for my education. I took it into my head to sail up the Nile to Coptus, and thence pay a visit to the statue of Memnon,[127] and hear the curious sound that proceeds from it at sunrise. In this respect, I was more fortunate than most people, who hear nothing but an indistinct voice: Memnon actually opened his lips, and delivered me an oracle in seven hexameters; it is foreign to my present purpose, or I would quote you the very lines."
FOOTNOTES:
[125] From "The Liar." Translated by H. W. and F. G. Fowler.
[126] Ctesias who died after 398 b.c., and wrote a history of Persia in twenty-four books and a treatise on India. Parts only of both are now extant.
[127] A legendary king of Ethiopia, who was slain at Troy by Achilles—a fable, says Rawlinson, which is "one of those in which it is difficult to determine any germs of truth." His name was given by the Greeks to one of the Colossi at Thebes in Egypt, from which, when touched by the rays of the rising sun, there was said to proceed a strange sound.
Volume II
Table of Contents
II ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER TULLIA
III OF BRAVE AND ELEVATED SPIRITS
IV OF SCIPIO'S DEATH AND OF FRIENDSHIP
I THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE RHINE
IV THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA AND THE DEATH OF POMPEY
II THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS
I HORATIUS COCLES AT THE BRIDGE
II HANNIBAL'S CROSSING OF THE ALPS
III HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA
II OF CONSOLATION FOR THE LOSS OF FRIENDS
II THREE GREAT ARTISTS OF GREECE
QUINTILIAN THE ORATOR MUST BE A GOOD MAN
I FROM REPUBLICAN TO IMPERIAL ROME
IV THE BURNING OF ROME BY ORDER OF NERO
V THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL AT ROME
I OF THE CHRISTIANS IN HIS PROVINCE
II TO TACITUS ON THE ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS
CATO,