66 pliny's NATURAL EISTOET- [Book XI 



dead, and so preserve them. It is said that men have been 

 born with the heart covered with hair, and that such persons 

 are excelled by none in valour and energy ; such, for instance, 

 as Aristomenes, 71 the Messenian, who slew three hundred 

 Lacedaemonians. Being covered wuth wounds, and taken pri- 

 soner, he, on one occasion, made his escape by a narrow hole 

 which he discovered 72 in the stone quarry where he was im- 

 prisoned, while in pursuit of a fox which had found that 

 mode of exit. Being again taken prisoner, while his guards 

 were fast asleep he rolled himself towards a fire close by, and, 

 at the expense of his body, burnt off the cords by which he 

 was bound. On being taken a third time, the Lacedaemonians 

 opened his breast while he was still alive, and his heart was 

 found covered with hair. 



CHAP. 71. WHEN THE CUSTOM WAS FIEST ADOPTED OF EXAMINING 



THE HEAET IN THE INSPECTION OF THE ENTRAILS. 



On an examination of the entrails, to find a certain fatty 

 part on the top of the heart, is looked upon as a fortunate 

 presage. Still, however the heart has not always been con- 

 sidered as forming a part of the entrails for this purpose. It 

 was under Lucius Postumius Albinus, the King of the Sacri- 

 fices, 73 and after the 126th Olympiad, when King Pyrrhushad 

 quitted Italy, that the aruspices began to examine the heart, 

 as part of the consecrated entrails. The first day that the 

 Dictator Caesar appeared in public, clothed in purple, and sit- 

 ting on a seat of gold, the heart was twice found wanting 74 

 when he sacrificed. From this circumstance has risen a great 

 question among those who discuss matters connected with 

 divination — whether it was possible for the victim to have 

 lived without that organ, or whether it had lost it at the very 

 moment 75 of its death. It is asserted that the heart cannot be 



71 See an account of him in the Messeniaca of Pausanias. 



72 In this part of the story may have originated that of the escape of 

 Sindhad the Sailor, when buried in the vault with the body of his wife. — 

 See the "Arabian Nights." 



73 " Rex Sacrorum." This was a priest elected from the patricians, on 

 whom the priestly duties devolved, which had been originally performed 

 by the kings of Rome. He ranked above the Pontifex Maximus, but was 

 possessed of little or no political influence. 



74 No doubt there was trickery in this. 



75 By supernatural agency. 



