BOOK XXVI. iii. 3-4 



III. This plague was unknown to our fathers and 

 forefathers. It first made its way into Italy in the 

 middle of the principate of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, 

 when a Roman knight of Perusia, a quaestor's 

 secretary, inti-oduced the infection from Asia Minor, 

 where he had taken up his duties. Women were 

 not Hable to the disease, or slaves and the lower 

 and middle classes, but the nobles were very much 

 infected " through the momentary contact of a kiss. 

 The scar left on many who had been hardy enough 

 to endure the treatment was more unsightly than the 

 disease, for caustics were the method employed, 

 and the loathsome complaint broke out afresh unless 

 the fiesh was burnt through right to the bones. 

 There arrived from Egypt, the parent of such diseases, 

 physicians who devoted all their attention to this 

 complaint only, to their very great profit, since it is 

 a fact that Manilius Cornutus, of praetorian rank and 

 legate of the province of Aquitania, laid out 

 two hundred thousand sesterces in getting himself 

 treated for that disease. On the other hand * it 

 has more usually happened that new kinds of 

 disease on their first appearance have been epidemic. 

 What can be found more marvellous than this, that 

 some diseases should ai'ise suddenly in a special part 

 of the woi'ld, should attack special Umbs of human 



" Mentagra attacked a special class of people m Rome itself, 

 although it was a new disease to Italy ; new diseases on their 

 first introduction usually attack whole masses indiscriminately. 

 How stiange it is for a disease sometimes to pick as it were its 

 victims ! " It is hard for me to beheve that contra is an 

 insertion of a scribe, or that gregathn can mean " among the 

 common people " (Lewis and Short), or in fact anything except 

 " whole masses at a time." See VIII. § 11 : elephanti gregatim 

 semper ingrediuntur. 



267 



