Chap. 30.] MEN OF REMARKABLE GENIUS. 1/3 



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

 did the Ticinus, what did Lake Thrasymenus afford ? What 

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

 the greatest effort of valour to have escaped 97 from the enemy ? 

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

 Sergius 98 conquered even Fortune herself. 98 * 



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



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 

 that no more brilliant genius ever existed than the Greek poet 

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

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

 was that Alexander the Great and it is only by judges of 

 such high estate that a sentence, just and unbiassed by envy, 

 can be pronounced in the case of such lofty claims when he 

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

 for perfumes, 99 enriched with gold; precious stones, and pearls, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 was the same conqueror, too, who gave directions that the 



97 In allusion to the compliment paid by the senate to the consul, M. 

 Terentius Varro,"by whose rashness the battle of Cannae was lost. On his 

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

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

 republic." 



98 It appears somewhat remarkable, considering the extraordinary acts 

 of valour here enumerated, as performed by Sergius, that we hear so little 

 of him from other sources. B. 



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

 the Komans in their wars with Hannibal, nevertheless Sergius defeated 

 Fortune herself, in dying before his country was overwhelmed by those 

 calamities. 



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

 nated with the Persians. B. 



