[90] Gen. iv. 21, 22.
[91] A general idea seems to have prevailed in early times of the prodigious muscular strength possessed by the men of an age still earlier. Thus Turnus, the warlike chief of the Rutuli, is represented in the Æneid as lifting and hurling at the Trojan an immense boundary stone which would defy the united efforts of twelve such men as the earth produced in those days to lift on their shoulders.
“Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat,
Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.
Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent,
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.” Æn. xii. 897.
[92] Gen. xi. 4.
[94] Ordericus Vitalis, vol. i. p. 113. (Bohn's Antiq. Library.)
[95] Ib. vol. i. pp. 130, 338; ii. 149.
[96] Circonscrizione amministrativa delle provincie di Terra Ferma e della Sardegna.—Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1850.
[97] Atia, the daughter of M. Atius Balbus, by Julia, sister of Julius Cæsar, was the mother of Octavius Augustus.—Suetonius.
[98] Cohen, in his Déscription des Médailles Consulaires recently published (Paris, 1857), notices a bronze medal of the same type, of which he says:—“Cette médaille était frappée par les habitans de la Sardaigne, sous le règne d'Auguste, et pour gagner ses bonnes grâces ils y placèrent le portrait de son aïeul en même tems que celui du fondateur de leur patrie.” The cabinet of the British Museum contains a specimen of this bronze medal, “de fabrique très-barbare,” to use Cohen's description. He does not appear to be aware of the existence of the silver coin, which is of a far better style.