o were eye-witnesses of it, is no doubt extremely probable;
that he did not choose to drink poison, or to hang himself, but was
resolved to find out some new and tragical way of dying; that
accordingly, having some large cups of very fine glass, as soon as
he had taken the resolution to finish himself, he broke one of them
in pieces, and with a fragment of it cut his throat; he would not
make use of sword or spear, that his death might be more noble and
heroic.

To complete all, because Thucydides {41} made a funeral oration on
the heroes who fell at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, he
also thought something should be said of Severian. These
historians, you must know, will always have a little struggle with
Thucydides, though he had nothing to do with the war in Armenia; our
writer, therefore, after burying Severian most magnificently, places
at his sepulchre one Afranius Silo, a centurion, the rival of
Pericles, who spoke so fine a declamation upon him as, by heaven,
made me laugh till I cried again, particularly when the orator
seemed deeply afflicted, and with tears in his eyes, lamented the
sumptuous entertainments and drinking bouts which he should no more
partake of. To crown all with an imitation of Ajax, {42} the orator
draws his sword, and, as it became the noble Afranius, before all
the assembly, kills himself at the tomb. So Mars defend me! but he
deserved to die much sooner for making such a declamation. When
those, says he, who were present beheld this, they were filled with
admiration, and beyond measure extolled Afranius. For my own part,
I pitied him for the loss of the cakes and dishes which he so
lamented, and only blamed him for not destroying the writer of the
history before he made an end of himself.

Others there are who, from ignorance and want of skill, not knowing
what should be mentioned, and what passed over in silence, entirely
omit or slightly run through things of the greatest consequence, and
most worthy of attention, whilst they most copiously describe and
dwell upon trifles; which is just as absurd as it would be not to
take notice of or admire the wonderful beauty of the Olympian
Jupiter, {43} and at the same time to be lavish in our praises of
the fine polish, workmanship, and proportion of the base and
pedestal.

I remember one of these who despatches the battle at Europus in
seven lines, and spends some hundreds in a long frigid narration,
that is nothing to the purp