160 PLINt'S NATtTEAL HISTOET. [Book VTI. 



the habit of calling them ' K-iraHTi.''^ A very remarkable 

 thing, too, is the fact, that among these persons are to be found 

 some of the greatest masters of philosophy. Diogenes the 

 Cynic, for instance, Pyrrho, HeracUtus, and Timon, which last 

 aUpwed himself to be so entirely carried away by this spirit, 

 as to become a hater of aU mankind. Less important pecu- 

 liarities of nature, again, are to be observed in many persons ; 

 Antonia,'^ for instance, the wife of Drusus, was never known 

 to expectorate ; and Pomponius, the poet, a man of consular 

 rank, was never troubled with eructation. Those rare instances 

 of men,^' whose bones are naturally solid and without marrow, 

 are known to us as men " of horn.'"* 



CHAP. 19. (20.) ^INSTANCES OP EXTBAOEDINAET SIKENGTH. 



Varro, speaking of persons remarkable for their strength, 

 gives us an account of Tributanus, a celebrated gladiator, 

 and skilled in the use of the Samnite '* arms ;'' he was a 

 man of meagre person, but possessed of extraordinary strength. 

 Varro makes mention of his son also, who served in the 

 army of Pompeius Magnus. He says, that in aU parts of his 

 body, even in the arms and hands, there was a network of 

 sinews," extending across and across. The latter of these men, 

 having been challenged by an enemy, with a single finger of 

 the right hand, and that unarmed,^* vanquished him, and then 



31 "Without passion;" equivalent to our English word "apatlietioal." — B. 



^'' The daughter of M. Antony hy Octavia. She was the mother of Ger- 

 manicus Csesar, and the grandmother of the emperor Caligula, whom she 

 lived to see on the thyone, and who is supposed to have hastened her death. 

 She was celehrated for her beauty and chastity — a rare virtue in those 

 days. 



'^ Pliay, B. xxxi. c. 45, says, that this state of the hones is found in 

 fishermen, from their being exposed to the action of the sea and salt water ; 

 but both the fact and the supposed cause are without foundation. — B. 



2* "Cornei." 



^ It would appear that the Samnites were not only one of the most 

 warlike people, with whom the Romans had to contest in the infancy of their 

 state, but that they were particularly celebratedTas gladiators. — B. 



S6 The gladiators, caUed Samnites, were armed with the peculiar " scu- 

 tum," or oblong shield, used by the Samnites, a greave on the left leg, a 

 sponger on the breast, and a helmet with a crest. 



31 The term "nervus" was generally applied by the ancients to the 

 sinews or tendons ; they had a very indistinct knowledge of what are pro- 

 perly called the " nerves." — B. 



38 Pintianus suggests another reading here, which would appear to be 



