But these are, in truth,
the obscure accounts of antiquity: between Ptolomy and Tiberius the
interval was shorter, not two hundred and fifty years: hence some have
believed that the present was a spurious phoenix, and derived not its
origin from the territories of Arabia, since it observed nothing of the
instinct which ancient tradition attributes to the genuine: for that the
latter having completed his course of years, just before his death builds
a nest in his native land, and upon it sheds a generative power, from
whence arises a young one, whose first care, when he is grown, is to bury
his father: neither does he undertake it unadvisedly, but by collecting
and fetching loads of myrrh, tries his strength in great journeys; and as
soon as he finds himself equal to the burden, and fit for the long flight,
he rears upon his back his father's body, carries it quite to the altar of
the sun, and then flies away. These are uncertain tales, and their
uncertainty heightened by fables; but that this bird has been sometimes
seen in Egypt, is not questioned.
The same year the city suffered the grievous calamity of fire, which burnt
down that part of the Circus contiguous to Mount Aventine and the Mount
itself: a loss which turned to the glory of the Prince, as he paid in
money the value of the houses destroyed.
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