The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 76: CHAP. 34. (34.)—THE MAN WHO WAS PRONOUNCED TO BE THE MOST EXCELLENT.

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About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 34. (34.)—THE MAN WHO WAS PRONOUNCED TO BE THE MOST EXCELLENT.

Scipio Nasica is the only individual who, since the commencement of the Roman era, has been declared, by a vote of the senate, confirmed by oath, to be the most excellent of men.1153 And yet, the same person, when he was a candidate for office, was twice stigmatized by a repulse of the Roman people. He was not allowed, in fine, to die in his native country,1154—no, by Hercules! no more than Socrates, who was declared by Apollo to be the wisest of men, was permitted to die outside of a prison.