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—
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.
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.