214 PLI5T's NATXJEAL niSTOET. [BookYII. 



of joy, on learning that they had obtained the prize for tragedy. 

 After the defeat at Cannae, a mother died of joy, on seeing that 

 her son had returned in safety, she having heard a false re- 

 port of his death.'- Diodorus, the professor of logic, '^ died of 

 mortification, because he could not immediately answer some 

 (Question which had been put to him by Stilpo, by way of 

 joke. 



Two of the Caesars,'^ one of whom was at the time prsetor, 

 and the other had previously discharged that office, and was 

 the father of the Dictator Ccesar, died without any apparent 

 cause, in the morning, while putting on their shoes ; the former 

 at Pisae, the latter at Eome. Quintus Fabius Maximus died 

 during his consulship, on the day before the calends of January,''^ 

 and in his place C. Rebilus got himself elected consul for only a 

 few hours. '^ The same thing happened also to the senator, 

 C. Yolcatius Gurges ; these were all of them so well, and in 

 such perfect health, that they were actually preparing to go 

 from home. Q. ^milius Lepidus,^'' just as he was leaving his 

 house, struck his great toe against the threshold of his chamber 

 door. C. Aufustius, having gone from home, was proceeding 

 to the senate-house, when he stumbled in the Comitium,'^ and 

 expired. Their ambassador, who had just been pleading the 

 cause of the Rhodians in the senate, to the admiration of every 



than to the poetrv of Dionysius ; see the remarks of Ajasson, Lemaire, 

 vol. iii. pp. 210, 211.— B. 



^2 This anecdote is related by Liv)', B. xxii. c. 7; by Yalerius Maximus, 

 B. ix. c. 12 ; and by Aulas Gellius, B. iii. c. 15; the two former, how- 

 ever, state, that it occurred after the battle of Thrasymemis. — B. 



13 Cicero, De Fato, sec. 6, styles Diodorus, "valens dialecticus." — B. 



1* According to Hardouin, these were Lucius, the praetor, and Caius, 

 the father of the dictator ; they were brothers, and the sons of C. Caesar. 

 — B. 



1' Thirty-first of December ; consequently his tenure of oflBce was for a 

 few hours only. Cicero indulged in several jokes upon his consulship, re- 

 marking that no one had died during it ; and that the consul was ex- 

 tremely vigilant, for that he had never slept during his term of office. 



i« This took place a.u.c. 708 ; Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, gives us 

 an account of the jests passed by Cicero and others on the brief duration 

 of his office. — B. 



1' He is supposed to have been the same person who was consul A.r.c. 

 732.— B. 



18 The Comitium was a place in the forum at Rome, where the " comi- 

 tia curiata " were held, and certain offences tried and punished. It was 

 here also that the tribunal, or *'suggcstum," was situate. 



