Note 91 — CHAP. XXXV.
Reading edition
A general idea seems to have prevailed in early times of the prodigious muscular strength possessed by the men of an age still earlier. Thus Turnus, the warlike chief of the Rutuli, is represented in the Æneid as lifting and hurling at the Trojan an immense boundary stone which would defy the united efforts of twelve such men as the earth produced in those days to lift on their shoulders.
“Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat, Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent, Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.” Æn. xii. 897.