404 APPENDIX. 



Marcus Terentius Varro, who was considered the most erudite of 

 the Romans, was born IIG j-ears before Christ, and died 28 years before 

 that period. We only speak of him here on account of his Treatise de 

 rerustica. 



Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, contemporary with Claudius, 

 was born at Cadis, and was author of twelve books : De re rustica. 



Ovid is not one of those men whose lives it is necessary to recall the 

 history. It will suffice to note, that he was born 43 years before the coming^ 

 of Christ, exiled ten years after the birth of Christ, and died seven years 

 after. It was during the last seven years of his Hfe that he composed his 

 poem of the Halieutigues, if this work really belongs to him. 



Plinv, the elder, (Caius Plinius secundus) one of the most laborious and 

 erudite men of antiquity, was born at Verona, 23 years before the Christian 

 era ; he studied at Rome, visited the coast of Africa, served in the Roman 

 armies of Germany, remained in Spain during the civil wars which fol- 

 lowed the death of Nero, and died, commander of the Roman fleet, 79 yeai-s 

 after the birth of Christ, on account of his taking too little caution in 

 observing the great eruption of Vesuvius. His natural history, in thirty- 

 seven volumes, dedicated to Titus, is the only Avork of his that remains. 

 He passed a great portion of his life in collecting the materials with an 

 ardour and perseverance which surpasses all imagination. It is composed 

 of extracts from more than two thousand volumes, from authors, of whose 

 works we do not possess more than forty volumes. 



Oppian, of Anazarba, in Cilicia, was born towards the end of the reign of 

 Marcus Aurclius ; his father fell into disgrace with Severus, and was sent 

 into exile. The poetry of Oppian was so much liked by Caracalla, that,, 

 it is said, he pardoned his father, and granted him a statera of gold for 

 each verse. He died from contagion, in his native town, about his thirtieth 

 year. The fifth book of his Cynegetics and all his Ixeutics, in which he 

 treats on birds, are lost; but his Habiutics are wholly preserved. 



Athenius, author of Deiprosophists, was an inhabitant of Naucrata, in 

 Egypt. The dinner of which he gives a description, and at which he 

 assisted, is supposed to have taken j)lace in the house of a man (Larentius), 

 whom Marcus Aurelius had honoured with employments of confidence ; 

 consequently he lived in the second century, and, nevertheless, he quotes 

 Oppian, who did not write till the commencement of the third. It is true 

 that Belin de Buller thinks that the quotation was not made by Athenius, 

 but merely by the person to whom we owe the abridgment of the two first 

 books of his work. In effect, we have only his two first works in the form 

 of abridgment ; the others are entire, or nearly so. There are fifteen in 

 number. 



The time of Elian, author of the History of Animals, is uncertain; 

 nevertheless, it is generally placed in the second century, or at the com- 

 mencement of the third, because he is thought to be either Claudius Elian, 

 de Prenesta, who taught rhetoric at Rome, after the reign of Antoninus, 

 according to Suidas, or Elian the sophist, whose life Philostratus wrote, 

 and who some say died after C'ommodus, and others after Elagabalus. 

 It is impossible that these two Elians should be the same person ; but it is 

 said that neither of them \vrote uponnatiu-al history. 



Decius Magnus Ausonius, was born at Bordeaux, and was preceptor 

 to the Emperor Gratian, and consul in 379 ; he died 394. Amongst his 

 poetry is a little poem on the Moselle, in Avhich he describes the fishes in 

 that river. 



Strabo, the father of Geography, Avas born at Amasa, in Cappadocia, 

 about fifty years before Christ, and died during the reign of Tiberius. He 

 names seA'eral fishes of the Nile in his seventeenth book, and in other places 

 speaks of fishing for thons and pelamydes 



