⚫️ LIVIA SPEAKS WITH AUGUSTUS “To this Augustus replied: "But, wife, I, too, am aware that no high position is ever free from envy and treachery, and least of all a monarchy. Indeed, we should be equals of the gods if we had not troubles and cares and fears beyond all men in private station. But precisely this is what causes my grief, — that this is inevitably so and that no remedy for it can be found." "Yet," said Livia, "since some men are so constituted as to want to do wrong in any event, let us guard against them. We have many soldiers who protect us, some arrayed against foreign foes and others about your person, and also a large retinue, so that by their help we may live in security both at home and abroad." Cassius Dio

🟡 PLINY ON TALL PEOPLE “It is known that at the age of three a person's measurement is half his future stature. But it is almost a matter of observation that with the entire human race the stature on the whole is becoming smaller daily, and that few men are taller than their fathers, as the conflagration that is the crisis towards which the age is now verging is exhausting the fertility of the semen. When a mountain in Crete was cleft by an earthquake a body 69 feet in height was found, which some people thought must be that of Orion and others of Otus. The records attest that the body of Orestes dug up at the command of an oracle measured 10 ft. 6 in. Moreover, the famous bard Homer nearly 1000 years ago never ceased to lament that mortals were smaller of stature than in the old days. In the case of Naevius Pollio the annals do not record his height, but they show that was deemed portentous, because he was almost killed by the people flocking round him. The tallest person our age has seen was a man named Gabbara brought from Arabia in the principate of his late Majesty Claudius who was 9 ft. 9 in. in height.” Pliny the Elder