302 pLimr's natural HISTOET. [Book XXXV. 



founder of our mimic scenes ; his cousin, Manilius Antiochus,*" 

 the first cultivator of astronomy ; and Staberius Eros, our first 

 grammarian; all three of whom our ancestors saw brought 

 over in the same ship.^^ 



(18.) But why mention these names, recommended as they are 

 by the literary honours which they acquired ? Other instances 

 too, Rome has beheld of persons rising to high positions from 

 the slave-market ;^ Chrysogonus, for example, the freedman 

 of Sylla ; Amphion, the freedman of Q. Catulus ; the man who 

 was the keeper^ of Lucullus ; Demetrius, the freedman of Pom- 

 peius, and Auge, the freedwoman of Demetrius,^^ or else of 

 Pompeius himself, as some have supposed; Hipparchus, the 

 freedman of M. Antonius ; as also, Menas^^ and Menecrates,® 

 freedmen of Sextus Pompeius, and many others as well, whom 

 it would be superfluous to enumerate, and who have enriched 

 themselves at the cost of Roman blood, and the licence that 

 results from proscription. 



Such is the mark that is set upon those droves of slaves 

 which we see on sale, such the opprobrium thrown upon them 

 by a capricious fortune ! And yet, some of these very men have 

 we beheld in the enjoyment of such power and influence, that 

 the senate itself has decreed them — at the command of Agrip- 

 pina,^ wife of the Emperor Claudius — the decorations even of 

 the praetorship : all but honoured with the fasces and their 

 laurels, in fact, and sent back in state to the very place from 

 which they originally came, with their feet whitened with the 

 slave- dealer's chalk ! 



" Supposed by some to liave been the Manilius who was author of the 

 poem called " Astronoraica," still in existence. It is more probable, how- 

 ever, that he was the father of the poet, or perhaps the grandfather ; as it 

 is clear from a passage in Suetonius, that Staberius Eros taught at Eome 

 during the civil wars of Sylla, while the poem must have been written, in 

 part at least, after the death of Augustus. 



°^ Being afterwards manumitted. Sillig thinks that they may have 

 arrived in Home about B.C. 90. 



^^ '* Catasta." A raised platform of wood on which the slaves were 

 exposed for sale. 



•*" " Kectorem," For an explanation of this allusion, see B. xxviii. c. 14. 



^^ A native of Gadara in Syria, according to Josephus. Seneca speaks of 

 him as being more wealthy than his master. 



^2 Or Menodorus, who deserted Sextus Pompeius and went over to 

 Octavianus. 



" Who remained faithful to Pompeius, and died in his cause. 



^* He is probably speaking in reference to her paramour, the freedman 

 Pallas. See B. xxxiii. c. 47. 



