Chapter 392

2105This is referred to by Cicero, in his treatise, De Divinatione, B. i. c. 44, and B. ii. c. 27; in the latter he treats it as an idle tale.—B.

2106See B. iii. c. 8.

2107C. Papirius Carbo, a contemporary and friend of the Gracchi. InB.C.119, the orator, Licinius Crassus, brought a charge against him, the nature of which is not known; but Carbo put an end to his life, by taking cantharides.

2108These different species are thus characterized by Cuvier: “Les premiers sont les souris et les rats, de formes ordinaires; les seconds, les grandes musaraignes [shrew-mice] de la taille du rat, telles que l’on en trouve en Egypte; les troisiemes, une espece de souris particuliere à l’Egypte, et peut-être à la Barbarie, armée d’epines parmi ses poils dont Aristote avait deja parlé (B. vi. l. 37,cap. ult.) et que M. Geoffroy a retrouvée et nommée mus cahirinus.” Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 467, and Lemaire,ubi supra.—B. See B. viii. c.55, and B. x. c.85.

2109Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 11, mentions this circumstance, but says that it occurred in the island of Paros. For Gyara, see B. iv. c. 23.

2110We have two passages in Livy, B. xxvii. and B. xxx., where gold is said to have been gnawed by mice.—B.

2111See B. iii. c. 9. InB.C.217, this place was occupied by Fabius with a strong garrison, to prevent Hannibal from passing the Vulturnus; and the following year, after the battle of Cannæ, was occupied by a small body of Roman troops, who, though little more than 1000 in number, withstood the assaults of Hannibal during a protracted siege, until compelled by famine to surrender.

2112This sum would be about £7.—B.

2113It is by no means improbable that “occentus” here means “singing,” and not merely “squeaking;” as the singing of a mouse would no doubt be deemed particularly ill-boding in those times. At the present day, a mouse has been heard to emit a noise which more nearly resembled singing than squeaking; and a “singing mouse” has been the subject of an exhibition more than once.

2114We have frequent allusions to this occurrence in the writings of the Romans, some of which are referred to by Dalechamps; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 563.—B.

2115A.U.C.639; it does not appear what was the cause of this prohibition.—B.

2116See B. xxxvi. c. 2.

2117Fulvius Lupinus, as already stated in c. 78.—B.

2118“Nitelis.” See B. xvi. c. 69. Probably the animal now known as the Myoxus nitela of Linnæus.

2119Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 33.—B.

2120According to Hardouin, this forest is termed, in modern times, Bosco di Baccano; it is nine miles S.W. of Rome.

2121Cuvier informs us, that “Le dorcas des Grecs n’est le daim, comme le dit Hardouin, mais le chevreuil; car Aristote (De Partib. Anim. l. iii. c. 2) dit que c’est le plus petit des animaux à cornes que nous connaissions (sans doute en Grèce); et le dorcas Libyca, très-bien decrit par Ælien (l. xiv. c. 4), est certainement la gazelle commune, ‘antelope dorcas,’” Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 467, 468; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 565. Respecting the localities here mentioned, it has been proposed to substitute Cilicia for Syria, Syria and Lycia being at a considerable distance from each other.—B.

2122See B. v. c. 39.

2123See B. v. c. 38.

2124See B. iii. c. 11, and the Note to the passage. See also c.81of this Book.

2125Ælian, B. ii. c. 37, gives the same account of the frogs of Seriphos and the lake of Thessaly, but gives the name of Pierus to the lake.—B.

2126“Mus araneüs; the ‘shrew-mouse,’” according to Cuvier, “La musaraigne n’est pas venimeuse. Il s’en faut beaucoup qu’elle n’existe pas au nord des Apennins; et elle ne périt point passe qu’elle a traversé une ornière, quoique souvent elle puisse y être écrasée. C’est un des quadrupèdes que l’on tue le plus aisément par un coup léger.” Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 468.—B.

2127Ælian, B. iii. c. 32, gives the same account, which he professes to have taken from Theophrastus.—B.

2128This is also stated by Ælian.

2129B. xi. c. 23, and B. xxix. c. 27.—B.

2130See B. iv. c. 20.

2131“Attagenæ;” the commentators have suspected some inaccuracy with respect to this word, as we have no other remarks on birds in this part of Pliny’s work; Lemaire, vol. iii. pp. 567, 568.—B.

2132See B. iv. c. 9.

2133See B. v. c. 31.

2134More especially of trees, plants, flowers, medicinal substances, metals, and gems, which form the most prominent subjects of the remaining Books after the eleventh, which concludes the account of the animals.—B.

2135See end of B. ii.

2136A Roman historian, and a contemporary of Cicero. He is thought to have written on early Roman history, as Varro quotes his account of the Curtian Lake, and on the later history of Rome, as we have seen Pliny referring to him in c.2, respecting Pompey’s triumph on his return from Africa. He was held in high estimation by Pomponius Atticus, but seems not to have been so highly esteemed as a writer by Cicero.

2137See end of B. iii.

2138See end of B. ii.

2139Of this writer nothing seems to be known. He probably flourished in the reign of Tiberius or Caligula.

2140See end of B. iii.

2141A Roman historian, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and diedA.D.21, in the seventieth year of his age. His great work was called “Annales,” and extended to at least twenty-two books, and seems to have contained much minute, though not always accurate, information with regard to the internal affairs of the city; only a few fragments remain, which bear reference to events subsequent to the Carthaginian wars. He is also thought to have written a work called “Epitomæ.” A treatise was published at Vienna, in 1510, in two Books, “On the Priesthood and Magistracy of Rome,” under the name of Fenestella; but it is in reality the composition of Andrea Domenico Fiocchi, a Florentine jurist of the fourteenth century.

2142See end of B.vii.

2143See end of B. v.

2144L. Junius Moderatus Columella. He was a native of Gades, or Cadiz, and was a contemporary of Celsus and Seneca. He is supposed to have resided at Rome, and from his works it appears that he visited Syria and Cilicia. It has been conjectured that he died at Tarentum. His great work is a systematic treatise upon Agriculture, divided into Twelve Books.

2145See end of B.vii.

2146See end of B. ii.

2147C. Lucilius, the first Roman satirical poet of any importance, was bornB.C.148, and diedB.C.103. From Juvenal we learn that he was born at Suessa of the Aurunci, and from Velleius Paterculus and Horace other particulars respecting him. He is supposed to have been either the maternal grand-uncle or maternal grandfather of Pompeius Magnus. If not absolutely the inventor of Roman satire, he was the first to mould it into that form which was afterwards fully developed by Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus. He is spoken of in high terms as a writer by Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian.

2148The father of Cornelia, the wife of Pompeius Magnus. After his defeat by Cæsar at the battle of Thapsus, he stabbed himself, and leaped into the sea. In what way he distinguished himself as an author, does not appear.

2149See end of B.vii.

2150See end of B.vi.

2151He was one of the companions of L. Lucullus, proconsul in Bætica, the province of Spain,B.C.150. His work on Natural History is several times referred to by Pliny.

2152See end of B. iii.

2153A writer on Agriculture, mentioned by Varro and Columella. Nothing more seems to be known of him.

2154See end of B. v.

2155See end of B. iv.

2156See end of B. ii.

2157Of Tarsus, a Stoic philosopher, the disciple and successor of Diogenes, and the teacher of Panætius, aboutB.C.144. Of his personal history but little is known. Mention is made of his History of Animals by the Scholiast upon Apollonius Rhodius.

2158See end of B. ii.

2159There were several physicians of this name; one was a native of Apamea in Bithynia, a follower of Herophilus, who flourished in the third or second centuryB.C.; another lived about the same period, and is by some supposed to have been the same as the last. No particulars seem to be known of the individual here mentioned.

2160See end of B. ii.

2161See end of B. iii.

2162Of Miletus. He wrote on mythical subjects, and is mentioned as an author by Diogenes Laertius; but nothing further seems to have been known respecting him.

2163Some of the MSS. call him Acopas, or Copas. He was the author of an account of the victors at the Olympic games, the work here referred to by Pliny.

2164Hiero II., the king of Syracuse, and steady friend and ally of the Romans. He died probably a little before the yearB.C.216, having attained the age of ninety-two. Varro and Columella speak of a Treatise on Agriculture written by him.

2165Attalus III., king of Pergamus, son of Eumenes II. and Stratonice, daughter of Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia. In his will he made the Roman people his heirs. Being struck with remorse for the murders and other crimes of which he had previously been guilty, he abandoned all public business, and devoted himself to the study of physic, sculpture, and gardening, on which he wrote a work. He diedB.C.133, of a fever, with which he was seized through exposing himself to the sun’s rays, while engaged in erecting a monument to his mother.

2166See end of B. ii.

2167See end of B.vii.

2168An historian of Syracuse, one of the most celebrated of antiquity, though, unfortunately, none of his works have come down to us. He was born aboutB.C.435, and diedB.C.356. He wrote histories of Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Phœnicia.

2169A Greek of Tarentum, famous as a philosopher, mathematician, statesman, and general. The lives of him by Aristoxenus and Aristotle are unfortunately lost. He lived probably aboutB.C.400, and he is said to have saved the life of Plato by his influence with the tyrant Dionysius. He was finally drowned in the Adriatic. He attained great skill as a practical mechanician; and his flying dove of wood was one of the wonders of antiquity. The fragments and titles of works ascribed to him are very numerous, but the genuineness of some is doubted.

2170See end of B. vii.

2171A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella. In B. xviii. c. 43, Pliny speaks of a work of his on lucerne clover and cytisus.

2172Or Anaxipolis. He was a writer on Agricultural subjects, and is mentioned by Varro and Columella; but nothing further is known respecting him.

2173A writer on Agriculture. He is supposed to have lived before the time of Aristotle, and is also mentioned by Varro. No further particulars are known respecting him.

2174A writer on Agriculture; Varro calls him a native of Mallus, in Cilicia.

2175A native of Cumæ or Cymæ, in Asia Minor, a Greek writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2176A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2177A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro, Columella, Galen, and the Scholiast on Nicander.

2178The most famous among the soothsayers of Alexander the Great. He probably wrote the work on Prodigies, which is referred to by Pliny in B. xvii. c. 38, and elsewhere, as also by Lucian the satirist.

2179A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2180See end of B.vi.

2181A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2182A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2183A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2184See end of B. ii.

2185A writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella.

2186Or Euphonius, a writer on Agriculture, also mentioned by Varro and Columella. Nothing further is known relative to him.

2187See end of B.vii.

2188Menander of Priene was a writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro and Columella. Menander of Heraclea was a writer on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro.

2189A poet who wrote on Agriculture, mentioned also by Varro. It is not improbable that he is the same person with the Menecrates of Smyrna, the author of two epigrams in the Greek Anthology.

2190A Greek writer on Agriculture, who wrote before the time of Theophrastus, by whom he is mentioned, as also by Athenæus and Varro.

2191He is mentioned also by Varro, but nothing is known of him.

2192He is often referred to by Varro and Columella. He is also supposed to have been the writer of a History of Thebes, mentioned by the Scholiast and Apollonius Rhodius, B. iii.

2193Cassius Dionysius of Utica. He translated into Greek the twenty-eight Books on Husbandry written by Mago the Carthaginian, in the Punic language. Of Mago nothing further is known.

2194Diophanes of Bithynia made an epitome of the same work in Greek, and dedicated it to King Deiotarus. Columella styles Mago the Father of Agriculture.

2195Made king of Cappadocia by Antony,B.C.34. He died at Rome, at an advanced age,A.D.17. Plutarch attributes to King Archelaus—if, indeed, this was the same—a treatise on Minerals.

2196A native of Claros, near Colophon, in Ionia. It is not a matter of certainty, but it is most probable, that he lived in the reign of Ptolemy V., who diedB.C.181. He was a poet, grammarian, and physician. His “Theriaca,” a poem on the wounds inflicted by venomous animals, still exists, as also another called “Alexipharmia.”

2197He has already said, in B. ii. c. 3, that “the seeds of all bodies fall down from the heavens, principally into the ocean, and being mixed together, we find that a variety of monstrous forms are in this way frequently produced.”

2198Hardouin has the following remark on this passage. “Rondelet and Aldrovandus only waste their time and pains in making their minute inquiries into the present names of these fish, which took their names from grapes, the wood, the saw, and the cucumber; for by no other writer do we find them mentioned even.” Cuvier, however, does not seem to be of Hardouin’s opinion, that such investigations are a waste of time, and has suggested that the eggs of the Sepia officinalis may be alluded to, the eggs of which are in clusters of a dark colour, and bearing a strong resemblance to black grapes. This resemblance to a bunch of grapes is noticed by Pliny himself, in c. 74 of the present Book.

2199He alludes, most probably, to what we call the “sword-fish,” the “Xiphias gladius” of Linnæus.

2200Probably, in allusion to the “Squalus pristis” of Linnæus.

2201Cuvier suggests that he probably alludes to the “Holothuria pentactes” of Linnæus, or the sea-priapus; and remarks, that when the animal contracts itself, it bears a very strong resemblance to a cucumber.

2202Cuvier says, that he most probably alludes to the “Syngnathus hippocampus” of Linnæus. This little fish, he says, is also called the sea-horse, and having the body armed with a hard coat, might very easily have been taken for a shell-fish. Its head, in miniature, bears a very strong resemblance to that of a horse.

2203It is not accurately known what fish was meant by the ancients, under the name of “balæna.” According to some writers, it is considered to be the same with what we call the “grampus.”

2204A space, as Hardouin remarks, greater than that occupied by some towns, the “jugerum” being 240 feet long, and 120 broad. The vast size of great fishes was a favourite subject with some of the ancient writers, and their accounts were eagerly copied by some of the early fathers. Bochart has collected these various accounts in his work on Animals, B. i. c. 7. In the “Arabian Nights” also, we find accounts of huge fishes in the eastern seas, so large as to be taken for islands. The existence of the sea-serpent is still a question in dispute; and a whale of large size, is a formidable obstacle in the way of a ship of even the largest burthen.

2205As Hardouin remarks, we can learn neither from the works of Pliny, nor yet of Ælian, what fish the pristis really was. From Nonius Marcellus, c. 13, we find that it was a very long fish of large size, but narrow body. Hardouin says that it was a fish of the cetaceous kind, found in the Indian seas, which, in his time, was known by some as the “vivella,” with a long bony muzzle serrated on either side, evidently meaning the saw-fish. Pristis was a favourite name given by the Romans to their ships. In the boat-race described by Virgil in the Æneid, B. v., one of the boats is so called.

2206Cuvier remarks, that he himself had often seen the “langouste,” or large lobster, as much as four feet in length, and the “homard,” usually a smaller kind, of an equal size. The length, however, given by Pliny would make six or eight feet, according to the length of the cubit.

2207Cuvier says, that it is an exaggeration by travellers, which there is nothing in nature at all to justify. Probably, however, some animals of the genus boa, or python, or large water-snakes may have given rise to the story.

2208On the southern coast of Arabia.

2209Ptolemy Philadelphus.

2210See B. vi. c.23,25. Strabo, in his fifteenth Book, tells the same story of the Ichthyophagi, situate between the Carmani and the Oritæ. Dalechamps suggests that the Gedrosi mentioned this in relation to the Ichthyophagi, who were probably their neighbours.

2211Also called the Cophetes. See B. vi. c.25. The commander of Alexander’s fleet more especially alluded to, is probably Nearchus, who wrote an account of his voyage, to which Pliny has previously made allusion in B. vi. and which is followed by Strabo, in B. xv., and by Arrian, in his “Indica.”

2212Hardouin remarks, that the Basques of his day were in the habit of fencing their gardens with the ribs of the whale, which sometimes exceeded twenty feet in length; and Cuvier says, that at the present time, the jaw-bone of the whale is used in Norway for the purpose of making beams or posts for buildings.

2213Onesicritus, quoted by Strabo, B. xv., says., that in the vicinity of Taprobane, or Ceylon, there were animals which had an amphibious life, some of which resembled oxen, some horses, and various other land animals. Cuvier is of opinion, that not improbably the “Trichecum manatum” and the “Trichecum dugong” of Linnæus are alluded to, which are herbivorous animals, though nearly allied to the cetacea, and which are in the habit of coming to pasture on the grass or sea-weed they may chance to find on the shore.

2214It is remarked by Cuvier, that there is no resemblance whatever between the domesticated animals and any of the cetacea; but that the imagination of the vulgar has pictured to itself these supposed resemblances, by the aid of a lively imagination.

2215From the Greekφυσητὴρ, “a blower,” probably one of the whale species, so called from its blowing forth the water. Hardouin remarks, that Pliny mentions the Gallic Ocean, in B. vi. c. 33, as ending at the Pyrenees; and, probably, by this term he means the modern Bay of Biscay. Rondeletius, B. xvi. c. 14, says, that this fish is the same that is called by the Narbonnese peio mular, by the Italians capidolio, and by the people of Saintonge, “sedenette.” Cuvier conjectures also, that this was some kind of large whale; a fish which was not unfrequently found, in former times, in the gulf of Aquitaine, the inhabitants of the shores of which were skilled in its pursuit. Ajasson states that Valmont de Bomare was of opinion that it was the porpoise; but, as he justly remarks, the size of that animal does not at all correspond with the magnitude of the “physeter,” as here mentioned.

2216Cuvier suggests that the idea of such an animal as the one here mentioned, probably took its rise in the kind of sea star-fish, now known as Medusa’s head, the Asterias of Linnæus; but that the enormous size here attributed to it, has no foundation whatever in reality. He remarks also, that the inhabitants of the north of Europe, have similar stories relative to a huge polypus, which they call the “kraken.” We may, however, be allowed to observe, that the “kraken,” or “korven,” mentioned by good bishop Pontoppidan, bears a closer resemblance to the so-called “sea-serpent,” than to anything of the polypus or sepia genus.

2217“Rotæ.” Cuvier suggests that this idea of the wheel was taken from the class of zoophytes named “Medusæ,” by Linnæus, which have the form of a disc, divided by radii, and dots which may have been taken for eyes. But then, as he says, there are none of them of an excessive size, as Pliny would seem to indicate by placing them in this Chapter, and which Ælian has absolutely attributed to them in B. xiii. c. 20. Of the largest rhizostoma, Cuvier says, that he had even seen, the diameter of the disc did not exceed two feet.

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