of this they say a great deal more is made by the natives.' They all stain their bodies with vermilion, and feed upon monkies, with which animal their mountains abound. CXCV. According to the Carthaginians, we next meet with an island called Cyranis," two hundred stadia in length. It is of a trifling breadth, but the communication with the continent is easy, and it abounds with olives and vines. Here is a lake, from which the young women of the island draw up gold dust with bunches of feathers besmeared with pitch. For the truth of this I will not answer, relating merely what I have been told. To me it seems the more probable, after having seen at Zacynthus pitch drawn from the bottom of the water. At this place are a number of lakes, 1 Made by the natives.]—“I do not see," says Reiske on this passage, "how men can possibly make honey. They may collect, clarify, and prepare it by various processes for use, but the bees must first have made it." I confess I see no such great difficulty in the above. There were various kinds of honey, honey of bees, honey of the palm, and honey of sugar, not to mention honey of grapes; all the last of which might be made by the industry of man.-See Lucan: Quique bibunt tenerâ dulces ab arundine succos.-T. See Shaw's Travels, p. 339. 2 Cyranis.]-The same with the Cercinna of Strabo, now called Querqueni, or Chercheni; concerning this island consult Diodorus, 1. v. 294; but Diodorus, we should remark, confounded Cercinna with Cerne, an island of the Atlantic. 3 Gold dust.]-See a minute account of this in Achilles Tatius.-T. 4 Zacynthus.]-The modern name of this place is Zante. Its tar-springs, to use the words of Chandler, are still a natural curiosity deserving notice. The tar is produced in a small valley about two hours' walk from the town, by the sea, and encompassed with mountains, except toward the bay, in which are a couple of rocky islets. The spring which is most distinct and apt for inspection, rises on the farther side near the foot of the hill. The well is circular, and four or five feet in diameter. A shining film, like oil mixed with scum, swims on the top: you remove this with a bough, and see the tar at the bottom, three or four feet beneath the surface, working up, it is said, out of a fissure in the rock; the bubbles swelling gradually to the size of a large cannon-ball, when they burst, and the sides leisurely sinking, new ones succeed, increase, and in turn subside. The water is limpid, and runs off with a smart current: the ground near is quaggy, and will shake beneath the feet, but is cultivated. We filled some vessels with tar, by letting it trickle into them from the boughs which we immersed, and this is the method used to gather it from time to time into pits, where it is hardened by the sun, to be barrelled when the quantity is sufficient. The odour reaches a considerable way.-See Chandler's Travels. Some account of these tar-springs is also to be found in Antigonus Carystius, p. 169, and Vitruvius, 1. viii. c. 3 the largest of which is seventy feet in circumference, and of the depth of two orgyia. Into this water they let down a pole, at the end of which is a bunch of myrtle; the pitch attaches itself to the myrtle and is thus procured. It has a bituminous smell, but is in other respects preferable to that of Pieria. The pitch is then thrown into a trench dug for the purpose by the side of the lake: and when a sufficient quantity has been obtained, they put it up in casks. Whatever falls into the lake passes under ground, and is again seen in the sea, at the distance of four stadia from the lake. Thus what is related of this island contiguous to Libya, seems both consistent and probable. CXCVI. We have the same authority of the Carthaginians to affirm, that beyond the Columns of Hercules there is a country inhabited by a people with whom they have had commercial intercourse." It is their custom, on arriving amongst them, to unload their vessels, and dispose their goods along the shore. This done, they again embark, and make a great smoke from on board. The natives, seeing this, come down immediately to the shore, and placing a quantity of gold by way of exchange for the merchandize, retire. The Carthaginians then land a second time, and if they think the gold equivalent, they take it and depart; if not, they again go on board their vessels. The inhabitants return and add more gold, till the 5 That of Pieria.]-This was highly esteemed. Didymus says that the ancients considered that as the best which came from Mount Ida; and next to this the tar which came from Pieria. Pliny says the same.-Larcher. 6 Columns of Hercules.]—The Libyian Column was by ancient writers called Abyla; that on the Spanish side, Calpe.-See P. Mela. l. ii. c. 6. 7 Commercial intercourse.]—It must be mentioned to the honour of the western Moors, that they still continue to carry on a trade with some barbarous nations bordering upon the river Niger, without seeing the persons they trade with, or without having once broke through that original charter of commerce which from time immemorial has been settled between them. The method is this: at a certain time of the year, in the winter, if I am not mistaken, they make this journey in a numerous caravan, carrying along with them coral and glass beads, bracelets of horn, knives, scissors, and such like trinkets. When they arrive at the place appointed, which is on such a day of the moon, they find in the evening several different heaps of gold-dust lying at a small distance from each other, against which the Moors place so many of their trinkets as they judge will be taken in exchange for them. If the Nigritians the next morning approve of the bargain, they take up the trinkets and leave the gold dust, or else make some deduction from the latter. In this manner they transact their exchange without seeing one another, or without the least instance of dishonesty or perfidiousness on either side.-Shaw. crews are satisfied. The whole is conducted | most elevated. They have three seasons, which with the strictest integrity, for neither will the one touch the gold till they have left an ade quate value in merchandise, nor will the other remove the goods till the Carthaginians have taken away the gold. well deserve admiration: the harvest and the vintage first commence upon the sea-coast; when these are finished, those immediately contiguous, advancing up the country, are ready; this region they call Buni. When the requisite labour has been here finished, the corn and the vines in the more elevated parts are found to ripen in progression, and will then require to be cut. By the time therefore that the first produce of the earth is consumed, the last will be Thus for eight months in the year the Cyreneans are employed in reaping the produce of their lands. CXCVII. Such are the people of Libya whose names I am able to ascertain; of whom the greater part cared but little for the king of the Medes, neither do they now. Speaking with all the precision I am able, the country I have been describing is inhabited by four na-ready. tions only of these, two are natives and two strangers. The natives are the Libyans and Ethiopians; one of whom possess the northern, the other the southern parts of Africa. The strangers are the Phenicians and the Greeks. CXCVIII. If we except the district of Cinyps, which bears the name of the river flowing through it, Libya in goodness of soil cannot, I think, be compared either to Asia or Europe. Cinyps is totally unlike the rest of Libya, but is equal to any country in the world for its corn. It is of a black soil, abounding in springs, and never troubled with drought. rains in this part of Libya, but the rains, though violent, are never injurious. The produce of corn is not exceeded by Babylon itself. The country also of the Euesperidæ is remarkably fertile; in one of its plentiful years it produces an hundred fold; that of Cinyps three hundred fold. It Of the abundant fertility of Cyrene, Diodorus Siculus also speaks, p. 183. c. cxxviii.-Concerning the fountain of Cyre, one of the Fontes Cyrenaicæ, see Callimachus' Ode to Apollo, 88; and Justin, lib. xiii. c. 7. Concerning the Asbyste, of whom Herodotus speaks, c. 170, 171, Salmasius has collected much, and Solinum, 391; so also has Eustathius, ad Dionys. Perieg. 211.-See too Larcher, vol. ii. 43. Of the people with whom the Carthaginians traded, beyond the columns of Hercules, without seeing them, I have spoken at length, and given from Shaw the passage introduced by Schlichthorst. The place, whose name is not mentioned by Herodotus, is doubtless, what we now call Senegambia. All the part of Libya described by Herodotus is now comprehended under the general name of Barbary, and contains the kingdoms of Morocco, Fez, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli; the maritime part of Libya, from Carthage westward, was unknown to Herodotus. CC. The Persians who were sent by Aryandes to avenge the cause of Pheretime, proceeding from Egypt to Barce, laid siege to the place, having first required the persons of those who had been accessary to the death of Arcesilaus. To this the inhabitants, who had all been equally concerned in destroying him, paid no attention. The Persians, after continuing nine months before the place, carried their mines to the walls, and made a very vigorous attack. Their mines were discovered by a smith, by means of a brazen shield. He made a circuit of the town; where there were no miners beneath, the shield did not reverberate, which it did wherever they were at work. The Barceans therefore dug countermines, and slew the Persians so employed. Every attempt to storm the place was vigorously defeated by the besieged. CCI. After a long time had been thus consumed with considerable slaughter on both sides (as many being killed of the Persians as of their adversaries) Amasis, the leader of the infantry, employed the following stratagem :Being convinced that the Barceans were not to be overcome by any open attacks, he sunk in the night a large and deep trench: the surface of this he covered with some slight pieces of wood, then placing earth over the whole, the ground had uniformly the same appearance. At the dawn of the morning he invited the Barceans to a conference; they willingly assented, being very desirous to come to terms. Accordingly they entered into a treaty, of which these were the conditions: it was to remain valid as long as the earth upon which the 9 It was to remain valid.]—Memini similem fœderis formulam apud Polybium legere in fœdere Hannibalis cum Tarentinis, si bene memini.-Reiske. Reiske's recollection appears in this place to have deceived him. Tarentum was betrayed to Hannibal by agreement was made should retain its present appearance. The Barceans were to pay the Persian monarch a certain reasonable tribute; and the Persians engaged themselves to undertake nothing in future to the detriment of the Barceans. Relying upon these engagements, the Barceans, without hesitation, threw open the gates of their city, going out and in themselves without fear of consequences, and permitting without restraint such of the enemy as pleased to come within their walls. The Per sians withdrawing the artificial support of the earth, where they had sunk a trench, entered the city in crowds; they imagined by this artifice that they had fulfilled all they had undertaken, and were brought back to the situation in which they were mutually before. For in reality, this support of the earth being taken away, the oath they had taken became void. son. CCII. The Persians seized and surrendered to the power of Pheretime such of the Barceans as had been instrumental in the death of her These she crucified on different parts of the walls; she cut off also the breasts of their wives, and suspended them in a similar situation. She permitted the Persians to plunder the rest of the Barceans, except the Battiada, and those who were not concerned in the murder. These she suffered to retain their situations and property. CCIII. The rest of the Barceans being reduced to servitude, the Persians returned home. Arriving at Cyrene, the inhabitants of that place granted them a free passage through their territories, from reverence to some oracle. Whilst they were on their passage, Bares, commander of the fleet, solicited them to plunder Cyrene; which was opposed by Amasis, leader of the infantry, who urged that their orders were only against Barce. When, passing Cyrene, they had arrived at the hill of the Lycean Jupiter,' they expressed regret at not having plundered it. They accordingly returned, and the treachery of some of its citizens; but in no manner resembling this here described by Herodotus.-T. 1 Lycean Jupiter.]-Lycaon erected a temple to Jupiter in Parrhasia, and instituted games in his honour, which the Lyceans called Avzala. No one was permit endeavoured a second time to enter the place, but the Cyreneans would not suffer them. Although no one attempted to attack them, the Persians were seized with such a panic, that, returning in haste, they encamped at the distance of about sixty stadia from the city. Whilst they remained here, a messenger came from Aryandes, ordering them to return. Upon this, the Persians made application to the Cyreneans for a supply of provisions; which being granted, they returned to Egypt. In their march they were incessantly harassed by the Libyans for the sake of their clothes and utensils. In their progress to Egypt, whoever was surprised or left behind was instantly put to death. CCIV. The farthest progress of this Persian army was to the country of the Euesperida. Their Barcean captives they carried with them from Egypt to king Darius, who assigned them for their residence a portion of land in the Bactrian district, to which they gave the name of Barce; this has within my time contained a great number of inhabitants. CCV. The life, however, of Pheretime had by no means a fortunate termination. Having gratified her revenge upon the Barceans, she returned from Libya to Egypt, and there perished miserably. Whilst alive, her body was the victim of worms; thus it is that the gods punish those who have provoked their indignation; and such also was the vengeance which Pheretime, the wife of Battus, exercised upon the Barceans. ted to enter this temple; he who did was stoned.Larcher. of Herodotus upon it, cannot fail to bring to the mind of the reader the miserable end of Herod, surnamed the Great. 2 Victim of worms.]-This passage, with the reasoning upon a set day Herod arrayed in royal apparel sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost."-See Lardner's observations upon the above historical incident.-T. "And he went down to Cæsarea, and there abode : and BOOK V. TERPSICHORE. I. THE Persians who had been left in the purport of the oracle: "Now," they exEurope by Darius, under the conduct of Mega- claimed, "the oracle will be fulfilled; this is byzus, commenced their hostilities on the the time for us." They attacked, therefore, Hellespont with the conquest of the Perinthii,' the Perinthians, whilst engaged in their imagiwho had refused to acknowledge the authority nary triumph, and obtained so signal a victory of Darius, and had formerly been vanquished that few of their adversaries escaped. by the Pæonians. This latter people, inhabit- II. Such was the overthrow which the Peing the banks of the Strymon, had been in-rinthians received, in their conflict with the duced by an oracle to make war on the Perinthians: if the Perinthians on their meeting offered them battle, provoking them by name, they were to accept the challenge: if otherwise, they were to decline all contest. It happened accordingly, that the Perinthians marched into the country of the Pæonians, and encamping before their town, sent them three specific challenges, a man to encounter with a man, a horse with a horse, a dog with a dog. The Perinthians having the advantage in the two former contests, sung with exultation a song of triumph; this the Pæonians conceived to be 1 Perinthii.]—Perinthus was first called Mygdonia, afterwards Heraclea, and then Perinthus.-T. 2 Pæonians.]—As the ancients materially differed in opinion concerning the geographical situation of this people, it is not to be expected that I should speak decisively on the subject. Herodotus here places them near the river Strymon; Dio, near mount Rhodope; and Ptolemy, where the river Haliacmon rises. Paonia was one of the names of Minerva, given her from her supposed skill in the art of medicine.-T. 3 Song of triumph.]-Larcher renders this passage "Sung the pæon," and subjoins this note: "Of this song there were two kinds, one was chaunted before the battle, in honour of Mars; the other after the victory, in honour of Apollo; this song commenced with the words "Io Paan." The allusion of the word Paon to the name of the Pæonians, is obvious, to preserve which I have rendered it "sung the pæon."-The usage and application of the word Pean, amongst the ancients, was various and equivocal: the composition of Pindar, in praise of all the gods, was called Pean; and Pæan was also one of the names of Apollo. To which it may be added, that Paan, being originally a hymn to Pæonians: on the present occasion they fought valiantly in defence of their liberties, against Megabyzus, but were overpowered by the superior numbers of the Persians. After the capture of Perinthus, Megabyzus overran Thrace with his forces, and reduced all its cities and inhabitants under the power of the king: the conquest of Thrace had been particularly enjoined him by Darius. 4 III. Next to India, Thrace is of all nations the most considerable; if the inhabitants were either under the government of an individual, or united amongst themselves, their strength would in my opinion render them invincible; but this is a thing impossible, and they are of course but feeble. Each different district has a different appellation; but except the Getæ, the Trausi,5 and those beyond Crestona, they are marked by a general similitude of manners. IV. Of the Getæ, who pretend to be immortal, I have before spoken. The Trausi have a general uniformity with the rest of the Thracians, except in what relates to the birth of their children, and the burial of their dead. On the birth of a child, he is placed in the midst of a circle of his relations, who lament Apollo, from his name Pæan, became afterwards extended in its use to such addresses to other gods." 4 Most considerable.]—Thucydides ranks them after the Scythians, and Pausanias after the Celta.-Larcher. 5 Trausi.]-These were the people whom the Greeks called Agathyrsi. aloud the evils which, as a human being, he | buried: his other wives esteem this an afflicmust necessarily undergo, all of which they tion, and it is imputed to them as a great disparticularly enumerate;1 but whenever any one grace. dies, the body is committed to the ground with clamorous joy, for the deceased, they say, delivered from his miseries, is then supremely happy. V. Those beyond the Crestonians have these observances :-Each person has several wives; if the husband dies, a great contest commences amongst his wives, in which the friends of the deceased interest themselves exceedingly, to determine which of them had been most beloved. She to whom this honour is ascribed is gaudily decked out by her friends, and then sacrificed by her nearest relation on the tomb of her husband, with whom she is afterwards 1 Particularly enumerate. A similar sentiment is quoted by Larcher, from a fragment of Euripides, of which the following is the version of Cicero : Nam nos decebat cœtum celebrantes domus Humanæ vitæ varia reputantes mala. At qui labores morte finisset graves, Hunc omni amicos laude et lætitia exsequi. VI. The other Thracians have a custom of selling their children, to be carried out of their country. To their young women they pay no regard, suffering them to connect themselves indiscriminately with men; but they keep a strict guard over their wives, and purchase them of their parents at an immense price. To have punctures on their skin is with them a mark of nobility, to be without these is a testimony of a mean descent: the most honourable life with them is a life of indolence; the most contempTheir supreme tible that of a husbandman. delight is in war and plunder.-Such are their more remarkable distinctions. VII. The gods whom they worship are Mars, Bacchus, and Diana: besides these popular gods, and in preference to them, their princes worship Mercury. They swear by him alone, and call themselves his descendants. VIII. The funerals of their chief men are of this kind: for three days the deceased is publicly See also on this subject Gray's fine Ode on a distant exposed; then having sacrificed animals of Prospect of Eton College : Alas! regardless of their doom, The little victims play; No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond to-day. Yet see how all around 'em wait The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah! show them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey, the murth'rous band; These shall the fury passions tear? &c.-T. 2 Tomb of her husband.]-This custom was also observed by the Geta: at this day, in India, women burn themselves with the bodies of their husbands, which usage must have been continued there from remote antiquity. Propertius mentious it : Et certamen habent leti quæ viva sequatur Cicero mentions also the same fact. Larcher quotes the passage from the Tusculan Questions, of which the following is a translation. "The women in India, when their husband dies, eagerly contend to have it determined which of them he loved best, for each man has several wives. She who conquers, deems herself happy, is accompanied by her friends to the funeral pile, where her body is burned with that of her husband; they who are vanquished depart in sorrow."-The civil code of the Indians, requiring this strange sacrifice, is to this effect: "It is proper for a woman, after her husband's death, to burn herself in the fire with his corpse, unless she be with child, or that her husband be absent, or that she cannot get his turban or his girdle, or unless she devote herself to chastity and celibacy: every woman who thus burns herself shall, according to the decrees of destiny, remain with her husband in paradise for ever."-" This practice," says Raynal, "so evidently contrary to rea son, has been chiefly derived from the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and of a future life: the hope of being served in the other world by the same persons who obeyed us in this, has been the cause of the slave being sacrificed on the tomb of his master, and the wife on the corpse of her husband; but that the Indians, who firmly believed in the transmigration of souls, should give way to this prejudice, is one of those numberless inconsistencies which in all parts of the world degrade the human mind."-See Raynal, vol. i. 91. The remark, in the main, is just; but the author, I fear, meant to insinuate that practices contrary to reason naturally proceed from the doctrines he mentions; a suggestion which, though very worthy of the class of writers to which he belongs, has not reason enough in it to deserve a serious reply.-T. 3 Punctures on their skin.]-If Plutarch may be credited, the Thracians in his time made these punctures on their wives, to revenge the death of Orpheus, whom they had murdered. Phanocles agrees with this opinion, in his poem upon Orpheus, of which a fragment has been preserved by Stobæus. If this be the true reason, it is remarkable that what in its origin was a punishment, became afterwards an ornament, and a mark of nobility.Larcher. Of such great antiquity does the custom of tattaowing appear to have been, with descriptions of which, the modern voyages to the South Sea abound.-T. 4 Bacchus.]-That Bacchus was worshipped in Thrace, is attested by many authors, and particularly by Euripides: in the Rhesus, attributed to that poet, that prince, after being slain by Ulysses, was transported to the caverns of Thrace by the muse who bore him, and becoming a divinity, he there declared the oracles of Bac chus. In the Hecuba of the same author, Bacchus is called the deity of Thrace. Some placed the oracle of Bacchus near mount Pangea, others near mount Hæmus. Larcher. |