quippe cum cum tectum rubis vescatur."- Lib. ii. cap. 47. The first kind had the wool soft, curly, and short. The last had it long, thick, and shaggy. The former were called tecta oves, because their carcases were carefully covered to preserve the beauty of their fleeces. We find, therefore, that the modern practice among fashionable breeders and agricultural dandies, of dressing their sheep in jackets, is only the revival of an ancient custom: so true is it, that there is nothing new under the sun. The latter were denominated oves colonica, because they were left to take their chance in the pastures, with no better coat than what Nature in her tailor capacity had provided for them. Yet, clownish as they were, they had some advantage over their genteeler brethren: for the ancients had again anticipated us in the notable discovery and important maxim, that, as food, the hardiest sheep make the best mutton. "Quod alii Orionis, alii Oti fuisse arbitrantur." -Lib vii. cap. 16. These are the names of fabulous giants. There is another reading: Quod alii Orionis, alii Etionis, &c. But the most correct editions retain Oti. The black letter editions of Pliny write this latter name Othus: but the proper orthography is Otus. Two historical giants are mentioned by this author, as having appeared in the time of Augustus: -" Pusioni et Secundillæ erant nomina." Leontium, a courtesan, no very dignified antagonist to an eloquent philosopher, is alluded to by Pliny in the preface to his Natural History, as the woman who wrote against Theophrastus, and gave rise to the proverbial expression in the fol lowing passage:-"Ceu vero nesciam, adversus Theophrastum hominem in eloquentia tantum, ut nomen divinum inde invenerit, scripsisse etiam feminam, et proverbium inde natum, suspendio arborem eligendi. Non queo mihi temperare, quominus ad hoc pertinentia ipsa censorii Catonis verba ponam: ut inde appareat, etiam Catoni de Militari disciplina commentanti, qui sub Africano, immo vero et sub Annibale didicisset militare, et ne Africanum quidem ferre potuisset, qui imperator triumphum reportasset, paratos fuisse istos, qui obtrectatione alienæ scientiæ famam sibi aucupantur." Cicero also mentions Leontium as writing against Theophrastus; Epicurus, Metrodorus, and Hermachus against Pythagoras, Plato, and Empedocles. Vegetius speaks of Cato's treatise on military discipline. Livy imputes to Cato an unworthy jealousy of Scipio Africanus, and Pliny here acquaints us that he experienced retaliation in an invidious attack on himself as a writer on military subjects. The credulity of the ancient compilers of natural history was extreme. What are we to think of Pliny opening the twenty-fifth chapter of his ninth book with such gossips' tales as these?" Est parvus admodum piscis adsuetus petris, echeneis appellatus hoc carinis adhærente naves tardius ire creduntur, inde nomine imposito: quam ob causam amatoriis quoque veneficiis infamis est, et judiciorum ac litium mora; quæ crimina una laude pensat, fluxus gravidarum utero sistens, partusque continens ad puerperium." The following description of cups, fragile in their texture, in the preface to book xxxiii., goes very nearly to represent our modern china: "Murrhina et crystallina ex eadem terra effodimus, quibus pretium faceret fragilitas." The Troglodytes were a people of Ethiopia, below Egypt, so called from their inhabiting subterranean holes and caverns, from the word tpwyan, a hole, a defile, or a cavern, and dúvw, to enter generally, and specifically, to enter in a crouching and creeping attitude: -"Troglodytæ specus excavant. Hæ illis domus, victus serpentium carnes, stridorque, non vox: adeo sermonis commercio carent: Garamantes matrimoniorum exsortes, passim cum feminis degunt."- Lib. v. cap. 8. Making allowance for Pliny's habitual tendency to the marvellous, these people must have been in the lowest condition of human nature. F F PASSAGE FROM ELIAN DE NATURA ANI- Αποσφάτλει μὲν ὁ τοῦ Τυδέως τοὺς Θρᾷκας· ὁ δὲ τοῦ Λαέρτου τοὺς ἀνῃρημένους ὑπάγει τῶν ποδῶν, ἵνα μὴ ποτε νεήλυδες ὄντες οἱ Θρᾷκες ἵπποι, εἶτα μέντοι ἐκπλήτίωνται τοῖς νεκροῖς ἐμπλατε τόμενοι, καὶ ἀήθως κατ' αὐτῶν, ὥς τινων φοβερών βαίνοντες, ἀποσκιρτῶσιν. —Lib. xvi. cap. 25. The verb ὑπάγει ought in some cases to be rendered in Latin by subtrahit, in others by subjicit. In the Latin of Schneider's Elianus de Natura Animalium, it is rightly translated by the former word: the latter sense would have no propriety in connection with the context. MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM AULUS EST etiam ventus nomine Cacias, quem Aristoteles ita flare dicit, ut nubes non procul propellat, sed ut ad sese vocet, ex quo versum istum prover bialem factum ait: Κακὰ Ἐφ ̓ ἑαυτὸν ἕλκων ὡς ὁ Καικίας νέφος. Præter hos autem, quos dixi, sunt alii plurifariam venti commenticii suæ quisque regionis indigenæ, ut est Horatianus quoque ille Atabulus, quos ipse quoque exsequuturus fui: addidissemque eos, qui Etesia et Prodromi appellitantur, qui certo tempore anni, quum canis oritur, ex alia atque alia parte cœli spirant: rationesque omnium vocabulorum, quia plus paulo adbibi, effudissem, nisi multa jam prorsus omnibus vobis reticentibus verba fecissem, quasi fieret a me ἀκρόασις ἐπιδεικτική. Noct. Attic. lib. ii. cap. 22. There is an allusion to the effects of the wind Cæcias in the Knights of Aristophanes : Ως οὗτος ἤδη καικίας καὶ συκοφαντίας πνεῖ. This particular wind is frequent in the Mediterranean, and there called Greco Levante. |