FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Pasiteles,[2328] Apelles,[2329] Melanthius,[2330] Asclepiodorus,[2331] Euphranor,[2332] Heliodorus,[2333] who wrote on the Votive Offerings of the Athenians, Metrodorus,[2334] who wrote on Architecture, Democritus,[2335] Theophrastus,[2336] Apion[2337] the grammarian, who wrote on the Medicines derived from Metals, Nymphodorus,[2338] Iollas,[2339] Apollodorus,[2340] Andreas,[2341] Heraclides,[2342] Diagoras,[2343] Botrys,[2344] Archidemus,[2345] Dionysius,[2346] Aristogenes,[2347] Democles,[2348] Mnesides,[2349] Xenocrates[2350] the son of Zeno, Theomnestus.[2351] BOOK XXXVI. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF STONES. CHAP. 1. (1.)—LUXURY DISPLAYED IN THE USE OF VARIOUS KINDS OF MARBLE. It now remains for us to speak of stones, or, in other words, the leading folly of the day; to say nothing at all of our taste for gems and amber, crystal and murrhine vases.[2352] For everything of which we have previously treated, down to the present Book, may, by some possibility or other, have the appearance of having been created for the sake of man: but as to the mountains, Nature has made those for herself, as a kind of bulwark for keeping together the bowels of the earth; as also for the purpose of curbing the violence of the rivers, of breaking the waves of the sea, and so, by opposing to them the very hardest of her materials, putting a check upon those elements which are never at rest. And yet we must hew down these mountains, forsooth, and carry them off; and this, for no other reason than to gratify our luxurious inclinations: heights which in former days it was reckoned a miracle even to have crossed!