The father of the Gracchi, on finding two serpents in his house, consulted the soothsayers, and received an answer to the effect, that he would survive if the serpent of the other sex was put to death.—“No,” said he, “rather kill the serpent of my own sex, for Cornelia is still young, and may yet bear children.”[1160] Thus did he shew himself ready, at the same moment, to spare his wife and to benefit the state; and shortly after, his wish was accomplished. M. Lepidus died of regret for his wife, Apuleia, after having been divorced from her.[1161] P. Rupilius,[1162] who was at the time affected by a slight disease, instantly expired, upon news being brought to him that his brother had failed in obtaining the consulship. P. Catienus Plotinus was so much attached to his patron, that on finding himself named heir to all his property, he threw himself on the funeral pile.
CHAP. 37. (37.)—NAMES OF MEN WHO HAVE EXCELLED IN THE ARTS, ASTROLOGY, GRAMMAR, AND MEDICINE.
Innumerable are the men who have excelled in the various arts; we may, however, take a cursory survey of them, by citing the names of the principal ones. Berosus excelled in astrology; and on account of his divinations and predictions, a public statue was erected in his honour by the Athenians. Apollodorus, for his skill as a grammarian, had public honours decreed him by the Amphictyonic Council of Greece. Hippocrates excelled in medicine; before its arrival, he predicted the plague, which afterwards came from Illyria, and sent his pupils to various cities, to give their assistance. As an acknowledgment of his merit, Greece decreed him the same honours as to Hercules.[1163] King Ptolemy rewarded a similar degree of skill in the person of Cleombrotus of Ceos, by a donation of one hundred talents, at the Megalensian games,[1164] he having succeeded in saving the life of King Antiochus.[1165] Critobulus also rendered himself extremely famous, by extracting an arrow[1166] from the eye of King Philip with so much skill, that, although the sight was lost, there was no defect to be seen.[1167] Asclepiades of Prusa, however, acquired the greatest fame of all—he founded a new sect, treated with disdain the promises of King Mithridates conveyed to him by an embassy, discovered a method of successfully treating diseases by wine,[1168] and, breaking in upon the funeral ceremony, saved the life of a man, who was actually placed[1169] on the funeral pile. He rendered himself, however, more celebrated than all, by staking his reputation as a physician against Fortune herself, and asserting that he did not wish to be so much as looked upon as a physician, if he should ever happen in any way to fall sick; and he won his wager, for he met his death at an extreme old age, by falling down stairs.[1170]
CHAP. 38.—GEOMETRY AND ARCHITECTURE.
M. Marcellus, too, at the taking of Syracuse, offered a remarkable homage to the sciences of geometry and mechanics, by giving orders that Archimedes was to be the only person who should not be molested; his commands, however, were disregarded, in consequence of the imprudence of one of the soldiers.[1171] Chersiphron, also, the Cnossian,[1172] was rendered famous by the admirable construction of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; Philon, by the construction of the basin at Athens, which was capable of containing one thousand vessels;[1173] Ctesibius, by the invention of pneumatics and hydraulic machines; and Dinochares,[1174] by the plan which he made of the city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander in Egypt. The same monarch, too, by public edict, declared that no one should paint his portrait except Apelles, and that no one should make a marble statue of him except Pyrgoteles, or a bronze one except Lysippus.[1175] These arts have all been rendered glorious by many illustrious examples.
CHAP. 39. (38.)—OF PAINTING; ENGRAVING ON BRONZE, MARBLE, AND IVORY; OF CARVING.
King Attalus gave one hundred talents,[1176] at a public auction, for a single picture of Aristides, the Theban painter.[1177] Cæsar, the Dictator, purchased two pictures, the Medea and the Ajax of Timomachus, for eighty talents,[1178] it being his intention to dedicate them in the temple of Venus Genetrix. King Candaules gave its weight in gold for a large picture by Bularchus, the subject of which was the destruction of the Magnetes. Demetrius, who was surnamed the “taker of cities,”[1179] refused to set fire to the city of Rhodes, lest he should chance to destroy a picture of Protogenes, which was placed on that side of the walls against which his attack was directed. Praxiteles[1180] has been ennobled by his works in marble, and more especially by his Cnidian Venus, which became remarkable from the insane love which it inspired in a certain young man,[1181] and the high value set upon it by King Nicomedes, who endeavoured to procure it from the Cnidians, by offering to pay for them a large debt which they owed. The Olympian Jupiter day by day bears testimony to the talents of Phidias,[1182] and the Capitoline Jupiter and the Diana of Ephesus to those of Mentor;[1183] to which deities, also, were consecrated vases made by this artist.
CHAP. 40. (39.)—SLAVES FOR WHICH A HIGH PRICE HAS BEEN GIVEN.
The highest price ever given for a man born in slavery, so far as I am able to discover, was that paid for Daphnus, the grammarian, who was sold by Natius of Pisaurum[1184] to M. Scaurus, the first man in the state, for seven hundred thousand sesterces.[1185] In our day, no doubt, comic actors have fetched a higher price, but then they were purchasing their own freedom. In the time of our ancestors, Roscius, the actor, gained five hundred thousand sesterces annually. Perhaps, too, a person might in the present instance refer to the case of the army commissary[1186] in the Armenian war, which was of late years undertaken in favour of Tiridates; which officer, in our own time, received his manumission from Nero for the sum of thirteen million sesterces;[1187] but, in this case, the consideration was the profit to be derived from the war,[1188] and it was not the value of the man that was paid for. And so, too, when Lutorius Priscus bought of Sejanus, the eunuch, Pæzon, for fifty million sesterces,[1189] the price was given, by Hercules! rather to gratify the passion of the purchaser, than in commendation of the beauty of the slave. Universal sorrow and consternation then reigning, the public were too much pre-occupied with it to put a stop to a bargain of so scandalous a nature.[1190]