BOOK VII. xLviii. 155-157 



IlljTia lived 500 years. Xenophon in his Coasting 

 Voyage says that a king of the island of the Lutniii 

 Hved to 600, and — as tJiough that were only a modest 

 fabrication — that his son livcd to 800. All of these 

 exaggerations were due to ignorance of chronology, 

 because some people niade the year coincide with 

 the summer, the winter being a second year, others 

 marked it by the periods of the four seasons, for 

 example the Arcadians whose years were three 

 months long, and some by the waning of the moon, 

 ;is do the Egyptians. Consequently with them even 

 individuals are recordcd to have Hved a thousand 

 years. 



But to pass to admitted facts, it is almost certain 

 that Argathonius of Cadiz reigned for 80 years ; his 

 reign is thought to have begun in his fortieth year. 

 It is not questioned that Masinissa reigned 00 years 

 and that the Sicilian Gorgias Hved 108 years. 

 Quintus Fabius Maximus was augur for 63 years. 

 Marcus Perperna and recently Lucius Volusius 

 Saturninus outlived all the persons whose votes in 

 debate they had taken as consuls " ; Perperna left 

 only seven of those whom as censor he had elected — 

 he lived to 98. In this matter it occurs to me to note 

 also that there has only been a single five-year 

 period in which no senator has died, from when 

 Flaccus and Albinus as censors performed the 

 purification ceremony to the ncxt censors — begin- 

 ning 175 b.c. Marcus Valerius Cor\inus completed 

 100 years, and there was an interval of 46 years 

 between his first and sixth consulships. He also 

 took his seat in the curule chair 21 times, which is a 

 record; but his length of Hfe was equalled l)y the 

 pontifex Metellus. 



5ii 



