162 
Pliny's natural history. [Book VII. 
fully aware that there are men in the Circus, who are ahle to 
keep on running for a distance of one hundred and sixty miles; 
and that lately, in the consulship of Fonteius and Yipstanus,*'^ 
there was a child eight years of age, who, between morning and 
evening, ran a distance of seventy-five miles.^^ We become all 
the more sensible of these wonderful instances of swiftness, 
upon reflecting that Tiberius I^ero, when he made all possible 
haste to reach his brother Drusus, who was then sick in Ger- 
many, reached him in three stages, travelling day and night 
on the road ; the distance of each stage was two huudred 
miles. 
CHAP. 21. (21.) INSTANCES OF ACITTENESS OF SIGHT. 
Instances of acuteness of sight are to be found stated, which, 
indeed, exceed all belief. Cicero informs us,^^ that the Iliad 
of Homer was written on a piece of parchment so small as to be 
enclosed in a nut- shell. He makes mention also of a man who 
could distinguish objects at a distance of one hundred and thirty- 
five miles.^^ M. Yarro says, that the name of this man was 
Strabo ; and that, during the Punic war, from Lilybseum, the 
promontory of Sicily, he was in the habit of seeing the fleet 
come out of the harbour of Carthage, and could even count the 
number of the vessels."^^ Callicrates^^ used to carve ants and 
42 See B. ii. c. 72. 
*3 This feat is no less incredible than those mentioned above. — B. 
*4 We have an account of this journey of Tiberius in Dion Cassius. 
Yal. Maximus, B. v. c. 6, also enumerates this among the extraordinary 
examples of fraternal affection. — B. We learn "also from Suetonius, that 
on learning the accident, a fall from his horse, which had happened to his 
brother Drusus, Tiberius took horse at Ticinum, and travelled night and 
day till he reached his brother, ^ho was then in Germany, near the Rhine. 
He accompanied the body to Rome, preceding it on foot all the way. There 
is extant a " Consolation to Livia Augusta," written on this occasion, some 
have thought, by Pedo Albinovanus, but it is more likely to have been the 
work of Ovid. 
4^ This statement must have been in some of his lost works. 
4^ Piiny probably here refers to a passage in the Acad. Quaest. B. iv. c. 
81, where Cicero speaks of a person who could see objects, it was said, at 
a distance of 1800 stadia, equal exactly to 125 miles. — B. 
47 The actual distance between the promontory of Sicily and the nearest 
part of Carthage is between fifty and sixty miles. The acute vision of 
Strabo is mentioned by Yal. Maximus, B. i. c. 8. — B. 
4^ See also B. xxxvi. c. 4. He was a Lacedaemonian sculptor, who, 
according to Athenaeus, also executed embossed work on vases. 
