Chap. 51.] 
VARIOUS INSTAT^CES OE DISEASES. 
207 
consul, haviDg engaged in battle with the Allobroges and the 
Arverni, 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, either 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. 
E"ature 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 hundred 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- 
cus." — 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. 
