The Book of Marvels , a compilation of marvellous events of a grotesque, bizarre or sensational nature, was composed in the second century A.D. by Phlegon of Tralles, a Greek freedman of the Roman emperor Hadrian. The Book is arranged thematically: ghosts, sex-changers and hermaphrodites, finds of giant bones, monstrous births, births from males, amazing multiple births, abnormally rapid development of human beings, and discoveries of live centaurs. This volume also contains an introduction and commentary on the texts, as well as translations of fragments of two other works of translation of Goethe’s vampire poem, The Bride of Corinth , which was inspired by Phlegon’s Book of Marvels .