106 THE RAVEN 



offerings " of every description, while an unnumbered 

 crowd of mourners followed after, till the solemn 

 procession reached a lofty funeral pyre, which had 

 been constructed on the Appian Way, two miles 

 from the city ; and then and there, in a level 

 spot of ground called Rediculum, on the 28th of 

 March, in the consulship of M. Servilius and C. 

 Cestius, the ashes of the favourite were laid to 

 rest among the magnates of the great Valerian 

 or Cornelian families. Such was the tribute, 

 quaintly or grimly remarks Pliny, to the character 

 and genius (ingenium avis) of a murdered raven, 

 by the city which had not cared to investigate 

 or revenge the murder of Scipio ^Emilianus, 

 the conqueror and destroyer of Numantia and 

 Carthage ! 



