Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 7.133: Pherenike/ Callipateira and the Olympic victories of her relatives

Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 7.133: Pherenike/ Callipateira and the Olympic victories of her relatives

23/24- 79 CE

Natural History

Literary source

For the woman here called Berenice, see also Pseudo-Aeschines, Epistulae 4.5; Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 5.6.7-8 and 6.7.2; Scholion on Pindar, Olympia 7.1; Flavius Philostratus, De Gymnastica 17; Claudius Aelianus, Varia Historia 10.1; Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia 8.15.12 ext. 4.

During the whole course of ages, we find only one woman, and that, Lampido, the Lacedæmonian, who was the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, and the mother of a king. Berenice was the only woman who was daughter, sister, and mother of conquerors in the Olympian games. The family of the Curios has been the only one to produce three orators in succession; that of the Fabii alone has given three chiefs of the senate in succession, Fabius Ambustus, his son Fabius Rullianus, and his grandson Quintus Fabius Gurges.

John Bostock, Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, vol. 2, London 1855.

Una feminarum in omni aevo Lampido Lacedaemonia reperitur quae regis filia, regis uxor, regis mater fuerit, una Berenice quae filia, soror, mater Olympionicarum, una familia Curionum in qua tres continua serie oratores exstiterint, una Fabiorum in qua tres continui principes senatus, M. Fabius Ambustus, Fabius Rullianus filius, Q. Fabius Gurges nepos.

Harris Rackham (ed.), Pliny, Natural History, vol. 2, Books 3-7 (= Loeb Classical Library; 352), Cambridge, MA/London 1942.