Book 3
16
Moreover, Hippocrates, in that book of which I wrote above, when he mentioned the number of days within which the embryo conceived in the womb is given form, and had limited the time of gestation itself to the ninth or tenth month, but had said that this nevertheless was not always of the same duration, but that delivery occurred sometimes more quickly, sometimes later, finally used these words: In these cases there are longer and shorter periods, both wholly and in part; but the longer are not much longer or the shorter much shorter. See note 1, p. 291. Here Gellius' text is followed. By this he means that whereas a birth sometimes takes place more quickly, yet it occurs not much more quickly, and when later, not much later.
16
I recall that this question was carefully and thoroughly investigated at Rome, an inquiry demanded by a suit at law of no small moment at the time, whether, namely, a child that had been born alive in the eighth month but had died immediately, satisfied the conditions of the ius trium liberorrum, The fathers of three children were granted certain privileges and immunities. since it seemed to some that the untimely period of the eighth month made it an abortion and not a birth.
