BOOK X. n. 3-in. 6 



coloured feathers and the throat picked out with 

 tufts, and a feathered crest adorning its head. The 

 first and the most detailed Roman account of it was 

 given by ManiHus, the eminent senator famed for 

 his exlteme and varied learning acquired without a 

 teacher : he stated that nobody has ever existed 

 that has seen one feeding, that in Arabia it is 

 sacred to the Sun-god, that it Hves 540 years, that 

 when it is growing old it constructs a nest with 

 sprigs of wild cinnamon and frankincense, fiUs it 

 with scents and Hes on it tiU it dies ; that subse- 

 quently from its bones and marrow is born first a 

 sort of maggot, and this grows into a chicken, and that 

 this begins by paying due funeral rites to the former 

 bird and carrying the whole nest down to the City 

 of the Sun near Panchaia and depositing it upon an 

 altar there. ManiHus also states that the period of 

 the Great Year coincides with the Hfe of this bird, 

 and that the same indications of the seasons and stars 

 return again, and that this begins about noon on the 

 day on which the sim enters the sign of the Ram, 

 and that the year of this period had been 215, as 

 reported by him, in the consulship ** of PubHiis 

 Licinius and Gnaeus CorneHus. CorneHus Valerianus 

 reports that a phoenix flew down into Egypt in the 

 consulship *" of Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius ; 

 it was even brought to Rome in the Censorship of 

 the Emperor Claudius, a.u.c. 800 '^ and displayed in 

 the Comitium. a fact attested by the Records, 

 although nobody would doubt that this phoenix was 

 a fabrication. 



III. Of the birds known to us the eagle is the most VaHeiitsof 

 honourable and also the strongest. Of eagles there '^"^^' 

 are six kinds.*^ The one cailed by the Greeks the black 



295 



