THE THEORY OF GENERATION

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

(Idem lac feminae non corrumpi alenti partum, si ex eodem viro rursus conceperit, arbitratur) — incipiente autem hoc statu aut desinente conceptus facillimi traduntur. fecunditatis in feminis praerogativum accepimus inunctis medicamine oculis salivam infici.

Ceterum editis primores septimo mense gigni dentes priusque in supera fere parte, haud dubium est, septimo eosdem decidere anno aliosque suffici, quosdam et cum dentibus nasci, sicut M'. Curium, qui ob id Dentatus cognominatus est, et Cn. Papirium Carbonem, praeclaros viros. in feminis ea res inauspicati fuit exempli regum temporibus. cum ita nata esset Valeria, exitio civitati in quam delata esset futuram responso haruspicum vaticinante, Suessam Pometiam illa tempestate florentissimam deportata est, veridico exitu consecuto.— (Quasdam concreto genitali gigni infausto omine Cornelia Gracchorum mater indicio est) — aliqui vice dentium continuo osse gignuntur, sicuti Prusiae regis Bithynorum filius superna parte oris. dentes autem in tantum invicti sunt ignibus, ut nec crementur cum reliquo corpore, iidemque flammis indomiti cavantur tabe pituitae. candorem trahunt quodam medicamine. usu atteruntur multoque prius in aliquis deficiunt. nec cibo tantum et alimentis necessarily, quippe vocis sermonisque regimen primores tenent, concentu quodam excipientes ictum linguae serieque structurae atque magnitudine mutilantes mollientesve aut hebetantes verba et, cum defuere, explanationem omnem adimentes.quin et augurium in hac esse creditur parte. triceni bini viris adtribuuntur excepta Turdulorum gente: quibus plures fuere, longiora promitti vitae putant spatia. feminis minor numerus: quibus in dextra parte gemini superne a canibus cognominati, fortunae blandimenta pollicentur, sicut in Agrippina Domiti Neronis matre; contra in laeva. — (Hominem prius quam genito dente cremari mos gentium non est) — sed mox plura de hoc, cum membratim historia decurret.

Risisse eodem die quo genitus esset unum hominum accepimus Zoroastren; eidem cerebrum ita palpitasse, ut inpositam repelleret manum, futurae praesagio scientiae.

In trimatu suo cuique dimidiam esse mensuram futurae certum est. in plenum autem cuncto mortalium generi minorem in dies fieri propemodum observatur rarosque patribus proceriores, consumente ubertatem seminum exustione, in cuius vices nunc vergat aevum. in Creta terrae motu rupto monte inventum est corpus stans XLVI cubitorum, quod alii Orionis, alii Oti esse tradunt. Orestis corpus oraculi iussu refossum VII cubitorum fuisse monumentis creditur. iam vero ante annos prope mille vates ille Homerus non cessavit minora corpora mortalium quam prisca conqueri. Naevii Pollionis amplitudinem annales non tradunt, sed quia populi concursu paene sit interemptus, vice prodigii habitum. procerissimum hominum aetas nostra Divo Claudio principe Gabbaram nomine ex Arabia advectum novem pedum et totidem unciarum vidit. fuere sub Divo Augusto semipede addito, quorum corpora eius miracali gratia in conditorio Sallustianorum adservabantur hortorum; Pusioni et Secundillae erant nomina. eodem praeside minimus homo duos pedes et palmum Conopas nomine in deliciis luliae neptis eius fuit, et mulier Andromeda, liberta Iuliae Augustae. Manium Maximum et M. Tullium equites Romanos binum cubitorum fuisse auctor est M.Varro, et ipsi vidimus in loculis adservatos. sesquipedales gigni, quosdam longiores, in trimatu inplentes vitae cursum, haud ignotum est.

Invenimus in monumentis Salamine Euthymenis filium in tria cubita triennio adcrevisse, incessu tardum, sensu hebetem, puberem etiam factum, voce robusta, absumptum contractione membrorum subita triennio circumacto. ipsi non pridem vidimus eadem ferme omnia praeter pubertatem in filio Corneli Taciti, equitis Romani Belgicae Galliae rationes procurantis. ἐκτραπέλους Graeci vocant eos; in Latio non habent nomen.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

The same author is also of opinion, that the milk of a woman who is giving suck will not become impure, if she should happen to become pregnant again by the same man.

Conception is generally said to take place the most readily, either at the beginning or the end of the menstrual discharge. It is said, too, that it is a certain sign of fecundity in a woman, when her saliva becomes impregnated with any medicament which has been rubbed upon her eye-lids.

It is a matter beyond doubt, that in young children the front teeth are produced at the seventh month, and, nearly always, those in the upper jaw the first. These are shed in the seventh year, and are then replaced by others. Some infants are even born with teeth: such was the case with Manius Curius, who, from this circumstance, received the name of Dentatus; and also with Cn. Papirius Carbo, both of them distinguished men. When this phenomenon happened in the case of a female, it was looked upon in the time of the kings as an omen of some inauspicious event. At the birth of Valeria, under such circumstances as these, it was the answer of the soothsayers, that any city to which she might happen to be carried, would be destroyed; she was sent to Suessa Pometia, at that time a very flourishing place, but the prediction was ultimately verified by its destruction. Some female children are born with the sexual organs closed, a thing of very unfavourable omen; of which Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, is an instance. Some persons are born with a continuous bone in the mouth, in place of teeth; this was the case with the upper jaw of the son of Prusias, the king of Bithynia.

The teeth are the only parts of the body which resist the action of fire, and are not consumed along with the rest of it. Still, however, though they are able thus to resist flame, they become corroded by a morbid state of the saliva. The teeth are whitened by certain medicinal agents. They are worn down by use, and fail in some persons long before any other part of the body. They are necessary, not only for the mastication of the food, but for many other purposes as well. It is the office of the front teeth to regulate the voice and the speech; by a certain arrangement, they receive, as if in concert, the stroke communicated by the tongue, while by their structure in such regular order, and their size, they cut short, moderate, or soften the utterance of the words. When they are lost, the articulation becomes altogether confused and indistinct.

In addition to this, it is generally supposed that we may form prognostics from the teeth. The number of teeth allotted to all men, with the exception of the nation of the Turduli, is thirty-two; those persons who have a greater number, are thought to be destined to be long-lived. Women have fewer teeth than men. Those females who happen to have two canine teeth on the right side of the upper jaw, have promise of being the favourites of fortune, as was the case with Agrippina, the mother of Domitius Nero: when they are on the left side, it is just the contrary. It is the custom of most nations not to burn the bodies of children who die before they have cut their teeth. We shall have more to say on this subject when we give an account of the different parts of the body.

We find it stated that Zoroaster was the only human being who ever laughed on the same day on which he was born. We hear, too, that his brain pulsated so strongly that it repelled the hand when laid upon it, a presage of his future wisdom.

It is a well-known fact, that, at the age of three years, the body of each person is half the height that it will ever attain. Taking it all in all, it is observed that in the human race, the stature is almost daily becoming less and less, and that sons are rarely taller than their parents, the fertility of the seed being dried up by the heat of that conflagration to which the world is fast approaching. A mountain of the island of Crete having been burst asunder by the action of an earthquake, a body was found there standing upright, forty-six cubits in height; by some persons it is supposed to have been that of Orion; while others again are of opinion that it was that of Otus. It is generally believed, from what is stated in ancient records, that the body of Orestes, which was disinterred by command of an oracle, was seven cubits in height. It is now nearly one thousand years ago, that that divine poet Homer was unceasingly complaining, that men were of less stature in his day than they had formerly been. Our Annals do not inform us what was the height of Nævius Pollio; but we learn from them that he nearly lost his life from the rush of the people to see him, and that he was looked upon as a prodigy. The tallest man that has been seen in our times, was one Gabbaras by name, who was brought from Arabia by the Emperor Claudius; his height was nine feet and as many inches. In the reign of Augustus, there were two persons, Posio and Secundilla by name, who were half a foot taller than him; their bodies have been preserved as objects of curiosity in the museum of the Sallustian family.

In the reign of the same emperor, there was a man also, remarkable for his extremely diminutive stature, being only two feet and a palm in height; his name was Conopas, and he was a great pet with Julia, the grand-daughter of Augustus. There was a female also, of the same size, Andromeda by name, a freed-woman of Julia Augusta. We learn from Varro, that Manius Maximus and M. Tullius, members of our equestrian order, were only two cubits in height; and I have myself seen them, preserved in their coffins. It is far from an unknown fact, that children are occasionally born a foot and a half in height, and sometimes a little more; such children, however, have finished their span of existence by the time they are three years old.

We find it stated by the historians, that the son of Euthymenes of Salamis had grown to be three cubits in height, at the age of three years; that he was slow of gait and dull of comprehension; that at that age he had attained puberty even, and his voice had become strong, like that of a man. We hear, also, that he died suddenly of convulsions of the limbs, at the completion of his third year. I myself, not very long ago, was witness to exactly similar appearances, with the exception of the state of puberty, in a son of Cornelius Tacitus, a member of the equestrian order, and procurator of Belgic Gaul. The Greeks call such children as these, Ἐκτραπέλοι; we have no name for them in Latin.