222 PLINY'S NATUBAL HISTORY. [Book VII. 



this statement, it would appear that letters have been in use 

 from all eternity. The Pelasgi were the first to iritroduce them 

 into Latium. 



The brothers Euryalus and Hyperbius 55 were the first who 

 constructed brick-kilns and houses at Athens; before which, 

 caves in the ground served for houses. Gellius 56 is inclined to 

 think that Toxius, the son of Cselus, was the first inventor of 

 mortar, it having been suggested to him by the nest of the 

 swallow. Cecrops 57 gave to a town the name of Cecropia, 

 after himself; this is now the citadel of Athens. Some per- 

 sons will have it, that Argos had been founded before this 

 period by King Phoroneus ; others, again, that Sicyon had 

 been previously built ; while the Egyptians declare that their 

 own city, Diospolis, had been in existence long before them. 

 Cinyra, 58 the son of Agriopas, 59 invented tiles and discovered 



has been urged in favour of the alteration of the text is derived from two 

 passages in Cicero's Treatise de Divin. B. i. c. 19, and B. ii. c. 46, where 

 he refers to the very long periods which the Babylonians employed in 

 their calculations, but which he justly regards as entirely without founda- 

 tion, and even ridiculous. Pliny, however, professes to follow the opinion 

 of Epigenes whom he styles " gravis auctor," and who, we may premise, 

 Avould reject these improbable tales. B. The reading, 720 t/toitsands, is 

 the one adopted by Sillig. 



55 Pausanias, in his "Attica," calls the two broth ers Agrolas and Hyper- 

 bius. Some commentators have supposed, that these names, as well as 

 Doxius and Cselus, mentioned below, are merely symbolical, and that the 

 personages are fictitious. B. 



56 The Gellius here mentioned had the pra3nomen of Cneius ; he is not 

 to be confounded with the more noted Aulus Gellius, by whom he is quoted 

 in the Noct. Att. B. xiii. c. 29. B. 



57 There is a number of ancient legends attached to the name of Cecrops, 

 yet we have but little authentic information respecting him. What appears 

 to be the best established is, that he was born in the city of Sais, in Egypt, 

 and that, about 1556 B.C., he conducted a colony to Attica, where he built 

 a fortress, on the Acropolis of Athens, and that his descendants continued, 

 for some generations, to be kings of Attica. B. 



58 If this is the Cinyra previously mentioned in c. 49, he is more ge- 

 nerally represented as the son of Apollo, or of Paphos, a priest of the 

 Paphian Aphrodite or Venus. The true reading, however, is uncertain. 



59 Hardouin informs us, that in all the MSB. which he has consulted, 

 this person is named Agricola, while in the printed editions of Pliny he 

 is styled Agriopa, or Agriopas. Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 250, 251, endea- 

 vours to explain this, by supposing, that the word " Agricola" was the one 

 employed by Pliny, but was used by him as a generic, not as an appel- 

 lative term. Some of the earlier editors, however, conceiving that no 

 agricultural operations could be carried on, before the invention of the 



