In Troubadour-Land by Sabine Baring-Gould

The freedman of Pliny -- Forum Julii -- The Port of Agay -- The Port of Fréjus -- Roman castle -- Aqueduct -- The lantern of Augustus -- The cathedral -- Cloisters -- Boy and dolphin -- Story told by Pliny -- The _Chaine des Maures_ -- Désaugiers -- Dines with the porkbutchers of Paris -- Siéyès -- _Sans phrase_ -- Agricola -- His discoveries.

It was strange. The first person I thought of, on arriving at Fréjus, was not Julius Cesar the founder of this old port -- no, nor Agricola, a native of Fréjus, who is so associated with British history, especially with Scottish -- no! it was Pliny's sick freedman, about whom that polished orator wrote in his nineteenth letter, in Book V. of his collected epistles. Pliny was a native of Como, he had two villas on the lake. He was a kindly, honourable, somewhat bumptious man -- but what great talkers think small matter of themselves? He had a slave, a Greek, named Zosimus, of whom he writes to his friend Paulinus, who had an estate at Fréjus: "He is a person of great worth, diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I must add, he reads history, oratory, and poetry. He is endeared to me by ties of long affection, now heightened by the danger in which he is."