Chap. 22.] INSTAT^CES OF ACUTENESS OE HEARING. 
163 
other small animals in ivory, so minute in size, that other 
persons were unable to distinguish their individual parts. 
Myrmecides^^ also was famous in the same line ;^ this man 
made, of similar material, a chariot drawn by four horses, 
which a fly could cover with its wings ; as well as a ship which 
might be covered by the wings of a tiny bee.^^ 
CHAP. 22. (22.) INSTANCES OF EEMAEEABLE ACUTENEBS OF 
HEARING. 
We have one instance on record of remarkable acuteness of 
hearing ; the noise of the battle, on the occasion when Sybaris^^ 
was destroyed, was heard, the day on which it took place, at 
Olympia.^^ But, as to the victory over the Cimbri,^* and that 
over Perseus, the news of which was conveyed to Eome by the 
Castors,^^ they are to be looked upon in the light of visions and 
presages proceeding immediately from the gods. 
*9 His works in ivory were said to have been so small, that they could 
scarcely be seen without placing them on black hair. 
5^ Cicero, Acad. Qusest. B. iv. c. 120, speaks of " one Myrmecides, a 
maker of minute objects of art ^lian, Vac. Hist. B.i. c. 17, also speaks 
of these minute performances of Myrmecides, and styles them a waste 
of time." Pliny, in a subsequent part of his work, E. xxxi. c. 4, speaks 
of similar minute works, executed by these artists in marble ; but the ac- 
count which he gives is scarcely credible. — B. 
See B. XXX vi. c. 5. 
52 It would appear that there is a little confusion here of events. Sy- 
baris, so noted for its luxury and effeminacy, was destroyed by the people of 
Crotona, under the command of the athlete Milo, b.c. 510. In B.C. 360, 
the Crotoniats were defeated at the river Sagras, by theLocrians and Rhe- 
gians, 10,000 in number, although they are said to have amounted to 
130,000. Now it was on the occasion of this latter battle, that, according 
to Cicero, DeNat. Deor. B. ii., the noise was heard at Olympia, where the 
games were being celebrated. Be it as it may, the story is clearly fabulous. 
Evelyn is much more deserving of credit, where we find him stating in his 
Diary, that in his garden, at Say's Court, at Deptford, he heard the guns 
fired in one of our engagements with the Dutch fleet, at a distance thence 
of nearly 200 miles. 
^3 Ajasson discusses at some length, the possibility of the fact here men- 
tioned, and concludes, that it is not to be credited : he estimates the dis- 
tance between these two places at 120 miles. — B. 
^ As to the miraculous annunciation of the victory of Marius and 
Catulus over the Cimbri, see B. ii. c. 58. 
55 Meaning, thereby, the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux ; who were 
said to have announced at Rome the victory gained the day before by 
Paiilus -2Smilius over King Perseus. 
