous nature. Such was the case with
King Pyrrhus, the great toe of whose right foot cured diseases of the
spleen, merely by touching the patient.[892] We are also informed,
that this toe could not be reduced to ashes together with the other
portions of his body; upon which it was placed in a coffer, and
preserved in a temple.
India, and the region of Æthiopia more especially, abounds in
wonders.[893] In India the largest of animals are produced; their
dogs,[894] for example, are much bigger than those of any other
country.[895] The trees, too, are said to be of such vast height,
that it is impossible to send an arrow over them. This is the result
of the singular fertility of the soil, the equable temperature of the
atmosphere, and the abundance of water; which, if we are to believe
what is said, are such, that a single fig-tree[896] is capable of
affording shelter to a whole troop of horse. The reeds here are also of
such enormous length, that each portion of them, between the joints,
forms a tube, of which a boat is made that is capable of holding three
men.[897] It is a well-known fact, that many of the people here are
more than five cubits in height.[898] These people never expectorate,
are subject to no pains, either in the head, the teeth, or the eyes,
and rarely in any other parts of the body; so well is the heat of the
sun calculated to strengthen the constitution. Their philosophers,
who are called Gymnosophists, remain in one posture, with their eyes
immovably fixed upon the sun, from its rising to its setting, and,
during the whole of the day, they are accustomed to stand in the
burning sands on one foot, first one and then the other.[899] According
to the account of Megasthenes, dwelling upon a mountain called Nulo,
there is a race of men who have their feet turned backwards,[900] with
eight toes on each foot.[901]
On many of the mountains again, there is a tribe of men who have the
heads of dogs,[902] and clothe themselves with the skins of wild
beasts. Instead of speaking, they bark; and, furnished with claws,
they live by hunting and catching birds. According to the story, as
given by Ctesias, the number of these people is more than a hundred
and twenty thousand: and the same author tells us, that there is a
certain race in India, of which the females are pregnant once only in
the course of their lives, and that the hair of the children becomes
white the instant they are born. He speaks also of another race of men,
who are known as Monocoli,[903] who have only one leg, but are able
to leap with surprising agility.[904] The same people are also called
Sciapodæ,[905] because they are in the habit of lying on their backs,
during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the
sun by the shade of their feet. These people, he says, dwell not very
far from the Troglodytæ;[906] to the west of whom again there is a
tribe who are without necks, and have eyes in their shoulders.[907]
Among the mountainous districts of the eastern parts of India, in what
is called the country of the Catharcludi, we find the Satyr,[908] an
animal of extraordinary swiftness. These go sometimes on four feet,
and sometimes walk erect; they have also the features of a human
being. On account of their swiftness, these creatures are never to
be caught, except when they are either aged or sickly. Tauron gives
the name of Choromandæ to a nation which dwell in the woods and have
no proper voice. These people screech in a frightful manner; their
bodies are covered with hair, their eyes are of a sea-green colour,
and their teeth like those of the dog.[909] Eudoxus tells us, that
in the southern parts of India, the men have feet a cubit in length;
while those of the women are so remarkably small, that they are called
Struthopodes.[910]
Megasthenes places among the Nomades[911] of India, a people who are
called Scyritæ. These have merely holes in their faces instead of
nostrils, and flexible feet, like the body of the serpent. At the very
extremity of India, on the eastern side, near the source of the river
Ganges, there is the nation of the Astomi, a people who have no mouths;
their bodies are rough and hairy, and they cover themselves with a
down[912] plucked from the leaves of trees. These people subsist only
by breathing and by the odours which they inhale through the nostrils.
They support themselves upon neither meat nor drink; when they go upon
a long journey they only carry with them various odoriferous roots and
flowers, and wild apples,[913] that they may not be without something
to smell at. But an odour, which is a little more powerful than usual,
easily destroys them.[914]
Beyond these people, and at the very extremity of the mountains, the
Trispithami[915] and the Pygmies are said to exist; two races which
are but three spans in height, that is to say, twenty-seven inches
only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere, and a perpetual spring, being
sheltered by the mountains from the northern blasts; it is these people
that Homer[916] has mentioned as being waged war upon by cranes. It
is said, that they are in the habit of going down every spring to the
sea-shore, in a large body, seated on the backs of rams and goats,
and armed with arrows, and there destroy the eggs and the young of
those birds; that this expedition occupies them for the space of three
months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for them to withstand
the increasing multitudes of the cranes. Their cabins, it is said, are
built of mud, mixed with feathers and egg-shells. Aristotle, indeed,
says, that they dwell in caves; but, in all other respects, he gives
the same details as other writers.[917]
Isigonus informs us, that the Cyrni, a people of India, live to their
four hundredth year; and he is of opinion that the same is the case
also with the Æthiopian Macrobii,[918] the Seræ, and the inhabitants
of Mount Athos.[919] In the case of these last, it is supposed to
be owing to the flesh of vipers, which they use as food;[920] in
consequence of which, they are free also from all noxious animals, both
in their hair and their garments.
According to Onesicritus, in those parts of India where there is
no shadow,[921] the bodies of men attain a height of five cubits
and two palms,[922] and their life is prolonged to one hundred and
thirty years; they die without any symptoms of old age, and just as
if they were in the middle period of life. Crates of Pergamus calls
the Indians, whose age exceeds one hundred years, by the name of
Gymnetæ;[923] but not a few authors style them Macrobii. Ctesias
mentions a tribe of them, known by the name of Pandore, whose locality
is in the valleys, and who live to their two hundredth year; their
hair is white in youth, and becomes black in old age.[924] On the
other hand, there are some people joining up to the country of the
Macrobii, who never live beyond their fortieth year, and their females
have children once only during their lives. This circumstance is
also mentioned by Agatharchides, who states, in addition, that they
live[925] on locusts,[926] and are very swift of foot. Clitarchus and
Megasthenes give these people the name of Mandi, and enumerate as many
as three hundred villages which belong to them. Their women are capable
of bearing children in the seventh year of their age, and become old at
forty.[927]
Artemidorus states that in the island of Taprobane,[928] life is
prolonged to an extreme length, while, at the same time, the body is
exempt from weakness. According to Durisis, some of the Indians have
connection with beasts, and from this union a mixture of half man, half
beast, is produced.[929] Among the Calingæ, a nation also of India,
the women conceive at five years of age, and do not live beyond their
eighth year.[930] In other places again, there are men born with long
hairy tails,[931] and of remarkable swiftness of foot; while there are
others that have ears so large as to cover the whole body.[932]
The Oritæ are divided from the Indians by the river Arabis;[933] they
are acquainted with no food whatever except fish, which they are in
the habit of tearing to pieces with their nails, and drying in the
sun.[934] Crates of Pergamus states, that the Troglodytæ, who dwell
beyond Æthiopia, are able to outrun the horse; and that a tribe of the
Æthiopians, who are known as the Syrbotæ, exceed eight cubits in height.
There is a tribe of Æthiopian Nomades dwelling on the banks of the
river Astragus, towards the north, and about twenty days’ journey from
the ocean. These people are called Menismini; they live on the milk of
the animal which we call cynocephalus,[935] and rear large flocks of
these creatures, taking care to kill the males, except such as they may
preserve for the purpose of breeding. In the deserts of Africa, men are
frequently seen to all appearance, and then vanish in an instant.[936]
Nature, in her ingenuity, has created all these marvels in the human
race, with others of a similar nature, as so many amusements to
herself, though they appear miraculous to us. But who is there that
can enumerate all the things that she brings to pass each day, I may
almost say each hour? As a striking evidence of her power, let it
be sufficient for me to have cited whole nations in the list of her
prodigies.
Let us now proceed to mention some other particulars connected with
Man, the truth of which is universally admitted.
CHAP. 3.—MARVELLOUS BIRTHS.
(3.) That three children are sometimes produced at one birth, is
a well-known fact; the case, for instance, of the Horatii and the
Curiatii. Where a greater number of children than this is produced
at one birth, it is looked upon as portentous, except, indeed, in
Egypt, where the water of the river Nile, which is used for drink, is
a promoter of fecundity.[937] Very recently, towards the close of the
reign of the Emperor Augustus, now deified, a certain woman of the
lower orders, at Ostia, whose name was Fausta, brought into the world,
at one birth, two male children and two females, a presage, no doubt,
of the famine which shortly after took place. We find it stated, also,
that in Peloponnesus, a woman was delivered of five[938] children at
a birth four successive times, and that the greater part of all these
children survived. Trogus informs us, that in Egypt,[939] as many as
seven children are occasionally produced at one birth.[940]
Individuals are occasionally born, who belong to both sexes; such
persons we call by the name of hermaphrodites;[941] they were formerly
called Androgyni, and were looked upon as monsters,[942] but at the
present day they are employed for sensual purposes.[943]
Pompeius Magnus, among the decorations of his theatre,[944] erected
certain statues of remarkable persons, which had been executed with the
greatest care by artists of the very highest reputation. Among others,
we here read an inscription to the following effect: “Eutychis,[945] of
Tralles,[946] was borne to the funeral pile by twenty of her children,
having had thirty in all.”[947] Also, Alcippe[948] was delivered of
an elephant[949]—but then that must be looked upon as a prodigy; as
in the case, too, where, at the commencement of the Marsian war,[950]
a female slave was delivered of a serpent.[951] Among these monstrous
births, also, there are beings produced which unite in one body the
forms of several creatures. For instance, Claudius Cæsar informs us, in
his writings, that a Hippocentaur was born in Thessaly, but died on the
same day: and indeed I have seen one myself, which in the reign of that
emperor was brought to him from Egypt, preserved in honey.[952] We have
a case, also, of a child at Saguntum, which returned immediately into
its mother’s womb, the same year in which that place was destroyed by
Hannibal.
(4.) The change of females into males is undoubtedly no fable. We find
it stated in the Annals, that, in the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus
and C. Cassius Longinus,[953] a girl, who was living at Casinum[954]
with her parents, was changed into a boy; and that, by the command
of the Aruspices, he was conveyed away to a desert island. Licinius
Mucianus informs us, that he once saw at Argos a person whose name was
then Arescon, though he had been formerly called Arescusa: that this
person had been married to a man, but that, shortly after, a beard and
marks of virility made their appearance, upon which he took to himself
a wife. He had also seen a boy at Smyrna,[955] to whom the very same
thing had happened. I myself saw in Africa one L. Cossicius, a citizen
of Thysdris,[956] who had been changed into a man the very day on which
he was married to a husband.[957] When women are delivered of twins, it
rarely happens but that either the mother herself, or one, at least,
of the twins perishes.[958] If, however, the twins should happen to be
of different sexes, it is less probable that both of them will survive.
Female children are matured more quickly than males,[959] and become
old sooner. Of the two, male children most frequently are known to
move in the womb;[960] they mostly lie on the right side of the body,
females on the left.[961]
CHAP. 4. (5.)—THE GENERATION OF MAN; UNUSUAL DURATION OF PREGNANCY;
INSTANCES OF IT FROM SEVEN TO TWELVE MONTHS.
In other animals the period of gestation and of birth is fixed and
definite, while man, on the other hand, is born at all seasons of the
year,[962] and without any certain period of gestation;[963] for one
child is born at the seventh month, another at the eighth, and so on,
even to the beginning of the tenth and eleventh. Those children which
are born before the seventh month are never known to survive;[964]
unless, indeed, they happen to have been conceived the day before or
the day after the full moon, or at the change of the moon. In Egypt
it is not an uncommon thing for children to be born at the eighth
month; and in Italy, too, children that are born at this period live
just as long as others, notwithstanding the opinions of the ancients
to the contrary. There are great variations in this respect, which
occur in numerous ways. Vestilia, for instance, who was the wife of
C. Herdicius, and was afterwards married, first, to Pomponius,[965]
and then to Orfitus, very eminent citizens, after having brought forth
four children, always at the seventh month, had Suillius Rufus at the
eleventh month, and then Corbulo at the seventh, both of whom became
consuls; after which, at the eighth month, she had Cæsonia, who became
the wife of the Emperor Caius.[966] As for children who are born at the
eighth month, the greatest difficulty with them is to get them over the
first forty days.[967] Pregnant women, on the other hand, are in the
greatest danger during the fourth and the eighth month, and abortions
during these periods are fatal. Masurius informs us, that L. Papirius,
the prætor, on one occasion, when the next but one in succession
was urging his suit at law, decided against him, in favour of the
heir,[968] although his mother declared that her period of gestation
had lasted thirteen months—upon the ground that it did not appear that
there was any fixed and definite period of gestation.[969]
CHAP. 5. (6.)—INDICATIONS OF THE SEX OF THE CHILD DURING THE PREGNANCY
OF THE MOTHER.[970]
On the tenth day after conception, pains are felt in the head, vertigo,
and dimness of the sight; these signs, together with loathing of food
and rising of the stomach, indicate the formation of the future human
being. If it is a male that is conceived, the colour of the pregnant
woman is more healthy,[971] and the birth less painful: the child
moves in the womb upon the fortieth day. In the conception of a child
of the other sex, all the symptoms are totally different: the mother
experiences an almost insupportable weight, there is a slight swelling
of the legs and the groin, and the first movement of the child is not
felt until the ninetieth day. But, whatever the sex of the child, the
mother is sensible of the greatest languor at the time when the hair
of the fœtus first begins to grow, and at the full moon; at which
latter time it is that children newly born are exposed to the greatest
danger. In addition to this, the mode of walking, and indeed everything
that can be mentioned, is of consequence in the case of a woman who
is pregnant. Thus, for instance, women who have used too much salted
meat will bring forth children without nails: parturition, too, is more
difficult, if they do not hold their breath. It is fatal, too, to yawn
during labour;[972] and abortion ensues, if the female should happen to
sneeze just after the sexual congress.
(7.) It is a subject for pity, and even for a feeling of shame, when
one reflects that the origin of the most vain of all animated beings
is thus frail: so much so, indeed, that very often the smell even
of a lamp just extinguished is a cause of abortion.[973] From such
beginnings as these springs the tyrant, from such the murderous
dispositions of men. Thou man, who placest thy confidence in the
strength of thy body, thou, who dost embrace the gifts of Fortune, and
look upon thyself, not only as her fosterling, but even as her own born
child, thou, whose mind is ever thirsting for blood,[974] thou who,
puffed up with some success or other, dost think thyself a god—by how
trifling a thing might thy life have been cut short! Even this very
day, something still less even may have the same effect, the puncture,
for instance, of the tiny sting of the serpent; or even, as befell the
poet Anacreon,[975] the swallowing of the stone of a raisin, or of a
single hair in a draught of milk, by which the prætor and senator,
Fabius, was choked, and so met his death. He only, in fact, will be
able to form a just estimate of the value of life, who will always bear
in mind the extreme frailty of its tenure.
CHAP. 6. (8.)—MONSTROUS BIRTHS.
It is contrary to nature for children to come into the world with
the feet first, for which reason such children are called Agrippæ,
meaning that they are born with difficulty.[976] In this manner, M.
Agrippa[977] is said to have been born; the only instance, almost, of
good fortune, out of the number of all those who have come into the
world under these circumstances. And yet, even he may be considered
to have paid the penalty of the unfavourable omen produced by the
unnatural mode of his birth, in the unfortunate weakness of his legs,
the misfortunes of his youth, a life spent in the very midst of arms
and slaughter, and ever exposed to the approaches of death; in his
children, too, who have all proved a very curse to the earth, and more
especially, the two Agrippinas, who were the mothers respectively of
Caius and of Domitius Nero,[978] so many firebrands hurled among the
human race. In addition to all this, we may add the shortness of his
life, he being cut off in his fifty-first year, the distress which he
experienced from the adulteries of his wife,[979] and the grievous
tyranny to which he was subjected by his father-in-law. Agrippina, too,
the mother of Nero, who was lately Emperor, and who proved himself,
throughout the whole of his reign, the enemy of the human race, has
left it recorded in writing, that he was born with his feet first. It
is in the due order of nature that man should enter the world with the
head first, and be carried to the tomb in a contrary fashion.
CHAP. 7. (9.)—OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN CUT OUT OF THE WOMB.
Those children, whose birth has cost the mother her life, are evidently
born under more favourable auspices; for such was the case with the
first Scipio Africanus; the first, too, of the Cæsars was so named,
from his having been removed by an incision in his mother’s womb. For
a similar reason, too, the Cæsones were called by that name.[980]
Manilius, also, who entered Carthage with his army, was born in a
similar manner.
CHAP. 8. (10.)—WHO WERE CALLED VOPISCI.
A child used to be called Vopiscus,[981] who, when twins had been
conceived, had been retained in the womb and born alive, the other
having perished by abortion. There are, too, some very remarkable
instances of this kind, although they are singularly rare and uncommon.
CHAP. 9. (11.)—THE CONCEPTION AND GENERATION OF MAN.
Few animals, except the female of the human species, receive the
male when pregnant. In only one or two species, and no more, does
superfœtation ever take place.[982] Cases are to be found stated in
the journals of physicians, and of others who have paid particular
attention to the subject, in which twelve embryos[983] have been
removed at a single abortion. When, however, but a very short time has
intervened between two conceptions, the embryos both of them proceed
to maturity; as was seen to be the case with Hercules and his brother
Iphicles.[984] This was the case also with the woman who brought
forth two children at a birth, one of whom bore a resemblance to her
husband, and the other to her paramour. So too, with a female slave in
Proconnesus,[985] who was delivered of two children at one birth, one
of whom bore a strong resemblance to her master, and the other to her
master’s steward, with both of whom she had had connection on the same
day; with another woman who was delivered of two children at a birth,
the one after the usual period of gestation, the other an embryo only
five months old: and again, with another female, who, having been
delivered of one child at the end of seven months, in due course, two
months afterwards, brought forth twins.[986]
CHAP. 10.—STRIKING INSTANCES OF RESEMBLANCE.
It is universally known that well-formed parents often produce
defective children; and on the other hand, defective parents children
who are well formed, or else imperfect in the same part of the body
as the parents. It is a well-known fact also, that marks, moles, and
even scars, are reproduced in members of the same family in successive
generations. The mark which the Daci make on their arms for the
purpose of denoting their origin, is known to last even to the fourth
generation.[987]
(12.) We have heard it stated that three members of the family of the
Lepidi have been born, though not in an uninterrupted succession, with
one of the eyes covered with a membrane.[988] We observe, too, that
some children strongly resemble their grandfather, and that of twins
one child is like the father, while the other resembles the mother;
and have known cases where a child that was born a year after another,
resembled him as exactly as though they had been twins. Some women
have children like themselves, some like their husband, while others
again bear children who resemble neither the one nor the other. In
some cases the female children resemble the father, and the males the
mother. The case of Nicæus, the celebrated wrestler of Byzantium, is
a well-known and undoubted instance. His mother was the produce of
an act of adultery, committed with a male of Æthiopia; and although
she herself differed in no way from the ordinary complexion of other
females, he was born with all the swarthy complexion of his Æthiopian
grandfather.[989]
These strong features of resemblance proceed, no doubt, from the
imagination of the parents, over which we may reasonably believe
that many casual circumstances have a very powerful influence; such,
for instance, as the action of the eyes, the ears, or the memory,
or impressions received at the moment of conception. A thought[990]
even, momentarily passing through the mind of either of the parents,
may be supposed to produce a resemblance to one of them separately,
or else to the two combined. Hence it is that the varieties are much
more numerous in the appearance of man than in that of other animals;
seeing that, in the former, the rapidity of the ideas, the quickness
of the perception, and the varied powers of the intellect, tend to
impress upon the features peculiar and diversified marks; while in
the case of the other animals, the mind is immovable, and just the
same in each and all individuals of the same species.[991] A man named
Artemon, one of the common people,[992] bore so strong a resemblance
to Antiochus, the king of Syria, that his queen Laodice, after her
husband Antiochus was slain, acted the farce of getting this man[993]
to recommend her as the successor to the crown. Vibius, a member
of the plebeian order,[994] and Publicius as well, a freedman who
had formerly been a slave, so strongly resembled Pompeius Magnus in
appearance as to be scarcely distinguishable from him; they both had
that ingenuous countenance[995] of his, and that fine forehead,[996]
which so strongly bespoke his noble descent. It was a similar degree of
resemblance to this, that caused the surname of his cook, Menogenes, to
be given to the father of Pompeius Magnus, he having already obtained
that of Strabo, on account of the cast in his eye,[997] a defect
which he had contracted through imitating a similar one in his slave.
Scipio, too, had the name of Serapion given him, after the vile slave
of a pig-jobber: and after him, another Scipio of the same family was
surnamed Salvitto, after a mime[998] of that name. In the same way,
too, Spinther and Pamphilus, who were respectively actors of only
second and third rate parts, gave their names to Lentulus and Metellus,
who were at that time colleagues in the consulship; so that, by a very
curious but disagreeable coincidence, the likenesses of the two consuls
were to be seen at the same moment on the stage.
On the other hand again, L. Plancus, the orator, bestowed his surname
on the actor Rubrius: the player, Burbuleius, again, gave his name
to the elder Curio, and the player, Menogenes, to Messala, the
censor.[999] There was a certain fisherman, too, a native of Sicily,
who bore a strong resemblance to the proconsul, Sura, not only in
his features, but in the mode even of opening his mouth, and the
spasmodic contraction of his tongue, and his hurried and indistinct
utterance when speaking. Cassius Severus,[1000] the celebrated orator,
had it thrown in his teeth how strongly he resembled Armentarius, the
gladiator.[1001] Toranius, a slave-dealer, sold to Antony, while he was
one of the Triumvirs, two boys of remarkable beauty, as being twins,
so strong was their resemblance; whereas, in reality, one of them was
born in Asia, and the other beyond the Alps. The fraud, however, having
been soon afterwards discovered through the difference in the language
of the youths, Antony, who was greatly exasperated, violently upbraided
the dealer, and, among other things, complained that he had fixed the
price at so high a sum as two hundred thousand sesterces.[1002] The
crafty slave-merchant, however, made answer that that was the very
reason for his having set so high a price upon them; for, as he said,
there would have been nothing particularly striking in the resemblance
of the boys, if they had been born of the same mother, whereas,
children found to be so exactly like each other, though natives of
different countries, ought to be deemed above all price; an answer
which produced such a reasonable feeling of surprise and admiration
in the mind of the proscriber,[1003] that he who was but just before
frantic under the injury he had received, was led to set a higher value
on no part whatever of all the property in his possession.
CHAP. 11. (13.)—WHAT MEN ARE SUITED FOR GENERATION. INSTANCES OF VERY
NUMEROUS OFFSPRING.
There exists a kind of peculiar antipathy between the bodies of
certain persons, which, though barren with respect to each other, are
not so when united to others;[1004] such, for instance, was the case
with Augustus and Livia.[1005] Certain individuals, again, both men and
women, produce only females, others males; and, still more frequently,
children of the two sexes alternately; the mother of the Gracchi,
for instance, who had twelve children, and Agrippina, the mother of
Germanicus, who had nine. Some women, again, are barren in their youth,
while to others it is given to bring forth once only during their
lives. Some women never go to their full time, or if, by dint of great
care and the aid of medicine, they do give birth to a living child,
it is mostly a girl. Among other instances of rare occurrence, is the
case of Augustus, now deified, who, in the year in which he departed
this life, witnessed the birth of M. Silanus,[1006] the grandson of
his grand-daughter: having obtained the government of Asia, after his
consulship, he was poisoned by Nero, on his accession to the throne.
Q. Metellus Macedonicus,[1007] leaving six children, left eleven
grandsons also, with daughters-in-law and sons-in-law,[1008]
twenty-seven individuals in all, who addressed him by the name and
title of father. In the records of the times of the Emperor Augustus,
now deified, we find it stated that, in his twelfth consulship,
Lucius Sylla being his colleague, on the third day before the ides
of April,[1009] C. Crispinus Hilarus, a man of a respectable family
of the plebeian order, living at Fæesulæ,[1010] came to the Capitol,
to offer sacrifice, attended by eight children (of whom two were
daughters), twenty-eight grandsons, nineteen great-grandsons, and eight
granddaughters, who all followed him in a lengthened train.
CHAP. 12. (14.)—AT WHAT AGE GENERATION CEASES.
Women cease to bear children at their fiftieth year, and, with the
greater part of them, the monthly discharge ceases at the age of forty.
But with respect to the male sex, it is a well-known fact, that King
Masinissa, when he was past his eighty-sixth year, had a son born to
him, whom he named Metimanus,[1011] and that Cato the Censor, after
he had completed his eightieth year, had a son by the daughter of his
client, Salonius: a circumstance from which, while the descendants of
his other sons were surnamed Liciniani, those of this son were called
Saloniani, of whom Cato of Utica was one.[1012] It is equally well
known, too, that L. Volusius Saturninus,[1013] who lately died while
prefect of the city, had a son when he was past his seventy-second
year,[1014] by Cornelia, a member of the family of the Scipios,
Volusius Saturninus, who was afterwards consul. Among the lower classes
of the people, we not uncommonly meet with men who become the fathers
of children after the age of seventy-five.
CHAP. 13. (15.)—REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH THE MENSTRUAL
DISCHARGE.
Among the whole range of animated beings, the human female is the
only one that has the monthly discharge,[1015] and in whose womb are
found what we term “moles.” These moles consist of a shapeless mass of
flesh, devoid of all life, and capable of resisting either the edge
or the point of the knife; they are movable in the body, and obstruct
the menstrual discharge; sometimes, too, they are productive of fatal
consequences to the woman, in the same manner as a real fœtus; while,
at other times, they remain in the body until old age; in some cases,
again, they are discharged, in consequence of an increased action of
the bowels.[1016] Something of a very similar nature is produced in the
body of the male, which is called a “schirrus;”[1017] this was the case
with Oppius Capito, a man of prætorian rank.
It would indeed be a difficult matter to find anything which
is productive of more marvellous effects than the menstrual
discharge.[1018] On the approach of a woman in this state, must will
become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts
wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall
from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim
the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the
polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die
immediately; brass and iron will instantly become rusty, and emit an
offensive odour; while dogs which may have tasted of the matter so
discharged are seized with madness, and their bite is venomous and
incurable.
In addition to this, the bitumen which is found at certain periods
of the year, floating on the lake of Judæa, known as Asphaltites, a
substance which is peculiarly tenacious, and adheres to everything that
it touches, can only be divided into separate pieces by means of a
thread which has been dipped in this virulent matter.[1019] It is said
that the ant, even an insect so extremely minute, is sensible of its
presence, and rejects the grains which it has been carrying, and will
not return to them again.[1020]
This discharge, which is productive of such great and singular effects,
occurs in women every thirty days, and in a greater degree every three
months.[1021] In some individuals it occurs oftener than once a month,
and in others, again, it never takes place. Women of this nature,
however, are not capable of bearing children, because it is of this
substance that the infant is formed.[1022] The seed of the male, acting
as a sort of leaven, causes it to unite and assume a form, and in due
time it acquires life, and assumes a bodily shape. The consequence is,
that if the flow continues during pregnancy, the child will be weak, or
else will not live; or if it does, it will be full of gross humours,
Nigidius says.
(16.) The same author is also of opinion, that the milk of a woman who
is giving suck will not become impure, if she should happen to become
pregnant again by the same man.[1023]
CHAP. 14.—THE THEORY OF GENERATION.
Conception is generally said to take place the most readily, either at
the beginning or the end of the menstrual discharge.[1024] It is said,
too, that it is a certain sign of fecundity in a woman, when her saliva
becomes impregnated with any medicament which has been rubbed upon her
eye-lids.[1025]
CHAP. 15.—SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TEETH, AND SOME FACTS CONCERNING INFANTS.
It is a matter beyond doubt, that in young children the front teeth
are produced at the seventh month, and, nearly always, those in the
upper jaw the first. These are shed in the seventh year, and are then
replaced by others.[1026] Some infants are even born with teeth:[1027]
such was the case with Manius Curius, who, from this circumstance,
received the name of Dentatus; and also with Cn. Papirius Carbo,
both of them distinguished men. When this phenomenon happened in the
case of a female, it was looked upon in the time of the kings as an
omen of some inauspicious event. At the birth of Valeria, under such
circumstances as these, it was the answer of the soothsayers, that
any city to which she might happen to be carried, would be destroyed;
she was sent to Suessa Pometia,[1028] at that time a very flourishing
place, but the prediction was ultimately verified by its destruction.
Some female children are born with the sexual organs closed,[1029] a
thing of very unfavourable omen; of which Cornelia, the mother of the
Gracchi, is an instance. Some persons are born with a continuous bone
in the mouth, in place of teeth; this was the case with the upper jaw
of the son of Prusias, the king of Bithynia.[1030]
The teeth are the only parts of the body which resist the action of
fire, and are not consumed along with the rest of it.[1031] Still,
however, though they are able thus to resist flame, they become
corroded by a morbid state of the saliva. The teeth are whitened by
certain medicinal agents.[1032] They are worn down by use, and fail
in some persons long before any other part of the body. They are
necessary, not only for the mastication of the food, but for many other
purposes as well. It is the office of the front teeth to regulate
the voice and the speech; by a certain arrangement, they receive, as
if in concert, the stroke communicated by the tongue, while by their
structure in such regular order, and their size, they cut short,
moderate, or soften the utterance of the words. When they are lost,
the articulation becomes altogether confused and indistinct.[1033]
In addition to this, it is generally supposed that we may form
prognostics from the teeth. The number of teeth allotted to all men,
with the exception of the nation of the Turduli,[1034] is thirty-two;
those persons who have a greater number, are thought to be destined to
be long-lived. Women have fewer teeth than men.[1035] Those females who
happen to have two canine teeth on the right side of the upper jaw,
have promise of being the favourites of fortune, as was the case with
Agrippina,[1036] the mother of Domitius Nero: when they are on the left
side, it is just the contrary. It is the custom of most nations not to
burn the bodies of children who die before they have cut their teeth.
We shall have more to say on this subject when we give an account of
the different parts of the body.[1037]
We find it stated that Zoroaster was the only human being who ever
laughed on the same day on which he was born. We hear, too, that his
brain pulsated so strongly that it repelled the hand when laid upon it,
a presage of his future wisdom.
CHAP. 16.—EXAMPLES OF UNUSUAL SIZE.
It is a well-known fact, that, at the age of three years, the body of
each person is half the height that it will ever attain. Taking it all
in all, it is observed that in the human race, the stature is almost
daily becoming less and less, and that sons are rarely taller than
their parents, the fertility of the seed being dried up by the heat
of that conflagration to which the world is fast approaching.[1038] A
mountain of the island of Crete having been burst asunder by the action
of an earthquake, a body was found there standing upright, forty-six
cubits in height;[1039] by some persons it is supposed to have been
that of Orion;[1040] while others again are of opinion that it was that
of Otus.[1041] It is generally believed, from what is stated in ancient
records, that the body of Orestes, which was disinterred by command
of an oracle, was seven cubits in height.[1042] It is now nearly
one thousand years ago, that that divine poet Homer was unceasingly
complaining, that men were of less stature in his day than they had
formerly been.[1043] Our Annals do not inform us what was the height
of Nævius Pollio;[1044] but we learn from them that he nearly lost his
life from the rush of the people to see him, and that he was looked
upon as a prodigy. The tallest man that has been seen in our times,
was one Gabbaras[1045] by name, who was brought from Arabia by the
Emperor Claudius; his height was nine feet and as many inches.[1046]
In the reign of Augustus, there were two persons, Posio and Secundilla
by name, who were half a foot taller than him; their bodies have been
preserved as objects of curiosity in the museum of the Sallustian
family.[1047]
In the reign of the same emperor, there was a man also, remarkable for
his extremely diminutive stature, being only two feet and a palm in
height; his name was Conopas, and he was a great pet with Julia, the
grand-daughter of Augustus. There was a female also, of the same size,
Andromeda by name, a freed-woman of Julia Augusta. We learn from Varro,
that Manius Maximus and M. Tullius, members of our equestrian order,
were only two cubits in height; and I have myself seen them, preserved
in their coffins.[1048] It is far from an unknown fact, that children
are occasionally born a foot and a half in height, and sometimes a
little more; such children, however, have finished their span of
existence by the time they are three years old.[1049]
CHAP. 17.—CHILDREN REMARKABLE FOR THEIR PRECOCITY.
We find it stated by the historians, that the son of Euthymenes of
Salamis had grown to be three cubits in height, at the age of three
years; that he was slow of gait and dull of comprehension; that at that
age he had attained puberty even, and his voice had become strong, like
that of a man. We hear, also, that he died suddenly of convulsions
of the limbs, at the completion of his third year.[1050] I myself,
not very long ago, was witness to exactly similar appearances, with
the exception of the state of puberty, in a son of Cornelius Tacitus,
a member of the equestrian order, and procurator[1051] of Belgic
Gaul.[1052] The Greeks call such children as these, Ἐκτραπέλοι; we have
no name for them in Latin.
(17.) It has been observed, that the height of a man from the crown of
the head to the sole of the foot, is equal to the distance between the
tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight
line; the right side of the body, too, is generally stronger than the
left; though in some, the strength of the two sides is equal; while in
others again, the left side is the strongest. This, however, is never
found to be the case in women.[1053]
CHAP. 18.—SOME REMARKABLE PROPERTIES OF THE BODY.
Males are heavier than females, and the bodies of all animals are
heavier when they are dead than when alive; they also weigh more when
asleep than when awake. The dead bodies of men float upon the back,
those of women with the face downwards; as if, even after death,
nature were desirous of sparing their modesty.[1054]
(18.) We find it stated, that there are some men whose bones are solid,
and devoid of marrow,[1055] and that one mark of such persons is the
fact that they are never thirsty, and emit no perspiration. At the
same time, we know that by the exercise of a resolute determination,
any one may resist the feeling of thirst; a fact which was especially
exemplified in the case of Julius Viator, a Roman of equestrian rank,
but by birth one of the Vocontii, a nation on terms of alliance with
us. Having, in his youth, been attacked by dropsy, and forbidden the
use of liquids by his physicians,[1056] use with him became a second
nature, and so, in his old age, he never took any drink at all. Other
persons also, have, by the exercise of a strong determination, laid
similar restraints upon themselves.
(19.) It is said that Crassus, the grandfather of Crassus, who
was slain by the Parthians, was never known to laugh; from which
circumstance he obtained the name of Agelastus.[1057] There are other
persons again, who have never been seen to weep. Socrates, who was so
famous for his wisdom, always appeared with the same countenance, and
was never known to appear either more gay or more sad than ordinary.
This even tenor of the mind, however, sometimes degenerates into a
sort of harshness, and a rigorous and inflexible sternness of nature,
entirely effacing all the human affections. The Greeks, among whom
there have been many persons of this description, are in the habit of
calling them Ἀπαθεῖς.[1058] A very remarkable thing, too, is the fact,
that among these persons are to be found some of the greatest masters
of philosophy. Diogenes the Cynic, for instance, Pyrrho, Heraclitus,
and Timon, which last allowed himself to be so entirely carried away
by this spirit, as to become a hater of all mankind. Less important
peculiarities of nature, again, are to be observed in many persons;
Antonia,[1059] for instance, the wife of Drusus, was never known to
expectorate; and Pomponius, the poet, a man of consular rank, was never
troubled with eructation. Those rare instances of men,[1060] whose
bones are naturally solid and without marrow, are known to us as men
“of horn.”[1061]
CHAP. 19. (20.)—INSTANCES OF EXTRAORDINARY STRENGTH.
Varro, speaking of persons remarkable for their strength, gives us an
account of Tributanus, a celebrated gladiator, and skilled in the use
of the Samnite[1062] arms;[1063] he was a man of meagre person, but
possessed of extraordinary strength. Varro makes mention of his son
also, who served in the army of Pompeius Magnus. He says, that in all
parts of his body, even in the arms and hands, there was a network of
sinews,[1064] extending across and across. The latter of these men,
having been challenged by an enemy, with a single finger of the right
hand, and that unarmed,[1065] vanquished him, and then seized and
dragged him to the camp. Vinnius Valens, who served as a centurion in
the prætorian guard of Augustus, was in the habit of holding up waggons
laden with casks, until they were emptied; and of stopping a carriage
with one hand, and holding it back, against all the efforts of the
horses to drag it forward. He performed other wonderful feats also, an
account of which may still be seen inscribed on his monument. Varro,
also, gives the following statement: “Fusius, who used to be called the
‘bumpkin[1066] Hercules,’ was in the habit of carrying his own mule;
while Salvius was able to mount a ladder, with a weight of two hundred
pounds attached to his feet, the same to his hands, and two hundred
pounds on each shoulder.” I myself once saw,—a most marvellous display
of strength,—a man of the name of Athanatus walk across the stage,
wearing a leaden breast-plate of five hundred pounds weight, while shod
with buskins of the same weight. When Milo, the wrestler, had once
taken his stand, there was not a person who could move him from his
position; and when he grasped an apple in his hand, no one could so
much as open one of his fingers.
CHAP. 20.—INSTANCES OF REMARKABLE AGILITY.
It was considered a very great thing for Philippides to run one
thousand one hundred and sixty stadia, the distance between Athens
and Lacedæmon, in two days, until Amystis, the Lacedæmonian courier,
and Philonides,[1067] the courier of Alexander the Great, ran from
Sicyon to Elis in one day, a distance of thirteen hundred and five
stadia.[1068] In our own times, too, we are fully aware that there
are men in the Circus, who are able to keep on running for a distance
of one hundred and sixty miles; and that lately, in the consulship
of Fonteius and Vipstanus,[1069] there was a child eight years of
age, who, between morning and evening, ran a distance of seventy-five
miles.[1070] We become all the more sensible of these wonderful
instances of swiftness, upon reflecting that Tiberius Nero, when he
made all possible haste to reach his brother Drusus, who was then sick
in Germany, reached him in three stages, travelling day and night on
the road; the distance of each stage was two hundred miles.[1071]
CHAP. 21. (21.)—INSTANCES OF ACUTENESS OF SIGHT.
Instances of acuteness of sight are to be found stated, which, indeed,
exceed all belief. Cicero informs us,[1072] that the Iliad of Homer
was written on a piece of parchment so small as to be enclosed in a
nut-shell. He makes mention also of a man who could distinguish objects
at a distance of one hundred and thirty-five miles.[1073] M. Varro
says, that the name of this man was Strabo; and that, during the Punic
war, from Lilybæum, the promontory of Sicily, he was in the habit
of seeing the fleet come out of the harbour of Carthage, and could
even count the number of the vessels.[1074] Callicrates[1075] used
to carve ants and other small animals in ivory, so minute in size,
that other persons were unable to distinguish their individual parts.
Myrmecides[1076] also was famous in the same line;[1077] this man made,
of similar material, a chariot drawn by four horses, which a fly could
cover with its wings; as well as a ship which might be covered by the
wings of a tiny bee.[1078]
CHAP. 22. (22.)—INSTANCES OF REMARKABLE ACUTENESS OF HEARING.
We have one instance on record of remarkable acuteness of hearing; the
noise of the battle, on the occasion when Sybaris[1079] was destroyed,
was heard, the day on which it took place, at Olympia.[1080] But, as to
the victory over the Cimbri,[1081] and that over Perseus, the news of
which was conveyed to Rome by the Castors,[1082] they are to be looked
upon in the light of visions and presages proceeding immediately from
the gods.
CHAP. 23. (23.)—INSTANCES OF ENDURANCE OF PAIN.
Of patience in enduring pain, that being too frequently the lot of our
calamitous fate, we have innumerable instances related. One of the most
remarkable instances among the female sex is that of the courtesan
Leæna, who, although put to the torture, refused to betray the
tyrant-slayers, Harmodius and Aristogiton.[1083] Among those of men,
we have that of Anaxarchus, who, when put to the torture for a similar
reason, bit off his tongue and spit it into the face of the tyrant,
thus destroying the only hope[1084] of his making any betrayal.
CHAP. 24. (24.)—MEMORY.
It would be far from easy to pronounce what person has been the most
remarkable for the excellence of his memory, that blessing so essential
for the enjoyment of life, there having been so many who have been
celebrated for it. King Cyrus knew all the soldiers of his army by
name:[1085] L. Scipio the names of all the Roman people. Cineas,
the ambassador of king Pyrrhus, knew by name all the members of the
senate and the equestrian order, the day after his arrival at Rome.
Mithridates,[1086] who was king of twenty-two nations, administered
their laws in as many languages, and could harangue each of them,
without employing an interpreter. There was in Greece a man named
Charmidas, who, when a person asked him for any book in a library,
could repeat it by heart, just as though he were reading. Memory, in
fine, has been made an art; which was first invented by the lyric
poet, Simonides,[1087] and perfected by Metrodorus of Scepsis, so
as to enable persons to repeat word for word exactly what they have
heard.[1088] Nothing whatever, in man, is of so frail a nature as
the memory; for it is affected by disease, by injuries, and even by
fright; being sometimes partially lost, and at other times entirely
so. A man, who received a blow from a stone, forgot the names of the
letters only;[1089] while, on the other hand, another person, who fell
from a very high roof, could not so much as recollect his mother,
or his relations and neighbours. Another person, in consequence of
some disease, forgot his own servants even; and Messala Corvinus, the
orator, lost all recollection of his own name. And so it is, that very
often the memory appears to attempt, as it were, to make its escape
from us, even while the body is at rest and in perfect health. When
sleep, too, comes over us, it is cut off altogether; so much so, that
the mind, in its vacancy, is at a loss to know where we are.[1090]
CHAP. 25. (25.)—VIGOR OF MIND.
The most remarkable instance, I think, of vigour of mind in any man
ever born, was that of Cæsar, the Dictator. I am not at present
alluding to his valour and courage, nor yet his exalted genius, which
was capable of embracing everything under the face of heaven, but I am
speaking of that innate vigour of mind, which was so peculiar to him,
and that promptness which seemed to act like a flash of lightning. We
find it stated that he was able to write or read, and, at the same
time, to dictate and listen. He could dictate to his secretaries
four letters at once, and those on the most important business; and,
indeed, if he was busy about nothing else, as many as seven. He
fought as many as fifty pitched battles, being the only commander who
exceeded M. Marcellus,[1091] in this respect, he having fought only
thirty-nine.[1092] In addition, too, to the victories gained by him in
the civil wars, one million one hundred and ninety-two thousand men
were slain by him in his battles. For my own part, however, I am not
going to set it down as a subject for high renown, what was really an
outrage committed upon mankind, even though he may have been acting
under the strong influence of necessity; and, indeed, he himself
confesses as much, in his omission to state the number of persons who
perished by the sword in the civil wars.
CHAP. 26.—CLEMENCY AND GREATNESS OF MIND.
With much more justice we may award credit to Pompeius Magnus, for
having taken from the pirates[1093] no less than eight hundred and
forty-six vessels: though at the same time, over and above the great
qualities previously mentioned, we must with equal justice give Cæsar
the peculiar credit of a remarkable degree of clemency, a quality,
in the exercise of which, even to repentance, he excelled all other
individuals whatsoever. The same person has left us one instance of
magnanimity, to which there is nothing that can be at all compared.
While one, who was an admirer of luxury, might perhaps on this occasion
have enumerated the spectacles which he exhibited, the treasures which
he lavished away, and the magnificence of his public works, I maintain
that it was the great proof, and an incomparable one, of an elevated
mind, for him to have burnt with the most scrupulous carefulness the
papers of Pompeius, which were taken in his desk at the battle of
Pharsalia, and those of Scipio, taken at Thapsus, without so much as
reading them.[1094]
CHAP. 27. (26.)—HEROIC EXPLOITS.
But now, as it belongs fully as much to the glorious renown of the
Roman Empire, as to the victorious career of a single individual, I
shall proceed on this occasion to make mention of all the triumphs
and titles of Pompeius Magnus: the splendour of his exploits having
equalled not only that of those of Alexander the Great, but even
of Hercules, and perhaps of Father Liber[1095] even. After having
recovered Sicily, where he first commenced his career as a partisan of
Sylla, but in behalf of the republic, after having conquered the whole
of Africa, and reduced it to subjection, and after having received for
his share of the spoil the title of “Great,”[1096] he was decreed the
honours of a triumph; and he, though only of equestrian rank,[1097]
a thing that had never occurred before, re-entered the city in the
triumphal chariot: immediately after which, he hastened to the west,
where he left it inscribed on the trophy which he raised upon the
Pyrenees, that he had, by his victories, reduced to subjection eight
hundred and seventy-six cities, from the Alps to the borders of Farther
Spain; at the same time he most magnanimously said not a word about
Sertorius.[1098] After having put an end to the civil war, which indeed
was the primary cause of all the foreign ones, he, though still of only
equestrian rank, again entered Rome in the triumphal chariot, having
proved himself a general thus often before having been a soldier.[1099]
After this, he was dispatched to the shores of all the various seas,
and then to the East, whence he brought back to his country the
following titles of honour, resembling therein those who conquer at the
sacred games—for, be it remembered, it is not they that are crowned,
but their respective countries.[1100] These honours then did he award
to the City, in the temple of Minerva,[1101] which he consecrated from
the spoils that he had gained: “Cneius Pompeius Magnus, Imperator,
having brought to an end a war of thirty years’ duration, and having
defeated, routed, put to the sword, or received the submission of,
twelve millions two hundred and seventy-eight thousand men, having
sunk or captured eight hundred and forty-six vessels, having received
as allies one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight cities and
fortresses, and having conquered all the country from the Mæotis to the
Red Sea, dedicates this shrine as a votive offering due to Minerva.”
Such, in few words, is the sum of his exploits in the East. The
following are the introductory words descriptive of the triumph which
he obtained, the third day before the calends[1102] of October,[1103]
in the consulship of M. Piso and M. Messala;[1104] “After having
delivered the sea-coast from the pirates, and restored the seas to
the people of Rome, he enjoyed a triumph over Asia, Pontus, Armenia,
Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, the Scythians, Judæa, the
Albanians, Iberia, the island of Crete, the Basterni, and, in addition
to all these, the kings Mithridates and Tigranes.”
The most glorious, however, of all glories, resulting from these
exploits, was, as he himself says, in the speech which he made in
public relative to his previous career, that Asia, which he received as
the boundary of the empire, he left its centre.[1105] If any one should
wish, on the other hand, in a similar manner, to pass in review the
exploits of Cæsar, who has shown himself greater still than Pompeius,
why then he must enumerate all the countries in the world, a task, I
may say, without an end.
CHAP. 28. (27.)—UNION IN THE SAME PERSON OF THREE OF THE HIGHEST
QUALITIES WITH THE GREATEST PURITY.
Many other men have excelled in different kinds of virtues. Cato,
however, who was the first of the Porcian family,[1106] is generally
thought to have been an example of the three greatest of human
endowments, for he was the most talented orator, the most talented
general, and the most talented politician;[1107] all which merits,
if they were not perceptible before him, still shone forth, more
refulgently even, in my opinion, in Scipio Æmilianus, who besides was
exempted from that hatred on the part of many others under which Cato
laboured:[1108] in consequence of which it was, what must be owned to
be a peculiarity in Cato’s career, that he had to plead his own cause
no less than four and forty times;[1109] and yet, though no person was
so frequently accused, he was always acquitted.
CHAP. 29. (28.)—INSTANCES OF EXTREME COURAGE.
A minute enquiry by whom the greatest valour has ever been exhibited,
would lead to an endless discussion, more especially if all the fables
of the poets are to be taken for granted. Q. Ennius admired T. Cæcilius
Denter[1110] and his brother to such a degree, that on their account
he added a sixteenth book to his Annals. L. Siccius Dentatus, who was
tribune of the people in the consulship of Spurius Tarpeius and A.
Aterius,[1111] not long after the expulsion of the kings, has also very
numerous testimonies in his favour. This hero fought one hundred and
twenty battles, was eight times victorious in single combat, and was
graced with forty-five wounds in the front of the body, without one on
the back. The same man also carried off thirty-four spoils,[1112] was
eighteen times presented with the victor’s spear,[1113] and received
twenty-five pendants,[1114] eighty-three torcs,[1115] one hundred
and sixty bracelets,[1116] twenty-six crowns, (of which fourteen were
civic, eight golden, three mural, and one obsidional), a fisc[1117] of
money, ten prisoners, and twenty oxen altogether.[1118] He followed
in the triumphal processions of nine generals, who mainly owed their
victories to his exertions; besides all which, a thing that I look upon
as the most important of all his services, he denounced to the people
T. Romilius,[1119] one of the generals of the army, at the end of his
consulship, and had him convicted of having made an improper use of his
authority.[1120]
The military honours of Manlius Capitolinus would have been no less
splendid than his, if they had not been all effaced at the close of
his life. Before his seventeenth year, he had gained two spoils, and
was the first of equestrian rank who received a mural crown; he also
gained six civic crowns, thirty-seven donations, and had twenty-three
scars on the fore-part of his body. He saved the life of P. Servilius,
the master of the horse, receiving wounds on the same occasion in
the shoulders and the thigh. Besides all this, unaided, he saved the
Capitol, when it was attacked by the Gauls, and through that, the state
itself; a thing that would have been the most glorious act of all, if
he had not so saved it, in order that he might, as its king, become its
master.[1121] But in all matters of this nature, although valour may
effect much, fortune does still more.
No person living, in my opinion at least, ever excelled M.
Sergius,[1122] although his great-grandson, Catiline, tarnished the
honours of his name. In his second campaign he lost his right hand;
and in two campaigns he was wounded three and twenty times; so much
so, that he could scarcely use either his hands or his feet; still,
attended by a single slave, he afterwards served in many campaigns,
though but an invalided soldier. He was twice taken prisoner by
Hannibal, (for it was with no ordinary enemy that he would engage,) and
twice did he escape from his captivity, after having been kept, without
a single day’s intermission, in chains and fetters for twenty months.
On four occasions he fought with his left hand alone, two horses being
slain under him. He had a right hand made of iron, and attached to
the stump, after which he fought a battle, and raised the siege of
Cremona, defended Placentia, and took twelve of the enemy’s camps in
Gaul. All this we learn from an oration of his, which he delivered
when, in his prætorship, his colleagues attempted to exclude him from
the sacred rites, on the ground of his infirmities.[1123] What heaps
upon heaps of crowns would he have piled up, if he had only had other
enemies! For, in matters of this nature, it is of the first importance
to consider upon what times in especial the valour of each man has
fallen. What civic crowns did Trebia, what did the Ticinus, what did
Lake Thrasymenus afford? What crown was there to be gained at Cannæ,
where it was deemed the greatest effort of valour to have escaped[1124]
from the enemy? Other persons have been conquerors of men, no doubt,
but Sergius[1125] conquered even Fortune herself.[1126]
CHAP. 30. (29.)—MEN OF REMARKABLE GENIUS.
Among so many different pursuits, and so great a variety of works and
objects, who can select the palm of glory for transcendent genius?
Unless perchance we should agree in opinion that no more brilliant
genius ever existed than the Greek poet Homer, whether it is that
we regard the happy subject of his work, or the excellence of its
execution. For this reason it was that Alexander the Great—and it is
only by judges of such high estate that a sentence, just and unbiassed
by envy, can be pronounced in the case of such lofty claims—when he
found among the spoils of Darius, the king of Persia, a casket for
perfumes,[1127] enriched with gold, precious stones, and pearls,
covered as he was with the dust of battle, deemed it beneath a warrior
to make use of unguents, and, when his friends were pointing out to
him its various uses, exclaimed, “Nay, but by Hercules! let the casket
be used for preserving the poems of Homer;” that so the most precious
work of the human mind might be placed in the keeping of the richest
work of art. It was the same conqueror, too, who gave directions that
the descendants and house of the poet Pindar[1128] should be spared,
at the taking of Thebes. He likewise rebuilt the native city[1129] of
Aristotle, uniting to the extraordinary brilliancy of his exploits this
speaking testimony of his kindliness of disposition.
Apollo impeached by name the assassins of the poet Archilochus[1130]
at Delphi. While the Lacedæmonians were besieging Athens, Father Liber
ordered the funeral rites to be performed for Sophocles, the very
prince of the tragic buskin; repeatedly warning their king, Lysander,
in his sleep, to allow of the burial of his favourite. Upon this, the
king made enquiry who had lately died in Athens; and understanding
without any difficulty from the Athenians to whom the god referred, he
allowed the funeral rites to be performed without molestation.
CHAP. 31. (30.)—MEN WHO HAVE BEEN REMARKABLE FOR WISDOM.