172 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



This bit of silver, flattened by the blow of the punch, 

 talks to me of the Vocontii ■} " VOOC . . . VOCVNT," says 

 the inscription. It comes from the little neighbouring town 

 of Vaison, where Pliny the Naturalist sometimes went to 

 spend a holiday. Here, perhaps, at the table of his host, 

 the celebrated compiler, he learnt to appreciate the bec- 

 cafico, famous among the epicures of Rome and still 

 renowned to-day, under the name of grasset, among our 

 Provençal gastronomers. It is a shame that my bit of 

 silver says nothing of these events, more memorable 

 than a battle. 



It shows, on one side, a head and, on the other, a 

 galloping horse, all barbarously inaccurate. A child try- 

 ing its hand for the first time with the point of a pebble 

 on the fresh mortar of the walls would produce no more 

 shapeless design. Nay, of a surety, those gallant Allo- 

 broges were no artists. 



How greatly superior to them were the foreigners from 

 Phocaea ! Here is a drachma of the Massahetes :^ 

 MASSAAIHTflN. On the obverse, a head of Diana of 

 Ephesus, chub-faced, full-cheeked, thick-hpped. A re- 

 ceding forehead, surmounted by a diadem ; an abundant 

 head of hair, streaming down the neck in a cascade of 

 curls ; heavy ear-drops, a necklace of pearls, a bow slung 

 over the shoulder. Thus was the idol decked by the 

 hands of the pious maidens of Syria. To tell the truth, 

 it is not beautiful. It is sumptuous, if you will, and 

 preferable, after all, to the ass's ears which the beauties 



^ The Vocontii inhabited the Viennaise, between the Allobroges on 

 the north, the Caturiges and the estates of King Cottius on the east 

 the Cavares on the west, and the ]\Iemini and Vulgientes on the south. 

 Vasio (Vocontia), now Vaison, was their capital. — Translator'' s Note. 



2 From Massalia, the ancient name of Marseilles, of which Phocœa, 

 in Asia Minor, was the mother city. — Translator's Note. 



