{45} Dragons, or fiery serpents, were used by the Parthians, and Suidas tells us, by the Scythians also, as standards, in the same manner as the Romans made use of the eagle, and under every one of these standards were a thousand men. See Lips. de Mil. Rom., cap. 4. {46} See Arrian. {47} The idea here so deservedly laughed at, of a history of what was to come, if treated, not seriously, as this absurd writer treated it, but ludicrously, as Lucian would probably have treated it himself, might open a fine field for wit and humour. Something of this kind appeared in a newspaper a few years ago, which, I think, was called "News for a Hundred Years Hence;" and though but a rough sketch, was well executed. A larger work, on the same ground, and by a good hand, might afford much entertainment. {49} This kind of scholastic jargon was much in vogue in the time of Lucian, and it is no wonder he should take every opportunity of laughing at it, as nothing can be more opposite to true genius, wit, and humour, than such pedantry. {50} Milo, the Crotonian wrestler, is reported to have been a man of most wonderful bodily strength, concerning which a number of lies are told, for which the reader, if he pleases, may consult his dictionary. He lost his life, we are informed, by trying to rend with his hands an old oak, which wedged him in, and pressed him to death; the poet says-- "--he met his end, Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend." Titornus was a rival of Milo's, and, according to AElian, who is not always to be credited, rolled a large stone with ease, which Milo with all his force could not stir. Conon was some slim Macaroni of that age, remarkable only for his debility, as was Leotrophides also, of crazy memory, recorded by Aristophanes, in his comedy called The Birds. {51} The Broughtons of antiquity; men, we may suppose, renowned in their time for teaching the young nobility of Greece to bruise one another secundum artem. {53a} See Diodorus Siculus, lib. vii., and Plutarch. {53b} Concerning some of these facts, even recent as they were then with regard to us, historians are divided. Thucydides and Plutarch tell the story one way, Diodorus and Justin another. Well might our author, therefore, find fault with their uncertainty. {55a} Lucian alludes, it is supposed, to Ctesias, the physician to Artaxerxes, whose history is stuffed with encomiums on his royal patron. See Plutarch's "Artaxerxes." {55b} The Campus Nisaeus, a large plain in Media, near the Caspian mountains, was famous for breeding the finest horses, which were allotted to the use of kings only; or, according to Xenophon, those favourites on whom the sovereign thought proper to bestow them. See the "Cyropaed.," book viii.