A still more remarkable circumstance is, the fact that these persons have two pupils in each eye.[886] Apollonides says, that there are certain females of this description in Scythia, who are known as Bythiæ, and Phylarchus states that a tribe of the Thibii in Pontus, and many other persons as well, have a double pupil in one eye, and in the other the figure of a horse.[887] He also remarks, that the bodies of these persons will not sink in water,[888] even though weighed down by their garments. Damon gives an account of a race of people, not very much unlike them, the Pharnaces of Æthiopia, whose perspiration is productive of consumption[889] to the body of every person that it touches. Cicero also, one of our own writers, makes the remark, that the glances of all women who have a double pupil is noxious.[890] To this extent, then, has nature, when she produced in man, in common with the wild beasts, a taste for human flesh, thought fit to produce poisons as well in every part of his body, and in the eyes even of some persons, taking care that there should be no evil influence in existence, which was not to be found in the human body. Not far from the city of Rome, in the territory of the Falisci, a few families are found, who are known by the name of Hirpi. These people perform a yearly sacrifice to Apollo, on Mount Soracte, on which occasion they walk over a burning pile of wood, without being scorched even. On this account, by virtue of a decree of the senate, they are always exempted from military service, and from all other public duties.[891] Some individuals, again, are born with certain parts of the body endowed with properties of a marvellous nature. Such was the case with King Pyrrhus, the great toe of whose right foot cured diseases of the spleen, merely by touching the patient.[892] We are also informed, that this toe could not be reduced to ashes together with the other portions of his body; upon which it was placed in a coffer, and preserved in a temple.