Noctes Atticae
Gellius, Aulus
Gellius, Aulus. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, 1927 (printing).
Marcus Varro, I remember, writes that of the rivers which flow outside [*](This was true in Varro's time.) the limits of the Roman empire the Nile is first in size, the Danube second, and next the Rhone.
OF all the rivers which flow into the seas included within the Roman empire, which the Greeks call
the inner sea,it is agreed that the Nile is the greatest. Sallust wrote [*](Hist. iii. 80, Maur.) that the Danube is next in size; but Varro, when he discussed the part of the earth which is called Europe, placed [*](Ant. Hum. xiii, fr. 6, Mirsch.) the Rhone among the first three rivers of that quarter of the earth, by which he seems to make it a rival of the Danube; for the Danube also is in Europe.
That among the ignominious punishments which were inflicted upon soldiers was the letting of blood; and what seems to be the reason for such a penalty.
THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind. [*](Muretus, Var. Lect. xiii, p. 199, thought it was in order that they night lose with ignominy the blood which they had been unwilling to shed for their country.)