Chap 22.] INSTANCES OF ACUTENESS OF HEARING. 163 



other small animals in ivory, so minute in size, that other 

 persons were unable to distinguish their individual parts. 

 Myrmecides 49 also was famous in the same line j 60 this man 

 made, of similar material, a chariot drawn by four horses, 

 which a fly could cover with its wings ; as well as a ship which 

 might be covered by the wings of a tiny bee. 51 



CHAP. 22. (22.) INSTANCES OF REMABKABLE ACUTENESS OF 



HEARING. 



We have one instance on record of remarkable acuteness of 

 hearing ; the noise of the battle, on the occasion when Sybaris 63 

 was destroyed, was heard, the day on which it took place, at 

 Olympia. 53 But, as to the victory over the Cimbri, 54 and that 

 over Perseus, the news of which was conveyed to Rome by the 

 Castors, 55 they are to be looked upon in the light of visions and 

 presages proceeding immediately from the gods. 



49 His works in ivory were said to have been so small, that they could 

 scarcely be seen without placing them on black hair. 



50 Cicero, Acad. Quaest. B. iv. c. 120, speaks of " one Myrmecides, a 

 maker of minute objects of art ;" JElian, Vac. Hist. B. i. c. 17, also speaks , 

 of these minute performances of Myrmecides, and styles them " a waste 

 of time." Pliny, in a subsequent part of his work, B. xxxi. c. 4, speaks 

 of similar minute works, executed by these artists in marble ; hut the ac- 

 count which he gives is scarcely credible. B. 



51 See B. xxxvi. c. 5. 



62 It would appear that there is a little confusion here of events. Sy- 

 baris, so noted for its luxury and effeminacy, was destroyed by the people of 

 Crotona, under the command of the athlete Milo. B.C. 510. In B.C.. 360, 

 the Crotoniats were defeated at the river Sagras, by the Locrians and Rhe- 

 gians, 10,000 in number, although they are said to have amounted to 

 130,000. Now it was on the occasion of this latter battle, that, according 

 to Cicero, DeNat. Deor. B. ii., the noise was heard at Olympia, where the 

 games were being celebrated. Be it a? it may, the story is clearly fahulous. 

 Evelyn is much more deserving of credit, where we find him stating in his 

 Diary, that in his garden, at Say's Court, at Deptford, he heard the guns 

 fired in one of our engagements with the Dutch fleet, at a distance thence 

 of nearly 200 miles. 



53 Ajasson discusses at some length, the possibility of the fact here men- 

 tioned, and concludes, that it is not to be credited : he estimates the dis- 

 tance between these two places at 120 miles. B. 



54 As to the miraculous annunciation of the victory of Marius and 

 Catulus over the Cimbri, see B. ii. e. 58. 



55 Meaning, thereby, the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux ; who were 

 said to have announced at Rome the victory gained the day before by 

 Paulus JEmilius over King Perseus. 



