a very remote Country and if we believe what Strabo says they are in Spain And Proteus King and Prophet of Aegypt foretold to Menelaus that the Gods will send you to the Elysian Fields where is Rhadamanihus and where Men livevery pleasantly there falls neither Snow nor Rain and there is no Winter but Zephirs cool Men with their sweet breath Strabo applies this description to Spain and affirms that the Fortnnate Islands are so called because they are in the Neighbourhood of Spain Diodorus Siculus has made a description of them which is yet extant Horace speaks of these Islands famous for their Riches Ereptum Stygiis fluctibus Aeacum Virtus favor lingua potentiam Vatum divitibus consecrat insulis Hesiod placed the Heroes in the Isle of the Blessed which lies in the Ocean therefore the ancient Geographers have placed an Elysian Field and a River Lethe there The Phaenicians found abundance of Riches in Spain and that it was a very pleasant Country wherefore they called it a Paradice But after the Fortunate Islands were discovered and the Treasures of Spain were almost wasted there they placed the Elysian Fields and called those Islands the Isles of the Blessed Plato gave that name to the Paradice or Dwelling-place of Just Men. Hesychius discovers some other places that were accounted the abode of Felicity Elysium Beatorum Insula Some Authors say that this place is in Egypt others in the Isle of Lesbos and many others in a place stricken with a Thunderbolt and inaccessible to Men. Dionysius who has made the description of the World mentions the white Island in the black Sea called also the Isle of the Heroes where Achilles and the other Heroes dwell since their death by the favour of Jupiter who rewards Virtue Italy had also her Elysian Fields as Virgil relates in the 6th Book of the Aeneid where he places the Elysian Fields in Italy and says that Aeneas went to see them and there met Anchisos his Father Plutarch places the Elysian Fields in the Moon And when Hesychius said that some Writers thought the Elysian Fields were in a place inaccessible to Men because of the Thunderbolts and stormy weather it seems that he makes allusion to the Terrestrial Paradice mentioned in the Holy Scripture from whence Adam was driven away after his Sin and the entry whereof was guarded by a Cherubim armed with a Flaming Sword Pindarus makes a very fine description of the Paradice and Happiness of just Men But he seems to allow two Paradices for just Men and the most excellent of these Paradices is granted to them after they have kept their Innocency during three several Lives and in three several Bodies Statius is also for two Paradices one in Heaven and the other in the Elysian Fields upon the Earth Lucian has left us a very pleasant description of the Elysian Fields which may be deservedly inserted here We were conducted to the City of the Isle of the Blessed to assist at their Feasts we were ravished at our entrance to see a City of Gold and Walls of Emerald the Pavement all in-laid work of Ebony and Ivory The Temples of Rubies and Diamonds with great Altars raised upon one single precious Stone on which Hecatombs were seen to smoak They have seven Gates all of Cinnamon and a Moat of sweet scented Lustral Water a hundred yards broad which was only as deep as was necessary to bath in at ones ease Yet they have publick Baths of admirable Artifice wherein they burn nothing but Faggots of Cinnamon The Edifice was of Crystal and the Basins or Bathing Tubs great Vessels of Porcelain full of Dew Now the Blessed have no Body and are inpalpable yet they drink and eat and perform the other natural functions they never grow old but remain continually at the Age they dye in being that old Men there recover their Beauty and Vigour Of all the Seasons they know none but the Spring and feel no oother Wind but Zephirus but the Earth is covered with Flowers and Fruits all the Year long which are gathered every month and they are said to bear twice in the Month called Minos Their Ears instead of Corn are loaded with little Loaves like Mushrooms There are three hundred sixty five Fountains of fresh Water and as many of Honey and four hundred of sweet Oyntment but smaller than the others with several Rivers of Milk and Wine They keep their Feasts without the City in the Elysian Fields under the shade of a Wood which surrounded it there they sat upon Beds of Flowers and have their Meat brought by the Winds They are at no pains to make Garlands for the little Birds which hop round singing scatter Flowers upon them which they have pillaged in the neighbouring Meadows they never cease singing during the Meal and rehearsing curious fine Verses Their Dances are compos'd of Boys and Virgins and their Musick-Masters are Eunomus Arion Anaereon and Stesichorus When they have finished their Songs appears a second Quire of Musicians composed of Swans and Nightingales which with the Zephirs make up a most pleasant Consort But what furnishes most to the felicity of the Blessed is that there are two Springs the one of Laughter and the other of Joy of which each Man drinks a whetting Brusher before he sets down to Table which renders him gay and chearful all the rest of the day ELPENOR One of Vlysses's Companions whom Circe turned into a Hog and being restored to his former shape fell down along a Stair-case and killed himself ELYSIJ CAMPI See before after Elisa EMPEDOCLES A Philosopher and a Poet of Agrigentum who wrote Verses concerning natural things He taught that nothing living ought to be eaten and that the seat of the Soul was not the Head nor the Heart but the Blood and because he wore brass Slippers Lucian calls him in jest Mr Slipperman He cast himself into the mouth of the burning Mountain Aetna Diogenes Laertius ascribes his Death to pride and presumption that the People finding him no where might conceive he was taken up into Heaven other Writers ascribe it to Melancholy and some others to a meer Accident Lucian in his Icaromenippus introduces Menippus speaking thus to Empedocles Being at a great loss upon this account says he Empedocles appear'd to me black like a Collier as if he had been just then disembogued out of Mount Aetna I retired at first thinking it was a Fantome or some Daemon of the Lunar-Globe but he re-incouraged me by telling me his Name and informed me how the smoak which came out of that burning Mountain had carried him up thither where he now dwelt and skipt up and down feeding upon Dew ........... This having said he vanished out of my sight after I had promised to make him at my return effusions upon the tunnel of my Chimney and to invoke him three times at the New-Moon for which he thanked me and answered like a true Philosopher that he
invicto comiti which signifies that they had vanquish'd and subdu'd many Provinces by the Assistance of Apollo or the Sun Lucian in his Dea Syria informs us that there si a Temple in that Country where the Statue of Apollo has a Beard and appears to be of perfect Age and not like a young Man as he is usually represented because say they this is an Imperfection His statue there has also this peculiar to it that it is clothed whereas all the other Statues of this God are not In this Temple Apollo delivers his Oracles himself whereas in other places it is done by his Priests When he has a mind to fore-tell any thing he shakes himself then the Priests take him up upon their Shoulders and if they do not he moves of himself and sweats When they hold him he leads them whither he will and guides them as a Coachman does his Horses turning here and there and going from one place to another As soon as the High-Priest asks him what he has a mind to know if the thing displeases him he goes backward if not he goes forward Thus they divine what his Will is and they do nothing either in publick or private until they have first consulted him and he foretells the Change of Times and Seasons and even Death it self Among Animals the Wolf the Raven the Crow the Cigale the Cicada of the Antients a flying Insect like a Grashopper the Cock and the Spar-Hawk as also the Laurel and Olive-Tree among Trees were consecrated to him by the Antients Apollo was esteem'd a God different from the Sun for the latter was suppos'd to be the Son of Hyperion one of the Titans from whence he was call'd Hyperione natus and Titania proles whereas Apollo was the Son of Jupiter and Latona nevertheless they are frequently confounded Vossius thinks that the Jubal mentioned in Holy Scripture was Apollo to whom the Pagans attributed the Invention and Honour of Vocal and Instrumental Musick Bochart has observed that the Isle of Delos where Apollo was born takes its name from Dahal i. e. Terror Deus that the name of Mount Cynthus where Latona was brought to bed is deriv'd from Chanat i. e. in lucem edere This Fable then of Apollo comes originally from the East and Apollo is an Egyptian God according to Pausanias who relates that a Senator call'd Antoninus built at Epidaurus a Temple to Apollo and Aesculapius Egyptian Gods for of the four Apollo's mentioned by Cicero the three latter were certainly of Greek original but the most antient was he of Egypt Lactantius proves that Apollo was no more than a mere Man and that he was like other Men not only in his Birth but in his Crimes which tho the Fable did not invent yet could not conceal Vossius further tells us That the Fable of the Raven sent by Apollo is plainly copied from the History of the Raven sent by Noah for as the Raven sent to discover whether the Waters of the Deluge were gone off from the Face of the Earth did not return again into the Ark so the Poets feign'd that Apollo having sent a Raven to fetch Water this lazy and unfaithful Bird rested on a Fig-tree and waited till the Figs were ripe to eat them as Ovid tells us Bochart remarks with great probability that the Fable of the Serpent Python kill'd by Apollo took its original from Phoenicia because the Name of Python or Pethon in the Hebrew Tongue signifies a Serpent and from thence Apollo was call'd Pythian APOLLONIUS TYANAEUS a Philosopher and Magician who was for some time one of the Friends of the Emperour Domitian but this Happiness lasted not long for being accused of having foretold his Accession to the Empire and sacrificing an Infant upon this occasion he was first ignominiously shav'd and then sentenc'd to die but when the Sentence was just ready to be put in execution he made himself invisible and vanish'd out of their sight who were present by the Help of a Demon who transported him to Pouzol The Church of Christ never had a greater Enemy than this Magician for by the seeming Innocence of his Life and his deceitful Tricks which were accounted true Miracles he gave occasion to Hierocles a Philosopher to compose a Book wherein he compares him with mischievous artifice to JESUS CHRIST After he had a long time deceiv'd the World by his Prodigies he died all alone having no body with him to bear witness of his Death not so much as Damis his dear Disciple and the Companion of all his Impostures No doubt he had a mind to make People believe that his Body which never appear'd any more upon Earth was carried up into Heaven and that in this also he resembled JESUS CHRIST whom he pretended to imitate in his Life-time Philostratus has given a large account of it but it is rather a well-contriv'd Fable than a true History As he was one day haranguing the People of Ephesus he stopt all on a sudden and going back two or three paces while he look'd down upon the ground with frightful Eyes he cry'd out Smite the Tyrant smite the Tyrant meaning Domitian his Auditors were mightily astonisht at this Discourse and all of them expected he should explain himself which he did immediately by telling them That in that very Hour Domitian was killed the News of his Death came quickly after and the Curious finding that his Words did so exactly agree with the Action which happen'd at so great a distance from him this wonderfully increas'd his Reputation to the Prejudice of the Christian Religion The Emperour Caracalla and the Ephesians erected a Statue to him under the Name of Hercules 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or He that drives away Evils and the Emperour Severus had his Image together with that of JESUS CHRIST in his Oratory APOPHRAS a Greek word us'd among the Athenians to signifie an Unhappy Day on which nothing was to be undertaken or for some great Defeat which happen'd on that day or for any other publick Calamity APOTHEOSIS the Consecration or Deification of Great Men after their Death The Greeks and Romans plac'd the Inventors of Liberal and Mechanical Arts amongst the Gods so they did Ceres Bacchus and Vulcan they deified also the Founders of Cities great Generals and in process of time their Kings and Emperours This we learn from Horace lib. 2. Ep. 1. where he writes thus to Caesar Augustus Cùm tot sustineas ac tanta negotia solus Res Italas armis tuteris moribus ornes ........... Praesenti tibi maturos largimur honores Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras The Description which Ovid gives of the Apotheosis of Hercules made by Jupiter himself cannot be read without Admiration and every one must apply it to the Brightness of a pure Soul when it goes out of the Filthiness of Body and Matter that then being purified from all the Stains of this Mortal Life it enters upon a
Place where Prometkeus had been chained and where an Eagle tore his Heart till Hercules having shot the Eagle with his Arrows came and delivered him This was a Story invented by Alexander's Flatterers to transport Caucasus from Pontus to the Eastern Countries that so they might say Alexander had past over Caucasus It may be said that the Fable of Prometheus was transferred from Egypt into Pontus to Mount Caucasus where they also feigned that a River called the Eagle over-flowing the Country Prometheus was put in Chains by his Subjects and at length set at Liberty by Hercules As they will have Prometheus to have been the Person who brought the Worship of the 12 Gods into Greece it 's more probable he was an Egyptian by Descent and that the History or Fable appertaining to him was successively carried into Scythia Pontus and Greece Fulgentius Placiades who wrote Three Books of Mythology at the Time that the Vandals conquered and ravaged Africa says that Prometheus that is Providence formed the Body of a Man of Earth that going up to Heaven with Minerva which is Wisdom he from thence brought Fire to the Earth i. e. the Souls of Men. Prometheus makes a Man and a Vulture rend his Heart because his Mind and Heart were continually engaged in the Contemplation and Love of Wisdom Lastly Prometheus formed Pandora which is the Soul and bears the said Name because of her being enriched with all the Gifts of Heaven Thus it is that Bishop explains the Fable of Prometheus but it is too remote from the History In the Protagoras of Plato we have it related that Prometheus having imploy'd all the Properties of Nature in the Formation of Animals and having nothing more to make but Man he took Knowledge from Minerva Fire from Vulcan and Mercury supplied him with Modesty and Justice Simonides says After God had made Animals and created Man and had nothing more to bestow upon Women he borrowed the Qualities of each Animal for them On some he conferred the Nature of a Swine on others that of the Fox To one he gave the Stupidity of an Ass to another the Inclination of a Martern or a Mare Others he made like unto Monkeys and on those whom he was minded to favour he bestowed the Nature of Bees PRO-PRAETOR a Roman Magistrate who had all the Power of a Praetor conferred upon him and all the Ensigns of Honour belonging to the said Office See Praetor PROSCENIUM was a raised Place on which the Actors play'd like that which we call the Theater or Stage This Proscenium consisted of Two Parts in the Theaters of the Greeks one was the Proscenium particularly so called where the Actors play'd The other was the Logeion where the Singers came to rehearse and the Mimicks acted their Parts The Proscenium and Pulpitum were the same thing in the Theater of the Romans PROSERPINA was sometimes confounded with Diana Diodorus Siculus relates the Story of her being stole away by Pluto as a Thing attested not only by the Poets but also by Historians He alledges it was in Sicily and near the City of Enna that Proserpina was carried away and that Ceres going to search for her lighted her Torches by the Fire of Mount Etna Sachuniathon in the Theology of the Phoenicians informs us that Proserpina was much earlier known in Phoenicia than in Greece or Sicily he makes her to be Saturn's Daughter and says she died a Virgin and very young From hence it 's probable did arise the Fiction of the Greeks that she was stole by Pluto Saturnus liberos procreavit Proserpinam Minervam ac prior quidem virgo diem obiit The History of Proserpina passed from Phoenicia into Greece near 200 Years after Moses his Death if we believe St. Cyril Arch-bishop of Alexandria who says that Aedoneus or Orcus King of the Molossians stole her Centesimo nonagesimo quinto anno post Mosen ferunt fuisse Proserpinam virginem raptam ab Aedoneo id est Orco Rege Molossorum Eusebius also says as much in his Chronicle And so the Fable or History of Proserpina like all the rest of the Fables came from the East to the West from Phoenicia to Greece and from Greece into Sicily Appian of Alexandria speaking of the River Strymon and of those fine Countries in Macedon and Thrace that were watered by it says it was from thence Proserpina was stole as she was gathering Flowers Vbi raptam dicunt Proserpinam dum flores legeret Macrobius says the Ancients called the upper Hemisphear of the Earth by the Name of Venus and the lower Hemisphere by that of Proserpina As they are no more than different Appellations 't is not necessary we should take the Trouble to find out the exact Rules of Genealogy herein Rhea was the Mother of Ceres and Ceres the Mother of Proserpina and yet all the Three are no other than the Earth So the Grandmother Mother and Daughter are nothing but the same Earth The Truths are real and natural the Genealogies are Poetical and Figurative Some consider the Earth in a different manner and will have Rhea to be the whole Globe of the Earth that Ceres is no more than the Surface which is sown and mown and Proserpina no other than the Hemisphere of our Antipodes 'T is the Opinion of Vossius But that Proserpina is the same as the Earth we learn from the very Name thereof for it comes from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of Persephone they made Proserpina Hesychius says that Persephone comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ferre utilitatem fructum Vossius very ingeniously deduces this Word from the Hebrew Peri that signifies Fructus and saphan tegere because the Earth covers the Seeds sown in it But as Proserpina is taken for the lower Part of the Earth which is buried in Darkness hence it is that they take her also for Hell and the Queen of Hell as Horace does Quam penè furvae Regna Proserpinae Et judicantem vidimus Aeacum L. 2. Od. 13. 'T is upon the same Account that Plutarch also takes her for the Earth and Cicero says that the Name of Pluto i. e. Riches was given her by the Greeks because the Earth is the Treasury of all the Riches of Nature all comes from and returns into it The Romans imitated the Grecians by giving the Name of Dis which signifies Rich to Pluto They offered Dogs and black and barren Victimes in Sacrifice to Proserpina PROTEUS a Sea-God the Son of Oceanus and Tethys who looked after Neptune's Flocks He was an excellent Prophet and those who had a mind to consult him about Future Events must surprize and bind him for he had the Artifice to assume divers Shapes in order to avoid giving an Answer to such as came to consult him Lucian pretends that Proteus was no other than an excellent Dancer who made 1000 different Postures and whose active Body and quick Intellects knew how to counterfeit and
because the Air by its nature is not liable to corruption and it possesses the highest place of the World from whence arose the Fable that Minerva came out of Jupiter ' s Brain and she is said to be begotten thrice because the Air changes three times in a year viz. at Spring Summer and Winter her Eyes were said to be blue because the Air appears to be of that colour The Greeks and Romans did most readily call the Air by the Names of Jupiter and Juno and thus they distinguish'd two Vertues in the Air the one Active and Masculine the other Passive and Feminine as we learn from Seneca in his Natural Questions Aera marem judicant qud ventus est feminam quâ nebulosus iners Yet it must be confess'd that Juno was most commonly taken for the Air and so the Greek Name of Juno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is said to be nothing else but a transposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After this manner Cicero explains the Fable of Juno Aer ut Stoici disputant interjectus inter mare caelum Junonis nomine consecratur quae est soror conjux Jovis quod ei similitudo est aetheris cum eo summa conjunctio From whence we may see the reason of the Affinity and Marriage between Jupiter and Juno i. e. between the Heaven and the Air and also plainly understand that other Fable of Homer That Jupiter hang'd Juno in a Chain having Two-Anvils which were fasten'd to his Feet which signifies nothing but the dependance that the Air has upon the Heaven and which the Sea and Land have upon the Air. AES See after Aesculapius AESCULANUS the Aesculan God who was the God of Riches according to S. Austin in the City of God because Brass in former times was us'd for Money AESCULAPIUS the God of Physick whom Sanchoniathon makes the Son of Jupiter and Brother of Mercury and Clemens Alexandrinus affirms to have reign'd at Memphis Lactantius in his short History of the Greek Aesculapius affirms that he was born at Messina of uncertain Parents and nurs'd at Epidaurus by a Bitch and educated by Chiro of whom he learned Medicine Pausanius upon the Picture of the Phlegyans relates that a Shepherd having found the Infant Aesculapius when he was just born nurs'd him by a Goat of his Flock and guarded him by his Dog Festus contradicts him and says that Aesculapius was nurs'd by a Bitch and that in Memory thereof Dogs were kept in the Temple of Aesculapius Homer and Ovid following him say Apollo was his Father and Coronis the Daughter of King Phlegyas his Mother who when she was big with Child with this Aesculapius of whom Apollo was Father prostituted herself to a Fellow call'd Ilchys the Son of Elatus But Diana Apollo's Sister resenting the Affront put upon her Brother kill'd Ceronis with an Arrow she shot at her and as she was ready to be laid upon the Funeral-Pile Mercury came and took the Child out of her Womb who was call'd Aesculapius from the Egyptian word Esch which signifies a Goat and Cheleph which signifies a Dog because he was nurs'd by a Goat and guarded by a Dog Pindar in his Third Ode of his Pythiae says That Apollo himself took the Child out of its Mothers Womb. There are some Authors would have him to be the Son of Arsinoe the Daughter of Leucippa the Messinian But that was contradicted by the Oracle of Delphos which Apollophanes of Arcadia consulted for that Oracle answer'd him That Aesculapius was born at Epidaurus of the Nymph Coronis the Daughter of Phlegyas Indeed the Epidaurians were the first who appointed a Festival to be kept in Honour of him wherein they were follow'd by the Athenians who call'd these Festivals Epidaureanae and plac'd Aesculapius among the number of their Gods as did likewise the Inhabitants of Pergamus and Smyrna who built him a Temple by the Sea-side He had also a Temple at Cyrene under the Name of the Physician by way of Excellency and the same Worship was paid and the same Sacrifices offer'd to him there as at Epidaurus except that Goats were offer'd to him only in the Temple at Cyrene The Statue of this God which was plac'd in the Temple of Epidaurus was of Gold and Ivory made by Thrasymedes the Son of Arignotus of the Isle of Paros it was seated upon a Throne of the same matter holding in one hand a knotted Battoon and the other leaning on the Head of a Serpent with a Dog at his feet There were many Pictures to be seen in that Temple on the Walls and Pillars of it wherein divers Diseases that had been cur'd were represented and the Medicines that had been us'd for that end Sanchoniathon asserts that the first who was nam'd Aesculapius was an Egyptian and he ranks him among the Gods call'd Cabires or The potent Gods together with Mercury and therefore Pliny had reason to say That the Egyptians boasted themselves to be the first Inventors of Physick There is no doubt but there were many of that Name and that the most antient was he who was the Egyptian whence it came to pass that Antoninus the Senator built a Temple at Epidaurus to Health Apollo and Aesculapius Surnam'd Egyptian But Aesculapius of Epidaurus was the most famous in all Greece Cicero reckons up Three Aesculapius's in Greece the First was the Son of Apollo worship'd by the Arcadians who first found out the Ligatures and Bandages of Wounds the Second was the Brother of the second Mercury who was kill'd by Thunder and interr'd at Cynosura the Third was the Son of Arsippus and Arsinoe who taught first how to purge and draw Teeth whose Sepulchre is to be seen with a little Grove which was consecrated to him in Arcadia Aesculapiorum primus Apollinis quem Arcades colunt qui specillum invenisse primusque vulnus obligavisse dicitur Secundus secundi Mercurii frater is fuâ—â—ine percussus dicitur humatus esse Cynosuris Tertius Arsippi Arsinoae qui primus purgationem alvi dentisque evulsionem ut ferunt invenit cujus in Arcadia sepulchrum lucus ostenditur By which we may plainly observe that when once the Name of Aesculapius was brought from Egypt into Greece it was given to many others who invented any new way of Dressing Wounds or Curing Diseases The most antient Aesculapius amongst the Greeks was not born till a thousand Years after him of the Egyptians S. Clemens Alexandrinus reckons his Apotheosis as well as Hercules's to be Fifty Three Years after the taking of Troy which agrees very well with Homer who speaks of Machaon the Son of Aesculapius among those who were at the Siege of Troy And to him Diodorus Siculus refers what Cicero said That he was Thunder-struck This Historian to set forth the admirable Knowledg of this excellent Physician relates as History what probably is nothing but an ingenious Fable viz. That he rais'd Hippolytus from the dead by his Medicines Pluto
who were drawn up in their several Squadrons round about the Tribunal and having their Captains at the Head of them If the General 's Speech pleased them they shew'd their Approbations by lifting up their Right-hands and clashing their Bucklers one against another but if they dislik'd it a humming Murmur ran thro their Ranks or else they discover'd by a sullen Silence that they were not pleased If the Enemy push'd on the Battel the General thought it sufficient to go through the Ranks to encourage the Soldiers calling them every one by their Names putting them in mind of their Courage and the Victories they had gain'd and promising them the Plunder or some other Largess if they obtain'd the Victory ALOIDES two Giants the Sons of Aloeus who in their infancy attempted to pull up Mount Ossa by the roots and to set it upon Olympus and Pelion upon that that they might make use of them as a Ladder to climb up into Heaven and make War with Jupiter but these young and rash Fools were punish'd for their Madness and shot to death by the Arrows of Apollo and his Sister Diana Virgil brings in Aeneas relating that he saw these two Giants in Hell Hic Aloidat geminos immantia vid◠Corpora qui manibus magnum rescindere coelum Aggressi Virg. Aeneid lib. 6. v. 582. Homer assures us That they formerly bound the God Mars and shut him up in Prison for thirteen Mouths from whence he could not be releas'd but by the mediation of Mercury ALPHABETUM an Alphabet the orderly Disposition of the Letters of any Language This Word comes from the initial Letters of the Greek Tongue Alpha Beta ALPHEUS a River of Areadia Pausanias in his Eliaca tells us That Alpheus was an antient Hunter who lov'd Arethusa and also delighted much in Hunting He sought her in Marriage but she deny'd him and flying into an Isle near Syracuse she was turn'd into a Fountain and Alpheus into a River which as thrd an amorous Impatience forces its course through the Sea and mixes its Waters with Arethuss Lucian in a Dialogue between Neptune and Alpheus introduces them speaking thus Nept. Whence comes it that such a fine River as you pass through the Sea without mixing with its Water any more than if you were Ice like those Fowls who dive in one place and rise in another Alph. It is an amorous Mystery which you ought not to condemn because you have been in love your self Nept. Who are you in love with is it with a Woman a Nymph or any one of the Nereides Alph. No no it is with a Fountain Nept. With what Fountain pray Alph. With Arethusa Nept. 'T is a fine clear Spring which rolls its Silver Streams through the Stones with an agreeable Murmur Alph. Ah! how well you describe her 't is she that I pursue Nept. Ga and be happy in thy Amour but tell me when hast thou seen her thou being in Arcadia and she in Sicily Alph. You are too curious and press too far for me to answer you Nept. You are in the right of it and I to blame to retard a Lover in the pursuit of his Mistress and when you have met with her join your self so close to her that you two may have but one Bed hereafter Pansanias enlarges this Fable a little more in his Arcadica Alpheus says he parts the Lacedaemonians from the Tageates and bounds them both its Source is from Phylace At some distance from hence he receives the Waters of several small Springs called Symboles or A Concouse of Waters This River has this particular Quality that it loses its Waters under the Earth and they rise again in other places it goes into the River Eurotas and then loses it self and rises again in a place which the Arcadians call The Sources It runs into the Territories of Pisa and Olympia and discharges it self in the Adriatick Gulph from whence it passes without mixing its Waters with the Sea and rises in Ortygia in the Fountain of Arethusa with which it mixes Hercules cut a Canal from this River to cleanse the Stable of Augens which was fill'd with the Dung of three thousand Oxen for thirty years ALTARE an Altar upon which Sacrifices were offer'd to the Gods of Heaven This Word comes from Altus high because according to Servius they sacrificed on them to the Gods on high or in Heaven This is the Difference he makes betwixt these Words Ara and Altare Novimus says he aras Diis esse superis inferis consecratas altaria verò esse superiorum tantùm Deorum quae ab altitudine constat esse nominata We find also another Difference of these Words which is this Altare was built in an high place to which they went up by Stais as the great Altars in the Romish Churches whereas Ara is a low Altar like their little ones ALTHAEA the Wife of Aeneas King of Calydonia She reveng'd the Death of her Brethren by the Death of her own Son Meleager burning the Log of Wood which was to prolong his Life as long as it lasted and was not consum'd by Fire AMALTHAEA a Sybil surnamed Cumaea famous in Antiquity for her Prophesies and Predictions of the coming of the Messias who was to be born of a Virgin We learn of Servius that she wrote nine Books of Prophesies foretelling what should befal the Empire of Rome addressing her self to Tarquinius Priscus she presented them to him demanding three thousand Crowns in Gold of Philippick Money but the King rejected her Present whereupon she burn'd three of them in the presence of that Prince Returning within a few days she demanded the same Price for the remaining six and being again deny'd she burn'd three more This astonish'd the King so much that he bought the three which were left at the same Price she had requir'd for all the nine They were kept with great care and certain Persons appointed to look after them These Books contained the Fate of the Empire and were never consulted but in the time of some publick Calamities AMALTHAEA the Daughter of Melissus King of Candia who nurs'd Jupiter with Goats Milk and Honey Some Authors will have it that this Goat was called Amalthaea and that Jupiter in gratitude placed it among the Stars giving to the Nymphs one of her Horns which had this Vertue to furnish them with whatever they desired from whence it was called Cornucopia or the Horn of Plenty 'T was also the Name of Atticus's Country-House in Greece which he called so to intimate that all things abounded there for it is very well known that this Word signifies Plenty Gic. l. 1. ep 2. ad Attic. AMATHUS a City in the Isle of Cyprus consecrated to Venus whose Inhabitants built a stately Temple to her and her Minion Adonis They sacrificed at first Strangers upon her Altars but the Goddess abhorring such cruel Sacrifices chang'd these Inhabitants into Bulls and depriving their Wives of all Modesty because
promising likewise a Reward to him that should restore it Si quis à fugâ retrahere vel occultam demonstrare potuerit regis filiam Veneris ancillam nomine Psychen conveniat retro metas Marcias mercurium praedicatorum They went also to the Prater and ask'd of him some Persons to make search for the thing lost as we learn out of Plautus Ad Praetorem illicò Ibo erabo ut conquisiteres det mihi in vicis omnibus Qui illam ivestigent qui invenieniant AMMONIUS or HAMMONIUS Jupiter Ammon worship'd in Libya under the figure of a Ram of which some say this was the Reason Bacchus having subdu'd Asia and passing with his Army through the Desarts of Africa was in great Want of Water and ready to perish with Thirst but Jupiter his Father assuming the shape of a Ram led him to a Fountain where he refresh'd his Army and in requital of so great a Benefit Bacchus built him a Temple there under the Title of Jupiter 〈◊〉 i. e. Sandy because of the Sands of Africa Others say he was call'd Ammon from a Shepherd of that Name who built an Altas to him there The Latin Interpreter of Arutus who is called Bossus or Germanicus Caesar writes That the Rom which shew'd the Fountain to Bacchus when he conducted his Army thro the Desarts of Libys was plac'd among the Celestial 〈◊〉 and Bacchus erected a magnificent Temple to Jupiter in the place where he found the Fountain about nine days Journey from Alexandria who from the Sand that was there was call'd Jupiter Ammon You may consult upon this Subject Quintus Curtius lib. 4. Diodorus Siculus lib. 17. or Arrian lib. 4. de Expedit Alenand Jupiter was figur'd with a Ram's Head because his Oracles were always very intricate if we may credit Servius But Herodotus gives a better Reason when he tells us that the Ammonians borrow'd this Worship of the Egyptians of the City of Thebes where Jupiter had a Ram's Head Strabe relates with some appearance of Reason that the Place where Jupiter Ammon's Temple stood was formerly near the Sea and that the great Concourse of People which came to consult this Oracle is an evident Proof of it for a place so far distant from the Sea and standing in such vast Desarts of Sand could never be so frequented He speaks elsewhere of the Travels of Hercules Perseus and Alexander to consult this Oracle This Relation supposes always that Jupiter Ammon was King of Aegypt whose Worship after his Apotheosis or Deification in Egypt pass'd into the distant Provinces Diodorus Siculus describing a Tradition of the Libyans gives us a Relation that proves the thing viz. That Jupiter Ammon was a great King of whom was made a fabulous God and a fictitious Oracle after his death This Historian cites another more ancient Writer who says That Ammon reign'd in Libya and marryed Rhea the Daughter of Caelus and Sister of Saturn and the other Titans that Rhea divorcing herself from Ammon marryed Saturn and put him upon making War with Ammon in which he was victorious and forced Ammon to save himself by Sea and fly into Crete where he made himself King Arrian says That Perseus and Hercules accounted themselves the Posterity of Jupiter and that Alexander being envious of their Glory call'd himself also the Son of Ammon who was the Jupiter of Libya AMOR Love according to Plato is a God more beautiful antient and better than all the fabulous Deities of Antiquity Simmides makes him the Son of Mars and Venus the Goddess of Beauty as also doth Lucian in his Dialogues Acasilaus will have him the Son of the Air and Night Sapho of the God Calus and Venus Hesiad in his Theogonia says that he was born of Chaos and the Earth and that before the Creation of the World he was in the Divine Essence because it lov'd its Creatures from all Eternity before they were created He hath also diffused the same Spirit of Love among them all which is nothing else according to Empedocles but that Divine Vertue which inclines the Creatures to desire an Union one with another or to speak more properly a Divine Intelligence which hath imprinted that Spirit in Nature it self From whence arises the Harmony of the Elements and the Copulation of Animals The heavenly Souls and Spirits themselves according to the Platonists descend by the means of Love into the Body For which reason it is that Orpheus will have it that Love has the Keys of Heaven Gates and so he represents him as holding them in his Hands 'T is Love or Cupid says Lucian that conquers all the Gods and Venus herself who is his Mother He can do nothing with Pallas nor the Muses nor dares to attack Diana but he fears not Jupiter or his Thunderbolts He is painted in the form of a beautiful Child with Wings and a Fillet over his Eyes who carries a Quiver upon his Shoulders holding a Bow and Arrows in one hand and in the other a lighted Torch The Wings which are given to Cupid denote his Levity and Inconstancy A Bow and Quiver full of Arrows are attributed to him because he wounds the Hearts of Lovers He is painted blind because nothing is more blind than Love Love is call'd by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the earnest solicitation which Lovers make one to the other They also call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mutual Love which they make a God and affirm him to be the Son of Mars and Venus as Cicero tells us Lib. 3. De Nat. Deor. whom they mystically represent with two Torches lighted joyned and tyed together Pausanias in his Eliaca makes mention of a Statue of Cupid and Anteros who strives to snatch a Palm-Branch which the other holds in his hand And Porphyrius the Philosopher has left us a Fable upon this Subject That Venus perceiving that little Cupid did not thrive and that he fell into a languishing condition went to ask Advice about it of the Goddess Themis who answerd her That he had need of an Anteros or mutual Love to relieve him whereupon a little time after Venus conceived Anteros and he was scarce born but Cupid apparently grew and became more beautiful every day The Athenians says Pausanias erected an Altar to the God Anteros upon the account of a certain Milesian who was much lov'd by Timagoras This last being desirous to give some proofs of his Love cast himself headlong from a Rock and kill'd himself at which the Milesian was so troubled that he also cast himself down after him which made the Athenians worship the Ghost of Timagoras under the Name of Anteros as a Revenger of the too great Rigour of the person lov'd toward the Lover Some also call him Anteros who disengages unhappy Lovers from that Love which cannot find a sutable return Dido seems to allude to this in Aeneid Lib. IV. v. 478. Invent Germana viam gratare sorori Quae mihi reddat cum vel
Feast to her which they call'd Angeronalia because she cur'd their Flocks which were troubled with the Quinsie She is painted with her Mouth cover'd to shew us that Pains and Griefs should be born without impatient Complaints They sacrifi'd to her in the Temple of the Goddess Volnpia where her Statue was set up ANGIBATA a Greek Word that comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and signifies a Transparent Vessel in which little Images seem to move up and down in the Water which are inclos'd in it and seal'd up hermetically This wonderful Effect which makes a kind of Enamell'd Figures to swim in the Water is seen in an Angibata which has lately been found out in which a small Image rises and falls turns about and stands still as you please This is done by straitning and compressing the Water more or less with the Thumb which stops the end of a long Glass Pipe or Tube fill'd with Water The Contrivance is The little enamell'd Image which is hollow and has a Weight so proportion'd to its Largeness that it will swim upon the Water yet so that by the Addition of a small Weight it will rise and sink to the bottom ANGLIA England see Albion ANGUIS a Serpent which was an ill Omen in Marriages as we may see by those Verses of Terence in his Phormio He will say that lately there happen'd to him ill Omens a Serpent fell from the Tiles through a Gutter The God Aesculapius is ordinarily represented under the figure of a Serpent because he came from Epidaurus to Rome in that shape ANGUSTUS CLAVUS a small Button in the shape of the Head of a Nail which the Roman Knights did wear upon their Garments call'd from thence Tunica Angusti Clavi whereas the Senators wore them larger and their Coat was therefore call'd Tunica Lati Clavi From hence it comes that these Words are often in Latin Authors and chiefly in Suetonius taken for the Dignity of Knights and Senators ANIENSIS TRIBUS the Tribe of Anio or the Inhabitants near the River Anio In the Consulship of M. Fulvius and F. Manlius the Censors P. Sempronius Sopho and P. Sulpitius Severa made a Census i. e. took an Account of the number of the People to which they added a new Tribe call'd Aniensis ANIGER or ANIGRUS a River of Thessaly whose Waters were sweet and pleasant but afterwards turn'd bitter and stinking because the Centaurs wash'd their Wounds in it which they had receiv'd from Hercules as the Fable says ANIMA the Soul which animates all living Creatures in general This Word comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Wind or Breath the Latins say Animam efflare to express the yielding up the last Breath or at the last Gasp The Antients were several ways mistaken about the Nature of the Soul Some as Lactantius says believ'd that the Soul was Air. Varro following this Opinion says The Soul is Air receiv'd in at the Mouth purified by the Lungs warmed by the Heart and from thence dispersed through the whole Body Some have form'd to themselves an Idaea of Souls as certain thin Substances like Shadows yet visible performing the same Functions and having the same Organs with the Bodies which they animate since they see speak understand and have need of Boats to carry them over the Rivers of Hell so that according to their Argument they are only more subtil Bodies This Error pass'd among the Primitive Christians notwithstanding the clear Light of the Gospel and so the Antients in their Emblems have represented the Soul by a Butterfly flying from the Body which may be observed from a Basso Relievo of Marble which represents a young Man lying upon a Bed with a Deaths-head at his Feet and a Butter-fly flying over him which signifies his Soul and by its flying away it shews us that the Soul had forsaken the Body to which it was united The Butter-fly seems to have come out of the Mouth of the deceas'd because the Antients thought as the Vulgar still do that the Soul took its flight from the Body at the Mouth which made Homer say in his Iliads lib. 9. That when the Soul has once pass'd the Fence of the Teeth it can never return again They have exprest the Soul by a Butter-fly which perpetuates its Being by changing its shape several times For after this manner the Pythagorcans believe that we change our Genus or Species by the Transmigration of our Souls Moralis tells us of an Epitaph by which it appears that a dead Man order'd his Heirs to make a Butter-fly over his Ashes Haeredibus meis mando etiam cineri ut meo Volitet ebrius Papilio There is yet extant a Representation of a Cupid endeavouring to fix an unsteady Soul by fastening it to a Tree for a punishment of its Inconstancy nailing it to a dry stump and by that means hindring it from entring into the Body it desir'd Nicetas Choniates says That some were of opinion that there are two Natures in the Soul one luminous and the other dark This last has its Original from below and comes through some subterraneous Caverns the other descends from the Height of Heaven all inflamed to adorn the Body but in its Descent it is especially caution'd to take care that while it endeavours to adorn its earthly Habitation by its Light it doth not obscure it self by the others Darkness The Soul is more particularly said to be that which gives Life to Animals and Vegetables The Vegetative Soul is in Plants and Trees the Animal in Beasts and the Rational and Spiritual in Man The Cartesians define the Soul of Man a thinking Substance and by this Quality alone they think they can prove its spiritual and immortal Nature As to the Soul of Beasts they say 't is an Automaton or a Machine that moves of it self and by natural Springs that their Soul is a thin an active Substance which participates of the Nature of Fire and is the Source of the Vegetative Spirits The Immortality of our Soul was not only the Opinion of the Poets but of all Mankind The first Idolatry was either the Worship of the Stars or of Kings which were Deities after their Deaths Now this presupposes that they believed that the Souls of Kings were much of the same Nature with the Intelligences which govern the Stars Thus the Apotheosis or Deification of the deceased was an evident proof of the common belief of the Immortality of Soul The earnest desire of Fame is a secret proof of the inward belief of the Souls Immortality for Men would never have taken so much pains to have eterniz'd their Name and Memory if the Soul had been mortal So Horace tells us That he should not dye entirely but that the greatest part of himself would survive after death Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam And Ovid says the same in these Verses Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra
as much as to say That a Man that has a distemper'd Head or a crackt Brain should go to Anticyra to cure it with Hellebore ANTIGONE the Daughter of OEdipus King of Thebes she serv'd as an Eye to her Father after he had lost his Sight in his Banishment Going to pay her last respects to her Brother Polynices at his Funeral against the express Command of Creon she was condemn'd by him to be starv'd to Death in Prison but she prevented her Death by hanging herself Prince Haemon Creon's Son who was about to marry her slew himself also upon her Body in a Fit of amorous Despair The Poet Sophocles handles this Tragical Subject in his Tragedy of that Name so nobly that the Athenians gave him for his reward the Government of the Isle of Samos There was another Antigone the Daughter of Laomedon whom Juno changed into a Stork because she equall'd her in Beauty ANTILOCHUS the Son of Nestor who accompanied him to the Siege of Troy was slain by Memnon whilst he endeavoured to ward the blow from his Father Nestor Xenophon tells us in the beginning of his Treatise of Hunting That Antilochus having exposed his own Life to save his Fathers deserv'd so well that the Greeks gave him the Name of Philopator a true Lover of his Father Quintus Calaber relates the matter otherwise That Antilochus having seen two of his Father Nestor ' s Captains Erenthus and Pheron stain by Memnon attempted to revenge their Death upon him but having pushed him with his Javelin Memnon run him through with his Lance. Nestor Commanded his other Son Thrasymedes to fetch off the Body of his Brother but Achilles interposing slew Memnon Nevertheless Ovid. tells us That Antilochus was slain by Hestor ANTINOUS of Bithynia the Emperor Adrian's Favourite who was drowned in the Nile in a Voyage from Egypt The Emperor was so sensibly touched with his Loss that to comfort himself he plac'd him in the rank of the immortal Gods causing Temples to be built to him erecting Altars and appointing Priests and Sacrifices He caused several Medals to be stamp'd to perpetuate his Memory and plac'd his Statues in the Colleges We have Three Medals of his upon the Reverse of the First there is the Figure of a Temple with the Emperor Adrian built upon the Nile in Honour of him with these Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adrianus construxit At the bottom of this Temple there is drawn a Crocodile a Creature that abounds in the Nile where Antinous dyed Leonicus in his Historia variâ says That he saw at Venice a Silver Medal of Antinous on which were these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Antinous the Here. On the reverse of this Medal is represented a Sheep with an Inscription quite worn out There is yet a Third Medal of Antinous wherein on one side is the Portraiture of this young Bithynian Lad of extraordinary Beauty with these Greek Letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hostilius Marcellus Sacerdos Antinoi Achaeis dicavit On the reverse is the Horse Pegasus with Mercury having his winged Shooes on and his Caduceus ANTIOPE the Daughter of Nycteus and Wife of Lycus King of Thebes whom Jupiter enjoy'd in the form of a Satyr which was the cause that her Husband divorc'd her and marryed Dirce who imprison'd Antiope but she escaped and fled to Mount Citheron where she brought forth Twins Zethus and Amphion who being grown up reveng'd the Wrong done to their Mother upon Lycus and his Wife Dirce. ANTIUM a Sea-Town built by Ascanius according to Solinus or as Dionysius Halicarnassus will have it by one of the Children of Ulysses and Circe upon a Promontory or the top of a Rock 32 Miles from Oftia it was the Metropolis of Volsci with whom the Romans had War for Two Hundred Years Camillus took it from them and carryed all the Beaks of their Ships away and laid 'em up at Rome in the place of their Comitia or Assemblies called from thence Rostra This City was given to the old Praetorian Soldiers and Nero caused a Port to be built there Antiun says Suetonius coloniam deduxit ascriptis veteranis è praetorio ubi portum operis sumptuosissimi fecit ANTONINUS the adopted Son of Adrian to whom he succeeded He was Surnamed Pius for his excellent Morals and sweet Temper to which a reverse of a Medal alludes which represents Aeneas carrying his Father Anchises upon his Shoulders from Troy This was the Badge of Piety and Love towards Parents among the Antients Antoninus had a long Visage which the Physiogmonists say is a sign of Good Nature and Kindness to which we may add a sweet modest and majestick Air and a due proportion of all parts of his Face as in the rest of his Body He must be acknowledg'd to be a Prince good merciful just liberal sober and eloquent one that was truly worthy to govern so great an Empire This Emperor was compard to Numa and indeed they had a very great resemblance one to the other both as to their Minds and the Lineaments of their Face He caus'd the Temple of Augustus which was much ruined to be rebuilt and rais'd a new one to his Predecessor Adrian who adopted him He dyed in the Seventieth Year of his Age and was as much lamented as if he had been a very young Man and 't was observ'd that he gave up the Ghost as if he had been in a sleep Heaven recompensing the sweetness of his Life by the easiness of his Death He govern'd the Empire Twenty two Years and Seven Months or Twenty four Years according to others ANTONINUS See Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ANTONINUS HELIOGABALUS See Heliogabalus M. ANTONIUS Mark Anthony a Trium-vir the Grand-Son of Mark Anthony the Orator and Brother of Lucius He took Caesar's part when he was Tribune of the People and Augur He went into Gallia and engag'd him in a Civil-War against Pompey and his Followers Attempting to possess himself of Mutina Brutus's Province he was declar'd an Enemy to the Senate and People of Rome by the perswasion of Cicero He establish'd the Triumvirate of Octavius Caesar Lampidius and himself which they all Three manag'd with much Cruelty Caesar abandon'd Cicero to the Resentments of Anthony who caus'd his Head to be cut off as he was carryed in his Litter and set it up in the Rostrum where the Roman Orators us'd to plead In the beginning of his Triumvirate he divorc'd his Wife Fulvia to marry Octavia the Sister of Augustus but he left her a little time after for Cleopatra Queen of Egypt with whom he was extremely enamour'd which so enrag'd Augustus that he rais'd an Army against him and defeated him at that famous Sea-fight near Actium The year following he pursu'd him as far as Alexandria whither he fled but seeing himself deserted by his Friends he kill'd himself at the Age of 56 years ANTRONIUS the Croatian had a Cow of wonderful Beauty and he
Life altogether Divine These are the words of Jupiter to the other Gods Oetaeas spernite stammas Omnia qui vicit vincet quos cernitis ignes Nec nisi maternâ Volcanum parte potentem Sentiet Aeternum est à me quad traxit expers Atque immune necis nullûque domabile flammâ Idque ego defunctum terrâ coelestibus oris Accipiam c. Metam l. 9. v. 250. In another place of the same Poet Venus desires of Jupiter the Deification of Aeneas Quamvis parvum des optime Numen Dummodo des aliquod Satis est inamabile regnum Aspexisse semel stygios semel isse per amnes Assensere Dei ibid. l. 14. v. 489. The Meaning of the Poet is That Aeneas having made a Descent into Hell out of Piety and Religion in his Life-time it was not just that he should descend thither again after his Death The Expiation of his Mortality was made not by Fire but by Water and for this end a Commission was granted to the River Numicius which wash'd away the stains of his Mortality Hunc jubet Aeneae quaecunque obnoxia morti Abluere tacito deferre sub aequora cursu Corniger exequitur Veneris mandata suisque Quicquid in Aenea fuerat mortale repurgat Et respergit aquis pars optima restitit illi Lustratum genitrix divino corpus odore Unxit ambrosiâ cum dulci nectare mixtâ Contigit os fecitque Deum ibid. v. 500. The Apotheosis of Romulus is thus describ'd Corpus mortale per auras Dilapsum tenues ceu tatâ plumbea fundâ Missa solet medio glans intabescere coelo Pulchra subit facies pulvinatibus altis Dignior est c. ibid. v. 724. These Deifications were to be authorized in Greece by the Oracle of some God and at Rome by a Decree of the Senate which declar'd an Emperour to be of the number of the Gods and order'd Temples to be built Sacrifices to be offer'd and Divine Honours to be paid him When Alexander the Great had a mind to adore Ephestion as a God one Philp who came from Babylon gave an account that an Oracle of Jupiter Hammon had commanded Ephestion to be worshipt as a God and to offer Sacrifice unto him as Diodorus Siculus tells us in lib. 17. Alexander testified so great Joy at this Deification that the Historians say he was the first that offer'd Sacrifice to him and that he kill'd for that end no less than ten thousand Victims But the Athenians did not only adore Great Men after their Death but they worship'd them and sacrific'd to them even while they were alive This they did to Demetrius Polyorcetes as Demochares testifies in lib. 20. of his History where he relates That Demetrius returning from Leucada to Athens the Athenians came out to meet him being crown'd with Garlands of Flowers that they made Libations of Wine and were accompanied with Singing-Men and Musicians who sung Hymns to his Honour that the Common-People prestrated themselves before him crying with a loud Voice that Demetrius was the only true God We salute thee said they Son of Venus and of the Almighty Neptune and we conjure thee to give us Peace for thou art the Lord the other Gods are asleep in the time of our Necessity and are deaf to our Prayers Upon this Subject you may consult Athenaeus and Duris the Samian Pythagoras who was the first that assum'd the Name of a Philosopher i. e. a Lover of Wisdom having dwelt twenty years at Crotona went afterwards to Metapontum and died there The Metapontines admiring his profound Doctrine consecrated his House into a Temple and worship'd him as a God All Greece decreed Sacrifices to be offer'd and Altars to be erected to Lysander after his Death upon the account of his Vertue and Duris remarks That he was the first of the Grecians to whom Divine Worship was given and in honour of whom Hymns were sung which must be understood during his Life since there were many others to whom Sacrifices were offer'd and Altars erected after their Death a long time before Lysander The Romans follow'd the Example of the Greeks and made Gods of their Emperours The Senate decreed to them Divine Honours Sacrifices and Temples and instituted Priests Festivals and Games in honour of them as the Greeks had done before them The manner of Deification us'd among the Romans was by letting an Eagle fly which came out of the top of the Funeral-pile on which the Body of the Emperour was burnt and their Superstition inclin'd them to believe that the Soul of the Emperour by this means flew up into Heaven among the Gods Thus they deified Judius Caesar Augustus and other Emperours whether good or bad the good for the great esteem they had of their Vertues and the bad out of Flattery and in compliance with the Torrent of Custom APPELLATIO an Appeal from any Sentence when we are not satisfi'd with it An Appeal say the Lawyers is nothing else but a complaint made by a Person who has lost the Cause to a superiour Judg against the Injustice of an inferiour and subordinate In the Roman Law he who would not abide by a Sentence was oblig'd at the instant it was given or at least in two or three days after to declare either vivâ voco or by writing that he did appeal from it since that the time was limited to ten days after which no Appeal was to be admitted In France any one may appeal within the space of thirty years This Appeal was to be notified to the Judg and the adverse Party If the Judg consented to the Appeal he gave the Appellant a Writing containing a Summary of the Cause and the Reasons of his Sentence which he carried to the superiour Judg and if he did not consent nevertheless he gave a Writing containing an account of the whole matter and the Reasons why he would not consent nor admit the Appeal But whether the subordinate Judg did consent to the Appeal or not still the Appellant might always carry the Suit before a superiour Judg. This was a very good Custom tho it is not at present used in France In Civil matters none but he who had lost the Cause could appeal but in criminal Causes when a Man's Life was concern'd any Person was admitted to bring an Appeal tho he who was condemn'd did not desire it APPELLATORIUS LIBELLUS a Writ of Appeal a Writ which is obtain'd in Chancery for admitting an Appeal and for summoning the Adversary before the Judg when he has obtain'd a Sentence in his favour to see if it can be set aside APPIADES are five Pagan Deities which were ador'd under that general Name viz. Venus Pallas Vesta Concordia and Pax whose Temples were at Rome near Caesar's Market-place where were the Fountains of Appius from whence the name Appiades was given them APPIANA FAMILIA the Appian Family most illustrious among the Romans It s Original was from L. Appius who
was Cicero's Friend and the Author of a Sect which pretended to cure Diseases by a moderate way of living rather than by Medicines for Strabo and Galienus say that he was of the City of Prusa in Bythrnia And if we compute the Times in which these 2 Asclepiadas's liv'd he who is meant in this Inscription might be Grandson to the former and inherit his Learning and Reputation since he obtain'd by the Bounry of the Emperor Prajan probably upon the account of delivering him from some dangerous Diseases the Possession of 7 Cities which is a very remarkable particular of History He was born under the 13th Consulship of Domitian which answers to the Year from the building of Rome DCCCXL and to that of our Lord LXXXVIII and be died in the 70th Year of his Age under the Empire of Antoninus Pius in the Year of Rome DCCCCX and consequently he was Physician under Trajan Hâ—dâ—anus and Antoninus and also under many Magistrates which shews that he was in a free Condition and highly esteem'd Besides these 3 Asclâ—pâ—adeâ—â— who were Physicians we find also another call'd TITUS AELIUS ASCLIPIADES in Gruter who was made free by the Emperor and one nam'd PUBLIUS NUMITORIUS ASCLEPIADES a Freeman and Sextum-vir of Verona and lastly one LUCIUS FONTEIUS FORTIS of the Race of the Asclepiades's or at least of their Profession for in succeeding times the Name of Asclepiades was us'd for the Title of a Sect or of Professors of Physick ASCOLIA certain Games in Honour of Bacchus at which People danc'd upon Goat-skins which were blown up like Bladders and anointed with Oyl that so the Dancers might make the Diversion more Pleasant to the Spectators by their Fall ASPHODELUS the Daffodil an Herb which has a strong Smell when it is in Flower Lucian thinks that a Meadow was planted with these Daffodils in Hell through which the River of Oblivion runs ASSA vox ASSATIBIA The Voice alone One Fiute alone without being accompanied with the Voice ASSARIUS or ASSARIUM the same with As among the Ancients says Charisius Dionysius Halicarnasscus also says that Assarium was a piece of Money of Copper of a Pound-Weight Yet Hisychius explains it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little piece and according to Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little Pieces of Money of Copper Agricola in B. 2. de pond takes it for the half of an As which he confirms by Iosephus and Wascrus but of an As minted and reduc'd to half an Ounce so that this would be no more but the 4th part of an Ounce 'T is certain that it was a very little Piece and so much its Termination sufficiently shews that it is only a Diminutive from Assis ASSEUM a Stove or Bagnio a Place where the Air only is heated to make People sweat ASTARTA or ASTARTE The Goddess Astarte is call'd in Scripture Ashtaroth which signifies Sheep or Flocks Scaliger thinks that this Name was given her upon the account of the Multitude of her Victims dea Sydoniorum Sanchoriathon says that the Goddess Astarte is Venus-Vrania or the Moon which is the same with Venus-Urania or Caelestis Astarten Venerem Phaenices praedicant They say also that she has the Head of a Bull as a token of her Sovereignty which agrees to the Crescent or New Moon This made Bochart believe that she was Io the Goddess of the Greeks which was transform'd into a Cow Ciccro in B. 3. Di Natura Deorum would have her to be Venus and having distinguish'd many Venus's he says that Venus of Syria or Tyre was Astarte 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Venus Syriâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concepta quae Astarto vocatur This is also the Opinion of Suidas But St. Austin on the contrary thinks that Astarte was Juno which he proves from the Judgment of the Carthoginians who could not be ignorant of the Religion of the Phaenicians servicrunt Baal Astartae These are the words of Scripture which this Father explains of Jupiter and Juno in Lib. Jud. 9. 16. Lucian on the contrary says that Astarte is the Moon although he relates that the Phaenicians made her pass for Europa the Daughter of King Agenor who was carried away into Candia by Jupiter when he was transform'd into a Bull. There is also a great Temple in Phanicia among the Sidonians which is dedicated to Astarte whom I believe to be the Moon although a Priest of the Temple told me that she was Europa the Sister of Cadmus and the Daughter of Agenor who disappear'd I know not how and that afterwards the People of the Country built her a Temple and gave it out that Jupiter had ravish'd her for her Beauty She is still to be seen engrav'd upon their Money sitting upon a Bull but there are some who do not believe that she is the Person to whom this Temple is dedicated There is some Ground to conjecture that in this Case we have an Example of the Custom of the Phaenicians mention'd by Philo the Interpreter of Sanchoniathon viz. that they gave to the Stars the Names of their Kings and so they paid Religious Worship to them as well as to the Stars They might then attribute to the Daughter of King Agenor the Temple built in Honour of Astarte i. e. according to Lucinn to the Moon Josephus speaks of the building of the Temple of Hercules and of that of Astarte at Tyre whose Names are manifestly deriv'd from this Divinity such as ARISTARTUS BELOASTARTUS i. e. BELUS ASTARTUS ASTRA the Stars Luminions Bodies which move in the Heavens above the Elementary Region Porphery had reason to say that the Ancients admiring the extraordinary Beauty and Splendor of the Star Venus thought that by her Influence she contributed very much to Generation which mov'd them to represent her under the Figure of a Woman of extraordinary Beauty This Planet Venus is also call'd the Star of the Shepherds It is call'd Lucifer or the Morning Star when it goes before the Sun and Vesper when it follows him Mercury is another Planet which scarce ever parts from the Sun upon which Account he is rarely visible and the Ancients confounded him sometimes with the Sun and said that this Planet was as it were his Soul and Intelligence for which reason they made him the Teacher of Wisdom and Knowledge From whence it appears that the Gentiles look'd upon these Stars living and intelligent Beings and that they managed their Influences by their Intelligences Horace calls learned Men Viros Mercuriales as being more plentifully enrich'd with the Gifts and Influences of Mercury In this Sense we must understand the beginning of the first Book of Manilius where he says that the Stars know and work our Destiny by their Wisdom and Influences Hesychius says that the Babylonians call'd the Star Mercury Sechez The Western Nations were no less perswaded that Mercury was a Star that had Dominion over Reason Discourse and
Senate perceiving the Abuse which that Custom had brought in ordered that notwithstanding these Notices an Assembly summoned in due form should not desist from sitting This Sort of Augury which they called Augurium de Caelo or servare de Caelo was taken from extraordinary and sudden Signs which they observed in the Heaven Now among these Signs there were some called Bruta or Vana which soreshewed nothing others were called Fatidica which portended Good or Evil and of these last some were called Consiliara which happened when they were deliberating about any Affair and seemed to advise it others Auctoritativa or Authoritatis which came after the thing done and confirmed or approved it Lastly there were others called Postularia which obliged to repeat the Sacrifices and other Monitoria which admonished what to avoid All times and every Day of the Year were not proper to take Auguries Plutarch tells us that Metellus the Chief-Priest forbad to take Auguries after the Month of August because the Birds shed their Feathers at that time Or in any Month of the Year immediately after the Ides because the Moon then began to decrease or on any Day after Noon The Place on which an Augary was taken was a rising Ground and for that Reason was called Templum Arx or Auguraculum according to Festus There was a Field set apart for it a little distance from Rome called Ager effatns as Servins upon Virgil observes When all things were fitly disposed to take an Augury and after all Ceremonies were performed the Augur entred into his Tent or Pavilion cloathed with his Augural Robe called Laena or Trabea holding in his right Hand his Augural Staff called Lituus crooked at the top much like a Bishops or Abbots Crosier where being ser down he casts his Eyes round him and divides the Heaven into Four Parts with his Staff drawing a Line from the East named Antica to the West named Postica and another Cross it from South to North called Dextra and Sinistra This Ceremony being performed he sacrificed to the Gods making this Prayer to them as it is related to us by Livy at the Election of Numa Jupiter Pater si est fas hunc Numam Pompilium cujus ego caput teneo Regem Romae esse ut tua signa nobis certa clara sint inter eos fines quos feci This Prayer being made the Augur returned to his Seat and â—ooked about very attentively to observe from what Part and in what manner the Sign from Heaven appeared There was a deep Silence for that time every one joining his Prayers and Vows to the Prayers and Vows of the Augur This shews us the meaning of that Latin Expression sedere Augurem which is as much as to say to attend the Augury or some sign from Heaven to know the Will of the Gods about any undertaking When he saw any Lightning appear or heard any Clap of Thunder from the left Side that was taken for a favourable Presage as Virgil teaches us Audiit Coeli genitor departe serenâ Intonuit Laevum Aeneid lib. IX v. 630. Donatus explaining these Verses assures us that what they heard from the left side came from the right of the Gods Quia sacrificant is Latus laevum dextrum est ejus qui postulata largitur If there appeared nothing but a Wind they took notice from what Quarter it came supposing that the Winds were the Messengers of the Gods which discovered their Will to Men as Statius teaches us c. Ventisque aut alite visa Bellorum proferre diem Which is confirmed by Luctatius who tells us that the Augurs knew future things by the blowing of the Wind. Solent Augures ventorum flatibus futura cognoscere When the Augur had received some favourable Presages he came down from the Place on which he stood and declared it to the People in these Words Id aves addicunt the Gods approve it the contrary is id aves abdicunt the Gods disallow it They observed that the Gods confirmed a Presage by some new Sign as Virgil makes Aeneas speak to Anchises Da deinde auxilium Pater atque haec omnia firma Aeneid Lib. II. v. 691. All that we have said about taking Auguries from the Signs of Heaven is likewise practised in the Auguries taken from the chirping or flight of Birds The Augur distinguishes with his Augural Staff the Regions of the Heaven and Earth in which compass he intends to take an Augury having first made a Prayer to the Gods This Augury is called Oscinum and they that take it Oscines The different manner of the flying of Birds makes them sometimes be called Sinistrae an ill Omen sometimes Funebres or Arculae Fatal and which prohibit any Action sometimes Deviae which shew a Difficulty in the Execution sometimes Romores which hinder it and sometime Inebrae which betoken some Impediment and lastly sometimes Alterae when a second Presage destroys the first The Ancients were so much addicted to these Superstitions that they never would undertake any thing without taking a sign from the Birds In the great Affairs of the Common-wealth they consulted the Signs of the Heavens in those of Wars the chattering and flight of Birds and their manner of eating their Meat and for that end they fed Poultry in Coops which they called holy Pullen and which they fetched commonly from the Island of Eubaea and he that had the keeping of these Poultry was called Pullarius saith Cicero The Consul gave him Notice who had the Care of this Poultry to get all things ready to take the sign then he flung Corn to the Poultry if they eat it greedily moving fast with their Feet and crowding about this was a favourable Omen but if on the contrary they refused to eat or drink it was an unfortunat Sign This is the Form which they used in taking a Sign They always consulted some skilful Persons in those sorts of Divinations Quinte Fabi te volo mihi in Auspicio esse or in Auspicium adhibere dicito si silentium esse videtur Quintus Fabius I desire that you would assist me in taking a Sign tell me if all the Ceremonies used in the like Case have been exactly observed and if the Sign be not defective He answered Silentium esse videtur nothing is wanting DICITO si pascuntur Aves quae aut ubi Attulit in cavea pullos Pullarius Tell me whether the Birds eat or no They eat and the Poultry keeper hath brought the Pullen into the Coop The Veneration for Auguries was so strongly imprinted on the Minds of the Romans that they looked upon them as Impious Persons who contemned or derided them attributing the Misfortunes which happened to Claudius Pulcher to the Anger of the Gods who seeing that the Poultry would not eat threw them into the Sea saying in Raillery They 'l drink at least if they will not eat There was a College of 300 Augurs at Lyons AUGUSTUS Octavius Caesar surnamed
me so much and torment your selves for me who am happier than you Is it because the Darkness wherein I am frights you or because you think I am smothered with the Weight of my Tomb But a Dead Man has nothing to fear since now he is past all Apprehensions of Death and my burnt or putrified Eyes have no need to see the Light Besides were I miserable what good could all your Complaints do or the smitings of your Breasts to the Tunes of Instruments and this crowned Tomb these Tears and Lamentation of Women Do you think this Wine which you pour out runs down to Hell or is good to drink in another World as for the Beasts which you but in Sacrifice one part of them rises in Smoke and the rest is consumed into Ashes whic are very indifferent Food This sort of mourning for the Dead was much alike at Rome and Greece But their Burials differ according to the Diversity of Nations for the one burn or bury them and the other embalm them I have been present at the Feasts in Aegypt where they set them at the end of their Table and sometimes a Man or Woman is forced to deliver up the Body of his Father or Mother to conform to that Custom As for Monuments Columns Pyramids and Inscriptions nothing is more useless there are some that celebrate Plays in Memory of the Dead and make Funeral Orations at their Burials as if they would give them a Certificate or Testimonial of their Life and Manners After all this some treat the Company where the Friends comfort you and desire you to eat How long say they will you lament the dead You can't recall them to Life again by all your Tears Will you kill your selves with Despai◠for your Friends and leave your Children Orphans You ought at least to eat because by this means you may mourn the longer Thus far Lucian When the Body is laid upon the Pile of Wood to be burnt some Person opens his Eyes as it were to make him look up to Heaven and having called him several Times with a loud Voice his next Relation sets Fire to the Pile of Wood with a Torch turning his Back upon it to shew that he does that Service for the Dead with Regret Pliny is of Opinion that burning of the Bodies of the Dead was not ancient at Rome We do not says he find that any of the Cornelian Family were burnt till Sylla but Pliny seems to contradict himself when he writes that King Numa forbad to pour Wine upon the Fires which were kindled for the burning of the Dead and Plutarch assures us that Numa did strictly forbid that his Body should be burnt after his Death but he ordered Two Tombs of Stone to be built in one of which his Body should be laid and in the other those holy Books which be had written about Religion and the Worship of the Gods which is Proof that burning of Bodies was very ancient and that it was at least used in his Time The Laws of the XII Tables which were made Three Hundred Years after the building of Rome which forbad the Burial or burning of Bodies within the City does not at all favour the first Opinion of Pliny for nothing else can be concluded but that there were Two ways of disposing of dead Bodies in use burying or burning and both were forbidden within the City to avoid Infection and secure it from the danger of Fires which might happen by that means Cicero teaches us that the Custom of burying Bodies was introduced at Athens by Cecrops and that they buried them with their Faces to the West whereas at Megara they turned their Faces to the East The Custom of burying Bodies lasted a very long time throughout all Greece and that of burning them came from the Gymnosophists of India who had used it long before The Aegyptians embalm the Bodies of the Dead to preserve them from Corruption The Aethopians had diverse ways sometimes they cast them into the Currents of Brooks and Rivers sometimes they burnt them or put them in Earthern Vessels according to the Testimony of Herodotus and Strabo The Indians eat them that by this curious Secret they might give them a second Life by converting them into their own Substance Those People whom Herodotus calls the Macrobies or Long-lived dry the Bodies then paint their Faces with white and so restore them to their Natural Colour and Complexion Then they wrapt them up in a Pillar of Glass in which having kept the Body a whole Year they set it up in some place near the City where all might see it Diodorus Siculas relates that there were certain People who after they had burnt the Bodies put their Ashes and Bones into Statues of Gold Silver and Earth covering them over with Glass The Garamantes bury their dead on the Shore in the Sand that they may be washed by the Sea When the Body of the dead is consumed by the Fire and all present have taken their last farewell Vale aternum nos eo ordine quo Natura vlouerit sequemur the nearest Relations gather up the Ashes and Bones which they sprinkle with holy Water and then put them into Urns of different Matter to set them in their Tombs pouring out Tears upon them which being catched in small Vessels called Lacrymatoriae they are likewise reposited with the Urn in the Tomb. It is very uncertain how they could gather the Ashes and keep them mingling with those of the Wood and other things which were burnt with the Bodies Pliny mentions a sort of Linnen which grows in the Indies called by the Greeks Asbestos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be burnt of which is made a Cloath that will not burn although it be cast into the Fire In this the Body being wrapped up the Ashes of it may easily be kept together without mixing with those of the Wood but this is not probable since the same Pliny tells us that this Cloth was very rare and was preserved for the Kings of the Country only Perhaps they made use of another Cloath made of the Stone Amiantus which Pliny says they had the Art of spinning at that Time and Plutarch assures us that in his Age there was a Quarry of that Stone in the Isle of Negropont and the like is found in the Isle of Cyprus Tines and elsewhere They might have also some other Invention as to set the Body upon the Fire in a Coffin of Brass or Iron from whence it was easy to gather the Ashes and Bones that were not consumed CADMUS the Son of Agenor King of Phoenicia who was sent by his Father to find out Europa which Jupiter had taken away but not hearing of her after several long and dangerous Voyages he went to consult the Oracle of Delphi who ordered him to build a City in the Place whither an Ox should lead him And preparing in the first place to sacrifice to the Gods he sent
Conclusion of them to make any Presages upon the Day of their Meeting In edicto Consulum quo edicunt quis dies comitiis Centuriatis futurus fit sic scribitur ex veteri formulâ Ne quis Magistratus minor de caelo servasse velit When any Law was to be approved in these Assemblies this was the Order observed He that propounded it who was called Rogator legis made a Speech to the People or caused another to make one shewing them the Necessity and Advantage of the Law which they termed Concione declarare if the People declared their Approbation of the Law it was hung up in Publick Three Market-days the Preamble of it being in these Words Quod bonum faustum felixque Reipublicae populo liberisque eorum esset And thus the Laws of the Twelve Tables were propounded While it hung thus in Publick for Three Market-days he that proposed it either himself or by some able Orator distinctly explained all the Circumstances and Advantages of it This Action was called promulgatio legis per trinundinum and discovers to us the Difference between these Two Latin Expressions proponere legem which is to set up and promulgare legem to explain it viva voce as also between these two Phrases Lator legis and Autor legis the first was he that barely propounded the Law and the other was he that perswaded the People to accept it after he had proved the Benefit and Usefulness of it to them The Day appointed for the Meeting of the Assembly being come the Consul went early in the Morning into the Capitol or some other high Place being attended with the Augur whom he ordered to observe the Signs of the Heavens which is expressed by these Latin Words Jubebat sibi in auspicio esse After he had sat sometime looking round about him to see what appeared in the Air the Consul spoke to him in these Words Dicito si silentium esse videtur Tell me whither there be nothing that prevents this Assembly to whom the Augur answered Silentium esse videtur nothing hinders it but if the contrary happened obnuntiabat he said that the Signs did not approve of that Assembly This first Ceremony being finished this Magistrate set up his Pavilion or Tent in the Campus Martius where he made a Speech to the People to exhort them to respect the Good of the Commonwealth only and to do nothing thro' Humour or Interest in the Matters that should be proposed to them and then sent them every one to their own Century to give their Votes Secediti in centurias oestras de iis deliberate Then the Centuries separated themselves one from another and gave their Votes viva voce till the Year DCXV after the Building of Rome when Balots or Tickets were commanded which they put into an Earthen Pot or Urn made for that purpose Every Century had its President named Rogator who gathered their Votes After they had consulted a while the Consul called the first Classis to give in their Votes If they were all of a Judgment he called none of the other Classes because the first had a greater Number of Men than all the rest and so their Voices carried it But if their Votes were divided he called the second Classis and all the rest in their Order till he had the full Number of the Votes given according to the Laws The Advantage which the first Classis had above the other was often the Cause of Tumults because they could not endure that their Votes should be at any time ineffectual To prevent which they contrived this expedient They made all the Classes to draw Lots who should be accounted first and that upon which the Lot fell was called the Prerogative Tribe because their Judgment was first had in all Matters This way of giving their Votes was strictly observed till the Year DCXV when Gabinius the Tribune of the People made a Law that they should for the Future do it by Balots or Tickets this Law was called lex Tabellaria The People much liked this Change for before they could not give their Votes freely left they should incur the Displeasure of their Great Men whom they were afraid to disoblige Grata est tabella says Cicero in his Defence of Plancus quae frontem operit bominum mentes tegit datque eam libertatem ut quod velint faciant and in his second Book of the Agrarian Law he calls this way of Voting vindex libertatis principium justissimae libertatis Yet even this had its Inconveniences as Cicero himself owns in his third Book of Laws Non fuit lacebra danda populo in quâ bonis ignorantibus quid quisque sentiret tabella vitiosum occultaret suffragium When the Consul had taken out of the Earthen-pot the Prerogative Classis he ordered the Herald to pronounce it with a loud Voice and then they went into an inclosed Piece of Ground over very narrow Bridges and as they entered certain Persons called Diribitores gave each of them Two Tickets which they put into the Urn or Earthen-Pot set on the farther Side for that end This done the Consul numbered the Votes and declared the Officer chosen in these Words Quod bonum faustum fortunatumque sit mihi Magistratuique meo populo plebique Rom. talem Consulem aut Praetorem renuntio I publish that such an one is chosen Consul or Praetor by Plurality of Voices Notwithstanding all these wise Cautions foul â—ealings could not be prevented for such as had Interest and would have a Law rejected or a Person condemned contrived that no Ticket should be given to absolve a Man or receive a Law as it fell out in the Case of Clodius who had prophaned the Religious Rites of Bona Dea. CENTURIO a Centurion a Roman Officer which commanded an Hundred Soldiers there were Six Centurions in one Cohors and Sixty in a Legion CEPHALUS the Son of Aeolus and Husband of Procris the Daughter of Erichtheus King of Athens He was carried away by Aurora who was fallen in Love with him She could not perswade him to a Compliance yet Procris was very jealous of him and contriving to watch him as he returned from Hunting she hid herself in the Bushes but Cephalus supposing it had been some wild Deer shot his Dart at it and killed his Wife Procris CERA PUNICA white Wax which was whitened by dipping it several times in Sea-water and laying it in the Sun upon the Grass in the Spring time that it might be often moistened with the Dew for want of which it must be continually sprinkled with Water All this was done to refine the Wax by driving out the Honey which was mingled with it and made it yellow CERAMICUS a Place in Athens inclosed with Walls which was used to walk in in it were the Tombs of those famous Men who died in Defence of their Country and many Statues erected in Memory of them with Inscriptions which published their great Actions
such a Grief to her that she died of Sorrow and was turned into a Flower called the Heliotrope which remembring the Love which she bore to him turns it self always on the Side he is of to see him CNEUS a Name given to such among the Romans as were born with some Blemish on their Bodies or some other natural Defect which the Latins call Naevus CNIDOS a Sea-Town on the utmost Borders of the Chersonesus which joins to Carias famous for the Temple where is the Venus of Praxiteles of white polished Marble whence it is that Horace calls her Venus Cnidiana COCLES the Surname of a Roman Citizen named Horatius who alone opposed the Invasion of the Tuscans when they were ready to enter into Rome over the Bridge Sublicius till it was broken down and then he cast himself immediately into the Tiber being much wounded in the Thigh and escaped to the other Side The Consul Publicola in Gratitude erected his Statue of Copper in Vulcan's Temple COCYTUS one of the Rivers of Hell according to the Poets which comes from these Greek Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep lament and Groan Homer places this River in the Cimmerian Country and will have Hell to be this very Country of the Cimmerians one Day 's Journey from Circe which is a Mountain in the Country of the Latins CODRUS the last King of Athens who lived in the Days of Samuel He devoted himself to Death for his Country for going in Disguise into the Midst of his Enemies they slew him unknown and by his Death his Countrymen got the Victory over the Peloponesians to whom the Oracle had promised it if they did not slay their Enemies King The Athenians being Conquerors would not have another King that they might honour his Memory the more So ended the Kingdom of the Heraclidae who were descended of Hercules and their Common-wealth was governed by yearly Magistrates to the Time of Solon the Law-giver There was also a very bad Poet of that Name of whom Horace speaks Rumpantur ut ilia Codro COELIUS a Mountain which was first called Quercetulanus because of a Forest of Oaks which was upon it It was afterward called Coelius from Coelius Vibenna who brought an Aid of Tuscans to one of their Kings either to Tarquinius Priscus or some other for Historians do not agree about it and received this Mountain for his Habitation with the adjoining Fields as far as the Place where there is now a Market because his Soldiers were very numerous and the Street is still called by their Name The Tuscan-Street This Mountain was built and made one of the Divisions of Rome It was burnt in the Reign of Tiberius but he rebuilt it and ordered that instead of Mount Coelius it should be called Augustus's Mount because the Statue of Tiberius which was at a Senator's House named Junius was the only Preservative of it from so great a Conflagration COELUS or COELUM the Heaven which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 video to see or from the Hebrew Word Or that is to say Lucere to shine or our which is urere to burn in Flame from whence the Latins have also derived Aurora This Heaven was the first Object of false Worship and Men took it for an Universal Nature which it contains whence it bears the Name of Jupiter as if Jupiter were the Soul and the Heaven the Body of the whole Universe This was the Opinion of Ennius when he said Aspice hoc sublime candens quem invocant omnes Jovem Phurnutus makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to come from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a Guardian or Conservator because the Heavens and the Stars were the first false Gods who were honoured as the Conservators of the World COELUM the most ancient of the Gods had for one of his Children Time named Saturn who with a Cut of a Sickle deprived his Father of his Genitals which he cast into the Sea and by the Froth which came of the Stirring of the Waves Venus was born 'T is no hard thing to guess why Coelum is said to be the first of the Gods and the Father of Saturn or Chronos since 't is evident that the Motions of the Heavens make and measure the Duration of Time When Saturn is said to have deprived his Father Coelus of his Generative Faculty by castrating him it is because in Time the Fruitfulness of the Heavens ceased to produce new Beings learing the Propagation and Multiplication of Creatures once formed to Venus and so 't is feigned that Venus was born of the natural Parts of Coelus and the Froath of the Sea as Macrobius Aiunt Saturnum abcidisse patris pudenda quibus in mare projectis Venerem procreatam quae à spumâ unde coaluit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomen accepit COENA Supper from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. communes because the Ancients usually supped together in Companies but dined alone Supper was the best Meal They broke their Fast in the Morning very lightly with a Piece of Bread dipped in pure Wine which Meal they called Jentaculum and in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies pure Wine The second Meal was the Prandium or Dinner from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Morning and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies plain and very moderate They had a Fourth Meal which they made sometimes which they called Commissatio or Commessatio a Collation or a Meal after Supper Suetonius makes mention of these Four Meals in his Life of Vitellius Epulos trifarià m semper interdum quadrifarià m dispertiebat in jentacula prandia coenas commessationesque c. These Suppers were made after different Manners There was one called Coena recta a Splendid Supper with which the Roman Nobles treated their Mistresses and Friends who had attended them in their Visits or in the Execution of their Offices They that would avoid the Expence and Trouble of these Suppers gave them Bread and Meat instead of them and this Distribution was called Sportula Domitian took away these Allowances and restored the Feast called Coena recta for Suetonius tells us sportulas publicas sustulit revocatâ coenarum rectarum consuetudine COENA DAPSILIS a plentiful Feast whether this Word comes from dapes which signifies Daintles or the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abundance of all Things COENA ACROAMATICA from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies pleasant and merry Discourse It was a Supper at which many witty Jests were spoken for Diversion There was moreover COENA ADVENTITIA INTERVALLATA NOVEMDIALIS DUODENARIA called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the Guests were Twelve in Number cloathed like Gods and Goddesses There was also another Supper called Pontificalis which the High-priest made
speak The God of Speech FACTIO Factions distinguished by Colours Gruter in his Inscriptions mentions four chief Factions viz. Russatam the Red Prasinam the Green Venetam the Blue Albatam the White 'T is thought that the Ancients intended thereby to represent the four Seasons of the Year when Nature puts on new Cloaths each Faction or Troop of Horse representing one of the Seasons with his Colour The Green represented the Spring the Red the Summer the Blue the Autumn and the white the Winter covered with Snow and Ice Domitianus says Suetonius added to these four Factions the Gold and the Purple i. e. two new Troops who went by the name of their Colours These Factions in the Games grew sometimes so hot one against the other that they came to Blows Zonoras tells us that at Bizantium in Justinian's time two Factions conceived so factious an emulation one against the other that forty thousand Men of both sides were killed on the spot Caligula took a great fancy for the green Colour and had his Horse Incitatus put among them FALCIDIUS A Roman Tribune Author of the Law called Falcidia so remarkable in the Roman Law This Law was made sometime before the Empire of Augustus during the Triumviratus By the Law Falcidia it was ordered that Men should dispose by their last Will but of the three parts of their Estate and were bound to leave the other fourth part to their lawful Heir And if they transgressed against this Rule the Heir deducted the fourth part of each particular Legacy to make up the Sum adjudged to him by this Law FALERNUM A Country in Campania near Capua abundant in excellent Wine so much commended by Horace and others FAMA Fame Ovid has left us a description of Fame and the Graces that commonly attend her and represents her wonderful Palace surrounded with a thousand reports true or false Mistaque cum veris passim commenta vagantur Millia rumorum Credulity Error false Joys Fears Suspicions and Seditions commonly meet here FAMES Hunger Poets have very ingeniously described Hunger and in particular Ovid who hath left us her Image in the eighth Book of his Metamorphoses under the shape of a tall lean Woman with a dreadful Countenance and hollow Eyes her Body transparent out of leanness lying upon the ground and feeding upon Grass Virgil places her abode at the entry of Hell with Griefs Tears Diseases and Old Age. Luctus ultrices posuere cubilia Curae Pallentesque habitant Morbi tristisque Senectus Et malè-suada Fames FANNIUS A Roman Consul Author of the Law Fannia whereby the charges of publick and private Feasts were fixed and Excesses and Superfluities forbid FANA Temples consecrated by the Pontiffs pronouncing certain words Fantur FANUS A God of the Heathens protecting Travellers accounted also the God of the Year The Phaenicians represented him says Macrobous under the Figure of a Snake with his Tail in his Mouth FARONIA See Feronia FASCES These Fasces were Axes fastned to a long Staff tied together with a bundle of Rods which the Officers called Lictors carried before the great Roman Magistrates Romulus was the first who instituted Fasces to inspire a greater respect and fear in the mind of the People and to punish Malefactors J. Lictor expedi virgas When the Magistrates who by right had these Axes carried before them had a mind to shew some deference for the People or some person of a singular merit they sent back the Lictors or bid them to lower the Fasces before them which was called submittere Fasces For that same reason the Consul Publicola a great Politician being ready to make a Speech to the Roman People sent back his Lictors Fasces says Livy Majestati populi Romani submisit And Pompey the Great coming into the House of Possidonius the Philosopher when he was at the Door sent back the Lictors in honour of Possidonius's Learning FASCINUM A Man's Yard At the Wedding the Bride sat upon the Knees of a naked Priapus to prevent by that Ceremony charming and bewitching FASTI The Roman Calendar wherein all days of Feasts Games and Ceremonies were mark'd The six last Books of the Fasti of Ovid are lost See Calendarium Fasti were also Table-Books whereupon they wrote the Names of the Consuls and the most memorable things that were transacted in the Commonwealth The Consuls gave also some small Pocket-books of Silver or Ivory wherein their Names were written as Sidonius Apollinaris says speaking of the Consulship of Asterius datique fasti FASTIDIES During these days the Romans were allowed to sue at Law and the Praetor to pronounce these three words Do Dico Abdico FATUA See Fauna FATUM Fate Destiny It was represented as of a Goddess treading upon the Globe of the World because all that is contain'd in it is submitted to her Laws She holds in her hand a Vessel or the fatal Urn wherein as Poets say all the names of mortal men were deposited The Heathens complained in their Epitaphs of the malice envy and cruelty of the Fates that were inflexible and could not be moved with tears It can't be objected that the Latin word Fatum is not of the feminine gender and therefore the Destiny should not be represented by the figure of a Goddess for we see that many Divinities as Venus the Moon and Bacchus were accounted both male and female And this seems to have been taken from the opinion of the Stoicks who maintain'd that the Gods were of both Sexes And the Greeks themselves who were Authors of the Roman Superstitions called Destiny by a feminine name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we learn of Phurnutus in his book of the nature of the Gods Destiny says he is that which disposes and rules all things according to the order of an eternal principle There is a Golden Medal of Dioclesian ingraven in Pignorius's observations upon the Images of the Gods where the Destinies are represented on the reverse thereof by the figures of three women Procopius tells us that the Temple of Janus was built at Rome in the Market-place near the three Destinies called by the Romans Parcae This Writer like Apuleius confounds the Parcae with the Destinies The Ancients reckoned the Fates to be three in number because said they all things that are under Heaven have their beginning progress and end Wherefore these same Fates are represented by three different female terms i. e. by three Women represented only with half-bodies like the terms as we may see by the following Inscription FATIS Q. FABIUS NISUS EX VOTO For the terms were the Gods of bounds and the Fates sets bounds to our Life and put an end to all our undertakings Lucan in many places of his Books has confounded Fortune with Fate Ovid introduces Jupiter speaking to Venus and telling her that 't is to no purpose to attempt to break the decrees of the three Parcaes which are immutable and eternal and rule all things that are done Sola
Holy-days was an imitation of the rest of the Sabbath commanded by the Law of God For the Greeks and the Romans kept some Holy-days during eight days together in imitation of the Hebrews and had also their eight and nine days of Devotion For Polybius tells us that to thank the Gods for a Victory obtain'd at Sea the Romans ordered to forbear from all kind of work for nine days together FIBULAE Buckles Clasps This Latin word generally taken signifies All sorts of work that joins two things together Fibula Architectonica that which in Architecture we call a Nail Peg Key and Ring and all that is made use of to join Beams together and other parts of Buildings In this sense Cesar makes use of this word in the description he has made of the Bridge that he built over the River Rhine Binis utrinque fibulis ab extremâ parte distinebantur In Anatomy Fibula is that we call a Cannel-bone Fibula in relation to Cloaths means Buckles and Clasps that keep close or tie up some part of our Cloaths The Greeks and Romans made use of them and often adorned them with precious stones Men and Women did wear them upon their Cloaths and Shoes and used them to keep up their Hairs aliqua fibula comam diffluentem colligans Fibula Gymnastica or Citharaedica used only by Musicians and Comoedians to keep close the prepuce of Children lest they should keep Women company and lose their voice as we learn of Celsus The same thing was used to Players upon the Stage to preserve their voice as 't is reported by Martial Menophili penem tam grandis fibula vostis An Ancient Interpreter of Juvenal observes upon this Verse of the sixth Satyr Nullius fibula durat Vocem vendentis praetoribus ...... Fibulam dicit circellos quos tragaedi sive comoedi in pene habent FICULNEA VIA The way or the Street of the Fig-tree at Rome called Momentania FICUS A Fig-tree Pliny affirms that the white Fig-tree is fortunate but on the contrary that which brings brownish Figs is fatal The Fig-tree called Ruminalis under which the Wolf suckled Remus and Romulus was at at Rome about the place of the Assemblies FIDES Faith A Goddess whom the Ancients honoured and plac'd in Heaven Livy relates that her Priests were cloathed with very white Linnen to shew the candour and sincerity of Faith She was represented by two Hands joined close together and sometimes with two little Images holding one another by the hand See Fidius Dionysius Hallicarnasseus tells us that Numa Pompilius was the first Man who built a Temple to publick Faith and instituted Sacrifices in honour of her at publick charges Her Priests or Flamines sacrificed to her without shedding of Blood cloathed with white Robes and drawn upon a Chariot holding their right hand open FIDIUS The Romans and the Sabins respected this God as the protector of the good Faith that should reign among them There was a Temple at Rome on Mount Quirinalis built to this God where his Feast was kept every year upon the Nones of June And his Image is still seen at Rome in an ancient Marble of three Figures which are under a kind of a Canopy Honour stands at the right under the figure of a middle aged Man Truth at the left represented like a Woman crowned with Laurel holding Honour by the Hand and Love is betwixt them both under the shape of a young Child with this Inscription Simulachrum Fidiī FLAMINIUS Sirnamed Quintius the Son of T. Flaminius whom Hannibal defeated near the Lake Trasymenes Being Consul he marched against the Inhabitants of Milan and routed them Then he made war against Philip King of Macedoniā and vanquish'd him in two pitch'd Battles and by this defeat restored Liberty to all the Cities of Greece that King Philip had made his Tributaries And being ready to engage the Enemy he received Orders from the Senate to return to Rome to quit his Consulate because of some formalities wanting at his Election but he put the Packet into his Bosom and did not open it till after he had obtained the Victory The Senate resented highly his contrivance and endeavoured to deprive him of the triumphal Entry but the People opposed them and allowed him the Triumph Wherefore this great General was attended in his Triumph by a Crowd of his fellow Citizens whom he had made free and followed his Triumphal Chariot with Acclamations which made the Glory of his Triumph shine the more Flaminius is not found among the Consuls neither in the Calendars of Rome nor in the Roman Chronicles The Senate doubtless deprived him of that Honour because he had not obeyed their Orders when he was called back to Rome FLAMEN and FLAMINES in the plural number Numa instituted these Priests of Jupiter Mars and Romulus or Quirinus to perform the Religious Service and called them Flamines Varro in his Book of the Latin Tongue tells us that the Antients had as many Flamines as Gods At first there was but one Flamen created who was called Flamen Dialis or the Priest of Jupiter then another was allowed to Mars called Flamen Martialis and a third to Quirinus or Romulus called Flamen Quirinalis Afterwards the number of Flamines was increased but yet the first were called Majores Plamines and were all of Patrician Families the others were called Minores Flamines and were of Plebeian Families There were likewise Flamines ordained for the Emperors after they were ranked among the Gods The Emperor Augustus had one called Flamen Augustalis The People assembled by Curii chose these Priests and often left their Election to the Pontiffs The High Priest consecrated them and they were under his subjection as to their Discipline Aulus Gellius relates the Ceremonies observed at their Consecration First the will of the Gods was consulted by Augurs about the Man who should be consecrated then the High Priest took him up from the hands of his Kindred and this was called capere Flaminem as we learn from Livy The Priests of Jupiter called Flamen Dialis was the chief of all And it must be observed that all these Priests were allowed to wear the Robe edged with Purple like great Magistrates to keep the Ivory Chair and to sit in the Senate They did wear a kind of a Cap or Hat that was particular to them And Varro tells us that they had the name Flamen because they wore a little Band of Thread about their Head Flamines dicti quòd filo caput cinctum habebant Servius mentions two kinds of Ornaments that the Flamines wore upon their Head one single for conveniency in the Summer viz. this little Band of Thread the other was the Hat which covered their Head during their Functions Verùm festis diebus filo deposito pilea necesse erat accipere Scaliger upon this Text of Varro has described the form of the Hat of the Flamines and tells us that it was called Flammeum that the Crown thereof was
they made them Children of Uranus and Titea i. e. of Heaven and Earth Diodorus Siculus tells us also that Phrygia Macedonia and Italy had their Giants because of the Fires that are burning in those Countries The occasion seem'd very fair to the contrivers of Fables to say that in all these places the Giants were still burning in those Flames that Thunder to revenge Heaven had kindled there to punish their Crimes Justin speaking of the Tartesians of Spain shews there the place where the Titans engaged the Gods Pausanias confirms this opinion speaking of Arcadia and of a place where the Fire comes out of the Earth and tells us that the Arcaaians affirm'd that the Giants had engaged the Gods in that very place wherefore they offered there an Anniversary Sacrifice to Thunder and Storms Then this Historian examining the opinion of Homer and Hesiod upon the subject of Giants says that Homer has not mentioned the Giants in his Illiads but only in his Odysses where he represents the Nation called Lestrygones like Giants attacking the Fleet of Ulysses Hesiod in his Theogonia speaking of the Chaos and producing out of it not only all the Bodies of the Universe both Beasts and Men but even Gods themselves then he mentions the Children of Heaven and Earth Virgil in the first Book of his Georgicks imitates Hesiod holding the fifth day of the Moon fatal because upon that day the Earth brought forth the Giants He has also imitated him when he has ascribed to each of these Giants an hundred Hands an hundred Shields and fifty Mouths to blow out torrents of Fire In another place he represents the violent efforts and motions of Enceladus who lies buried alive under Mount Aetna Horace has left us a very fine description of the war and defeat of the Giants and Claudian says that the shakings and Flames of Mount Aetna are glorious and eternal proofs of the triumphal Power and Justice of God over the Giants Aetna Giganteos nunquam tacitura triumphos Enceladi bustum Bochart and Vossius are of opinion that the Giant Og recorded in Scripture whom I have mentioned before is Typhon or Typhaeus described by the Poets the Hebrew word Og and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having the same signification i. e. to burn And Virgil affirms that Typhon was struck with Thunder in Syria Durumque cubile Inarime Jovis imperiis imposta Typhaeo Aeneid lib. 9. Virgil follows Homer's opinion who says that Typhaeus was struck with Thunder in Syria called in the Scripture Aram and by profane Writers Aramaea These are Homer's words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aremis ubi dicunt Typhaei esse cubilia GLADIATORES The Gladiators who fought in the Circian Games and at the Funerals of the great Men of Rome one against the other even to the loss of their Lives to give this cruel Diversion to the People or to pacifie the Ghosts of their Kindred The origine of these bloody Fights came from the Ancient Inhabitants of Asia who fancied that they very much honoured their Relations by spilling humane blood with a brutish diversion This superstition grew so great among the Trojans that Women cut themselves to get our some blood to sprinkle upon the Graves or the Wood-pile of the Dead Junius Brutus was the first Man among the Romans who performed these barbarous Duties to his Father and we learn from Tacitus that Tiberius to honour the memory of his Ancestors ordered two Fights of Gladiators one in the great publick place and the other in the Amphitheater Those who made a trade of that brutish fury were always esteem'd of no worth for besides that these Fights began at first by Slaves who were miserably wretched and left to their ill destiny those Men who were taught that Art and were brought to it never got any reputation by it and to their great shame Malefactors were brought among them as Victims devoted to the diversion of the People and sacrificed to their Madness as to the fury of Wild-Beasts But tho the Infamy was equal yet the fortune was very different for the Slaves made by War had no hopes left them Malefactors were still used worse for they were expos'd to the wild Beasts and sometimes tied to posts to feed the Lions and to secure their punishments against the hazards of a vigorous defence Men brought up and chosen for Gladiators because of their good meen and strength were not only well used but also well taught in the Science of Defence and nothing was spared to keep them in good health and strength to contribute the better to the diversion of the people Pliny tells us that they were fed with Barly-Bread wherefore they were called in jest Hordiarij and that their Drink was Water with Ashes mixt with it but this is not probable There were many Families of these Gladiators Some were called Sequatores Retearii Threces Myrmillones Hoplomachi Samnites Essedarii Andabatae Dimachaeri Meridiani Fiscales Postulatitij The first were armed with a Sword and a Club in the end whereof was Lead The second carried a Net and a Trident and endeavoured to enclose their Antagonist with it The third had a kind of a Hanger or Scymetar and were called by the name of their Country The fourth called Mermillones instead of Mermidones were the Heroes of Achilles whom the Romans accounted to be Gauls wearing a Fish on the top of their Helmet The Gladiator Retiarius or Net-bearer pursuing him cried out non te peto Galle sed piscem peto The fifth were armed all over as the Greek word signifies The sixth had their name from their hatred to the Samnites who armed the Gladiators according to their fashion The seventh fought riding in Chariots and were called Essedarii The eighth fought on Horseback and blindfold and took their name from their way of Fighting The ninth fought holding two Swords in their hands from whence they are called Dimacheri a Greek word which signifies two Swords The tenth were those who had been expos'd to wild Beasts and having got clear of them were obliged to kill one another to divert the People The eleventh had their name from Fiscus the Exchequer because they were maintained at the publick charges The twelfth were the most valiant of all and appointed for the Emperor's diversion wherefore the people beg often that they might be ordered to fight All these Gladiators did their best to kill their Adversary or to dye valiantly and bravely defended their life After they had well acquitted themselves of their duty they obtained of the Emperors and those who gave the Games either their discharge or freedom or some considerable reward The discharge granted unto them was only a dispensation from fighting or serving otherwise but willingly or out of compliance and for a Token thereof they gave them a Switch called Rudis Rudae dmobantur They gave them also a kind of a Hat called Pileatie for a badge of their freedom granted to them Constantius and
World would have been but confusedly known and the most celebrated Actions would be buried in profound Oblivion The Alphabet of every Language is composed of a certain Number of these Letters or Characters which have a different Sound Form and Signification The English and Greek have each 24 Letters the Latin commonly 23 and the Hebrew 22 without Points The Art of Writing has not been perfected all at once several Ages were required to supply what was defective in those Shapes of Animals the Ancients used as may appear by Tacitus The Egyptians according to his Account believed themselves to be the Inventers of it but 't is more likely that the Hebrews or as almost all the Ancients call them the Chaldeans or Phaenicians were their Masters as we learn from that Verse in Lucan Phaenices primi famae si creditur Ausi Mansuram rudibus vocem signare Figuris Whence it was that those Letters were called Phaenician ones by the Greeks Yet Diodorus Siculus reports that that was certain and that it was only believed that they did not invent but change the Form of Letters which is not unlikely since Quintus Curtius says of them if the Relation is to be believed that they were the first that invented Letters and shewed the Use of them St. Augustine also with many others is of Opinion that the People of God had learned them of the first Fathers as of Moses And that before the Deluge it self the first Characters according to Josephus had been engraven upon Pillars which Seth caused to be erected in Syria for the Preservation of the Sciences he had discovered This agrees with what Pliny says concerning the Assyrian Letters that they are no other than the Hebrew or Chaldean As for my self says that Author I believe the Assyrian Letters were always in being Hyginus attributes to the Distinies the Invention of the following Greek Letters A B H I T Γ. And 't is for that Reason Martianus Capella calls them the Secretaries of Heaven Josephus in the Beginning of his Jewish Antiquities rejecting the Opinion of the Greeks and Egyptians will have us to believe that the Grecians came very late to the Knowledge of Letters that they received them from the Phaenicians and not from Cadmus seeing at that time there were no Inscriptions found in the Temples of their Gods nor in the publick Places it being certain the Greeks had nothing of greater Antiquity than the Works of Homer tho' Cicero in his Orator entituled Brutus tells us they had Poets more ancient than Homer who contented themselves with rehearsing their Poems by heart because they had not yet found out the Use of Writing or of Letters Pliny Lib. 7. Chap. â—6 will have the most ancient Letters to have been the Assyrian and that Cadmus about the Year of the World 2520 above 250 Years before the Trojan War brought Sixteen of them from Phaenicia into Greece viz. A B C D E G I L M N O P R S T V to which Palamedes during the Trojan War had added Four Θ Ξ φ T. Herodotus will have it That the Phaenicians who came with Cadmus into Greece brought Writing Characters thither which Diodorus Simulus also affirms but at the same time he shews these Letters were not the same which Cadmus brought with him seeing they had had them there before the Deluge of Deucalion and that he did no more than revive the Use of them Eupolemius attributes the first Invention of Letters to Moses who gave them to the Jews long before Cadmus his Time and the Jews to the Phaenicians who were their Neighbours Philo the Jew ascribes them to Abraham a long Time before Moses and Josephus in the First Book of his Antiquities carries the Matter still farther as high as Adam's Children even to Seth who engraved the Characters thereof upon Two Pillars Moses his first Characters were not those Hebrew ones used now which were invented by Ezra after the Babilonish Captivity but those which were called Samaritan according to St. Jerome in his Preface to the Book of Kings And this is agreeable to the Sentiments of some Rabbins who ground the same upon the Samaritans having always the Law of Moses written in the Five Books called the Pentateuch in their own Characters and that the same were inscribed upon ancient Medals of Gold and Silver which were found in Jerusalem and divers other Parts of Palesline But this Opinion is not without its Difficulty as may be seen by the Talmud where Marsuka says that the Law was first given to the Children of Israel in Hebrew Characters but that afterwards Ezra put it into the Aramean Tongue and Assyrian Characters There are some Authors who maintain that Moses made use of two sorts of Characters one which is the Hebrew for Sacred Things and the other which is the Samaritan for prophane Matters and of which last the Chaldeans made use and that the Greek and Latin Characters were formed of these the last of which being no other than the Greek Capitals according to the Testimony of Pliny who proves it by an ancient Inscription engraven upon Brass and brought from Delphos to Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he says in Chap. 56. These were Assyrian Letters or according to some Authors Syriac But they are rather Samaritan which besides the Aleph and Jod are so like the Greek and Latin ones if they be considered and taken upside down that they are almost the same thing Eusebius confirms the same Matter by the Greeks own Denomination or Imitation of Caldaism therein by their adding an A as in Alpha instead of Aleph Beta for Beth Gamma for Gimel Delta for Deleth c. Simonides Evander and Demaratus were the first that brought Letters into Italy the one from Arcadia and the other from Corinth the last into Tuscany and the other to that Part of the Country where he settled In a Word the ancient Greek Letters were very like ours but we had but a very few of them at first the rest were since added The Emperor Claudins in Imitation of the Ancients invented Three Letters that continued in Use during his Reign and were abolish'd after his Death The Form of them are still to be seen in the Temples and other publick Places of Rome upon the Copper Plates whereon the Decrees of the Senate were engraven The Hebrews made a Division of their Letters into Guttural viz. ab cb gn Dental z s r Labial b m n p and those of the Tongue viz. d t l n. Crinitus says Moses invented the Hebrew Letters Abraham the Syriac and Chaldee the Phaenicians those of Attica â—ighteen whereof Cadmus brought into Greece and which the Pelasgi carried into Italy and Nicostrates the Latin Letters The Egyptians instead of Letters used the Figures of Animals and of Birds which they called Hieroglyphicks and were invented by Isis The Gothick or Toledo Letters were invented by Guesila Bishop of the Goths The Letters F G H K Q X
did eat in one Day Forty Pounds of Victuals and drunk as many Pints of Wine He was killed together with his Son by the Soldiery having reigned only Three Years MECOENAS a Roman Knight descended from the Kings of Etruria which made Horace speaking concerning him say Mecaenas atavis edite Regibus He was the Patron of learned Men and had a singular Kindness for Virgil and Horace He was a Favourite of the Emperor Augustus and of a very healthy Constitution All the Patrons of learned Men are at this Day called Meccanas's MEDEA the Daughter of Aetes King of Colchos who by her Magical Art assisted Jason to take away the Golden-Fleece she married him afterwards and had Two Children by him but that did not hinder him from wedding Creusa the Daughter of Creon King of Corinth whither had retired Creon banished Medea scarce allowing her a Day 's Respite the which she improved to make enchanted Presents to Creusa whereby she was destroyed Creon afterwards died embracing of his Daughter Medea killed her own Children and in a Charriot drawn by winged Serpents made her Escape to Athens where she married King Egeus by whom she had a Son named Medus But going about to poison Theseus the eldest Son of Egeus her Design was discovered and she was forced to fly to Asia with her Son Medus who left his Name to the Country of Media MEDICINA Physick it is an Art according to Galen to preserve present Health and to restore that which is lost and according to Hippocrates 't is an adding of that which is wanting and a retrenching of what is superstuous in Herophilus his Sence 't is a Knowledge of such Things as are conducive to Health or noxious thereunto This Art was not introduced to Rome till about 600 Years after the Building thereof as Pliny says wherein he is mistaken unless he means that it was not practised in Rome by Forreign Physicians till such a Time The Art is divided into Anatomy Pathology Therapeutick Chymistry Botanism and Surgery Julian the Apostate made a Law concerning Physicians which is printed among his Greèk Letters and runs thus in English It being known by Experience that the Art of Physick is beneficial to Manking 't is not without Cause that the Philosophers have given out it came down from Heaven seeing that by it the Infirmities of Nature and accidental Sicknesses are removed wherefore in Pursuance to the Rules of Equity and the Decrees and Authority of the Emperors our Predecessors we of our good Will and Pleasure require and command that you who profess Physich be dispensed with and discharged of all Offices and Charges laid by the Senate MEDICUS a Physician is one who practises the Art of Physich in Curing of Diseases and Wounds for of old Physicians practised Chyrurgery some Authors pretend that Physick was practised by no other than Slaves and Freedmen but Causabon in his Comments upon Suetonius refutes this and so does Drelincourt Professor of Physick at Leyden and the same may be farther justified by old Inscriptions Dioscorides a Grecian of Anazarba coming to Rome was made a Citizen thereof and became the intimate Friend of Licinius Bassus an illustrious Roman The Physician who view'd the Wounds of Julius Caesaer was called Antistius and consequently was a free Citizen of Rome for Slaves had only a Surname without any Name for their Family Pliny who seems not to treat well of Physick says That the Quirites as much as to say the Romans practised it and 't is well known that no Roman Citizens were Slaves Those who are acquainted with History must know what Esteem Physicians were in of old at Rome and elsewhere since Princes themselves disdained not the Study of it Mithridates King of Pontus did himself prepare a Remedy against Poyson Juba King of Mauritania writ a Book of Plants and Evax King of Arabia according to the Testimony of Pliny dedicated a Book to Nero concerning the Medicinal Vertues of Simples It s true Suetonius in the Life of Caligula speaks of a Slave that was a Physician Mitto tibi praeterea cum eo ex servis meis Medicum I also send you one of my Slaves who is a Physician with him There might have been some Slaves who were Physicians but it does not follow that there were no other but Slaves that were Physicians It s farther pretended that they were banish'd out of Rome in the Time of Cato the Censor according to the Sentiments of Agrippa in his Book concerning the Vanity of Sciences but for this there is no other Foundation than the Misunderstanding of the following Passage in Pliny This Art of Physick is subject to a Thousand Changes and a Thousand Additions so lyable are our Minds to change upon the first Wind that blows from Greece and there is nothing more certain among such as practise it than that he who abounds most in Words becomes uncontroulably the Arbiter of Life and Death as if there were not a Multitude of People who live without Physicians tho' indeed they should not be without Physick and this may be observed concerning the Romans themselves who lived above 600 Years without them tho' otherwise they were not a People flow to receive good Arts but manifested the Inclination they had for Physick till having had Experience thereof they condemned it expertam damnarunt However they did not condemn the Art of Physick it self but the Male Practice thereof non rem sed artem Cassius Hemina an old Author says That the first Physician who came from Peloponesus to Rome was Archagatus the Son of Iysanias when L. Aemilius and M. Livius were Consuls in the Year DXXXV after the Building of Rome that they made him a Citizen and that the Government bought him a Shop in the Cross-street of Acilius 'T is said they gave him the Title of Healer of Wounds and that he was at first very much made of but soon after his cruel Operations which went so far as to the Cutting off and Burning of some Parts of the Patient's Body procured him the Nickname of Hangman and made the People out of conceit both with Physick and Physicians And to go a little farther with this Matter take the Words of Marcus Cato the Censor to his Son says he I 'll tell thee now my dear Son Mark what my Thoughts are of these Greeks and what I desire you to learn during your Stay at Athens Take care to inform your self of their Customs but learn them not They are a wicked and indocible People which I cannot endure Believe it as if it came from a Prophet that when this Nation communicates her Sciences to others she corrupts the whole and especially if she should send her Physicians hither to us They are bound to one another by Oath to kill all Barbarians with their Physick ..... They call us Barbarians nay and give us more opprobrious Names I forbid you therefore above all Things to have to do with the Physicians We
positis in terrâ Syriadicâ exaratis sacrâ dialecto hieroglyphicis litteris à Thoth qui est Mercurius primus secundus Mercurius Agathodaemonis filius Tatipater libros traduxit quos in templorum adytis Aegypti reposuit Ammianus Marcellinus gives a Description of those Subterranean Places where for Fear of another Deluge those Secrets which they were desirous to transmit to Posterity were writ on the Walls in Hieroglyphicks It was this second Mercury that was called Trismegistus according to Syncellus and Manetho Clemens Alexandrinus makes mention of 42 Books of Mercury that were carried in Pomp by the Egyptians when they were solemnizing the Mysteries of their Religion and wherein were contained all the Divine and Humane Sciences entertained by that Nation as their Hieroglyphicks Geometry Cosmography Astronomy Laws of Sacrificing and all Divine Worship It s manifest that it was from these Two Egyptian Mercuries the Greeks and Romans borrowed all those Accomplishments wherewith they endued their fabulous Mercury For the Greeks could not deny but that the Egyptian Mercury was the most famous of all of them and therefore they made it their Business to give out he was a Greek by Birth and whereas it is certain that the Greeks received their Letters from the Phoenicians as we have already shewed they endeavoured all they could to perswade the World that they were originally found out in Greece from whence they had been carried into Phoenicia Such a Likeness was found to have been between the Egyptian and Grecian Mercury that it may be easily judged the One is but a Copy of the Other Strabo calls a Child which he saw was born without Arms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to Mercury's Name Thus Mercury was usually pictured to let Men understand says Festus that Discourse does every Thing without the Assistance of the Arms Cyllenius dictus quòd omnem rem sermo sine manibus conficiat quibus partibus corporis qui carent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vocantur But Pausanias says the Athenians were the first that gave Mercury's Name to such as were lame in their Arms Primi mutilos Hermas vocarunt For before Daedalus his Time all their Statues had but one Foot and either no Arms at all or else they were joined to or hung by their Bodies He was the first that made them with Two Feet and set the Arms a little off from the Body The Statues of Mercury might be left in the same Posture as anciently MERCURY according to Macrobius is the same as the Sun or Apollo and the Reason why Wings are given to Mercury is to denote the swift Motion of the Sun Apollo presides over the Quire of Muses and Mercury is the Father of Eloquence and good Literature The Sun is the Mind and Understanding of the World which agrees well with Mercury whose Name is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab interpretando Mercury is the Messenger of the Gods being often sent by the Coelestial to the Infernal Deities because the Sun in its Course passes thro' the Superior and Iuferior Signs Mercury killed Argus who had 100 Eyes to watch Io that was transformed into a Cow That is that the Sun ecclipses the Light of the Stars and the Heavens by its Presence these Stars having been as so many Eyes in the Night to watch and mind the Earth which by the Egyptians was represented by the Symbol of a Cow Lastly Mercury's Caduceus which was beset with Two Serpents twisted together and kissing one another signified the Four Deities that presided over the Nativities of Mankind viz. the Sun Moon Love and Necessity The Two Serpents are the Sun and Moon the Knot is Necessity and their Kissing denotes Love Mercury may also be seen pictured sitting upon a Cray-fish holding a Caduceus in his Right hand and one of the Claws of the Fish in the other Farther He is grawn on Medals like a beardless Youth with Wings and holding a Purse in his Left-hand and a Cock upon his Fist He has an He-goat at his Feet with a Scorpion and a Fly The Germans adored him as the Sovereign of the Gods and as Tacitus reports offered Humane Sacrifices to him Devrum maximum Merturium colunt cui certis diebus humanis quoque hostiis litare fas habent The Greeks and Romans sacrificed a Calf unto him they made him an Oblation of Milk and Honey as unto a God of Sweetness by Reason of his Eloquence Callistratus and Homer say it was a Custom to present him with Neat's-Tongues by throwing them into the Fire and sprinkling a little Wine thereon because he was the God of Speech whereof the Tongue is the Organ See Hermes which is Mercury MERCURIUS Dies is understood is Wednesday the Third Day of the Week being so called because the Planet Mercury reigns in the first Hour thereof according to the Opinion of those who allow of Planetary Hours MERETRIX a debauched Wife or Maiden A Bill was wont to be fixed over the Door of Common Women according to the Testimony of Aurelius Fuscus and Seneca Controv. 1. Meretrix vocata es in communi loco stetisti superpositus est Cellae tuae titulus venientes accepisti Tertullian in his Book de Pudicia calls these Inscriptions the Bills of Lewdness Libidinnm tituli Portius Latro says the same Thing Es in lupanari accepisti locum titulus inscriptus est you are in an ill Place you have a Room there a Bill is set on the Door The Custom also was for them to change their Names as soon as they had told the Aediles that they would lead a dissolute Life as we are informed by Plautus in his Comedy entituled Poenulus Act. 5. Sect. 3. Ver. 20. Namque bodiè earum mutarentur nomina Facerenique indignum genere quaestum corpore They changed their Names in order to drive a Trade which became not their Birth and Condition But when they forsook this infamous Profession they also laid aside that Name of Reproach they had assumed and reassumed that of their own Family At the same time says Tacitus in his Ann. I. 2. C. 24. The Lewdness of Women was restrained by the Senate's Authority and such of them whose Grand-father Father or Husband had been a Roman Knight were forbid to make a publick Profession of their Lewdness For Vestilia who was of a Praetorian Family had made her Declaration before the Magistrates according to the Custom of our Ancestors who thought such debauched Practices were sufficiently punish'd with the Disgrace of such a Confession MEROPS was one of the Gyants who went about to drive the Gods from Heaven but this Name ought rather to be given to those who assisted at the Building of the Tower of Babel because of the Confusion of Languages that ensued thereupon seeing the Word Merops comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dividere and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vox METELLUS the Surname of the Family of the Caecilii from whom were descended many illustrious Persons among the
in respect to us The West of the Summer is that Point of the Horizon where the Sun sets when 't is in the Tropick of Cancer the West of the Winter is that where the Son sets when 't is in the Tropick of Capricorn and this happens when the Sun comes to the Points of the Solstices each of them is 23 Degrees and an half distant from the true Point of the West OCEANUS the Ocean is that main Sea which surrounds all the Earth this Name if we believe Hesychius comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was the old Name thereof and 't is very likely proceeded from that Hebrew Word Choug or Houg that signifies a Circle because it goes round the Earth This Word Houg is in Scripture often to be met with in this Sence or if you will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the Swiftness of its Motion Homer in his Iliads makes Oceanus to be the Father of the Gods and Tethys their Mother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Opinion may have had its Origin from that Text in Genesis where the Chaos seems to be represented like unto the Confusion of the Waters before God reduced them into order and made a Distinction between them In this Sence the Ocean and Tethys that is that Abyss which comprehended the Heavens and the Earth as an immense Quantity of Waters before the same were separated by the Distribution made of the Chaos this Abyss I say might be called the Father and Mother of all the great Bodies of which Nature was composed and which bore the Name of Gods among the Heathens And where Plato says that Oceanus was begotten of Caelum and Tethys he means nothing else but the Ocean that was separated from the Heavens and the Earth as it was upon the Reduction of the Chaos into order The innumerable Multitude of Petty Deities that preside over the Waters whether they be Fountains Lakes Rivers or Seas might very well be the Occasion of giving unto the Ocean the Quality of the Father of the Gods But in the main this vast Number of Water-Gods and their Genealogy signifies no more than the Distribution of the Waters of the Ocean which is done throughout all the Earth and which by its Vapours or Subterranean Conduits supplies all Fountains Lakes and Rivers insomuch that 't is nothing but the Element of Water and the Ocean that is continually animated by the Soul of the Universe which makes its Divinity according to the Language of the Heathens Virgil in his Georgicks sacrificed to the Ocean Oceano libemus ait And he brings in Aeneas sacrificing a Bull to the Gods of the Sea Justine relates that when Alexander had subdued and passed thro' Asia as far as the Ocean he offered Sacrifice and pray'd him to grant him an happy Return into Greece Oceano libamina dedit prosperum in patriam reditum precatus Diodorus Siculus says that the Ancients gave the Name of Ocean to Moisture or the Liquid Element which is as it were the Nutriment and consequently the Mother of all Things and that this is the Meaning of the Verse before cited out of Homer and to clear the Thing fully we may add what he says elsewhere concerning Jupiter and the other Gods or Stars that they went to Oceanus Habitation to be entertained at a great Feast by him Diodorus has said Oceanus and Tethys were the Nutriment of all Things and Macrobius explains this Feasting of the Gods at Oceanus his House by the Vapours of the Sea wherewith the Stars were nourish'd and whereof they stood in need for the Qualifying of their Heat significans bauriri de bumore allmenta sideribus This was an Opinion commonly entertained by a great many of the Ancient Fathers of the Church who gave a Literal Explication of the Waters which in Scripture are placed above the Firmament and believed there was a great Quantity of Water above the Region of the fixed Stars to allay the Heat of those Coelestial Fires and hinder them from burning the World Tho' this Idea may seem odd yet 't is certain the same is very agreeable to Truth if it be cosidered that the Stars being fiery Globes of an incredible Bigness as well as the Sun it was requisite to separate them from each other by very great Spaces filled with Air and some Liquid Matter wherewith to allay their Heat and make them more tollerable which in their own Natures were combustible but 't is no great Matter if the Name of Air or Water has been given to this Liquid Substance wherein as I may say all these Globes or Luminaries such as the Stars are or dark Bodies as the Planets and Earth do swim Eusebius gives us the Words of Porphyrie who applies the Fable of the Poets in this Case entirely to the Coelestial or Elementary Bodies and who says that the Ocean was of a Liquid Nature in general that Tethys was the Symbol thereof that Achelous was drinkable Water Neptune the Sea-water that by Amphitrite was meant such Waters as are the Principle of Generation Lastly That the Nymphs and Nereides were such particular Waters as are either sweet or salt OCTAVIUS CAESAR surnamed AUGUSTUS See Augustus OCTOBER the Month of October being the 8th Month of the Year in Romulus his Calender and 10th in that of Numa has always retained its first Name in spight of all the different Names the Senate and Roman Emperors would have given it For the Senate ordered that this Month should be called Faustinus in Honour of Faustina the Wife of Antoninus the Emperor Commodus would have had it bear the Name of Invictus and Domitian made it be called Domitianus according to his own Name This Month was under the Protection of Mars On the 4th Day of it was celebrated the Solemnity of Mundus Patens See Mundus Patens On the 12th an Altar was dedicated to Fortune entituled Fortunae Reduci to flatter Augustus at his Return to Rome after he had pacified Sicily Greece Syria Asia and Parthia On the 13th was kept the Feast of Fountains called Fontinalia 15th they sacrificed a Horse to Mars called October equus 19th was celebrated the Feast called Armilustrium in the Armies 28th and following Days the Plays of Victory were performed which Sylla instituted Towards the End of the Month the Vortumnalia and Sarmatian Games were celebrated OCTOBER EQUUS an Horse which was sacrificed to Mars in the Month of October there was then a Race run with Chariots drawn each by 2 Horses and he that run quickest was sacrificed to Mars Plutarch gives Two Reasons for this Ceremony the first was to punish the Horse for the Taking of Troy the second because the Horse was a Martial Creature and ought to be offered in Sacrifice to the God of War OCULARIA Spectacles it s not believed that Spectacles were known to the Ancient Greek and Latin Poets for it would be very strange if they had had any knowledge
themselves that were made choise of to assist at that Solemnity Authors give divers Originalls to this Word those who are for having the same to have been instituted before Romulus say that the Salii were so called from one Salius of Arcadia whom Aeneas brought from Mantinea into Italy where he taught the Youth of the Country a sort of Dance which they performed in Arms called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Critolaus will have it to proceed from one Saon who transported the Dii Penates from Samothracia to Lavinium and instituted this sacred Dance but Varro says that the Salii took their Name a Saltando and Saliendo from the Dances and Capers they made There were Two sorts of Salii viz. Salii Palatini and Collini The Institution of the first is owing to Numa according to Livy and Dionysius of Hallicarnassus who appointed Twelve of them to attend the Service of Mars upon Mount Palatine the Occasion of this Institution was that the City of Rome being afflicted with a great Plague in Numa's Reign he made his People believe that a Brass-shield was sent him from Heaven as a sure Pledge of the Gods Protection and Affection to the Romans He assured them that the Nymph Egeria and the Muses advised him to keep it carefully the Fate of the Empire depending upon it and to the end that it might not be stolen he caused Veturius Mammurius to make Eleven more so like it that the sacred Shield could never be distinguished from the rest Thus Numa erected a Colledge of Twelve Priests taken out of the Patritian Order to whom he entrusted the Care of those Bucklers which he laid up in Mars his Temple and which were carried yearly with Dancing and Capering thro' the City at the Feast of Mars This Priesthood was very august in Rome and officiated by the chief Persons in the Empire who were assumed into the Number of the Twelve For we read in History that several Great Captains among the Romans made themselves of the Order of the Salii such as Appius Claudius the Emperor Titus Antoninus and Scipio Africanus who Livy says left the Army because he was of the Order of the Salii and that their Festival Day drew near and this was the Reason that the Army continued for some time incamped at the Heliespont till the Return of Scipio who staied in some Place in order to perform his Devotion on the Day of the said Feast Stativa deinde ad Heliespontum aliquandiu habuerunt quia dies fortè quibus Ancylia moventur religiosi ad iter inciderant iidem dies P. Scipionem propiore etiam religione quia Salius erat disjunxerant ab exercitu causaque is ipse morae erat dum consequeretur The Salians called Collini were also to the Number of Twelve instituted by Tullius Hostilius and all of the Patrician Order for the said King fighting against the Fidenates as Livy says and finding he had the Worst of it made a Vow to Mars that he would increase the Number of the Salii if he won the Victory who when he had so done created Twelve Salians more SALINAE Salt-houses Pliny says that Ancus Martius was the first that erected Salt-houses near Ostia towards the Tiber's Mouth Rex Ancus Salinas primus instituit There were Granaries of Salt at Rome which stood near the Gate called Trigemina SALTATIO a Dance Lucian in his Dialogue concerning Dancing says 't is as ancient as the World and took it's Original with Love witness adds he the various Motions of the Stars and the different Conjunctions of those fixed and wandring Bodies 't is from the Motion of the Heavens and their Harmony that this Divine Art took it's Origin which has been improved in Time It 's said that Rhea was the first who took Delight in this Exercise and that she taught it her Priests both in Creet and Phrygia and this Invention was not useless to them for by Leaping and Dancing they saved Jupiter's Life whom his Father intended to devour insomuch that the King of the Heavens owed his Safety to Dancing but in those Times it was a Military Exercise which consisted in striking their Swords and Javelins upon their Shields Pyrrhus invented the Pyrrhica which was a Dance performed in Arms The Lacedaemonians after they had learnt this Art of Castor and Pollux improved it with that Care that they never went to War without dancing to the Flute insomuch that it may be said they owed part of their Glory to Dancing and their Youth accustomed themselves as much to the Exercise of Dancing as they did to that of Arms for a Player upon the Flute fixing himself in the Midst of them began the Motion with Piping and Dancing and they followed him making a Thousand warlike Postures in good order The same Thing was practised at the Dance called Hormus which was a Mixture composed of Boys and Girls wherein the Boys lead the Dance with manly and warlike Postures and the Girls followed with a gentler and more modest Pace with a Design to compose a Harmony of Strength and Moderation They had also another Dance which they performed bare-foot to say nothing of that which Homer represents in Achilles his Shield wherein Daedalus instructed the fair Ariadne nor of the Caperers and great Dancers that went before who cut dangerous Capers The Thessalians esteemed it so much that their chief Magistrates borrowed the Name from it and called themselves Proorquestres that is those who lead the Dance for this Inscription was to be met with under their Statues as well as that To the Honour of such an one for having danced well in Fight that is for having been valliant in Battel They offered no Sacrifice at Delos without a Dance and here they had young Boys the Chief whereof lead a Dance by the Sound of the Flute and Harp But what need we speak of the Greeks since the Indians themselves worship the Sun not by kissing their Hands but dancing as if thereby they meant to imitate the Motion of that admirable Planet and they have no other Divine Worship since that same is performed at Sun-setting and Rising The Ethiopians went dancing to Battle and before they let fly their Arrows which were set in order about their Heads in the Form of Sun-beams they leaped and danced to terrifie the Enemy let us now go into Egypt where the Story of Proteus represents an excellent Dancer making a Thousand different Postures and who with his supple Body and Ingenuity of Mind knew how to counterfeit and imitate every thing The Three Sorts of noblest Dances are the Cordacismus Syncinnis and Emmaelia who took their Names from the Satyrs I 'll pass by several other sorts of Dances with their Names and Authors says Lucian my Design being no other than to shew the Pleasure and Benefit that may be got by this Exercise especially since the Time of Augustus I have not spoken of the Phrygian Dance which was done
first to engage at the publick Plays or to throw in the Notes and give their Votes in the Assemblies held at Rome and Courts of Judicature as also to keep the Ashes of Mens Bodies after they had been burn'd according to ancient Custom The Ancients placed these Urns either under the Stones on which their Epitaphs were cut or under particular Monuments or else they kept them in their Houses Trajan would have his Ashes laid up in a Golden Urn and put upon that noble Pillar of his that is still standing That of King Demetrius was also made of Gold as Plutarch says and the Great Marcellus who took Syracuse had a Silver Vrn Spartian says the Ashes of the Emperor Severus were carried to Rome in a Golden Urn But Dio who is of better Authority says it was only made of Porphyry and Herodian assures us it was Alabaster Glass-Urns are a little more common Marcus Varro would have his Ashes put up in an Earthen Vessel with Myrtle Olive and Poplar Leaves being that which Pliny calls the Pythagorean Fashion because they were the meanest and most ordinary of any Earthen Urns that were used by the Vulgar were commonly larger for as there was less Care taken to reduce them entirely to Ashes the Bones which were half burnt took up also more room or else they many times served for the Ashes of the whole Family at leastwise for those of Husband and Wife as we are informed by the first Verse of this Antique Inscription Vrna brevis geminum quamvis tenet ista Cadaver As to the Shape of the Uâ—â—s the Earthen ones were made very near like to our common Earthen Pots saving that they were taller and straighter about the Neck There were several of them whose Foot was sharp at the End some that had Handles and others none They have no Fashion nor base Relievo saving that there are some that have the Figures of Men or Animals upon them But for those made of Brass or other Mettals as they were designed for Persons of Quality there were few of them which had not some sort of Sculpture and base Relievo round them as we find by several Authors who have given us the Forms of them There were some Egyptian Urns made of baked Earth full of Hieroglyphicks and Mummy which is remarkable enough since the Egyptians being accustomed to embalm the Bodies whole the Urns were not big enough to hold them Among the greater Number of those that were to be seen at Rome some were round others square some great others small some again all over plain and others done in base Relievo Some were to be met with that had Epitaphs on them while others bare only the Names of the Persons to whom they belonged but there were no other Characters upon some besides the two Letters D. M. or the Name of the Potter only that made them upon the Handle or at the Bottom The Ancients had a Way to preserve their Urns and to hinder the Ashes from mixing with the Earth in the first place they often placed the Urn on the Top of those small Square Pillars on which their Epitaphs were inscribed and which upon the account of the Shape of them we call Cippi or Grave-stones They also put them up in Stone or Marble Coffins The following Inscriptions indicate both the said Customs Te lapis obtestor leviter super ossa quiesce Et nostro cineri ne gravis esse velu In the next place Persons of Quality had their Burying-Vaults where they laid up the Ashes of their Ancestors and there was one like this formerly found at Nismes with a rich inlaid Pavement with Niches round about in the Wall in each of which guilded Glass Urns full of Ashes were set in order The Urn also was of use to cast the Lots of Praeneste and this is noted by Horace Divina motâ anus Vrná The Prtesiess having stirred the inchanted Vrn Horace in that place speaks of the Divination used by the Urn and Lots which was practised thus They put a great many Letters and whole Words into an Urn which they stirred together and when those Letters were well mixed they turned them and that which Change effected in the place of those Letters made the Divination This is that which they called the Lots of Praeneste because they were found in that place This sort of Divination in Cicero's Time was little regarded there being none but the common People that made any account of it It had been much in vogue among the Grecians USTRINA or USTRINUM the Place at Rome where they burnt the Bodies of the Dead It was commonly Campus Martius or some other place in the Suburbs and sometimes in the City for Persons of Quality The common People were burnt upon Mount Esquiline For this Purpose they erected a Heap of Wood which they called a Pile filled on the inside with dry and combustible Matter and with Cypress and Pine branches without They were not sparing of the rarest Perfumes upon this Occasion which they threw lavishly upon the Pile Plutarch tells us that they burnt 210 Handfuls at the Funeral Obsequies of Sylla the Dictator But at the Funerals of meaner Citizens they contented themselves with Pitch as appears by this Antique Inscription D. M. P. Attilio Rufo Actiliae Beronicae Vxor Vixer A. XXIIII sed Pub. Mens X. Ante Natus Est Eadem Hora Fungor Esu Ambo Mortui Sunt Ille Acu Ista Lanificio Vitam Agebant Nec ex Eorum Bonis Plus Inventum est quam quod Sufficeret ad Emendam Pyram Picem quibus Corpora Cremarentur Et Praefica Conducta Vrna Empta When the Wood-pile was thus ordered and made ready the Relations and Children of the Deceased helped to lay the Body upon the Pile whence that Latin Expression in Horace in one of his Satyrs Omnes composui that is I have buried all my Relations then the Person who closed the Eyes of the Deceased at his Departure opened them that he might look up to Heaven as the Place of his abode those whose Business it was to burn the Bodies and were called Vstarii finished the rest of the Ceremony by adorning the Deceased with rich Purple Tapistry and conferring on him the Ensigns of his Dignity Then the next of Kin taking a Torch in his Hand and turning his Head aside to intimate he did that Office with Regret he set the Pile on Fire at the mournful Sound of Trumpets and Hautboys Then the Relations and Friends of the Deceased offered Sacrifices cut the Throats of Animals and served the Manes with several Messes to appease them praying to the Winds to blow through the Pile to set it more on Fire and consume it according to the Custom of the Grecians When the Flame decreased and that the Body seemed to have been burnt the Relations gave their last Farewell to the Deceased in these Words Salve aeternum vale aeternum nos eo
Year swift of Foot as a Storm of Wind. There is at Medon an Autumn of Marble made by one â—r James a Native of Angoulesme under the Figure of a young Man Crowned with Vine Branches and Grapes which he made at Rome in the Year 1550. B. IS the 2d Letter in the Alphabet in all Languages the Hebrews call it Beth and the Greeks Beta and the Latines Be as the English do and its Pronunciation imitates the Cry or Bleeting of Sheep This Letter is in the number of those Consonants which we call Mutes because they have a Sound more low and indistinct than others B. and P. have so near a Relation one to another that Quintilian tells us that in obtinuit Reason Requires that we write a b but the Ears can hear nothing but a pâ—â—â—optinuit This is the cause that in ancient Inscriptions and old Glossaries these two Letters are often put one for the other as apsens for absens obtimus for optimus pleps for plebs poplicus for publicus and the like Hence it is that we still write suppono for subpono oppono for obpono and several Nations often pronounce one of these Letters for the other as the Germans who say ponum vinum for bonum vinum and the like The Greeks often change these two Letters one for the other and Plutarch assures us it was usual with the Priests of Delphos to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From whence it comes to pass that as often as it follows an S. we still change b into p. scribo scripsi as the Greeks say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. B. says Priscian can never be put before S. in any Syllable 'T is in conformity to this use that the Latins have taken pasco from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 papae from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 buxus from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pedo from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puteus from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like as the Greekes have taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Turris from the Phaenician word Bourg 'T is also common to these two Letters to creep into words without occasion as absporto for asporto obstendit for ostendit obstentui for ostentui and from hence it comes that from urere we say comburero and according to Nonnius celebre is used for celere B has also a great similitude with V consonant and hence it is that when Words are changed into another Language they are often taken one for another as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vivo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 volo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 venio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vado 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vescor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vorax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voveo From hence also it comes that the Greeks sometimes translate those Latin Words by a B that begin with V as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for valâ—re But this affinity of B with V does but little favour the Pronunciation of the Spaniards and Gascoiners who alway pronounce V for B and B for V. And although this Error be no small one yet 't is more ancient than it is commonly thought for not only Adamantius speaks very particularly of it in Cassiodorus but we meet with many Examples of it upon Old Marble as BASE for VASE CIBICA for CIVICA and in like manner V is put for B VENEFICIUM for BENEFICIUM SIBE for SIVE And in the Pandects of Florence Av eo for ab eo VOBEM for BOVEM VESTIAS for BESTIAS and the like But besides this Resemblance that B has with V consonant it has the same with F or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for we say Bruges for Fruges as Cicero observes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes fremo and on the contrary we say sifilare for sibilare from whence come the French word Siffler af nobis is used for ab nobis and we still write Suffero for subfero sufficit for subficit and suffusio for subfusiâ— And according to Festus Album is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 asort of white Scurfe or rough Tettar and from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes Ambo B among the Greeks is a Numeral Letter and signifies Two but when an Acute Accent is set at the bottom of it it expresses Two Thousand BAAL or Bel is named the most frequently in Scripture of all the False Gods The Hebrew or Phaenician Word sigsignifies a Lord. It was commonly used by the Africans in Carthage as descending from Tyre in Phaenicia as Servius explains these Words of Virgil. Impleveritque meropateram quam Belus omnes A Belo soliti Aeneid Lib. I. v. 733. and uses these words Languâ Punicâ Bal Deus dicitur apud Assyrios autem Bel dicitur Saturnus Sol. All these proper Names whether African or Assyrian come from it Annibal Asdrubal Adherbal Servius was not the only Person that believed that Baal was Saturn Eusebius speaks the same in his Chronicon Tharoe anno XXIX Assyriorum Rex primus Belus mortuus est quem Assyrii Deum nominarunt alii dicunt Saturnum Theophilus Archbishop of Antioch tells us also that the Eastern People worshipped Chronus or Saturn Belus or Bal. But if on the other side Servius says that Bal is the Sun he has some that defend his Opinion Hesychius tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phrygiorum linguâ Rex The same Author adds that in Crete the Sun was worshipped under the name of Abelius The Emperor Heliogabalus seems to have had both the Names of the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Bal or Bel united in his Selden from whom this is taken says that Heliogabalus comes from Hagol Baal id est Rotundus Deus which agrees with his Image which was according to Herodian a round Stone in shape like a Cone Eusebius is of the same opinion or at least assures us that it was the Opinion of Sanconiathon who says that it was to the Sun that the Name of Beelsalsamen that is to say the King of Heaven was given We must not believe that these two Opinions are contrary to one another because the Phaenicians take Saturn for the Sun as Servius tells us in the same Place Assyrios constat Saturnum quem eundem Solem dicunt Junoncmque coluisse BABYLO Babylon The Scriptures gives us this account of the Original of this City When Men were multiplied after the after the Flood they departed from the East and found a Plain in the Country of Shinar where they settled themselves Then they said one to another come let us make Bricks and burn them in the Fire Then they took Brick instead of Stone and Slime in stead of Mortar and said let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach unto Heaven and let
us make our selves spoken of before we are separated one from another But the Lord came down to see the City and Tower which the Children of Men had built and said let us go down and confound their Language that they may not understand one another and from hence it was called Confusion This City thus named Confusion is Babylon and profane History much celebrates it by which it seems that the Giant Nimrod was the Founder of it This the Scripture had intimated before saying That Babylon was the Chief of his Kingdom although it was not come to that Point of Grandure which the Impiety and Pride of Men had determined to bring it Bodinus and Sabellicus confound it very unfitly with Susa and others with Bagdat or Bagdat or Bagadet in our times for the one was situate on the Banks of Euphrates and the other stands on the side of Tygris some Ruins of it are to be seen at this Day Forty Miles distant from this latter as the Authors who have seen it testify Josephus will have it that this Work was undertaken that they might have a Retreat from an other Flood if it should happen but that 's only the Imagination of this Author Some make Semiramis the Foundress of this City but she only increased and beautisied it having encompassed it with a Brick-wall cemented together with Slime after she had built several beautiful Aedifices with very pleasant Gardens in which she set on work more than 300000 Men for several Years BABYLONICI Babylonians a very voluptuous People who worshipped the Fire They washed their Bodies after their Death and wrapping them up in Cerecloth covered them over with Honey Ninus one of their Kings being slain in the Battel which he lost with Zoroastres King of the Bactrians was buried in a Tomb and Old Belus caused himself to be put after his Death into a glass Urn full of Oyl which he ordered to be inclosed in a Magnificent Monument BACCHANALIA Bacchanals celebrated in Honour of the God Bacchas and which were called Liberales or Orgiae or Dionysiaca The Orgiae Bacchanals Liberales and Dionysiaca are usually taken for the same but there was a difference between those Pagan Ceremonies for the Feasts of Liber or Libera were celebrated in Honour of Liber or Bacchus every Year on March the 17th when the Young Men between 16 and 17 Years Old put off their Garment bordered with Purple called Praetexta to take the Toga virilis from the Hands of the Praetor with a Surname which made them capable of going to the War and of the Offices of the Common-wealth But the Bacchanals were kept every Month and the Dionysiaca or Orgiae every Three Years which gave them the name of Trieterica Macrobius in the first Book of his Saturnalia Chapter 18. Having proved by good Reasons that Bacchus and Apollo are but one thing adds that the Bacchanals were celebrated every two Years upon Mount Parnassus dedicated to Apollo and the Muses where the Satyrs assisted Authors refer the Institution of the Feast of Bacchus to the Athenians which passed at first for very honest Plays and Metriments among the Pagans They carried a Barrel of Wine wound about with Vine-Branches loaded with Grapes They drew an Hee-Goat by the Horns to sacrifice him with a Basket full of Figs and Grapes having their Heads crowned with Vine Branches and the Bacchae which were the Priests of that God held in their Hands Staves twisted with Ivy dancing and wantonly playing in the Streets and crying Evobé that is to say an happy Life But these Feasts were in length of time changed into a licentious use of all Sorts of Debaucheries Varro tells us that in certain Places of Italy these Feasts of Liber or Bacchus were celebrated with such Liberty that they worshipped in Honour of him the Privy Members of a Man and that not in secret to preserve themselves from Disgrace but in publick to glory in their Wickedness for they placed them honourably upon a Chariot which they drove through the City after they had first carried it through the Country But at Lavinium there was a whole Month spent in the Feasts of Liber only during which time the greatest Filthinesses were acted till the Chariot had crossed the publick Place and was come to the House where it was appointed that the thing it carried should be put after which the most honest Matrons of the City was obliged to go and crown that infamous Depositum before the whole Multitude The Romans were not more moderate in these abominable Practices It was a certain Greek of a base Birth a Priest and Diviner skilful in the hidden Mysteries of these Sacrifices as Livy says who first settled this Feast in Tuscany and from thence it came to Rome A Company of married Women only met in the Night to celebrate those Mysteries of the God at first but a Woman named Paucula of Padua a Stage-Player by Profession admitted Girls and Boys of all Ages and conditions to them who in the darkness of the Night defiled themselves with all Sorts of Abominations and Lewdnesses but at last the Disorder and Looseness of these Feasts grew so high that the Consuls Spurius Posthumius Albinus and Quintus Martius Philippus made secret Enquiry into the Superstition of these Bacchanals which they performed in the Night with such abominable Lascivousness and utterly abolished them having found Seven Thousand Persons of that infamous Society Nevertheless part of those Superstitious Ceremonies were again established according to the Humour of those Times and an old Woman went about crowned with Ivy having a Company of other roaring Women to attend her who imitated her in her Gate and lascivious Postures who all cried out with a loud Voice Evohe She carried a Cake made with Honey of which she gave a Piece to every one she met The Athenians also celebrated a Feast to Bacchus during which the young Maids carried gilt Baskets full of Fruit and this Feast was called CANEPHORIA and the Maids CANEPHORAE from the two Greek Words which signify to carry a Basket The rerinthians put a Serpent into this Basket for the Celebration of their Mysterios dedicated to the Worship of Bacchus This is what Catullus would have us to understand by this Verse Pars obsâ—ura cavis celebrabant Orgia Cistis They had a Cover that they might preserve the Mysteries of Bacchus and hide them from the Eyes of those that were not initiated whom they treated as Profans BACCHAE Priestesses of Bacchus Menades Bassarides or Thyades the Ministers of the God Bacchus who celebrate his Orgiae or Mysteries The Bacchae which accompanyed the Troops of Bacchus took their Name from the Hebrew Word Baca which signifies to lament and howl for Lamentations Cryings and Howlings were very common in the Mysteries of Bacchus They were also called Thyades from the Hebrew word Thaha that is to say to cry and run up and down They are also named Mamallonides from the Hebrew