378 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXIX. 



emperor, and for inquisitions to be made at our party- walls 43 

 even : persons who are to sit in judgment on our monetary 

 matters are sent for to Gades 44 and the very Pillars of Hercules; 

 while a question of exile is never entertained without a panel 

 of forty- five men selected for the purpose. 45 But when it is 

 the judge's own life that is at stake, who are the persons that 

 are to hold council upon it, but those who the very next moment 

 are about to take it ! 



And yet so it is, that we only meet with our deserts, no 

 one of us feeling the least anxiety to know what is necessary 

 for his own welfare. We walk 46 with the feet of other people, 

 we see with the eyes of other people, trusting to the memory of 

 others we salute one another, and it is by the aid of others that 

 we live. The most precious objects of existence, and the chief 

 supports 47 of life, are entirely lost to us, and we have nothing 

 left but our pleasures to call our own. I will not leave Cato 

 exposed to the hatred of a profession so ambitious as this, nor 

 yet that senate which judged as he did, but at the same time 

 I will pursue my object without wresting to my purpose the 

 crimes practised by its adepts, as some might naturally expect. 

 For what profession has there been more fruitful in poisonings, 

 or from which there have emanated more frauds upon wills ? 

 And then, too, what adulteries have been committed, in the 

 very houses of our princes even ! the intrigue of Eudemus, 48 

 for example, with Livia, the wife of Drusus Caesar, and that of 

 Valens with the royal lady previously mentioned. 49 Let us 

 not impute these evils, I say, to the art, but to the men who 

 practise it ; for Cato, I verily believe, as little apprehended 



43 " Inquisitio per parietes." The reading is doubtful, but he not im- 

 probably alludes to the employment of spies. 



44 Hardouin thinks that he alludes to Cornelius Balbus here, a native of 

 Gades. See 13. v. c. 5, and B. vii. 44. 



45 " Electis viris datur tabula." He alludes to the three tablets de- 

 livered to the Judices, one of which had inscribed on it " Acquitted," an- 

 other " Not proven," and a third " Guilty " Absolvatur, Non liquet y and 

 Condemno. 



46 " In this place he casteth in the Romans' teeth, their Lecticarii, Anag- 

 nosta, and Nomenclatures." Holland. Letter-bearers, readers, and promp- 

 ters as to the names of the persons addressed. 



47 He alludes to the resources of medicine. 



48 A physician at Rome, who was afterwards put to the torture for this 

 crime. Livia was the daughter of Drusus Nero, the brother of Tiberius. 



49 Messalina, mentioned in c. 5 of this Book. 



