206 pliny's natural HTSTOET. [Book XXXIV. 



lore acquit !N'ature of a charge that here beloDgs to man him- 



Indeed there have been some instances in Tvhich it has been 

 proved that iron might be solely used for innocent purposes. 

 In the treaty which Porsena granted to the Eoman people, after 

 the expulsion of the kings, we find it expressly stipuhited, that 

 iron shall be only employed for the cultivation of the fields ; 

 and our oldest authors inform us, that in those days it was 

 considered unsafe to write with an iron pen.^^ There is an edict 

 extant, published in the third consulship of Pompeius Magnus, 

 during the tumults that ensued upon the death of Clodius, 

 prohibiting any weapon from being retained in the City. 



CHAP. 40. STATUES OF IRON ; CHASED WORKS IN IRON. 



Still, however, human industry has not failed to employ iron 

 for perpetuating the honours of more civilized life. The 

 artist Aristonidas, wishing to express the fury of Athamas 

 subsiding into repentance, after he had thrown his son Learchus 

 from the rock,^^ blended copper and iron, in order that the 

 blush of shame might be more exactly expressed, by the rust of 

 the iron making its appearance through the shining substance of 

 the copper ; a statue which still exists at Rhodes. There is also, 

 in the same city, a Hercules of iron, executed by Alcon,^- the 

 endurance displayed in his labours by the god having suggested 

 the idea. We see too, at Ptome, cups of iron consecrated in 

 the Temple of Mars the Avenger. ^^ Nature, in conformity 

 with her usual benevolence, has limited the power of iron, by 

 inflicting upon it the punishment of rust ; and has thus dis- 

 played her usual foresight in rendering nothing in existence 

 more perishable, than the substance which brings the greatest 

 dangers upon perishable mortality. 



CHAP. 41. — THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF IRON, AND THE MODE OF 

 TEMPERING IT. 



Iron ores are to be found almost everywhere ; for they exist 



*^ The cliarge that death is always the work of Nature. — B. 



"'^ Or "stylus." ^' See Ovid, Metam. B, iy. I. 467, et seq. ; and 



Fasti, B. vi.l. 489, et seq. — B. =- An artist mentioned also by Ovid 



uud Pausanias. — B. And by Virgil. 



^•' " Mars Ultor." In the Forum of Augustus, in the Eiglith Region of 

 the City. 



