Note 754 — CAMPASPE
Reading edition
"It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."—Pliny, Hist. of World, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.