200 * PLIN^t's NATtlKAL HISTORY. [Book VTI. 



in Italy. I find that Callimachus,^^ considering it a more 

 Avonderful circumstance than any he had ever known, that the 

 two statues which had been erected to him, one at Locri, and 

 the other at Ol^Topia, were struck by lightning on the same 

 day, ordered sacrifices to be offered up to him, which was 

 accordingly done, both during his life-time, and after his 

 death. Nothing, indeed, has appeared to me so remarkable, 

 as this mark of approval given by the gods. 



CHAP. 49. (48.) — THE GREATEST LENGTH OF LIFE. 



^Niot only the difierences of climate, but the multitude of 

 instances named, and the peculiar destiny attached to each of 

 us from the moment of his birth/^ tend to render one very un- 

 certain in forming any general conclusion respecting the length 

 and duration of human life. Hesiod, who was the first to 

 make mention of this subject, while he states many circum- 

 stances about the age of man, which appear to me to be fabu- 

 lous, gives to the crow nine times the ordinary duration of our 

 life, to the stag four times the length of that of the crow, to 

 the raven three times the length of that of the stag, besides 

 other particulars with reference to the phoenix and the Nymphs 

 of a still more fabulous nature. The poet Anacreon gives ^'^ 

 one hundred and fifty years to Arganthonius,'*' the king of the 

 Tartessii ; ten more to Cinaras,^^ the king of Cyprus, and two 



'8 It has been conjectured by Poinsiret, that the word " Callimachus" 

 does not refer to the well-known poet of that name, nor to any other indi- 

 vidual, but that it was the title of the president of the Olympic games. 

 The opinion is not without plausibility, but is scarcely sanctioned by suffi- 

 cient authority. — B. 



39 Pliny here alludes to the doctrine of astrology, which forms the 

 especial subject of the next Chapter. — B. 



■'*' These statements are not found in any of the works of Hesiod now 

 extant ; it is scarcely necessary to observe, that they are entirely without 

 foundation, and contrary to all observation and experience. — B. 



41 The great age of Arganthonius is referred to by Lucian, in his treatise 

 *' De Macrobiis," " on Long-lived Men ;" by Herodotus, B. i. c. 163 ; by 

 Cicero, de Senect. sec. 19 ; and by Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13 ; the 

 tliree latter writers agree in making his age 120 years, and hence Pliny 

 assigns to him the same age in the next page. — B. St. Augustine, De 

 Civitate Dei, B. xv., quotes this passage of Pliny, and mentions the age 

 of Arganthonius, as stated by him, to have been 152 years. For Tartessus, 

 in Spain, see B. iii. c. 3, and B. iv. c. 36. 



*- His story is told by Ovid, Met. B. x., where he is said to have become 



