146 plint's natural history. [Book YII. 



doubted instance. His mother was the produce of an act of 

 adultery, committed with a male of ^Ethiopia ; and although 

 she herself differed in no way from the ordinary complexion 

 of other females, he was born with all the swarthy com- 

 plexion of his Ethiopian grandfather.^^ 



These strong features of resemblance proceed, no doubt, from 

 the imagination of the parents, over which we may reasonably 

 believe that many casual circumstances have a very powerful 

 influence ; such, for instance, as the action of the eyes, the 

 ears, or the memory, or impressions received at the moment of 

 conception. A thought ^^ even, momentarily passing through 

 the mind of either of the parents, may be supposed to produce 

 a resemblance to one of them separately, or else to the two 

 combined. Hence it is that the varieties are much more nu- 

 merous in the appearance of man than in that of other ani- 

 mals ; seeing that, in the former, the rapidity of the ideas, the 

 quickness of the perception, and the varied powers of the in- 

 tellect, tend to impress upon the features peculiar and diversified 

 marks ; while in the case of the other animals, the mind is 

 immovable, and just the same in each and all individuals of 

 the same species.^ A man named Artemon, one of the common 

 people,^^ bore so strong a resemblance to Antiochus, the king 

 of Syria, that his queen Laodice, after her husband Antiochus 

 was slain, acted the farce of getting this man^- to recommend 



^^ Aristotle, in his History of Animals, relates a similar, but not the 

 same, story ; he says that it o'courred in Sicily, though he afterwards speaks 

 of it as having happened in Elis, It is conjectured by Ajasson, that tlie 

 individual might have been born in Sicily, and have exhibited himself in 

 Elis, as a wrestler. If we are really to believe that his complexion was 

 that of an -Slthiopian, it is much more probable that his mother may have 

 Lad connection with a negro. — B. 



°9 Few readers will fail here to recall to mind the story about the clock, 

 in the opening chapter of " Tristram Shandy." 



^'^ Balechamps refers us to a remark of the same kind in Cicero, Tusc. 

 Qufest. B. i. c. 80 ; but Ajasson remarks, that the resemblance mentioned 

 by Cicero refers to the mind and manners, not to the body; Lemaire, 

 vol. iii. p. 67. — B. 



6' Aulus GcUius says, that he was one of the royal family. 



^' This man resembled Antiochus III., surnamed the Great, to such a 

 degree, that when that monarch had been slain in a tumult by his people, 

 his wife, Laodice, daughter of Mithiidates V., King of Pontus, put 

 Artemon into a bed, pretending that he was the king, but dangerously ill. 

 Many persons were admitted to see him ; and all believed that they were 

 listening to the words of their king, when he recommended to them Laodice 

 and ker children. 



