Chap. 5.] CULTUEE OP THE TINE. 235 
which had been the place of exile of Scipio Africanns.^^ The 
greatest celebrity of all, however, was that which, by the 
agency of the same Sthenelus, was accorded to Ehemmins 
Palsemon, who was also equally famous as a learned gram- 
marian. This person bought, some twenty years ago, an estate 
at the price of six hundred thousand sesterces in the same 
district of JSTomentum, about ten miles distant from the City of 
Eome. The low price of property ^'^ in the suburbs, on every 
side of the City, is well known ; but in that quarter in particu- 
lar, it had declined to a most remarkable extent; for the 
estate which he purchased had become deteriorated by long- 
continued neglect, in addition to which it was situate in the 
very worst part of a by no means favourite locality. Such 
was the nature of the property of which he thus undertook the 
cultivation, not, indeed, with any commendable views or inten- 
tions at first, but merely in that spirit of vanity for which he 
was notorious in so remarkable a degree. The vineyards were 
all duly dressed afresh, and hoed, under the superintendence of 
Sthenelus ; the result of which was that Palsemon, while thus 
playing the husbandman, brought this estate to such an almost 
incredible pitch of perfection, that at the end of eight years 
the vintage, as it hung on the trees, was knocked down to a 
purchaser for the sum of four hundred thousand sesterces; 
while all the world was running to behold the heaps upon heaps 
of grapes to be seen in these vineyards. The neighbours, by 
way of finding some excuse for their own indolence, gave all 
the credit of this remarkable success to Palasmon's profound 
erudition ; and at last Annaeus Seneca,^^ who both held the 
highest rank in the learned world, and an amount of power and 
influence which at last proved too much for him — this same 
Seneca, who was far from being an admirer of frivolity, was 
seized with such vast admiration of this estate, as not to feel 
ashamed at conceding this victory to a man who was other- 
wise the object of his hatred, and who would be sure to make 
the very most of it, by giving him four times the original cost 
2^ The elder Africanus. He retired in voluntary exile to his country- 
seat at Liternum, where he died. 
22 Mercis. 
23 The suggestion of Sillig has been adopted, for the ordinary reading 
is evidently corrupt, and absurd as well — " not in the very worst part of a 
favourite locality" — ^just the converse of the whole tenor of the story. 
2^ The philosopher, and tutor of Nero. 
