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CHAP. 6. (3.)—STANDS FOR LAMPS.

Ægina was particularly famous for the manufacture of sockets only for lamp-stands, as Tarentum was for that of the branches;1 the most complete articles were, therefore, produced by the union of the two. There are persons, too, who are not ashamed to give for one a sum equal to the salary of a military tribune,2 although, as its name indicates, its only use is to hold a lighted candle. On the sale of one of these lamp-stands, Theon the public crier announced, that the purchaser must also take, as part of the lot, one Clesippus, a fuller, who was hump-backed, and in other respects, of a hideous aspect. The purchase was made by a female named3 Gegania, for fifty thousand sesterces. Upon her exhibiting these purchases at an entertainment which she gave, the slave, for the amusement of her guests, was brought in naked. Conceiving an infamous passion for him, she first admitted him to her bed, and finally left him all her estate. Having thus become excessively rich, he adored the lamp-stand as much as any divinity, and the story became a sort of pendant to the celebrity of the Corinthian lamp-stands. Still, however, good morals were vindicated in the end, for he erected a splendid monument to her memory, and so kept alive the eternal remembrance of the misconduct of Gegania. But although it is well known that there are no lamp-stands in existence made of the Corinthian metal, yet this name is very generally attached to them, because, in consequence of the victory of Mummius,4 Corinth was destroyed: at the same time, however, it should be remembered that this victory dispersed a number of bronzes which originally came from many other cities of Achaia.

1 The words in the original are, respectively candelabra, superficics, and scapi.—B.

2 Probably a proverbial expression at Rome, as it is employed by Juvenal, in an analogous manner, upon another occasion; Sat. iii. 1. 132.—B. 33 Plutarch speaks of the Geganii as an ancient noble family at Rome.

3 Pultarch speaks of the Geganii as an ancient noble family at Rome.

4 See B. xxxiii. c. 53.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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