[898] He perhaps means a portion of an elephant’s tusk.
[899] Meaning a damp, musty smell.
[900] See B. vii. c. 18, and B. xiv. c. [6]. Also the Life of Pliny, in the Introduction to Vol. i. p. vii.
[901] This story, no doubt, deserves to be rejected as totally fabulous, even though we have Hemina’s word for it.
[903] B. xii. c. [7], and B. xiii. c. [31]. It was thought that the leaves and juices of the cedar and the citrus preserved books and linen from the attacks of noxious insects.
[904] And because, as Livy says, their doctrines were inimical to the then existing religion.
[905] Val. Maximus says that there were some books written in Latin, on the pontifical rights, and others in Greek on philosophical subjects.
[906] Humanæ Antiquitates.
[907] See B. xxxiv. c. 11.