214 
pliny's nattjeal histoet. 
[Book VII. 
of joy, on learning that they had ohtained the prize for tragedy. 
After the defeat at Cannse, a mother died of joy, on seeing that 
her son had returned in safety, she having heard a false re- 
port of his death.^^ Diodorus, the professor of logic, died of 
mortification, because he could not immediately answer some 
question which had been put to him by Stilpo, by way of 
joke. 
Two of the Caesars,^* one of whom was at the time praetor, 
and the other had previously discharged that office, and was 
the father of the Dictator Caesar, died without any apparent 
cause, in the morning, while putting on their shoes ; the former 
at Pisae, the latter at Eome. Quintus Fabius Maximus died 
during his consulship, on the day before the calends of January, 
and in his place C. Eebilus got himself elected consul for only a 
few hours. The same thing happened also to the senator, 
C. Yolcatius Gurges ; these were all of them so well, and in 
such perfect health, that they were actually preparing to go 
from home. Q. ^milius Lepidus,^^ just as he was leaving his 
house, struck his great toe against the threshold of his chamber 
door. C. Aufastius, having gone from home, was proceeding 
to the senate-house, when he stumbled in the Comitium,^^ and 
expired. Their ambassador, who had just been pleading the 
cause of the Ehodians in the senate, to the admiration of every 
than to the poetry of Dionysius ; see the remarks of Ajasson, Lemaire, 
vol. iii. pp. 210, 211.--B. 
12 This anecdote is related by Livy, B. xxii. c. 7; by Valerius Maximus, 
B. ix. c. 12 ; and by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. c. 15 ; the two former, how- 
ever, state, that it occurred after the battle of Thrasymenus, — B. 
Cicero, De Fato, sec. 6, styles Diodorus, " valens dialecticus." — B. 
1* According to Hardouin, these were Lucius, the praetor, and Caius, 
the father of the dictator; they were brothers, and the sons of C. Caesar. 
— B. 
Thirty-first of December ; consequently his tenure of office was for a 
few hours only. Cicero indulged in several jokes upon his consulship, re- 
marking that no one had died daring it ; and that the consul was ex- 
tremely vigilant, for that he had never slept during his term of office. 
16 This took place a.u.c. 708 ; Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, gives us 
an account of the jests passed by Cicero and others on the brief duration 
of his office. — B. 
He is supposed to have been the same person who was consul a.u.c. 
732.— B. 
18 The Comitium was a place in the forum at Rome, where the " comi- 
tia curiata " were held, and certain offences tried and punished. It was 
here also that the tribunal, or "suggestum," was situate. 
