[112] The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal. xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see also Juvenal, sat. i. 71.
[113] This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of Tuditanus.—Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity of Regulus; as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices, book iii. chap. 27; but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned. Valerius Maximus also, book i. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison.
[114] Apollonii Vit. lib. vi. c. 14.
[115] Histor. Animal. lib. ii. c. 45.
[116] Lib. ix. c. 48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1.
[117] In Linnæi Systema Nat., through an error of the press, stands Laplysia, which word has since become common. Ἀπλυσία signifies an uncleanness which cannot be washed off; and in Aristotle’s History of Animals, b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a zoophyte. In the like manner other errors in the System of Linnæus have been copied into the works of others, such as Dytiscus instead of Dyticus, &c.
[118] J. B. Bohadsch De quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdæ, 1761, 4to, p. 1–53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure of this animal, under the name of Lernæa, which was used in the first editions of Linnæus.
[119] The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas, iii. (Script. Byz.), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.
[120] See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis, quæ Galli les poudres de succession vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold. Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii. c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis, that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis, I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract. 2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.” Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel. p. 7.
[121] Vol. iv. p. 33.