PLINY : NATURAL HISTORY 



certis vel aetatibus aut etiam fortunis, taniquam malo 

 eligente, haec in pueris grassari, illa in adultis, haec 

 proceres sentire, illa pauperes ? 



5 IV. L. Paullo Q. Marcio censoribus primum in 

 Italiam carbunculum venisse annalibus notatum est, 

 pecuhare Narbonensis provinciae malum, quo duo 

 consulares obiere condentibus haec nobis eodem anno, 

 lulius Rufus atque Laecanius Bassus, ille medicorum 

 inscientia sectus, hic vero t pollici laevae manus 

 evulso acu ab semetipso tam parvo f ut vix cerni 



6 posset. nascitur in occultissimis corporum partibus 

 et pleriunque sub lingua duritia rubens vari modo, 

 sed capite nigricans, alias livida, in corpus intendens 

 neque intumescens, sine dolore, sine pruritu, sine alio 

 quam somni indicio, quo gravatos in triduo aufert ; 

 aliquando et hoiTorem adferens circaque pusulas 



» The Pontifex Maximus compiled each year the official list 

 of important events. These lists made up the Annales. 



" 164 B.c. 



' These men were consuls in a.d. 65 and 62 respectively. 



^ The words within daggers seem corrupt, although the 

 general sense of the passage is clear. We expect a participle 

 meaning " thrust in," not " phicked out," and there is no 

 noun to go with parvo and evulso. There is no satisfactory 

 restoration of the passage, which may possibly be, not 

 corrupt, but badly written by Pliny himself. It may be that 

 punctu (XXVIII § 198) has faUen out after parvo (the 

 viilgate text has vulnere after it), but the difficulty of evulso 



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