Yet was I crafty enough to hold my peace: for if I must speak truth, 'twas now first, when I must be counted a fool, that I became keen-witted and more guarded in my talk. So the pastor continued, and told me how Cyrus could call every one of his 30,000 soldiers by his right name; how Lucius Scipio could do the like with every citizen of Rome; and how Cineas, Pyrrhus's ambassador, on the very day after he came to Rome could repeat in their order the names of all the senators, and nobles. Mithridates, the King of Pontus, said he, had in his realm men speaking twenty-two languages, to all of which he could minister judgment in their own tongue: yea, and talk with each separately. So, too, the learned Greek Charmides could tell a man what each would know out of all the books in a whole library if he had but read them once through. Lucius Seneca could say 2000 names in order if they were once recited before him and, as Ravisius tells, could repeat 200 verses spoken by 200 scholars from the last back to the first. So Esdras knew the five books of Moses by heart, and could dictate the same word by word to the scribes. Themistocles in one year did learn the Persian Speech, and Crassus, in Asia, could talk the five separate dialects of the Greek language, and in each administer the law to his subjects. Julius Cæsar could at the same time read, dictate, and give audiences. The holy Jerome knew both Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Persian, Median, Arabic and Latin, and the eremite Antonius knew the whole Bible by heart only from hearing it read. And so we know of a certain Corsican that he could hear 6000 men's names recited and thereafter repeat them in proper order.