Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/108

98 cal notices concerning several centenarians of their country, and mention philosophers, moralists, poets, and artisans who reached and even passed one hundred years, among them the following: Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Epimedes, four of the seven wise men of Greece, lived more than a hundred years according to Lucian, who fixed the date of their death at about 600. Epimenides, poet and historian, according to Pliny, died at one hundred and fifty-four; Aristarchus, the tragic poet of Tegea in Arcadia, at one hundred years, about 460 (Lucian). The comic poet, Cratinus, of Athens, died at ninety-nine, 405. According to Valerius Maximus, Sophocles wrote his "Œdipus Tyrannus" when nearly a hundred years old, 405. The satirical poet Democritus died at one hundred and nine, 361; Gorgias, of Leontes, at one hundred and eight,  400. The great orator Isocrates perished from hunger at ninety-nine years, 338. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, died at the same age, 361. The philosopher Theophrastus died at one hundred and seven, about 254. Cleanthes, of Epirus, the celebrated disciple of Zeno, died nearly one hundred years old, 240. The historian, Hieronymus, of Rhodes, died at one hundred and four, 254. The immortal Galen died, like his great predecessor Hippocrates, almost a centenarian, 193. The philosopher Demonax, of Crete, perished from hunger at one hundred years, in the reign of Hadrian.

The Romans also had their centenarians, but the dates of their deaths are often not given. Juvenal was a hundred years old when he died, 120. Terentius Varro died at ninety-eight, 28. Quintus Fabius Maximus, augur for sixty-two years, died a centenarian, 107. Perennius Tutus died at Cornelia, at one hundred and eleven, 117.

Women also reached a very advanced age. It is notorious, for example, that Terentia, the divorced wife of Cicero, died at between one hundred and three and one hundred and twelve, after having been remarried three times, about 62. The poet Martial gives an epitaph in verse of a woman who died in his time at the fabulous age of two hundred years. The juggler Galeria practiced at her profession till she was a hundred years old, and died at one hundred and four, 9. According to Pliny, the comedian Luccia also played till the same age as Galeria, and died at one hundred and fifteen. Phlegon, in his book "De Rebus Mirabilibus" and "De Longævis," mentions the names and places of origin of one hundred and seventeen centenarians who died at different periods of the Roman Empire. On the taking of the census under Vespasian, 74, fifty-four of the inhabitants of the eighth administrative circumscription declared themselves to be one hundred years old, one hundred and fourteen between one hundred and one hundred and ten, two between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty-five, four between one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and thirty, four between one hundred