Pliny's nattjeal histoet. [Book VII. 
this statement, it would appear that letters have been in use 
from all eternity. The Pelasgi were the first to introduce them 
into Latium. 
The brothers Euryalus and Hyperbius^^ were the first who 
constructed brick-kilns and houses at Athens ; before which, 
caves in the ground served for houses. Gellius^^ is inclined to 
think that Toxins, the son of Cselus, was the first inventor of 
mortar, it having been suggested to him by the nest of the 
swallow. Cecrops gave to a town the name of Cecropia, 
after himself ; this is now the citadel of Athens. Some per- 
sons will have it, that Argos had been founded before this 
period by King Phoroneus ; others, again, that Sicyon had 
been previously built ; while the Egyptians declare that their 
own city, Diospolis, had been in existence long before them. 
Cinyra,^^ the son of Agriopas,^^ invented tiles and discovered 
Las been urged in favour of the alteration of the text is derived from two 
passages in Cicero's Treatise de Divin. B. i. c. 19, and B. ii. c. 46, where 
he refers to the very long periods which the Babylonians employed in 
their calculations, but which he justly regards as entirely without founda- 
tion, and even ridiculous. Pliny, hov^ever, professes to follow the opinion 
of Epigenes whom he styles " gravis auctor," and who, we may premise, 
would reject these improbable tales. — B. The reading, 720 thousands, is 
the one adopted by Sillig. 
5^ Pausanias, in his " Attica," calls the two brothers Agrolas and Hyper- 
bius. Some commentators have supposed, that these names, as well as 
Doxius and Cselus, mentioned below, are merely symbolical, and that the 
personages are fictitious. — B. 
The Gellius here mentioned had the praenomen of Cneius ; he is not 
to be confounded with the more noted Aulus Gellius, by whom he is quoted 
in the Noct. Att. B. xiii. c. 29.— B. 
^7 There is a number of ancient legends attached to the name of Cecrops, 
yet we have but little authentic information respecting him. "What appears 
to be the best established is, that he was born in the city of Sais, in Egypt, 
and that, about 1556 B.C., he conducted a colony to Attica, where he built 
a fortress, on the Acropolis of Athens, and that his descendants continued, 
for some generations, to be kings of Attica. — B. 
If this is the Cinyra previously mentioned in c. 49, he is more ge- 
nerally represented as the son of Apollo, or of Paphos, a priest of the 
Paphian Aphrodite or Venus. The true reading, however, is uncertain. 
^9 Hardouin informs us, that in all the MSS. which he has consulted, 
this person is named Agricola, while in the printed editions of Pliny he 
is styled Agriopa, or Agriopas. Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 250, 251, endea- 
vours to explain this, by supposing, that the word " Agricola" was the one 
employed by Pliny, but was used by him as a generic, not as an appel- 
lative term. Some of the earlier editors, however, conceiving that no 
agricultural operations could be carried on, before the invention of the 
