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Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  8724 Pliny the Elder AD 23-AD 79 John Bartlett

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

8724 Pliny the Elder AD 23-AD 79 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:8724
AUTHOR:Pliny the Elder (A.D. c. 23–A.D. 79)
QUOTATION:Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations. 1
ATTRIBUTION:Natural History. Book vii. Sect. 2.
 
Note 1.
He is born naked, and falls a whining at the first.—Robert Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, mem. 3, subsect. 10.

And when I was born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature; and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.—The Wisdom of Solomon, vii. 3.

It was the custom among the ancients to place the new-born child upon the ground immediately after its birth. [back]