[305] Vopiscus, Vita Firmi. See the figure in Desaguliers, tab. xix. fig. 5. He describes the position thus:--The pretended Samson puts his shoulders (not his head, as he used to give out) upon one chair, and his heels upon another (the chairs being made fast), and supports one or two men standing on his belly, raising them up and down as he breathes, making with his backbone, thighs and legs, an arch whose abutments are the chairs. [306] A course of Experimental Philosophy. Lond. 1745, 4to, i. p. 266. [A popular account of these extraordinary feats, with illustrations and explanations of the principles on which they depend, is given by Sir David Brewster in his interesting volume on Natural Magic, p. 246.] [307] Versuche und Abhandl. der Naturforsch. Geselsch. in Danzig. [308] A great many of these passages of the ancients have been collected by Bulenger, in his work De Theatro, i. cap. 41. See also Des Camps in a dissertation contained in Recherches Curieuses d’Antiquité, par Spon. A Lyon 1683.--Mercurialis De Arte Gymnast. and Fabricii Biblioth. Antiq. p. 995. [309] An epigram, ascribed to Petronius, at page 542 of the edition of Hadrianides, belongs to this subject. [310] Muratori Antiquit. Ital. Med. Ævi, ii. p. 846. [311] Von Stetten, Kunstgeschichte von Augsburg, ii. p. 177. [312] Claudian. de Mallii Consul. 320. In Cilano’s Römischen Alterthümer, ii. fig. 8, there is a representation like what I have often seen exhibited. But the most dangerous and the most curious is that of which an engraving is given in Splendor Urbis Venetiarum, to be found in Grævii Thesaurus Antiquit. Italiæ, v. 3. p. 374. [313] Sat. xiv. 265. [314] Lib. v. 433.