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Because of weakness in matters of importance or ignorance of what to say, they turn to this sort of description of scenery and caves; when they chance on a host of great doings they are like a newly-rich servant who has just inherited his master’s fortune: he knows neither how to dress nor how to take his meal in the proper way: no, he plunges in, when for instance birds and pork and hares are put before him, stuffing himself with a soup or kippers until he bursts from eating. Well, this man I mentioned described incredible wounds and monstrous deaths, how one man was wounded in the big toe and died on the spot, and how Priscus the general just gave a shout and twenty-seven of the enemy fell dead. And in the number slain he even contradicted the officers’ despatches with his false figures: at Europus, he said, the enemy lost 70,236 killed, while the Romans lost just two and had nine wounded. I do not think anyone in his senses would accept that.