Chap. 5.] CULTURE OF THE VINE. 235 



which had been the place of exile of Scipio Africanus. 81 The 

 greatest celebrity of all, however, was that which, by the 

 agency of the same Sthenelus, was accorded to Ehemmius 

 Palremon, who was also equally famous as a learned gram- 

 marian. This person bought, some twenty years ago, an estate 

 at the price of six hundred thousand sesterces in the same 

 district of Momentum, about ten miles distant from the City of 

 Rome. The low price of property 3i in the suburbs, on every 

 side of the City, is well known ; but in that quarter in particu- 

 lar, it had declined to a most remarkable extent; for the 

 estate which he purchased had become deteriorated by long- 

 continued neglect, in addition to which it was situate in the 

 very worst part of a by no means favourite locality. 33 Such 

 was the nature of the property of which he thus undertook the 

 cultivation, not, indeed, with any commendable views or mten- 

 tions at first, but merely in that spirit of vanity for which he 

 was notorious in so remarkable a degree. The vineyards were 

 all duly dressed afresh, and hoed, under the superintendence of 

 Sthenelus ; the result of which was that Palsemon, while thus 

 playing the husbandman, brought this estate to such an almost 

 incredible pitch of perfection, that at the end of eight years 

 the vintage, as it hung on the trees, was knocked down to a 

 purchaser for the sum of four hundred thousand sesterces; 

 while all the world was running to behold the heaps upon heaps 

 of grapes to be seen in these vineyards. The neighbours, by 

 way of finding some excuse for their own indolence, gave all 

 the credit of this remarkable success to Palsemon's profound 

 erudition; and at last Annseus Seneca, 34 who both held the 

 highest rank in the learned world, and an amount of power and 

 influence which at last proved too much for him — this same 

 Seneca, who was far from being an admirer of frivolity, was 

 seized with such vast admiration of this estate, as not to feel 

 ashamed at conceding this victory to a man who was other- 

 wise the object of his hatred, and who would be sure to make 

 the very most of it, by giving him four times the original cost 



31 The elder Africanus. He retired in voluntary exile to his country- 

 Beat at Liternum, where he died. 



32 Mercis. 



33 The suggestion of Sillig has heen adopted, for the ordinary reading 

 is evidently corrupt, and absurd as well — " not in the very worst part of a 

 favourite locality" — just the converse of the whole tenor of the story. 



34 The philosopher, and tutor of Nero. 



