Chap. 30.] MEN OP EEMAllKABLE GENIUS. 173 



each man has fallen. "What civic crowns did Trebia, what 

 did the Ticiniis, what did Lake Thrasyraenus afford ? What 

 crown was there to be gained at Cannae, where it was deemed 

 the greatest effort of valour to have escaped^' from the enemy ? 

 Other persons have been conquerors of men, no doubt, but 

 Sergius^^ conquered even Fortune herself. ^^* 



CHAP. 30. (29.) MEN OF REMARKABLE GENITJS. 



Among so many different pursuits, and so great a variety of 

 works and objects, who can select the palm of glory for tran- 

 scendent genius ? Unless perchance we should agree in opinion 

 :hat no more brilliant genius ever existed than the Greek poet 

 Eomer, whether it is that we regard the happy subject of his 

 vork, or the excellence of its execution. For this reason it 

 ,vas that Alexander the Great — and it is only by judges of 

 ;uch high estate that a sentence, just and unbiassed by envy, 

 ;an be pronounced in the case of such lofty claims — when he 

 bund among the spoils of Darius, the king of Persia, a casket 

 "or perfumes, ^^ enriched with gold, precious stones, and pearls, 

 ;overed as he was with the dust of battle, deemed it beneath a 

 varrior to make use of unguents, and, when his friends were 

 )ointing out to him its various uses, exclaimed, " Nay, but by 

 lercules ! let the casket be used for preserving the poems of 

 lomer ;" that so the most precious work of the human mind 

 aight be placed in the keeping of the richest work of art. It 

 v^as the same conqueror, too, who gave directions that the 



'^ In allusion to the compliment paid hy the senate to the consul, M. 

 ^erentius Yarro, by whose rashness the battle of Cannae was lost. On his 

 scape and safe return to Rome, instead of visiting him with censure, 

 e received the thanks of the senate, "that he had not despaired of the 

 epublic." 



^ It appears somewhat remarkable, considering the extraordinary acts 

 f valour here enumerated, as performed by Sergius, that we hear so httle 

 f him from other sources. — B. 



3s* Hardouin takes the meaning to be, that though ill fortune overtook 

 16 Romans in their wars with Hannibal, nevertheless Sergius defeated 

 'ortune herself, in dying before his country was overwhelmed by those 

 ilamities. 



^'^ Pliny informs us, B. xiii. c. 1, that the art of making perfumes origi- 

 ated with the Persians. — B. 



