Lampridius

“ If Lampridius jeered later, no one did so at the time; in fact, we are led to infer that all men were pleased. The soldiers, because Mamaea had made it worth their while to adopt that attitude; the Senate, because they expected consideration from a little milksop brought up entirely at his mother's apron - strings; the people, because it was the occasion for Antonine's fourth congiary. ”

“ His chief authority was Apicius, the renowned author of a book entitled De re coquinaria, but he had other models almost as famous, if not as long-lived, in the Emperors Otho and Vitellius, and managed to outdo them all in extravagance. Lampridius states that no feast cost Elagabalus less than 100,000 sesterces, and often reached the stupendous figure of 300,000, tout compris. The number of dishes has been reached, if not surpassed, by modern luxury, but to Lampridius' twenty-two courses sounded absurd ”

“ Herodian, with the fullest account, makes no mention of this fact; neither Lampridius nor Dion agree, however, as to the mode of Antonine’s proposed escape. [171] The incident of the latrinae, mentioned by Lampridius, suggests a murder similar in circumstance to that of Caracalla. What would have been easier than for one of Mamaea’s party to seize the boy, alone and unprotected in the latrinae? The Emperor once gone, the obvious thing would be for the conspirators to remove as quickly as possible all those persons who might make things difficult for his successor. ”

“ We have no complaints against his exercise of authority, though Lampridius says that his power exceeded that of the Emperor himself. His banishment was demanded, with that of others, in the first mutiny, but he was immediately allowed to return, despite the fact that Elagabalus meditated conferring the imperial title upon him. He was a good son, and in his prosperity was in no way ashamed of his mother. He openly purchased her from her owners, and sent a company of the Praetorian Guard to bring her to Rome, there placing her amongst the women whose husbands had been Consuls. ”

“ To this period Lampridius assigns the winter spent at Nicomedia, which is a very fair example of this biographer's egregious carelessness and stupidity. Considering that both Dion and Herodian are perfectly explicit as to the actual date, it is monstrous that he should have put this period just a year later than it actually occurred, nor, as we have said, is it in this matter alone that he leads us to mistrust his accuracy, where either fact or fiction are at stake. ”

“ Lampridius and the other writers of the Augustan History are small-minded writers who label the various princes as good or bad largely according to their treatment of the senate. The Augustan historians are trained in the school of Suetonius, they dwell upon gossip and can form no large political judgments. Very little of the gossip is authentic. If they have decided to revile an emperor they{306} repeat the scandals narrated by Suetonius about Tiberius or Nero. ”

“ Naturally, the desire is attributed to base motives, namely, in order to benefit unworthy persons. The scheme, Lampridius tells us, was actually carried into operation during Alexander's reign, and is then applauded as useful and necessary, an obvious bit of special pleading on one side or the other. It is with a singularly unanimous voice that the authors announce the general execration against the memory of Antonine, and the joy shown by the populace in dragging his dead body about the city. ”

“ In addition to these works, mention must be made of the completion of the Antonine baths, now known as those of Caracalla, the Thermae Varianae on the Aventine, which are variously named by Pauly as Thermae Syrae or Surae, and the hall built for the Senaculum on the Quirinal. These are authentic works, and there are many other instances cited by Lampridius of this Emperor’s passion for building. We hear of houses, baths, huge salt-water lakes, built in the mountains and fastnesses of the country districts. ”

“ A woman who was bound to be popular with men, and hated by her sisters for all time, both on account of her qualities and her defects. To such a nature the [34] position Lampridius ascribes in the state would have been utterly impossible. Nor is this borne out anywhere by the existing inscriptions, which always make Soaemias take a place second to that of Maesa, except in the Senate on the Quirinal, which was her special concern.
Soaemias married some time before the year 204 Sextus Varius Marcellus. He was, according to Dion, a native of Apamea, and a man of some considerable prominence. ”

“ In all wine-growing countries, the same thing occurs from time to time in superabundant seasons. It is true that these naval fights were called Circensian games, because they were sometimes held in a circus (as has been said) , but the same name was given to them when they were held in the amphitheatre, as in this instance, by Lampridius [213] . Martial [214] distinguishes very clearly both the one and the other, and makes it evident that the stagna of Nero were used for the naumachia of the Cæsars. ”

“ Icarus, an actor playing part of, fell dead at feet of Nero, 48. Inscriptions record dates of later walls, 7; —give the word Theatrum for Amphitheatre, ib. Jerusalem, view of, century xvi., 29. Joints, straight vertical, between the brick galleries and stone corridors, 6. Josephus mentions pegmata in amphitheatre, 49. Julius Cæsar, Amphitheatre of, 2. Julius Capitolinus mentions 100 lions in amphitheatre, 50. Lampadius restores amphitheatre, A.D. 445, 27. Lampridius mentions 100 lions in amphitheatre, 50. Lifts for men and dogs on both sides of central passage, 14 ”

“ The striking peculiarity of the lamprey is its life-history. It lives in fresh water, spending a large portion of its life in the mud during the period of its larval existence: then comes a somewhat sudden transformation-stage, characterized, as in the lepidopterous larva, by a process of histolysis, by which many of the larval tissues are destroyed and new ones formed, with the result that the larval lamprey, or Ammocœtes, is transformed into the adult lamprey, or Petromyzon. ”

“ The Lampyridae are a large family, of which the glow-worm (Lampyris) and the “soldier beetles” (Telephorus) are familiar examples. The female “glow-worm” (fig. 15, b) , emitting the well-known light (see above) , is wingless and like a larva; the luminosity seems to be an attraction to the male, whose eyes are often exceptionally well developed. Some male members of the family have remarkably complex feelers. In many genera of Lampyridae the female can fly as well as the male; among these are the South European “fireflies.” ”

“ As a matter of fact the Lampyris is not a worm at all, not even in general appearance. He has six short legs, which he well knows how to use, for he is a real gad-about. The male, when he is full-grown has wing-cases, like the true Beetle that he is. The female is an unattractive creature who knows nothing of the delights of flying and all her life remains in the larva, or incomplete form. ”

“ Here are a carp, two pike, and I know not what fish beside, but I have seen no lamprey to day.”
“What?” said he. “Do you think I am drunk?”
“Yes,” replied the curé and the other guests, “we think no less. You are too niggardly to buy such a lamprey.”
“By God,” said his wife, “he is either making fun of you or he is dreaming—for certainly I have never seen this lamprey.”
Her husband grew angry, and cried,
“You lie, you whore! Either you have eaten it, or you have hidden it somewhere. I promise you it will be the dearest lamprey you ever had.” ”

“ With the lamprey we bid adieu to the class Vertebrata—the nobility of the animal kingdom—among whom nevertheless we must distinguish between the peer, who approaches nearest the person of his sovereign, and the inferior provincial lords who live at a hundred miles' distance. There is only one step from the lamprey to the mollusks or soft-bodied animals, and this is the course which animal organisation seems really to have taken in its progress. But nature never moves forward in a single straight line. ”

“ In fact the lamprey is farther from the true fish in structure than a perch is from an eagle. Yet for all that it may be an offshoot from the primitive line of fish-descent. There is not much in the structure of the lamprey which may be preserved in the rocks. But the cartilaginous skull, the backbone, fins and teeth may sometimes leave their traces in soft clay or lithographic stone. These parts are actually represented in a fossil form bearing some likeness to a lamprey found in the Devonian of Scotland known as Palæospondylus. ”

“ He passed between rows of statues, animal-headed gods, men and women wearing conventionalized wigs and beards in stylized poses. The pale light gave the reds, greens and blues which predominated, a chalky, muffled quality; it threw the looped crosses molded on the frieze into shadowed relief.
The air was dank with the penetrating, pervasive dampness of oozing stone. Lampley was oppressed by thoughts of decay and destruction, of the knowledge without the sensation of pain. He longed for the warmth of the sun outside the hotel or the climate of the island under the earth. ”

“ Then, when the Worm comes to the Rock at dawn of day, try thy prowess on him, and God gi'e thee a good deliverance."
"This I will do," said Childe Lambton.
"But one thing more," said the Wise Woman, going back to her cell. "If thou slay the Worm, swear that thou wilt put to death the first thing that meets thee as thou crossest again the threshold of Lambton Hall. Do this, and all will be well with thee and thine. Fulfil not thou vow, and none of the Lambtons, for generations three times three, shall die in his bed. Swear, and fail not." ”

“ In his left hand each held a crook, with a sharp flint point at the other end so that it could be used as a spear if a weapon were needed. The taller led the wolf, which fawned and licked his bare feet; the other, who was not quite so dark of hair and eye, was playing on a reed pipe, taking up the call of the pipers and weaving it into a simple melody. For a moment the people did not know who they could be. All the shepherd boys in that neighborhood were known. Surely only gods come out of the forest would be accompanied by a wolf.
They did not enter the village. ”

“ This long-continued free-living existence in the larval or Ammocœtes stage makes the lamprey, more than any other type of lowly organized fish, invaluable for the present investigation, for throughout the animal kingdom it is recognized that the larval form approaches nearer to the ancestral type than the adult form, whether the latter is progressive or degenerate. ”

“ Alan and Padraig, Wilfrid, Guy, and David, came up the path. Brother Basil explained the discovery. They had already heard the news of the Lombard victory from Giovanni, who had ridden with the troubadour and stopped at the Abbey Farm.
“What shall we do with these mysteries?” Tomaso asked, holding out one of the deadly little grenades. “You must remember that some one else may find out the secret without our help. It is true that the man who did would risk being burned for a wizard in some places; still, there is little that men will not dare in the search for knowledge.” ”

“ Battlements rocked, pavements cracked, blocks of stone leaped into the air like a fountain of masonry. When fire encounters high explosives in a tunnel the results are remarkable. Torches dropped or were blown out, and stumbling, cursing men ran right and left—anywhere to escape the pelting stones. Padraig, holding to his master's arm, guided him out of the gate and toward the sound of trampling hoofs upon a little hillock. There they found Edrupt, Guy and Alan struggling with their frantic horses. Swart came up with two more horses, and soon the party was beyond all danger of pursuit. ”

“ Of these the Lampyrides, or glow-worms, are of special interest, as most of their members give off a phosphorescent light when alive; in many of them the female is apterous and like a larva, and then the light it gives is usually conspicuous, frequently much more so than that of its mate; in other cases the males are the most brilliant. ”

“ It was tied with a white fillet to keep it out of her eyes, and in the fillet, like a great purple jewel, was thrust an anemone from a wreath her mother had been making. Her mother dressed her in the finest and softest of undyed wool, bleached white as snow. She wore a little tunic with a braided girdle, and over her shoulders a square of the same soft cloth as a mantle; it looked like the wings of a white bird as it shone in the morning sun. On her feet were sandals of kidskin, and around her neck was a necklace of red beads that had come from far away. ”

“ Padraig shook his head. “I stood as near them as I am to you, and I did not see them until they wished to be seen. They run like foxes and climb like cats. They will be killed or kill themselves, every man and woman of them, rather than be taken. Were it not better they should live like christened souls than be hunted like beasts?”
The Abbot rose and began to pace the floor. “Go, my son,” he said not unkindly, “and send Simon, the steward, to me.” ”

“ On the muddy and wet gravel-walks I found the larvae of this lampyris in great numbers: they resembled in general form the female of the English glowworm. These larvae possessed but feeble luminous powers; very differently from their parents, on the slightest touch they feigned death and ceased to shine; nor did irritation excite any fresh display. I kept several of them alive for some time: their tails are very singular organs, for they act, by a well-fitted contrivance, as suckers or organs of attachment, and likewise as reservoirs for saliva, or some such fluid. ”