6q 
pliny's natueal histoet. 
[Book XI 
dead, and so preserve them. It is said that men have been 
born with the heart covered with hair, and that such persons 
are excelled by none in valour and energy ; such, for instance, 
as Aristomenes,"^^ the Messenian, who slew three hundred 
Lacedaemonians. Eeing covered with wounds, and taken pri- 
soner, he, on one occasion, made his escape by a narrow hole 
which he discovered'''^ in the stone quarry where he was im- 
prisoned, while in pursuit of a fox which had found that 
mode of exit. Being again taken prisoner, while his guards 
were fast asleep he rolled himself towards a fire close by, and, 
at the expense of his body, burnt off the cords by which he 
was bound. On being taken a third time, the Lacedsemonians 
opened his breast while he was jstill alive, and his heart was 
found covered with hair. 
CHAP. 71. WHEN THE CUSTOM WAS FIEST ADOPTED OF EXAMINING 
THE HEAET IN THE INSPECTION OF THE ENTEAILS. 
On an examination of the entrails, to find a certain fatty 
part on the top of the heart, is looked upon as a fortunate 
presage. Still, however the heart has not always been con- 
sidered as forming a part of the entrails for this purpose. It 
was under Lucius Postumius Albinus, the King of the Sacri- 
fices,"^^ and after the 126th Olympiad, when King Pyrrhushad 
quitted Italy, that the aruspices began to examine the heart, 
as part of the consecrated entrails. The first day that the 
Dictator Caesar appeared in public, clothed in purple, and sit- 
ting on a seat of gold, the heart was twice found wanting 
when he sacrificed. From this circumstance has risen a great 
question among those who discuss matters connected with 
divination — whether it was possible for the victim to have 
lived without that organ, or whether it had lost it at the very 
moment'^ of its death. It is asserted that the heart cannot be 
"^^ See an account of him in the Messeniaca of Pausanias. 
■^2 In this part of the story may have originated that of the escape of 
Sindbad the Sailor, when buried in the vault with the body of his wife. — 
See the "Arabian Nights.'* 
'3 " Eex Sacrorum." This was a priest elected from the patricians, on 
whom the priestly duties devolved, which had been originally performed 
by the kings of Eome. He ranked above the Pontifex Maximus, but was 
possessed of little or no political influence. 
No doubt there was trickery in this. 
'5 By supernatural agency. 
