Chap. 51.] TABIOUS INSTANCES OF DISEASES. 207 



consul, having engaged in battle with the Allobroges and the 

 Arvemi, at the river Isara, on the sixth day before the ides of 

 August, and having slain there one hundred and thirty thou- 

 sand of the enemy, found himself cured, during the engage- 

 ment, of a quartan fever. 



This gift of life, which is bestowed upon us by nature, is 

 extremely uncertain and frail, whatever portion of it may be 

 allotted to us. The measure is, indeed, but scanty and brief, 

 even when it is the largest, if we only reflect upon the extent 

 of eternity. And then, besides, if we take into account our 

 sleep during the night, we can only be properly said to live 

 half the period of our life ; seeing that just one half of it is 

 passed, eitiier in a state resembling death, or else of bodily suf- 

 fering, if we are unable to sleep. Added to this, we ought not 

 to reckon the years of infancy, during which we are not sen- 

 sible of our existence, nor yet the years of old age, which is 

 prolonged only for the punishment of those who arrive at it. 

 There are so many kinds of dangers, so many diseases, so many 

 apprehensions, so many cares, we so often invoke death, that 

 really there is nothing that is so often the object of our wishes. 

 Nature has, in reality, bestowed no greater blessing on man 

 than the shortness of life. The senses become dull, the limbs 

 torpid, the sight, the hearing, the legs, the teeth, and the 

 organs of digestion, all of them die before us, and yet we 

 reckon this state as a part of our life. The solitary instance of 

 Xenophilus, the musician,™ who lived one liundred and five 

 years without any infirmity of body, must be regarded then as 

 a kind of miracle ; for, by Hercules ! all other men are sub- 

 ject, at certain fixed periods, to recurring and deadly attacks by 

 heat or cold, in every part of the body, a thing that is not 

 the case with other animals ; and these attacks, too, return not 

 only at regular hours, but on certain days and certain nights — 

 sometimes the third day, sometimes the fourth, sometimes 

 every day throughout the year. 



obtained over the Allobroges, he obtained the agnomen of " Allobrogi- 



CU8."— B. 



™ Valerius Maximus, B. viii. c. 13, refers to the great age of Xenophi- 

 lus, but designates him "Pythagorseus ;" he says that he obtained his in- 

 formation respecting him from Aristoxenus, the musician, which may have 

 led to an inaccuracy on the part of Pliny. Poinsinet endeavours to recon- 

 cile the discrepancy, by the circumstance, that music formed a prominent 

 part of the Pythagorean discipline. — B. 



