[578] Nikolaus of Damascus, a Peripatetic philosopher, and a friend of Augustus, wrote a universal history in Greek, in one hundred and forty-four books, of which a few fragments remain. There is also a fragment of his Life of Augustus. The best edition is that of J.C. Orelli, Leipzig, 1804, 8vo.; to which a supplement was published in 1811.
[579] The work of Valerius Maximus is dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius. The death of Porcia is mentioned in lib. iv. c. 6, 5. Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 136) and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49) give the same account of Porcia’s death.
[580] Plutarch here evidently doubts the genuineness of the letter attributed to Brutus. The life of Brutus offered good materials for the falsifiers of history, who worked with them after rhetorical fashion. There are a few letters in the collection of Cicero which are genuine, but the single book of letters to Brutus (M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolorum ad Brutum Liber Singularis) is condemned as a forgery by the best critics. It contains letters of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero; and a letter of Brutus to Atticus. Genuine letters of Brutus, written day by day, like those of Cicero, would have formed the best materials from which we might judge him.
[581] A despatch rolled in a peculiar manner. See vol. ii. Life of Lysander, ch. 19.
[582] The battle of Kunaxa was fought on the 7th of September 401 B.C.
[583] The title of a great Persian officer of State.
[584] Egypt revolted from Persia B.C. 358. See vol. iii. Life of Agesilaus, ad. fin.
[585] A people of Media on the Caspian Sea.
[586] See Grote on Epameinondas. “The muscularity, purchased by excessive nutriment, of the Bœotian pugilist.” (Hist. of Greece, part ii. ch. lxxvii.)
[587] See vol. iii. Life of Agesilaus, c. 13, note.