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CHAP. 22.(22.)—INSTANCES OF REMARKABLE ACUTENESS OF HEARING.

We have one instance on record of remarkable acuteness of hearing; the noise of the battle, on the occasion when Sybaris1 was destroyed, was heard, the day on which it took place, at Olympia.2 But, as to the victory over the Cimbri,3 and that over Perseus, the news of which was conveyed to Rome by the Castors,4 they are to be looked upon in the light of visions and presages proceeding immediately from the gods.

1 It would appear that there is a little confusion here of events. Sybaris, so noted for its luxury and effeminacy, was destroyed by the people of Crotona, under the command of the athlete Milo, B.C. 510. In B.C. 360, the Crotoniats were defeated at the river Sagras, by the Locrians and Rhegians, 10,000 in number, although they are said to have amounted to 130,000. Now it was on the occasion of this latter battle, that, according to Cicero, De Nat. Deor. B. ii., the noise was heard at Olympia, where the games were being celebrated. Be it as it may, the story is clearly fabulous. Evelyn is much more deserving of credit, where we find him stating in his Diary, that in his garden, at Say's Court, at Deptford, he heard the guns fired in one of our engagements with the Dutch fleet, at a distance thence of nearly 200 miles.

2 Ajasson discusses at some length, the possibility of the fact here mentioned, and concludes, that it is not to be credited: he estimates the distance between these two places at 120 miles.—B.

3 As to the miraculous annunciation of the victory of Marius and Catulus over the Cimbri, see B. ii. c. 58.

4 Meaning, thereby, the twin brothers, Castor and Pollux; who were said to have announced at Rome the victory gained the day before by Paulus Æmilius over King Perseus.

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