5
AUTOBULUS. There are in fact, my friend, many animals wliich surpass all men, not only in bulk and swiftness, but also in keen sight and sharp hearing Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Fato, 27; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 10; x. 191.; but for all that man is not blind or crippled or earless. We can run, if less swiftly than deer; and see, if less keenly than hawks; nor has Nature deprived us of strength and bulk even though, by comparison with, the elephant and the camel, we amount to nothing in these matters.Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 145, reports a singular deduction from this theme; see also Seneca, De Beneficiis, ii. 29. 1. In the same way, then, let us not say of beasts that they are completely lacking in intellect and understanding and do not possess reason even though their understanding is less acute and their intellect inferior to ours; what we should say is that their intellect, is feeble and turbid, like a dim and clouded eye. And if I did not expect that our young men, learned and studious as they are, would very shortly present us here, one with a large collection of examples drawn from the land, the other with his from the sea, I should not have denied myself the pleasure of giving you countless examples of the docility and native capacity of beasts - of which fair RomeSee, for example, 968 c, e infra. has provided us a reservoir from which to draw in pails and buckets, as it were, from the imperial spectacles. Let us leave this subject, therefore, fresh and untouched for them to exercise their art upon in discourse.
