Chap. 3.] MARVELLOUS BIRTHS. 137 



reputation. Among others, we here read an inscription to the 

 following effect : " Eutychis, 14 of Tralles, 15 was borne to the 

 funeral pile by twenty of her children, having had thirty in 

 all." 16 Also, Alcippe 17 was delivered of an elephant 18 but then 

 that must be looked upon as a prodigy ; as in the case, too, 

 where, at the commencement of the Marsian war, 19 a female 

 slave was delivered of a serpent. 20 Among these monstrous 

 births, also, there are beings produced which unite in one body 

 the forms of several creatures. For instance, Claudius Caesar 

 informs us, in his writings, that a Hippocentaur was born in 

 Thessaly, but died on the same day : and indeed I have seen 

 one myself, which in the reign of that emperor was brought 

 to him from Egypt, preserved in honey. 21 We have a case, 



u Solinus, the ape of Pliny, absolutely takes the meaning of this pas- 

 sage to be, that Eutychis herself was exhibited on the stage by the orders 

 of Pompey. 



15 For Tralles, in Asia Minor, see B. v. c. 29. 



16 Cuvier speaks of the wife of a porter at the Jardin du Hoi, at Paris, 

 "who, to his knowledge, had been the mother of thirty children. 



17 It seems doubtful whether Pliny means that the statue of Alcippe was 

 also to be seen in the Theatre of Pompey. Tatianus tells the same story 

 of one Glaucippe, and it is not improbable that under that name he refers 

 to the same person. He says that a bronze statue of her was made by 

 Niceretus, the Athenian. Hardouin suggests that this is the story alluded 

 to by Livy, B. xxvii., and by Valerius Maximus, B. i. c. 6, in their state- 

 ment that, among other portents, a boy was born with the head of an ele- 

 phant. 



18 Cuvier remarks, that it is not an uncommon circumstance, both in 

 man and in other animals, for an atrophy of the maxillary bones to cause the 

 nose to sink down, and produce some resemblance to the trunk of an 

 elephant. To this circumstance, he refers the tales met with, of women, 

 sows, and dogs having produced elephants ; see also Val. Maximus, B. vi. 

 c. 5. B. 



19 As to this war, see B. ii. c. 85. The portents observed on this oc- 

 casion were collected by the historian Sisenna, as we learn from Cicero, De 

 Divin. B. ii. 



20 We find that this incredible tale is not only told by Julius Obse- 

 quens, but, according to Dalechamps, by Cornelius Gemma, a compara- 

 tively modern writer. B. 



21 Cuvier remarks, that, in certain quadrupeds, individuals are occa- 

 sionally born with the upper jaw preternaturally small, so much so, that 

 the lower jaw, by its projection, bears some resemblance to a human chin. 

 He had seen a case of this description at Geneva, in a calf, supposed, even 

 by persons of information, to be the produce of an unnatural connection of 

 a cow with a Savoyard shepherd. This subject is treated very philoso- 

 phically by Lucretius, B. v. c. 876, et seq. With respect to the sup- 

 posed Hippocentaur of Thessaly, Cuvier remarks upon the successive 



