Instances of acuteness of sight are to be found stated, which, indeed, exceed all belief. Cicero informs us, that the Iliad[71] of Homer was written on a piece of parchment so small as to be enclosed in a nut-shell. He makes mention also of a man who could distinguish objects at a distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles. Marcus Varro says, that the name of this man was Strabo; and that, during the Punic war, from Lilybæum, the promontory of Sicily, he was in the habit of seeing the fleet come out of the harbor of Carthage, at a distance of over fifty miles, and could even count the number of the vessels. Callicrates used to carve ants and other small animals in ivory, so minute in size, that other persons were unable to distinguish their individual parts. Myrmecides also was famous in the same line;[72] this man made, of similar material, a chariot drawn by four horses, which a fly could cover with its wings; as well as a ship which might be covered by the wings of a tiny bee. CHAPTER V. VIGOR OF MIND, AND COURAGE. The most remarkable instance, I think, of vigor of mind in any man ever born, was that of Cæsar, the Dictator. I am not at present alluding to his valor and courage, nor yet his exalted genius, which was capable of embracing everything under the face of heaven, but I am speaking of that innate vigor of mind, which was so peculiar to him, and that promptness which seemed to act like a flash of lightning. We find it stated that he was able to write or read, and, at the same time, to dictate and listen. He could dictate to his secretaries four letters at once, and those on the most important business; and, indeed, if he was busy about nothing else, as many as seven. He fought as many as fifty pitched battles, being the only commander who exceeded M. Marcellus in this respect, he having fought only thirty-nine. In addition, too, to the victories gained by him in the civil wars, one million one hundred and ninety-two thousand men were slain by him in his battles. For my own part, however, I am not going to set down as a subject for high renown what was really an outrage committed upon mankind, even though he may have been acting under the strong influence of necessity; and, indeed, he himself confesses as much, in his omission to state the number of persons who perished by the sword in the civil wars.