142 pliij^y's natural HISTOET. [Book VII. 



from sucli the murderous dispositions of men. Thou man, who 

 placest thy confidence in the strength of thy body, thou, who 

 dost embrace the gifts of Fortune, and look upon thyself, not 

 only as her fosterling, but even as her own born child, thou, 

 whose mind is ever thirsting for blood,*'' thou who, puffed up 

 with some success or other, dost think thyself a god — by how 

 trifling a thing might thy life have been cut short ! Even 

 this very day, something still less even may have the same 

 effect, the puncture, for instance, of the tiny sting of the ser- 

 pent ; or even, as befell the poet Anacreon,'** the swallowing 

 of the stone of a raisin, or of a single hair in a draught of milk, 

 by which the praetor and senator, Fabius, was choked, and 

 so met his death. He only, in fact, will be able to form a 

 just estimate of the value of life, who will always bear in 

 mind the extreme frailty of its tenure. 



CHAP. 6. (8.) MONSTROTJS BIRTHS. 



It is contrary to nature for children to come into the world 

 with the feet first, for which reason such children are called 

 Agrippae, meaning that they are born with difficulty.*^ In 

 this manner, M. Agrippa*^ is said to have been born ; the 



*3 " Tinctoria mens ;" there has been much discussion, whether the text 

 does not require correction here; and various conjectural emendations have 

 been proposed, but not with much success. If the word " tinctoria" was 

 employed by Pliny, it may be regarded as one of those bold, and somewhat 

 metaphorical expressions, which are not unfrequently found in his 

 writings. — B. 



** Valerius Maxiraus makes the same statement as to the death of 

 Anacreon, and says that " having lived to an extreme old age, he was 

 supporting his decayed strength by chewing raisins, when one grain, more 

 obstinate than the rest, stuck in his parched throat, and so ended his fife." 

 This story has been looked upon by some of the modern scholars as a 

 fiction of the poets. 



*^ This explanation of the name is given by Aulus Gellius, B. xvi. c. 6. 

 — B. It is very doubtful what are the roots from which it is formed ; 

 though Pliny evidently thinks that the word is only a corruption of iha 

 Latin "aegre partus," "born with difficulty;" a notion savouring of ab- 

 surdity. 



*s M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, having married 

 his dissolute daughter, Julia. He was the son of Lucius Agrippa, and was 

 descended from a very obscure family. He divorced his wife Marcella, to 

 marry Julia, the widow of Marcellus, and the daughter of Augustus, by 

 his third wife, Scribonia. 



