CHAPTER IX.

SOMNUS,orSLEEP, one of the blessings to which the pagans erected altars, was said to be son of Erĕbus and, Night, and brother of Death. Orpheus calls Somnus the happy king of gods and men; and Ovid, who gives a very beautiful description of his abode, represents him dwelling in a deep cave in the country of the Cimmerians. Into this cavern the sun never enters, and a perpetual stillnessreigns, no noise being heard but the soft murmur caused by a stream of the river Lethe, which creeps over the pebbles, and invites to slumber; at its entrance grow poppies, and other soporiferous herbs. The drowsy god lies reclined on a bed stuffed with black plumes, the bedstead is of ebony, the covering is also black, and his head is surrounded by fantastic visions.We learn from Statius, that the attendants and guards before the gates of this palace were Rest, Ease, Indolence, Silence, and Oblivion; as the ministers or attendants within are a vast multitude of Dreams in different shapes and attitudes. Ovid teaches us who were the supposed governors over these, and what their particular districts or offices were. The three chiefs of all are Morpheus, Phobētor, and Phantăsos, who inspire dreams into great persons only: Morpheus inspires such dreams as relate to men, Phobētor such as relate to other animals, and Phantăsos such as relate to inanimate things. They have each their particular legions under them, to inspire the common people with the sort of dreams which belong to their province.MINOS was son of Jupiter and Eurōpa, and brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpēdon. After the death of his father, the Cretans, who thought him illegitimate, would not admit him as a successor to the kingdom, till he persuaded them it was the divine pleasure he should reign, by praying Neptune to give him a sign, which being granted, the god caused a horse to rise out of the sea, upon which he ascended the throne.Nothing so much distinguished him as the laws he enacted for the Cretans, which obtained him the name of one of the greatest legislators of antiquity. To confer the more authority on these laws, Minos retired to a cave of Mount Ida, where he feigned that Jupiter, his father, dictated them to him; and every time he returned thence a new injunction was promulgated by him. Homer calls him Jupiter's disciple; and Horace says he was admitted to the secrets of that god. Strabo and Ephŏrus contend, that Minos dwelt nine years in retirement in this cave, and that it was afterwards called the cave of Jupiter.Antiquity entertained the highest esteem for the institutes of Minos: and the testimonies of ancient authors on this head are endless. It will, therefore, suffice to observe that Lycurgus travelled to Crete on purpose to collect the laws of Minos for the benefit of the Lacedemonians; and thatJosephus, partial as he was to his own nation, has owned, that Minos was the only one among the ancients who deserved to be compared to Moses. He was reputed the judge of the supreme court of Pluto, Æăcus judged the Europeans; the Asiatics and Africans fell to the lot of Rhadamanthus; and Minos, as president of the infernal court, decided the differences which arose between these two judges. He sat on a throne by himself, and wielded a golden sceptre.RHADAMANTHUS was the son of Jupiter and Eurōpa, and brother of Minos. He was one of the three judges of hell. It is said that Rhadamanthus, having killed his brother, fled to Œchalia in Bœotia, where he married Alcmēna, widow of Amphitryon. Some make Rhadamanthus a king of Lycia, who on account of his severity and strict regard to justice, was said to have been one of the three judges of hell, where his province was to judge such as died impenitent. It is agreed, that he was the most temperate man of his time, and was exalted amongst the law-givers of Crete, who were renowned as good and just men. The division assigned to Rhadamanthus in the infernal regions was Tartărus.ÆACUS, son of Jupiter and Ægīna, was king of Œnopia, which, from his mother's name, he called Ægīna. The inhabitants of that country being destroyed by a plague, Æăcus prayed to his father that by some means he would repair the loss of his subjects, upon which Jupiter, in compassion changed all the ants within a hollow tree into men and women, who, from a Greek word signifyingants, were calledMyrmidons, and actually were so industrious a people as to become famous for their ships and navigation.The meaning of which fable is this: The pirates having destroyed the inhabitants of the island, excepting a few, who hid themselves in caves and holes for fear of a like fate, Æăcus drew them out of their retreats and encouraged them to build houses, and sow corn; taught them military discipline, and how to fit out and navigate fleets, and to appear not like ants in holes, but on the theatre of the world, like men. His character for justice was such, that in a time of universal drought he was nominated by the Delphic oracle to intercede for Greece, and his prayers were heard. The pagan world also believed that Æăcus, on account of his impartial justice, was chosen by Pluto,with Minos and Rhadamanthus, one of the three judges of the dead, and that it was his province to judge the Europeans, in which capacity he held a plain rod as a badge of his office.CHAPTER IX.The condemned in Hell.TYPHŒUS, a giant of enormous size, was, according to Hesiod, son of Erĕbus, or Tartărus and Terra. His stature was prodigious. With one hand he touched the east, and with the other the west, while his head reached to the stars. Hesiod has given him an hundred heads of dragons, uttering dreadful sounds, and eyes which darted fire; flame proceeded from his mouths and nostrils, his body was encircled with serpents, and his thighs and legs were of a serpentine form. When he had almost discomfited the gods, who fled from him into Egypt, Jupiter alone stood his ground, and pursued the monster to Mount Caucăsus in Syria, where he wounded him with his thunder; But Typhœus, turning upon him, took the god prisoner, and after having cut, with his own sickle, the muscles of his hands and feet, threw him on his shoulders, carried him into Cilicia, and there imprisoned him in a cave, whence he was delivered by Mercury, who restored him to his former vigor. Typhœus afterwards fled into Sicily, where the god overwhelmed him with the enormous mass of mount Ætna.Historians report, that Typhœus was brother of Osīris, king of Egypt, who in the absence of that monarch, formed a conspiracy to dethrone him; and that having accordingly put Osīris to death, Isis, in revenge of her husband, raised an army, the command of which she gave to Orus her son, who vanquished and slew the usurper: hence the Egyptians, in abhorrence of his memory, painted him under their hieroglyphic characters in so frightful a manner. The length of his arms signified his power, the serpents about him denoted his address and cunning, the scales which covered his body, expressed his cruelty and dissimulation, and the flight of the gods into Egypt showed the precautions taken by the great to screen themselves from his fury and resentment. Mythologists take Typhœus andthe other giants, to have been the winds; especially the subterraneous, which cause earthquakes to break forth with fire, occasioned by the sulphur enkindled in the caverns under Campania, Sicily, and the Æolian islands.TITYOS,orTITYUS, was son of Jupiter and Elara. He resided in Panopea, where he became formidable for rapine and cruelty, till Apollo killed him for offering violence to his mother Latona. After this he was thrown into Tartărus, and chained down on his back, his body taking up such a compass as to cover nine acres. In this posture two vultures continually preyed upon his liver, which constantly grew with the increase of the moon, that there might never be wanting matter for eternal punishment.PHLEGYAS, son of Mars and Chryse, daughter of Halmus, was king of Lapithæ, a people of Thessaly. Apollo having seduced his daughter Coronis, Phlegyas, in revenge, set fire to the temple of that god at Delphi, for which sacrilege the deity killed him with his arrows, and then cast him into Tartărus; where he was sentenced to sit under a huge rock, which threatened him with perpetual destruction.IXION was son of Phlegyas, king of the Lapithæ in Thessaly. He married Dia, daughter of Deioneus, whose consent he obtained by magnificent promises, but, failing afterwards to perform them, Deioneus seized on his horses. Ixion dissembled his resentment, and inviting Deioneus to a banquet, received him in an apartment previously prepared, from which, by withdrawing a door, his father-in-law was thrown into a furnace of fire. Stung, however, with remorse, and universally despised, Ixion was overpowered with frenzy, till Jupiter at length re-admitted him to favor, and not only took him into heaven, but intrusted him also with his counsels. So ungrateful, notwithstanding, did Ixion become, as to attempt the chastity of Juno herself. This so incensed Jupiter that the angry deity hurled him into Tartărus, and fixed him on a wheel encompassed with serpents, which was doomed to revolve without intermission.SALMONEUS, king of Elis, was son of Æolus, (not he who was king of the winds, but another of the name) and Anarete. Not satisfied with an earthly crown, Salmoneus panted after divine honors; and, in order that the people might esteem him a god, he built a brazen bridge over the city, and drove his chariot along it, imitating, bythis noise, Jupiter's thunder; at the same time throwing flaming torches among the spectators below, to represent his lightning, by which many were killed. Jupiter, in resentment of this insolence, precipitated the ambitious mortal into hell, where, according to Virgil, Æneas saw him.SISIPHUS,orSISYPHUS, a descendant of Æŏlus, married Merope, one of the Pleiades, who bore him Glaucus. He resided at Ephyra, in Peloponnesus, and was conspicuous for his craft. Some say he was a Trojan secretary, who was punished for discovering secrets of state; whilst others contend that he was a notorious robber killed by Theseus. However, all the poets agree that he was punished in Tartărus for his crimes, by rolling a great stone to the top of a hill, which constantly recoiling and rolling down again, incessantly renewed his fatigue, and rendered his labor endless.Ovid, in one passage, seems to describe Sisyphus as bending under the weight of a vast stone; “but the more common way of speaking of his punishment,” says the author of Polymetis, “agrees with the fine description of him in Homer, where we see him laboring to heave the stone that lies on his shoulders up against the side of a steep mountain, and which always rolls precipitately down again before he can get it to rest upon the top. Lucretius makes him only an emblem of the ambitious; as Horace too seems to make Tantălus only an emblem of the covetous.”BELIDES,orDANAIDES: They were the fifty daughters of Danăus, son of Belus, surnamed theancient. Some quarrel having arisen between him and Egyptus his brother, it determined Danăus on his voyage into Greece; but Egyptus having fifty sons, proposed a reconciliation, by marrying them to his brother's daughters. The proposal was agreed to, and the nuptials were to be celebrated with singular splendor, when Danăus, either in resentment of former injuries, or being told by the oracle that one of his sons-in-law should destroy him, gave to each of his daughters a dagger, with an injunction to stab her husband. They all executed the order but Hypermnestra, the eldest, who spared the life of Lyncæus. These Belĭdes, for their cruelty, were consigned to the infernal regions, there to draw water in sieves from a well, till they had filled, by that means, a vessel full of holes.TANTALUS, king of Phrygia, was the son of Jupiter and Plota. Whether it was for this cause, the violation of hospitality, or for his pride, his boasting, his want of secrecy, his insatiable covetousness, his imparting nectar and ambrosia to mortals, or for all of them together, since he has been accused of them all, Tantălus was thrown into Tartărus, where the poets have assigned him a variety of torments. Some represent a great stone as hanging over his head, which he apprehended to be continually falling, and was ever in motion to avoid it. Others describe him as afflicted with constant thirst and hunger, though the most delicious banquets were exposed to his view; one of the Furies terrifying him with her torch whenever he approached towards them. Some exhibit him standing to the chin in water, and whenever he stooped to quench his thirst, the water as constantly eluding his lip. Others, with fruits luxuriously growing around him, which he no sooner advanced to touch, than the wind blew them into the clouds.CHAPTER X.Monsters of Hell.HARPYIÆ,orHARPIES, were three in number, their names, Celæno, Aëllo, and Ocypĕte. The ancients looked on them as a sort of Genii, or Dæmons. They had the faces of virgins, the ears of bears, the bodies of vultures, human arms and feet, and long claws, hooked like the talons of carnivorous birds. Phineas, king of Arcadia, being a prophet, and revealing the mysteries of Jupiter to mortals, was by that deity struck blind, and so tormented by the Harpies that he was ready to perish for hunger; they devouring whatever was set before him, till the sons of Boreas, who attended Jason in his expedition to Colchis, delivered the good old king, and drove these monsters to the islands called Strophădes: compelling them to swear never more to return.The Harpies, according to the ingenious Abbé la Pluche, had their origin in Egypt. He further observes, in respect to them, that during the months of April, May, and June, especially the two latter, Egypt being very subject to tempests, which laid waste their olive grounds, and carriedthither numerous swarms of grasshoppers, and other troublesome insects from the shores of the Red Sea, the Egyptians gave to their emblematic figures of these months a female face, with the bodies and claws of birds, calling themHarop, or winged destroyers. This solution of the fable corresponds with the opinion of Le Clerc, who takes the harpies to have been a swarm of locusts, the wordArbi, whence Harpy is formed, signifying, in their language, a locust.GORGONS were three in number, and daughters of Phorcus or Porcys, by his sister Ceto. Their names were Medūsa, Euryăle, and Stheno, and they are represented as having scales on their bodies, brazen hands, golden wings, tusks like boars, and snakes for hair. The last distinction, however, is confined by Ovid to Medūsa.According to some mythologists, Perseus having been sent against Medūsa by the gods, was supplied by Mercury with a falchion, by Minerva with a mirror, and by Pluto with a helmet, which rendered the wearer invisible. Thus equipped, through the aid of winged sandals, he steered his course towards Tartessus, where, finding the object of his search, by the reflection of his mirror, he was enabled to aim his weapon, without meeting her eye, (for her look would have turned him to stone) and at one blow struck off her head. When Perseus had slain Medūsa, the other sisters pursued him, but he escaped from their sight by means of his helmet. They were afterwards thrown into hell.SPHINX was a female monster, daughter of Typhon and Echidna. She had the head, face, and breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the body of a dog. She lived on mount Sphincius, infested the country about Thebes, and assaulted passengers, by proposing dark and enigmatical questions to them, which if they did not explain, she tore them in pieces. Sphinx made horrible ravages in the neighborhood of Thebes, till Creon, then king of that city, published an edict over all Greece, promising that if any one should explain the riddle of Sphinx, he would give him his own sister Iocasta in marriage.The riddle was this, “What animal is that which goes upon four feet in the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?” Many had endeavored to explain this riddle, but failing in the attempt, were destroyed by the monster; till Œdipus undertook the solution, and thus explained it: “The animal is man, who in his infancy creeps, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he gets into the noon of life, he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, or declines into the evening of his days, he uses the support of a staff, and thus may be said to walk on three feet.” The Sphinx being enraged at this explanation, cast herself headlong from a rock and died.CHAPTER XI.Dii indigĕtes, or Heroes who received divine Honors after Death.HERCULES was the son of Jupiter by Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city about 1280 years before the Christian era. During his infancy Juno sent two serpents to kill him in his cradle, but the undaunted child grasping one in either hand, immediately strangled them both. As he grew up, he discovered an uncommon degree of vigor both of body and of mind. Nor were his extraordinary endowments neglected; for his education was intrusted to the greatest masters. The tasks imposed on him by Eurystheus, on account of the danger and difficulty which attended their execution, received the name of theLabors of Hercules, and are commonly reckoned, (at least the most material of them) to have been twelve.The first was his engagement with Cleonæan lion, which furious animal, it is said, fell from the orb of the moon by Juno's direction, and was invunerable. It infested the woods between Phlius and Cleōne, and committed uncommon ravages. The hero attacked it both with his arrows and club, but in vain, till, perceiving his error, he tore asunder its jaws with his hands.The second labor was his conquest of the Lernæan hydra, a formidable serpent or monster which harbored in the fens of Lerna, and infected the region of Argos with his poisonous exhalations. This seems to have been one of the most difficult tasks in which Hercules was ever engaged. The number of heads assigned the hydra is various; some give him seven, some nine, others fifty, and Ovid an hundred; but all authors agree that when one was cut off, another sprung forth in its place, unless the wound wasimmediately cauterized. Hercules, not discouraged, attacked him, and having ordered Iŏlas, his friend and companion, to cut down wood sufficient for fire-brands, he no sooner had cut off a head than he applied these brands to the wounds; by which means searing them up, he obtained a complete victory.The third labor was to bring alive to Eurystheus an enormous wild boar which ravaged the forest of Erymanthus in Arcadia, and had been sent to Phocis by Diāna to punish Ænēas, for neglecting her sacrifices. Hercules brought him bound to Eurystheus. There is nothing descriptive of this exploit in any of the Roman poets.The fourth labor was the capture of the Mænalæan stag. Eurystheus, after repeated proofs of the strength and valor of Hercules, resolved to try his agility, and commanded him to take a wild stag that frequented mount Mænălus, which had brazen feet and golden horns. As this animal was sacred to Diāna, Hercules durst not wound him; but though it were no easy matter to run him down, yet this, after pursuing him on foot for a year, the hero at last effected.The fifth labor of Hercules consisted in killing the Stymphalĭdes, birds so called from frequenting the lake Stymphālis in Arcadia, which preyed upon human flesh, having wings, beaks, and talons of iron. Some say Hercules destroyed these birds with his arrows, others that Pallas sent him brazen rattles, made by Vulcan, the sound of which so terrified them, that they took shelter in the island of Aretia. There are authors who suppose these birds called Stymphalĭdes, to have been a gang of desperate banditti who had their haunts near the lake Stymphālis.The sixth labor was his cleansing the stable of Augeas. This Augeas, king of Elis, had a stable intolerable from the stench occasioned by the filth it contained, which may be readily imagined from the fact that it sheltered three thousand oxen, and had not been cleansed for thirty years. This place Eurystheus ordered Hercules to clear in one day, and Augeas promised, if he performed the task, to give him a tenth part of the cattle. Hercules, by turning the course of the river Alphēus through the stable, executed his design, which Augeas seeing, refused to fulfil his promise. The hero, to punish his perfidy, slew Augeas with his arrows, and gave his kingdom to his son Phyleus, who abhorred his father's treachery.The seventh labor was the capture of the Cretan bull.Minos, king of Crete, having acquired the dominion of the Grecian seas, paid no greater honor to Neptune than to the other gods, wherefore the deity, in resentment of this ingratitude, sent a bull, which breathed fire from his nostrils, to destroy the people of Crete. Hercules took this furious animal, and brought him to Eurystheus, who, because the bull was sacred, let him loose into the country of Marathon, where he was afterwards slain by Theseus.The eighth labor of Hercules, was the killing of Diomēdes and his horses. That infamous tyrant was king of Thrace, and son of Mars and Cyrēne. Among other things he is said to have driven in his war-chariot four furious horses, which, to render the more impetuous, he used to feed on the flesh and blood of his subjects. Hercules is said to have freed the world from this barbarous prince, and to have killed both him and his horses, as is signified in some drawings, and said expressly by some of the poets. Some report that the tyrant was given by Hercules as a prey to his own horses.The ninth labor of Hercules was his combat with Geryon, king of Spain. Geryon is generally represented with three bodies agreeable to the expressions used of him by the poets, and sometimes with three heads. He had a breed of oxen of a purple color, (which devoured all strangers cast to them) guarded by a dog with two heads, a dragon with seven, besides a very watchful and severe keeper. Hercules, however, killed the monarch and all his guards, and carried the oxen to Gades, whence he brought them to Eurystheus. Some mythologists explain this fable by saying that Geryon was king of three islands, now called Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, on which account he was fabled to be triple bodied and headed.The tenth labor of Hercules was his conquest of Hippolyte queen of the Amazons. His eleventh labor consisted in dragging Cerebus from the infernal regions into day. The twelfth and last was killing the serpent, and gaining the golden fruit in the gardens of the Hesperides.Hercules, after his conquests in Spain, having made himself famous in the country of the Celtæ or Gauls, is said to have there founded a large and populous city, which he called Alesia. His favorite wife was Dejanira, whose jealousy most fatally occasioned his death. Hercules having subdued Œchalia and killed Eurytus the king, carried off the fair Iŏle, his daughter, with whom Dejanira suspectinghim to be in love, sent him the garment of Nessus, the Centaur, as a remedy to recover his affections; this garment, however, having been pierced with an arrow dipped in the blood of the Lernæan hydra, whilst worn by Nessus, contracted a poison from his blood incurable by art. No sooner, therefore, was it put on by Hercules than he was seized with a delirious fever, attended with the most excruciating torments. Unable to support his pains, he retired to mount Œta, where, raising a pile, and setting it on fire, he threw himself upon it, and was consumed in the flames, after having killed in his phrenzy Lycus his friend. His arrows he bequeathed to Philoctētes, who interred his remains.After his death he was deified by his father Jupiter. Diōdorus Siculus relates that he was no sooner ranked amongst the gods than Juno, who had so violently persecuted him whilst on earth, adopted him for her son, and loved him with the tenderness of a mother. Hercules was afterwards married to Hebe, goddess of youth, his half sister, with all the splendor of a celestial wedding; but he refused the honor which Jupiter designed him, of being ranked with the twelve gods, alleging there was no vacancy; and that it would be unreasonable to degrade any other god for the purpose of admitting him.Both the Greeks and Romans honored him as a god, and as such erected to him temples. His victims were bulls and lambs, on account of his preserving the flocks from wolves; that is, delivering men from tyrants and robbers. He was worshipped by the ancient Latins under the name of Dius, or Divus Fidius, that is, the guarantee or protector of faith promised or sworn. They had a custom of calling this deity to witness by a sort of oath expressed in these terms,Me Dius Fidius!that is, so help me the god Fidius! or Hercules.PERSEUS was the son of Jupiter and Danăe, daughter of Acrisius king of Argos. When Perseus was grown up, Polydectes, who was enamored of his mother, finding him an obstacle to their union, contrived to send him on an exploit, which he hoped would be fatal to him. This was to bring him the head of Medūsa, one of the Gorgons. In his expedition Perseus was favored by the gods; Mercury equipped him with a scymetar, and the wings from his heels; Pallas lent him a shield which reflected objects like a mirror; and Pluto granted him his helmet, which rendered him invisible. In this manner he flew to Tartessus in Spain, where,directed by the reflection of Medūsa in his mirror, he cut off her head, and brought it to Pallas. From the blood arose the winged horse Pegăsus.After this the hero passed into Mauritania, where repairing to the court of Atlas, that monarch ordered him to retire, with menaces, in case of disobedience; but Perseus, presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, changed him into the mountain which still bears his name. In his return to Greece he visited Ethiopia, mounted on Pegăsus, and delivered Andromĕda, daughter of Cepheus, (who was exposed on a rock of that coast to be devoured by a monster of the deep) on condition he might make her his wife: but Phineas, her uncle, sought to prevent him, by attempting, with a party, to carry off the bride. The attempt, notwithstanding, was rendered abortive; for the hero, by showing them the head of the Gorgon, at once turned them to stone.Perseus having completed these exploits, was desirous of revisiting home, and accordingly set off for that purpose with his wife and his mother. Arriving on the coast of Peloponnesus, and learning that Teutamias, king of Larissa, was then celebrating games in honor of his father, Perseus, wishing to exhibit his skill at the quoit, of which he has been deemed the inventor, resolved to go thither. In this contest, however, he was so unfortunate as to kill Acrisius, the father of his mother, who, on the report that Perseus was returning to the place of his nativity, had fled to the court of Teutamias his friend, to avoid the denunciation of the oracle, which had induced him to exercise such cruelty on his offspring. At what time Perseus died is unknown; but all agree that divine honors were paid him. He had statues at Mycēnæ and in Seriphos. A temple was erected to him in Athens, and an altar in it consecrated to Dictys.HECTOR'S BODY DRAGGED AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES.Pl. 8.HECTOR'S BODY DRAGGED AT THE CAR OF ACHILLESACHILLES was the offspring of a goddess. Thetis bore him to Peleus, king of Thessaly, and was so fond of him, that she charged herself with his education. By day she fed him with ambrosia, and by night covered him with celestial fire, to render him immortal. She also dipped him in the waters of Styx, by which his whole body became invulnerable, except that part of his heel by which she held him. He was afterwards committed to the care of Chiron the Centaur, who fed him with honey, and the marrow of lions and wild boars; whence he obtained that strength of body and greatness of soul which qualified him for martial toil.When the Greeks undertook the siege of Troy, Calchas the diviner, and priest of Apollo, foretold that the city should not be taken without the help of Achilles. Thetis, his mother, who knew that Achilles, if he went to the siege of Troy, would never return, clothed him in female apparel, and concealed him among the maidens at the court of Lycomēdes, king of the island of Scyros. But this stratagem proved ineffectual; for Calchas having informed the Greeks where Achilles lay in disguise, they sent Ulysses to the court of Lycomēdes, where, under the appearance of a merchant, he was introduced to the king's daughters, and while they were studiously intent on viewing his toys, Achilles employed himself in examining an helmet, which the cunning politician had thrown in his way.Achilles thus detected, was prevailed on to go to Troy, after Thetis had furnished him with impenetrable armor made by Vulcan. Thither he led the troops of Thessaly, in fifty ships, and distinguished himself by a number of heroic actions; but being disgusted with Agamemnon for the loss of Briseis, he retired from the camp, and resolved to have no further concern in the war. In this resolution he continued inexorable, till news was brought him that Hector had killed his friend Patrōclus; to avenge his death he not only slew Hector, but fastened the corpse to his chariot, dragged it round the walls of Troy, offered many indignities to it, and sold it at last to Priam his father.Authors are much divided on the manner of Achilles' death; some relate that he was slain by Apollo, or that this god enabled Paris to kill him, by directing the arrow to his heel, the only part in which he was vulnerable. Others again say, that Paris murdered him treacherously, in the temple of Apollo, whilst treating about his marriage with Polyxĕna, daughter to king Priam.Though this tradition concerning his death be commonly received, yet Homer plainly enough insinuates that Achilles died fighting for his country, and represents the Greeks as maintaining a bloody battle about his body, which lasted a whole day. Achilles having been lamented by Thetis, the Nereids, and the Muses, was buried on the promontory of Sigæum; and after Troy was captured, the Greeks endeavored to appease his manes by sacrificing Polyxĕna, on his tomb, as his ghost had requested.The oracle at Dodōna decreed him divine honors, and ordered annual victims to be offered at the place of his sepulture. In pursuance of this, the Thessalians brought hither yearly two bulls, one black, the other white, crowned with wreaths of flowers, and water from the river Sperchius. It is said that Alexander, seeing his tomb, honored it by placing a crown upon it, at the same time crying out “that Achilles was happy in having, during his life, such a friend as Patrōclus, and after his death, a poet like Homer.”ATLAS was son of Japĕtus and Clymĕne, and brother of Prometheus, according to most authors; or, as others relate, son of Japĕtus by Asia, daughter of Oceănus. He had many children. Of his sons, the most famous were Hespĕrus (whom some call his brother) and Hyas. By his wife Pleione he had seven daughters, who went by the general names of Atlantĭdes, or Pleiădes; and by his wife Æthra he had also seven other daughters, who bore the common appellation of the Hyădes.According to Hygīnus, Atlas having assisted the giants in their war against Jupiter, was doomed by the victorious god, as a punishment, to sustain the weight of the heavens. Ovid, however, represents him as a powerful and wealthy monarch, proprietor of the gardens of the Hesperĭdes, which bore golden fruit; but that being warned by the oracle of Themis that he should suffer some great injury from a son of Jupiter, he strictly forbade all foreigners access to his presence. Perseus, however, having the courage to appear before him, was ordered to retire, with strong menaces in case of disobedience; but the hero presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, turned him into the mountain which still bears his name.The Abbé la Pluche has given a very clear and ingenious explication of this fable. Of all nations the Egyptians had, with the greatest assiduity, cultivated astronomy. To point out the difficulties attending the study of this science, they represented it by an image bearing a globe or sphere on its back, which they calledAtlas, a word signifyinggreat toil or labor; but the word also signifyingsupport, the Phœnicians, led by the representation, took it in this sense, and in their voyages to Mauritania, seeing the high mountains of that country covered with snow, and losing their tops in the clouds, gave them the name ofAtlas, and thus produced the fable by which the symbol of astronomy used among the Egyptians became a Mauritanian king, transformed into a mountain, whose head supports the heavens.The rest of the fable is equally obvious to explanation. The annual inundations of the Nile obliged the Egyptians to be very exact in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Hyades, or Huades, took their name from the figure V, which they form in the head of Taurus. The Pleiades were a remarkable constellation and of great use to the Egyptians in regulating the seasons: hence they became the daughters of Atlas; and Orion, who arose just as they set, was called their lover.By the golden apples that grew in the gardens of the Hesperides, the Phœnicians expressed the rich and beneficial commerce they had in the Mediterranean, which being carried on during three months only of the year, gave rise to the fable of the Hesperian sisters. The most usual way of representing Atlas, among the ancient artists, was as supporting a globe; for the old poets commonly refer to this attitude in speaking of him.PROMETHEUS was son of Japĕtus, but it is doubtful whether his mother were Asia, or Themis. Having incurred the displeasure of Jupiter, either for stealing some of the celestial fire, or for forming a man of clay, Jupiter, in resentment, commanded Vulcan to make a woman of clay, which, when finished, was introduced into the assembly of the gods, each of whom bestowed on her some additional charm or perfection. Venus gave her beauty, Pallas wisdom, Juno riches, Mercury taught her eloquence, and Apollo music. From all these accomplishments she was styled Pandōra, that is, loaded with gifts and accomplishments, and was the first of her sex.Jupiter, to complete his designs, presented her a box, in which he had enclosed age, disease, war, famine, pestilence, discord, envy, calumny, and, in short, all the evils and vices with which he intended to afflict the world. Thus equipped, Pandōra was sent to Prometheus, who, being on his guard against the mischief designed him, declined accepting the box; but Epimetheus, his brother, though forewarned of the danger, had less resolution; for, being enamored of the beauty of Pandōra, he married her, and opened the fatal treasure, when immediately flew abroad the contents, which soon overspread the world, hope only remaining at the bottom.Prometheus escaping the evil which the god designed him, and Jupiter not being appeased, Mercury and Vulcan were despatched by him to seize Prometheus, and chain him onMount Caucasus, where a vulture, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, was commissioned to prey upon his liver, which, that his torment might be endless, was constantly renewed by night in proportion to its increase by day; but the vulture being soon destroyed by Hercules, Prometheus was released. Others say, that Jupiter restored Prometheus to freedom, for discovering the conspiracy of Saturn, his father, and dissuading his intended marriage with Thetis.Nicander, to this fable, offers an additional one. He tells us, that when mankind had received the fire from Prometheus, some ungrateful men discovered the theft to Jupiter, who rewarded them with the gift ofperpetual youth. This present they put on the back of an ass, which stopping at a fountain to quench his thirst, was prevented by a water-snake which would not suffer him to drink till he gave him his burden; hence the serpent renews his youth upon changing his skin.Prometheus was esteemed the inventor of many useful arts. He made man of the mixture and temperament of all the elements, gave him strength of body, vigor of mind, and the peculiar qualities of all creatures, as the craft of the fox, the courage of the lion, &c. He had an altar in the academy of Athens in common with Vulcan and Pallas. In his statues he holds a sceptre in the right hand.Several explanations have been given of this fable. Prometheus, whose name is derived from a Greek word, signifying foresight and providence, was conspicuous for that quality; and because he reduced mankind, before rude and savage, to a state of culture and improvement, he was feigned to have made them from clay: being a diligent observer of the motions of the heavenly bodies from Mount Caucasus, it was fabled that he was chained there: having discovered the method of striking fire from the flint, or perhaps, the nature of lightning, it was pretended that he stole fire from the gods: and, because he applied himself to study with intenseness, they imagined that a vulture preyed continually on his liver.There is another solution of this fable, analogous to the preceding. According to Pliny, Prometheus was the first who instituted sacrifices. Being expelled his dominions by Jupiter, he fled to Scythia, where he retired to Mount Caucasus, either to make astronomical calculations or to indulge his melancholy for the loss of his dominions, which occasioned the fable of the vulture or eagle feeding onhis liver. As he was the first inventor of forging metals by fire, he was said to have stolen that element from heaven; and, as the first introduction of agriculture and navigation had been ascribed to him, he was celebrated as forming a living man from an inanimate substance.AMPHION, king of Thebes, son of Jupiter and Antiŏpe, was instructed in the use of the lyre by Mercury, and became so great a proficient, that he is reported to have built the walls of Thebes by the power of his harmony, which caused the listening stones to ascend voluntarily. He married Niŏbe, daughter of Tantălus, whose insult to Diāna occasioned the loss of their children by the arrows of Apollo and Diāna. The unhappy father, attempting to revenge himself by the destruction of the temple of Apollo, was punished with the loss of his sight and skill, and thrown into the infernal regions.ORPHEUS, son of Apollo by the Muse Calliŏpe, was born in Thrace, and resided near Mount Rhodŏpe, where he married Eurydice, a princess of that country. Aristæus, a neighboring prince, fell desperately in love with her, but she flying from his violence, was killed by the bite of a serpent. Her disconsolate husband was so affected at his loss, that he descended by the way of Tænărus to hell, in order to recover his beloved wife. As music and poetry were to Orpheus hereditary talents, he exerted them so powerfully in the infernal regions, that Pluto and Proserpine, touched with compassion, restored to him his consort on condition that he should not look back upon her till they came to the light of the world. His impatience, however, prevailing, he broke the condition, and lost Eurydice forever.Whilst Orpheus was among the shades, he sang the praises of all the gods but Bacchus, whom he accidentally omitted; to revenge this affront, Bacchus inspired the Mænădes, his priestesses, with such fury, that they tore Orpheus to pieces, and scattered his limbs about the fields. His head was cast into the river Hebrus, and (together with his harp) was carried by the tide to Lesbos, where it afterwards delivered oracles. The harp, with seven strings, representing the seven planets, which had been given him by Apollo, was taken up into heaven, and graced with nine stars by the nine Muses. Orpheus himself was changed into a swan. He left a son called Methon, who founded in Thrace a city of his own name.It is certain that Orpheus may be placed as the earliest poet of Greece, where he first introduced astronomy, divinity, music and poetry; all which he had learned in Egypt. He introduced also the rites of Bacchus, which from him were called Orphica. He was a person of most consummate knowledge, and the wisest, as well as the most diligent scholar of Linus.If we search for the origin of this fable, we must again have recourse to Egypt, the mother-country of fiction. In July, when the sun entered Leo, the Nile overflowed all the plains. To denote the public joy at seeing the inundation rise to its due height, the Egyptians exhibited a youth playing on the lyre, or the sistrum, and sitting by a tame lion. When the waters did not increase as they should, the Horus was represented stretched on the back of a lion, as dead. This symbol they called Oreph, or Orpheus, (fromoreph, the back part of the head) to signify that agriculture was then quite unseasonable and dormant.The songs with which the people amused themselves during this period of inactivity, for want of exercise, were called the hymns of Orpheus; and as husbandry revived immediately after, it gave rise to the fable of Orpheus's returning from hell. The Isis placed near this Horus, they called Eurydice, (fromeri, alion, anddaca,tamed, is formedEridica,Eurydice, or the lion tamed,i.e.the violence of the inundation overcome), and as the Greeks took all these figures in the literal, not in the emblematical sense, they made Eurydice the wife of Orpheus.OSIRIS, son of Jupiter and Niŏbe, was king of the Argives many years; but, being instigated by the desire of glory, he left his kingdom to his brother Ægiălus, and went into Egypt, in search of a new name and kingdom there. The Egyptians were not so much overcome by the valor of Osīris, as obliged to him for his kindness towards them. Having conferred the greatest benefits on his subjects, by civilizing their manners, and instructing them in husbandry and other useful arts, he made the necessary disposition of his affairs, committed the regency to Isis, and set out with a body of forces in order to civilize the rest of mankind. This he performed more by the power of persuasion, and the soothing arts of music and poetry, than by the terror of his arms.In his absence, Typhœus, the giant, whom historians call the brother of Osīris, formed a conspiracy to dethrone him;for which end, at the return of Osīris into Egypt, he invited him to a feast, at the conclusion of which a chest of exquisite workmanship was brought in, and offered to him who, when laid down in it, should be found to fit it the best. Osīris, not suspecting a trick to be played him, got into the chest, and the cover being immediately shut upon him, this good but unfortunate prince was thus thrown into the Nile.When the news of this transaction reached Coptus, where Isis his wife then was, she cut her hair, and in deep mourning went every where in search of the dead body. This was at length discovered, and concealed by her at Butus; but Typhœus, while hunting by moonlight, having found it there, tore it into many pieces, which he scattered abroad. Isis then traversed the lakes and watery places in a boat made of thepapyrus, seeking the mangled parts of Osīris, and where she found any, there she buried them; hence the many tombs ascribed to Osīris.Plutarch seems evidently to prove that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun under the name of Osīris. His reasons are: 1. Because the images of Osīris were always clothed in a shining garment, to represent the rays and light of the sun. 2. In their hymns, composed in honor of Osīris, they prayed to him who reposes himself in the bosom of the sun. 3. After the autumnal equinox, they celebrated a feast called,The disappearing of Osīris, by which is plainly meant the absence and distance of the sun. 4. In the month of November they led a cow seven times round the temple of Osīris, intimating thereby, that in seven months the sun would return to the summer solstice.He is represented sitting upon a throne, crowned with a mitre full of small orbs, to intimate his superiority over all the globe. The gourd upon the mitre implies his action and influence upon moisture, which, and the Nile particularly, was termed by the Egyptians, the efflux of Osīris. The lower part of his habit is made up of descending rays, and his body is surrounded with orbs. His right hand is extended in a commanding attitude, and his left holds athyrsusor staff of thepapyrus, pointing out the principle of humidity, and the fertility thence flowing, under his direction.ÆSCULAPIUS. The name of Æsculapius, whom the Greeks called Ασκληπιος, appears to have been foreign, and derived from the oriental languages. Being honored as a god in Phœnicia and Egypt, his worship passed into Greece,and was established, first at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, bordering on the sea, where, probably, some colonies first settled; a circumstance sufficient for the Greeks to give out that this god was a native of Greece.Not to mention all we are told of his parents, it will be enough to observe, that the opinion generally received in Greece, made him the son of Apollo by Corōnis, daughter of Phlegyas; and indeed the Messenians, who consulted the oracle of Delphi to know where Æsculapius was born, and of what parents, were told by the oracle, or more properly Apollo, that he himself was his father; that Corōnis was his mother, and that their son was born at Epidaurus.Phlegyas, the most warlike man of his age, having gone into Peloponnesus under pretence of travelling, but, in truth, to spy into the condition of the country, carried his daughter Corōnis thither, who, to conceal her situation from her father, went to Epidaurus: there she was delivered of a son, whom she exposed upon a mountain, called to this day Mount Titthion, orof the breast; but before this adventure, Myrthion, from the myrtles that grew upon it.The reason of this change of name was, that the child, having been here abandoned, was suckled by one of those goats of the mountain, which the dog of Aristhĕnes the goat-herd guarded. When Aristhĕnes came to review his flock, he found a she-goat and his dog missing, and going in search of them discovered the child. Upon approaching to lift him from the earth, he perceived his head encircled with fiery rays, which made him believe the child to be of divine origin.As Κορωνη in the Greek language signifies a crow, hence another fable arose importing, as we see in Lucian, that Æsculapius had sprung from an egg of a bird, under the figure of a serpent. Whatever these fictions may mean, Æsculapius being removed from the mount on which he was exposed, was nursed by Trigo or Trigone, who was probably the wife of the goat-herd that found him; and when he was capable of improving by Chiron, Phlegyas (to whom he had doubtless been returned) put him under the Centaur's tuition.Being of a quick and lively genius, he made such progress as soon to become not only a great physician, but at length to be reckoned the god and inventor of medicine; though the Greeks, not very consistent in the history of those early ages, gave to Apis, son of Phoroneus, the glory of having discovered the healing art. Æsculapius accompanied Jason in his expedition to Colchis, and in his medical capacity was of great service to the Argonauts. Within a short time after his death he was deified, and received divine honors: some add, that he formed the celestial sign, Serpentarius.As the Greeks always carried the encomiums of their great men beyond the truth, they feigned that Æsculapius was so expert in medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead. Ovid says he did this by Hippolĭtus, and Julian says the same of Tyndărus: that Pluto cited him before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his empire was considerably diminished and in danger of becoming desolate, from the cures Æsculapius performed; so that Jupiter in wrath slew Æsculapius with a thunder-bolt; to which they added that Apollo, enraged at the death of his son, killed the Cyclops who forged Jupiter's thunder-bolts: a fiction which obviously signifies only, that Æsculapius had carried his art very far, and that he cured diseases believed to be desperate.Æsculapius is always represented under the figure of a grave old man wrapped up in a cloak, having sometimes upon his head thecalăthusof Serāpis, with a staff in his hand, which is commonly wreathed about with a serpent; sometimes again with a serpent in one hand, and apatĕrain the other; sometimes leaning upon a pillar, round which a serpent also twines. The cock, a bird consecrated to this god, whose vigilance represents that quality which physicians ought to have, is sometimes at the feet of his statues. Socrates, we know, when dying, said to those who stood around him in his last moments, “We owe a cock to Æsculapius; give it without delay.”ULYSSES, king of Ithăca, was the son of Laertes, or Laertius and Anticlēa. His wife Penelŏpe, daughter of Icarius brother of Tyndărus king of Sparta, was highly famed for her prudence and virtue; and being unwilling that the Trojan war should part them, Ulysses to avoid the expedition, pretended to be mad, and not only joined different beasts to the same plough, but sowed also the furrows with salt.Palamēdes, however, suspecting the frenzy to be assumed, threw Telemachus, then an infant, in the way of the plough, to try if his father would alter its course. This stratagem succeeded; for when Ulysses came to the child he turned off from the spot, in consequence of which Palamēdes compelled him to take part in the war. He accordingly sailed with twelve ships, and was signally serviceable to the Greeks.To him the capture of Troy is chiefly to be ascribed, since by him the obstacles were removed, which had so long prevented it. For as Ulysses himself was detected by Palamēdes, so he in his turn detected Achilles, who, to avoid engaging in the same war, had concealed himself in the habits of a woman, at the court of Lycomēdes, king of Scyros. Ulysses there discovered him, and as it had been foretold that without Achilles Troy could not be taken, thence drew him to the siege.He also obtained the arrows of Hercules, from Philoctētes, and carried off that hero from the scene of his retreat. He brought away also the ashes of Laomĕdon, which were preserved in Troy on the Scœan gate. By him the Palladium was stolen from the same city; Rhesus, king of Thrace, killed, and his horses taken before they had drank of the Xanthus. These exploits involved in them the destiny of Troy; for had the Trojans preserved them, their city could never have been conquered.Ulysses contended afterwards with Telamonian Ajax, the stoutest of all the Grecians, except Achilles, for the arms of that hero, which were awarded to him by the judges, who were won by the charms of his eloquence. His other enterprises before Troy were numerous and brilliant, and are particularly related in the Iliad. When Ulysses departed for Greece, he sailed backwards and forwards for twenty years, contrary winds and severe weather opposing his return to Ithăca.During this period, he extinguished, with a firebrand, the eye of Polyphēmus; then sailing to Æolia, he obtained from Æŏlus all the winds which were contrary to him, and put them into leathern bags; his companions, however, believing these bags to be full of money, entered into a plot to rob him, and accordingly, when they came on the coast of Ithăca, untied the bags, upon which the wind rushing out, he was again blown back to Æolia.When Circe had turned his companions into swine and other brutes, he first fortified himself against her charms with the herb Moly, an antidote Mercury had given him; and then rushing into her cave with his drawn sword, compelled her to restore his associates to their original shape.He is said to have gone down into hell, to know his future fortune, from the prophet Tiresias. When he sailedto the islands of the Sirens, he stopped the ears of his companions, and bound himself with strong ropes to the ship's mast, that he might secure himself against the snares into which, by their charming voices, passengers were habitually allured. Lastly, after his ship was wrecked, he escaped by swimming, and came naked and alone, to the port of Phæacia, in the island of Corcyra, where Nausicăa, daughter of king Alcinŏus, found him in a profound sleep, into which he was thrown by the indulgence of Minerva.When his companions were found, and his ship refitted, he bent his course toward Ithăca, where arriving, and having put on the habit of a beggar, he went to his neatherds, with whom he found his son Telemachus, and with them went home in disguise. After having received several affronts from the suitors of Penelŏpe, with the assistance of his son Telemachus and the neatherds, to whom he had discovered himself, he killed Antinŏus, and the other princes who were competitors for her favor. After reigning some time, he resigned the government of his kingdom to Telemachus.CASTOR and POLLUX were the twin sons of Jupiter and Leda. These brothers entered into an inviolable friendship, and when they grew up, cleared the Archipelago of pirates, on which account they were esteemed deities of the sea, and accordingly were invoked by mariners in tempests. They went with the other noble youths of Greece in the expedition to Colchis, in search of the golden fleece, and on all occasions signalized themselves by their courage.In this expedition Pollux slew Amycus, son of Neptune, and king of Bebrycia, who had challenged all the Argonauts to box with him. This victory, and that which he gained afterwards at the Olympic games which Hercules celebrated in Elis, caused him to be considered the hero and patron of wrestlers, while his brother Castor distinguished himself in the race, and in the management of horses.Cicero relates a wonderful judgment which happened to one Scopas, who had spoken disrespectfully of these divinities: he was crushed to death by the fall of a chamber, whilst Simonĭdes, who was in the same room, was rescued from the danger, being called out a little before, by two persons unknown, supposed to be Castor and Pollux.The Greek and Roman histories are full of the miraculous appearance of these brethren; particularly we are told they were seen fighting upon two white horses, at the headof the Roman army, in the battle between the Romans and Latins, near the lake Regillus, and brought the news of the decisive victory of Paulus Æmilius to Rome, the very day it was obtained.Frequent representations of these deities occur on ancient monuments, and particularly on consular medals. They are exhibited together, each having a helmet, out of which issues a flame, and each a pike in one hand, and in the other a horse held by the bridle: sometimes they are represented as two beautiful youths, completely armed, and riding on white horses, with stars over their helmets.AJAX, son of Telămon, king of Salămis, by Beribœa, was, next to Achilles, the most valiant among the Greeks at the seige of Troy. He commanded the troops of Salămis in that expedition, and performed the various heroic actions mentioned by Homer, and Ovid, in the speech of Ajax contending for the armor of Achilles. This armor, however, being adjudged to his competitor Ulysses, his disappointment so enraged him, that he immediately became mad, and rushed furiously upon a flock of sheep, imagining he was killing those who had offended him: but at length perceiving his mistake, he became still more furious, and stabbed himself with the fatal sword he had received from Hector, with whom he had fought. Ajax resembled Achilles in several respects; like him he was violent, and impatient of contradiction; and, like him, invulnerable in every part of the body except one.He has been charged with impiety; not that he denied the gods a very extensive power, but he imagined that, as the greatest cowards might conquer through their assistance, there was no glory in conquering by such aids; and scorned to owe his victory to aught but his own prowess. Accordingly, we are told that when he was setting out for Troy, his father recommended him always to join the assistance of the gods to his own valor; to which Ajax replied, that cowards themselves were often victorious by such helps, but for his own part he would make no reliance of the kind, being assured he should be able to conquer without.It is further added, upon the head of his irreligion, that to Minerva, who once offered him her advice, he replied with indignation: “Trouble not yourself about my conduct; of that I shall give a good account; you have nothing to do but reserve your favor and assistance for the other Greeks.” Another time she offered to guide hischariot in the battle, but he would not suffer her. Nay, he even defaced the owl, her favorite bird, which was engraven on his shield, lest that figure should be considered as an act of reverence to Minerva, and hence as indicating distrust in himself.Homer, however, does not represent him in this light, for though he does not pray to Jupiter himself when he prepares to engage the valiant Hector, yet he desires others to pray for him, either in a low voice, lest the Trojans should hear, or louder if they pleased; for, says he, I fear no person in the world.The poets give to Ajax the same commendation that the holy scripture gives to king Saul, with regard to his stature. He has been the subject of several tragedies, as well in Greek as Latin; and it is related that the famous comedian, Æsop, refused to act that part. The Greeks paid great honor to him after his death, and erected to him a noble monument upon the promontory of Rhœteum, which was one of those Alexander desired to see and honor.JASON was son of Æson, king of Thessaly, and Alcimĕde. He was an infant when Pelias, his uncle, who was left his guardian, sought to destroy him; but being, to avoid the danger, conveyed by his relations to a cave, he was there instructed by Chiron in the art of physic; whence he took the name of Jason, or the healer, his former name being Diomēdes. Arriving at years of maturity, he returned to his uncle, who, probably with no favorable intention to Jason, inspired him with the notion of the Colchian expedition and agreeably flattered his ambition with the hopes of acquiring the golden fleece.Jason having resolved on the voyage, built a vessel at Iolchos in Thessaly, for the expedition, under the inspection, of Argos, a famous workman, which, from him, was called Argo: it was said to have been executed by the advice of Pallas, who pointed out a tree in the Dodonæan forest for a mast, which was vocal, and had the gift of prophecy.The fame of the vessel, the largest that had ever been heard of, but particularly the design itself, soon induced the bravest and most distinguished youths of Greece to become adventurers in it, and brought together about fifty of the most accomplished young persons of the age to accompany Jason in this expedition; authors, however, are not agreed on the precise names or numbers of the Argonauts; some state them to have been forty-nine; others more, and amongst them several were of divine origin.On his arrival at Colchis he repaired to the court of Æētes, from whom he demanded the golden fleece. The monarch acceded to his request, provided he could overcome the difficulties which lay in his way, and which appeared not easily surmountable; these were bulls with brazen feet, whose nostrils breathed fire, and a dragon which guarded the fleece. The teeth of the latter, when killed, Jason was enjoined to sow, and, after they had sprung up into armed men, to destroy them.Though success attended the enterprise, it was less owing to valor, than to the assistance of Medēa, daughter of Æētes, who, by her enchantments, laid asleep the dragon, taught Jason to subdue the bulls, and when he had obtained the prize, accompanied him in the night time, unknown to her brother.The return of the Argonauts is variously related; some contend it was by the track in which they came, and say that the brother of Medēa pursued them as far as the Adriatic, and was overcome by Jason; which occasioned the story that his sister had cut him in pieces, and strewed his limbs in the way, that her father, from solicitude to collect them, might be delayed in the pursuit.CHAPTER XII.Other fabulous personages.GRACESorCHARITES. Among the multitude of ancient divinities, none had more votaries that the Graces. Particular nations and countries had appropriate and local deities, but their empire was universal. To their influence was ascribed all that could please in nature and in art; and to them every rank and profession concurred in offering their vows.Their number was generally limited, by the ancient poets, to three:Euphrosyne,Thalīa, andAglaia; but they differed concerning their origin. Some suppose them to have been the offspring of Jupiter and Eunomia, daughter of Oceănus; but the most prevalent opinion is, that they were descended from Bacchus and Venus. According to Homer, Aglaia, the youngest, was married to Vulcan, and another of them to the god of Sleep. The Graces were companions ofMercury,Venus, and theMuses.Festivals were celebrated in honor of them throughout the whole year. They were esteemed the dispensers of liberality, eloquence, and wisdom; and from them were derived simplicity of manners, a graceful deportment, and gaiety of disposition. From their inspiring acts of gratitude and mutual kindness they were described as uniting hand in hand with each other. The ancients partook of but few repasts without invoking them, as well as the Muses.SIRENS were a kind of fabulous beings represented by some as sea-monsters, with the faces of women and the tails of fishes, answering the description of mermaids; and by others said to have the upper parts of a woman, and the under parts of a bird. Their number is not determined; Homer reckons only two; others five, namely, Leucosia, Ligeia, Parthenŏpe, Aglaŏphon, and Molpe; others admit only the three first.The poets represent them as beautiful women inhabiting the rocks on the sea-shore, whither having allured passengers by the sweetness of their voices, they put them to death. Virgil places them on rocks where vessels are in danger of shipwreck; Pliny makes them inhabit the promontory of Minerva, near the island Capreæ; others fix them in Sicily, near cape Pelōrus.Claudian says they inhabited harmonious rocks, that they were charming monsters, and that sailors were wrecked on their coasts without regret, and even expired in rapture. This description is doubtless founded on a literal explication of the fable, that the Sirens were women who inhabited the shores of Sicily, and who, by the allurements of pleasure, stopped passengers, and made them forget their course.Ovid says they accompanied Proserpine when she was carried off, and that the gods granted them wings to go in quest of that goddess. Homer places the Sirens in the midst of a meadow drenched in blood, and tells us that fate had permitted them to reign till some person should over-reach them; that the wise Ulysses accomplished their destiny, having escaped their snares, by stopping the ears of his companions with wax, and causing himself to be fastened to the mast of his ship, which, he adds, plunged them into so deep despair, that they drowned themselves in the sea, where they were transformed into fishes from the waist downwards.Others, who do not look for so much mystery in this fable, maintain that the Sirens were nothing but certainstraits in the sea, where the waves whirling furiously around seized and swallowed up vessels that approached them. Lastly, some hold the Sirens to have been certain shores and promontories, where the winds, by various reverberations and echoes, cause a kind of harmony that surprises and stops passengers. This probably might be the origin of the Sirens' song, and the occasion of giving the name of Sirens to those rocks.Some interpreters of the ancient fables contend, that the number and names of the three Sirens were taken from the triple pleasure of the senses, wine, love, and music, which are the three most powerful means of seducing mankind; and hence so many exhortations to avoid the Sirens' fatal song; and probably it was hence that the Greeks obtained their etymology of Siren from a Greek word signifying achain, as if there were no getting free from their enticement.But if in tracing this fable to its source, we take Servius as our guide, he tells us that it derived its origin from certain princesses who reigned of old upon the coasts of the Tuscan sea, near Pelōrus and Caprea, or in three small islands of Sicily which Aristotle calls the isles of the Sirens. These women were very debauched, and by their charms allured strangers, who were ruined in their court, by pleasure and prodigality.This seems evidently the foundation of all that Homer says of the Sirens, in the twelfth book of the Odyssey; that they bewitched those who unfortunately listened to their songs; that they detained them in capacious meadows, where nothing was to be seen but bones and carcasses withering in the sun; that none who visit them ever again enjoy the embraces and congratulations of their wives and children; and that all who dote upon their charms are doomed to perish. What Solomon says in the ninth chapter of Proverbs, of the miseries to which those are exposed who abandon themselves to sensual pleasures, well justifies the idea given us of the Sirens by the Greek poets, and by Virgil's commentator.

SOMNUS,orSLEEP, one of the blessings to which the pagans erected altars, was said to be son of Erĕbus and, Night, and brother of Death. Orpheus calls Somnus the happy king of gods and men; and Ovid, who gives a very beautiful description of his abode, represents him dwelling in a deep cave in the country of the Cimmerians. Into this cavern the sun never enters, and a perpetual stillnessreigns, no noise being heard but the soft murmur caused by a stream of the river Lethe, which creeps over the pebbles, and invites to slumber; at its entrance grow poppies, and other soporiferous herbs. The drowsy god lies reclined on a bed stuffed with black plumes, the bedstead is of ebony, the covering is also black, and his head is surrounded by fantastic visions.

We learn from Statius, that the attendants and guards before the gates of this palace were Rest, Ease, Indolence, Silence, and Oblivion; as the ministers or attendants within are a vast multitude of Dreams in different shapes and attitudes. Ovid teaches us who were the supposed governors over these, and what their particular districts or offices were. The three chiefs of all are Morpheus, Phobētor, and Phantăsos, who inspire dreams into great persons only: Morpheus inspires such dreams as relate to men, Phobētor such as relate to other animals, and Phantăsos such as relate to inanimate things. They have each their particular legions under them, to inspire the common people with the sort of dreams which belong to their province.

MINOS was son of Jupiter and Eurōpa, and brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpēdon. After the death of his father, the Cretans, who thought him illegitimate, would not admit him as a successor to the kingdom, till he persuaded them it was the divine pleasure he should reign, by praying Neptune to give him a sign, which being granted, the god caused a horse to rise out of the sea, upon which he ascended the throne.

Nothing so much distinguished him as the laws he enacted for the Cretans, which obtained him the name of one of the greatest legislators of antiquity. To confer the more authority on these laws, Minos retired to a cave of Mount Ida, where he feigned that Jupiter, his father, dictated them to him; and every time he returned thence a new injunction was promulgated by him. Homer calls him Jupiter's disciple; and Horace says he was admitted to the secrets of that god. Strabo and Ephŏrus contend, that Minos dwelt nine years in retirement in this cave, and that it was afterwards called the cave of Jupiter.

Antiquity entertained the highest esteem for the institutes of Minos: and the testimonies of ancient authors on this head are endless. It will, therefore, suffice to observe that Lycurgus travelled to Crete on purpose to collect the laws of Minos for the benefit of the Lacedemonians; and thatJosephus, partial as he was to his own nation, has owned, that Minos was the only one among the ancients who deserved to be compared to Moses. He was reputed the judge of the supreme court of Pluto, Æăcus judged the Europeans; the Asiatics and Africans fell to the lot of Rhadamanthus; and Minos, as president of the infernal court, decided the differences which arose between these two judges. He sat on a throne by himself, and wielded a golden sceptre.

RHADAMANTHUS was the son of Jupiter and Eurōpa, and brother of Minos. He was one of the three judges of hell. It is said that Rhadamanthus, having killed his brother, fled to Œchalia in Bœotia, where he married Alcmēna, widow of Amphitryon. Some make Rhadamanthus a king of Lycia, who on account of his severity and strict regard to justice, was said to have been one of the three judges of hell, where his province was to judge such as died impenitent. It is agreed, that he was the most temperate man of his time, and was exalted amongst the law-givers of Crete, who were renowned as good and just men. The division assigned to Rhadamanthus in the infernal regions was Tartărus.

ÆACUS, son of Jupiter and Ægīna, was king of Œnopia, which, from his mother's name, he called Ægīna. The inhabitants of that country being destroyed by a plague, Æăcus prayed to his father that by some means he would repair the loss of his subjects, upon which Jupiter, in compassion changed all the ants within a hollow tree into men and women, who, from a Greek word signifyingants, were calledMyrmidons, and actually were so industrious a people as to become famous for their ships and navigation.

The meaning of which fable is this: The pirates having destroyed the inhabitants of the island, excepting a few, who hid themselves in caves and holes for fear of a like fate, Æăcus drew them out of their retreats and encouraged them to build houses, and sow corn; taught them military discipline, and how to fit out and navigate fleets, and to appear not like ants in holes, but on the theatre of the world, like men. His character for justice was such, that in a time of universal drought he was nominated by the Delphic oracle to intercede for Greece, and his prayers were heard. The pagan world also believed that Æăcus, on account of his impartial justice, was chosen by Pluto,with Minos and Rhadamanthus, one of the three judges of the dead, and that it was his province to judge the Europeans, in which capacity he held a plain rod as a badge of his office.

TYPHŒUS, a giant of enormous size, was, according to Hesiod, son of Erĕbus, or Tartărus and Terra. His stature was prodigious. With one hand he touched the east, and with the other the west, while his head reached to the stars. Hesiod has given him an hundred heads of dragons, uttering dreadful sounds, and eyes which darted fire; flame proceeded from his mouths and nostrils, his body was encircled with serpents, and his thighs and legs were of a serpentine form. When he had almost discomfited the gods, who fled from him into Egypt, Jupiter alone stood his ground, and pursued the monster to Mount Caucăsus in Syria, where he wounded him with his thunder; But Typhœus, turning upon him, took the god prisoner, and after having cut, with his own sickle, the muscles of his hands and feet, threw him on his shoulders, carried him into Cilicia, and there imprisoned him in a cave, whence he was delivered by Mercury, who restored him to his former vigor. Typhœus afterwards fled into Sicily, where the god overwhelmed him with the enormous mass of mount Ætna.

Historians report, that Typhœus was brother of Osīris, king of Egypt, who in the absence of that monarch, formed a conspiracy to dethrone him; and that having accordingly put Osīris to death, Isis, in revenge of her husband, raised an army, the command of which she gave to Orus her son, who vanquished and slew the usurper: hence the Egyptians, in abhorrence of his memory, painted him under their hieroglyphic characters in so frightful a manner. The length of his arms signified his power, the serpents about him denoted his address and cunning, the scales which covered his body, expressed his cruelty and dissimulation, and the flight of the gods into Egypt showed the precautions taken by the great to screen themselves from his fury and resentment. Mythologists take Typhœus andthe other giants, to have been the winds; especially the subterraneous, which cause earthquakes to break forth with fire, occasioned by the sulphur enkindled in the caverns under Campania, Sicily, and the Æolian islands.

TITYOS,orTITYUS, was son of Jupiter and Elara. He resided in Panopea, where he became formidable for rapine and cruelty, till Apollo killed him for offering violence to his mother Latona. After this he was thrown into Tartărus, and chained down on his back, his body taking up such a compass as to cover nine acres. In this posture two vultures continually preyed upon his liver, which constantly grew with the increase of the moon, that there might never be wanting matter for eternal punishment.

PHLEGYAS, son of Mars and Chryse, daughter of Halmus, was king of Lapithæ, a people of Thessaly. Apollo having seduced his daughter Coronis, Phlegyas, in revenge, set fire to the temple of that god at Delphi, for which sacrilege the deity killed him with his arrows, and then cast him into Tartărus; where he was sentenced to sit under a huge rock, which threatened him with perpetual destruction.

IXION was son of Phlegyas, king of the Lapithæ in Thessaly. He married Dia, daughter of Deioneus, whose consent he obtained by magnificent promises, but, failing afterwards to perform them, Deioneus seized on his horses. Ixion dissembled his resentment, and inviting Deioneus to a banquet, received him in an apartment previously prepared, from which, by withdrawing a door, his father-in-law was thrown into a furnace of fire. Stung, however, with remorse, and universally despised, Ixion was overpowered with frenzy, till Jupiter at length re-admitted him to favor, and not only took him into heaven, but intrusted him also with his counsels. So ungrateful, notwithstanding, did Ixion become, as to attempt the chastity of Juno herself. This so incensed Jupiter that the angry deity hurled him into Tartărus, and fixed him on a wheel encompassed with serpents, which was doomed to revolve without intermission.

SALMONEUS, king of Elis, was son of Æolus, (not he who was king of the winds, but another of the name) and Anarete. Not satisfied with an earthly crown, Salmoneus panted after divine honors; and, in order that the people might esteem him a god, he built a brazen bridge over the city, and drove his chariot along it, imitating, bythis noise, Jupiter's thunder; at the same time throwing flaming torches among the spectators below, to represent his lightning, by which many were killed. Jupiter, in resentment of this insolence, precipitated the ambitious mortal into hell, where, according to Virgil, Æneas saw him.

SISIPHUS,orSISYPHUS, a descendant of Æŏlus, married Merope, one of the Pleiades, who bore him Glaucus. He resided at Ephyra, in Peloponnesus, and was conspicuous for his craft. Some say he was a Trojan secretary, who was punished for discovering secrets of state; whilst others contend that he was a notorious robber killed by Theseus. However, all the poets agree that he was punished in Tartărus for his crimes, by rolling a great stone to the top of a hill, which constantly recoiling and rolling down again, incessantly renewed his fatigue, and rendered his labor endless.

Ovid, in one passage, seems to describe Sisyphus as bending under the weight of a vast stone; “but the more common way of speaking of his punishment,” says the author of Polymetis, “agrees with the fine description of him in Homer, where we see him laboring to heave the stone that lies on his shoulders up against the side of a steep mountain, and which always rolls precipitately down again before he can get it to rest upon the top. Lucretius makes him only an emblem of the ambitious; as Horace too seems to make Tantălus only an emblem of the covetous.”

BELIDES,orDANAIDES: They were the fifty daughters of Danăus, son of Belus, surnamed theancient. Some quarrel having arisen between him and Egyptus his brother, it determined Danăus on his voyage into Greece; but Egyptus having fifty sons, proposed a reconciliation, by marrying them to his brother's daughters. The proposal was agreed to, and the nuptials were to be celebrated with singular splendor, when Danăus, either in resentment of former injuries, or being told by the oracle that one of his sons-in-law should destroy him, gave to each of his daughters a dagger, with an injunction to stab her husband. They all executed the order but Hypermnestra, the eldest, who spared the life of Lyncæus. These Belĭdes, for their cruelty, were consigned to the infernal regions, there to draw water in sieves from a well, till they had filled, by that means, a vessel full of holes.

TANTALUS, king of Phrygia, was the son of Jupiter and Plota. Whether it was for this cause, the violation of hospitality, or for his pride, his boasting, his want of secrecy, his insatiable covetousness, his imparting nectar and ambrosia to mortals, or for all of them together, since he has been accused of them all, Tantălus was thrown into Tartărus, where the poets have assigned him a variety of torments. Some represent a great stone as hanging over his head, which he apprehended to be continually falling, and was ever in motion to avoid it. Others describe him as afflicted with constant thirst and hunger, though the most delicious banquets were exposed to his view; one of the Furies terrifying him with her torch whenever he approached towards them. Some exhibit him standing to the chin in water, and whenever he stooped to quench his thirst, the water as constantly eluding his lip. Others, with fruits luxuriously growing around him, which he no sooner advanced to touch, than the wind blew them into the clouds.

HARPYIÆ,orHARPIES, were three in number, their names, Celæno, Aëllo, and Ocypĕte. The ancients looked on them as a sort of Genii, or Dæmons. They had the faces of virgins, the ears of bears, the bodies of vultures, human arms and feet, and long claws, hooked like the talons of carnivorous birds. Phineas, king of Arcadia, being a prophet, and revealing the mysteries of Jupiter to mortals, was by that deity struck blind, and so tormented by the Harpies that he was ready to perish for hunger; they devouring whatever was set before him, till the sons of Boreas, who attended Jason in his expedition to Colchis, delivered the good old king, and drove these monsters to the islands called Strophădes: compelling them to swear never more to return.

The Harpies, according to the ingenious Abbé la Pluche, had their origin in Egypt. He further observes, in respect to them, that during the months of April, May, and June, especially the two latter, Egypt being very subject to tempests, which laid waste their olive grounds, and carriedthither numerous swarms of grasshoppers, and other troublesome insects from the shores of the Red Sea, the Egyptians gave to their emblematic figures of these months a female face, with the bodies and claws of birds, calling themHarop, or winged destroyers. This solution of the fable corresponds with the opinion of Le Clerc, who takes the harpies to have been a swarm of locusts, the wordArbi, whence Harpy is formed, signifying, in their language, a locust.

GORGONS were three in number, and daughters of Phorcus or Porcys, by his sister Ceto. Their names were Medūsa, Euryăle, and Stheno, and they are represented as having scales on their bodies, brazen hands, golden wings, tusks like boars, and snakes for hair. The last distinction, however, is confined by Ovid to Medūsa.

According to some mythologists, Perseus having been sent against Medūsa by the gods, was supplied by Mercury with a falchion, by Minerva with a mirror, and by Pluto with a helmet, which rendered the wearer invisible. Thus equipped, through the aid of winged sandals, he steered his course towards Tartessus, where, finding the object of his search, by the reflection of his mirror, he was enabled to aim his weapon, without meeting her eye, (for her look would have turned him to stone) and at one blow struck off her head. When Perseus had slain Medūsa, the other sisters pursued him, but he escaped from their sight by means of his helmet. They were afterwards thrown into hell.

SPHINX was a female monster, daughter of Typhon and Echidna. She had the head, face, and breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the body of a dog. She lived on mount Sphincius, infested the country about Thebes, and assaulted passengers, by proposing dark and enigmatical questions to them, which if they did not explain, she tore them in pieces. Sphinx made horrible ravages in the neighborhood of Thebes, till Creon, then king of that city, published an edict over all Greece, promising that if any one should explain the riddle of Sphinx, he would give him his own sister Iocasta in marriage.

The riddle was this, “What animal is that which goes upon four feet in the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?” Many had endeavored to explain this riddle, but failing in the attempt, were destroyed by the monster; till Œdipus undertook the solution, and thus explained it: “The animal is man, who in his infancy creeps, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he gets into the noon of life, he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, or declines into the evening of his days, he uses the support of a staff, and thus may be said to walk on three feet.” The Sphinx being enraged at this explanation, cast herself headlong from a rock and died.

HERCULES was the son of Jupiter by Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city about 1280 years before the Christian era. During his infancy Juno sent two serpents to kill him in his cradle, but the undaunted child grasping one in either hand, immediately strangled them both. As he grew up, he discovered an uncommon degree of vigor both of body and of mind. Nor were his extraordinary endowments neglected; for his education was intrusted to the greatest masters. The tasks imposed on him by Eurystheus, on account of the danger and difficulty which attended their execution, received the name of theLabors of Hercules, and are commonly reckoned, (at least the most material of them) to have been twelve.

The first was his engagement with Cleonæan lion, which furious animal, it is said, fell from the orb of the moon by Juno's direction, and was invunerable. It infested the woods between Phlius and Cleōne, and committed uncommon ravages. The hero attacked it both with his arrows and club, but in vain, till, perceiving his error, he tore asunder its jaws with his hands.

The second labor was his conquest of the Lernæan hydra, a formidable serpent or monster which harbored in the fens of Lerna, and infected the region of Argos with his poisonous exhalations. This seems to have been one of the most difficult tasks in which Hercules was ever engaged. The number of heads assigned the hydra is various; some give him seven, some nine, others fifty, and Ovid an hundred; but all authors agree that when one was cut off, another sprung forth in its place, unless the wound wasimmediately cauterized. Hercules, not discouraged, attacked him, and having ordered Iŏlas, his friend and companion, to cut down wood sufficient for fire-brands, he no sooner had cut off a head than he applied these brands to the wounds; by which means searing them up, he obtained a complete victory.

The third labor was to bring alive to Eurystheus an enormous wild boar which ravaged the forest of Erymanthus in Arcadia, and had been sent to Phocis by Diāna to punish Ænēas, for neglecting her sacrifices. Hercules brought him bound to Eurystheus. There is nothing descriptive of this exploit in any of the Roman poets.

The fourth labor was the capture of the Mænalæan stag. Eurystheus, after repeated proofs of the strength and valor of Hercules, resolved to try his agility, and commanded him to take a wild stag that frequented mount Mænălus, which had brazen feet and golden horns. As this animal was sacred to Diāna, Hercules durst not wound him; but though it were no easy matter to run him down, yet this, after pursuing him on foot for a year, the hero at last effected.

The fifth labor of Hercules consisted in killing the Stymphalĭdes, birds so called from frequenting the lake Stymphālis in Arcadia, which preyed upon human flesh, having wings, beaks, and talons of iron. Some say Hercules destroyed these birds with his arrows, others that Pallas sent him brazen rattles, made by Vulcan, the sound of which so terrified them, that they took shelter in the island of Aretia. There are authors who suppose these birds called Stymphalĭdes, to have been a gang of desperate banditti who had their haunts near the lake Stymphālis.

The sixth labor was his cleansing the stable of Augeas. This Augeas, king of Elis, had a stable intolerable from the stench occasioned by the filth it contained, which may be readily imagined from the fact that it sheltered three thousand oxen, and had not been cleansed for thirty years. This place Eurystheus ordered Hercules to clear in one day, and Augeas promised, if he performed the task, to give him a tenth part of the cattle. Hercules, by turning the course of the river Alphēus through the stable, executed his design, which Augeas seeing, refused to fulfil his promise. The hero, to punish his perfidy, slew Augeas with his arrows, and gave his kingdom to his son Phyleus, who abhorred his father's treachery.

The seventh labor was the capture of the Cretan bull.Minos, king of Crete, having acquired the dominion of the Grecian seas, paid no greater honor to Neptune than to the other gods, wherefore the deity, in resentment of this ingratitude, sent a bull, which breathed fire from his nostrils, to destroy the people of Crete. Hercules took this furious animal, and brought him to Eurystheus, who, because the bull was sacred, let him loose into the country of Marathon, where he was afterwards slain by Theseus.

The eighth labor of Hercules, was the killing of Diomēdes and his horses. That infamous tyrant was king of Thrace, and son of Mars and Cyrēne. Among other things he is said to have driven in his war-chariot four furious horses, which, to render the more impetuous, he used to feed on the flesh and blood of his subjects. Hercules is said to have freed the world from this barbarous prince, and to have killed both him and his horses, as is signified in some drawings, and said expressly by some of the poets. Some report that the tyrant was given by Hercules as a prey to his own horses.

The ninth labor of Hercules was his combat with Geryon, king of Spain. Geryon is generally represented with three bodies agreeable to the expressions used of him by the poets, and sometimes with three heads. He had a breed of oxen of a purple color, (which devoured all strangers cast to them) guarded by a dog with two heads, a dragon with seven, besides a very watchful and severe keeper. Hercules, however, killed the monarch and all his guards, and carried the oxen to Gades, whence he brought them to Eurystheus. Some mythologists explain this fable by saying that Geryon was king of three islands, now called Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, on which account he was fabled to be triple bodied and headed.

The tenth labor of Hercules was his conquest of Hippolyte queen of the Amazons. His eleventh labor consisted in dragging Cerebus from the infernal regions into day. The twelfth and last was killing the serpent, and gaining the golden fruit in the gardens of the Hesperides.

Hercules, after his conquests in Spain, having made himself famous in the country of the Celtæ or Gauls, is said to have there founded a large and populous city, which he called Alesia. His favorite wife was Dejanira, whose jealousy most fatally occasioned his death. Hercules having subdued Œchalia and killed Eurytus the king, carried off the fair Iŏle, his daughter, with whom Dejanira suspectinghim to be in love, sent him the garment of Nessus, the Centaur, as a remedy to recover his affections; this garment, however, having been pierced with an arrow dipped in the blood of the Lernæan hydra, whilst worn by Nessus, contracted a poison from his blood incurable by art. No sooner, therefore, was it put on by Hercules than he was seized with a delirious fever, attended with the most excruciating torments. Unable to support his pains, he retired to mount Œta, where, raising a pile, and setting it on fire, he threw himself upon it, and was consumed in the flames, after having killed in his phrenzy Lycus his friend. His arrows he bequeathed to Philoctētes, who interred his remains.

After his death he was deified by his father Jupiter. Diōdorus Siculus relates that he was no sooner ranked amongst the gods than Juno, who had so violently persecuted him whilst on earth, adopted him for her son, and loved him with the tenderness of a mother. Hercules was afterwards married to Hebe, goddess of youth, his half sister, with all the splendor of a celestial wedding; but he refused the honor which Jupiter designed him, of being ranked with the twelve gods, alleging there was no vacancy; and that it would be unreasonable to degrade any other god for the purpose of admitting him.

Both the Greeks and Romans honored him as a god, and as such erected to him temples. His victims were bulls and lambs, on account of his preserving the flocks from wolves; that is, delivering men from tyrants and robbers. He was worshipped by the ancient Latins under the name of Dius, or Divus Fidius, that is, the guarantee or protector of faith promised or sworn. They had a custom of calling this deity to witness by a sort of oath expressed in these terms,Me Dius Fidius!that is, so help me the god Fidius! or Hercules.

PERSEUS was the son of Jupiter and Danăe, daughter of Acrisius king of Argos. When Perseus was grown up, Polydectes, who was enamored of his mother, finding him an obstacle to their union, contrived to send him on an exploit, which he hoped would be fatal to him. This was to bring him the head of Medūsa, one of the Gorgons. In his expedition Perseus was favored by the gods; Mercury equipped him with a scymetar, and the wings from his heels; Pallas lent him a shield which reflected objects like a mirror; and Pluto granted him his helmet, which rendered him invisible. In this manner he flew to Tartessus in Spain, where,directed by the reflection of Medūsa in his mirror, he cut off her head, and brought it to Pallas. From the blood arose the winged horse Pegăsus.

After this the hero passed into Mauritania, where repairing to the court of Atlas, that monarch ordered him to retire, with menaces, in case of disobedience; but Perseus, presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, changed him into the mountain which still bears his name. In his return to Greece he visited Ethiopia, mounted on Pegăsus, and delivered Andromĕda, daughter of Cepheus, (who was exposed on a rock of that coast to be devoured by a monster of the deep) on condition he might make her his wife: but Phineas, her uncle, sought to prevent him, by attempting, with a party, to carry off the bride. The attempt, notwithstanding, was rendered abortive; for the hero, by showing them the head of the Gorgon, at once turned them to stone.

Perseus having completed these exploits, was desirous of revisiting home, and accordingly set off for that purpose with his wife and his mother. Arriving on the coast of Peloponnesus, and learning that Teutamias, king of Larissa, was then celebrating games in honor of his father, Perseus, wishing to exhibit his skill at the quoit, of which he has been deemed the inventor, resolved to go thither. In this contest, however, he was so unfortunate as to kill Acrisius, the father of his mother, who, on the report that Perseus was returning to the place of his nativity, had fled to the court of Teutamias his friend, to avoid the denunciation of the oracle, which had induced him to exercise such cruelty on his offspring. At what time Perseus died is unknown; but all agree that divine honors were paid him. He had statues at Mycēnæ and in Seriphos. A temple was erected to him in Athens, and an altar in it consecrated to Dictys.

HECTOR'S BODY DRAGGED AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES.Pl. 8.HECTOR'S BODY DRAGGED AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES

Pl. 8.

ACHILLES was the offspring of a goddess. Thetis bore him to Peleus, king of Thessaly, and was so fond of him, that she charged herself with his education. By day she fed him with ambrosia, and by night covered him with celestial fire, to render him immortal. She also dipped him in the waters of Styx, by which his whole body became invulnerable, except that part of his heel by which she held him. He was afterwards committed to the care of Chiron the Centaur, who fed him with honey, and the marrow of lions and wild boars; whence he obtained that strength of body and greatness of soul which qualified him for martial toil.

When the Greeks undertook the siege of Troy, Calchas the diviner, and priest of Apollo, foretold that the city should not be taken without the help of Achilles. Thetis, his mother, who knew that Achilles, if he went to the siege of Troy, would never return, clothed him in female apparel, and concealed him among the maidens at the court of Lycomēdes, king of the island of Scyros. But this stratagem proved ineffectual; for Calchas having informed the Greeks where Achilles lay in disguise, they sent Ulysses to the court of Lycomēdes, where, under the appearance of a merchant, he was introduced to the king's daughters, and while they were studiously intent on viewing his toys, Achilles employed himself in examining an helmet, which the cunning politician had thrown in his way.

Achilles thus detected, was prevailed on to go to Troy, after Thetis had furnished him with impenetrable armor made by Vulcan. Thither he led the troops of Thessaly, in fifty ships, and distinguished himself by a number of heroic actions; but being disgusted with Agamemnon for the loss of Briseis, he retired from the camp, and resolved to have no further concern in the war. In this resolution he continued inexorable, till news was brought him that Hector had killed his friend Patrōclus; to avenge his death he not only slew Hector, but fastened the corpse to his chariot, dragged it round the walls of Troy, offered many indignities to it, and sold it at last to Priam his father.

Authors are much divided on the manner of Achilles' death; some relate that he was slain by Apollo, or that this god enabled Paris to kill him, by directing the arrow to his heel, the only part in which he was vulnerable. Others again say, that Paris murdered him treacherously, in the temple of Apollo, whilst treating about his marriage with Polyxĕna, daughter to king Priam.

Though this tradition concerning his death be commonly received, yet Homer plainly enough insinuates that Achilles died fighting for his country, and represents the Greeks as maintaining a bloody battle about his body, which lasted a whole day. Achilles having been lamented by Thetis, the Nereids, and the Muses, was buried on the promontory of Sigæum; and after Troy was captured, the Greeks endeavored to appease his manes by sacrificing Polyxĕna, on his tomb, as his ghost had requested.

The oracle at Dodōna decreed him divine honors, and ordered annual victims to be offered at the place of his sepulture. In pursuance of this, the Thessalians brought hither yearly two bulls, one black, the other white, crowned with wreaths of flowers, and water from the river Sperchius. It is said that Alexander, seeing his tomb, honored it by placing a crown upon it, at the same time crying out “that Achilles was happy in having, during his life, such a friend as Patrōclus, and after his death, a poet like Homer.”

ATLAS was son of Japĕtus and Clymĕne, and brother of Prometheus, according to most authors; or, as others relate, son of Japĕtus by Asia, daughter of Oceănus. He had many children. Of his sons, the most famous were Hespĕrus (whom some call his brother) and Hyas. By his wife Pleione he had seven daughters, who went by the general names of Atlantĭdes, or Pleiădes; and by his wife Æthra he had also seven other daughters, who bore the common appellation of the Hyădes.

According to Hygīnus, Atlas having assisted the giants in their war against Jupiter, was doomed by the victorious god, as a punishment, to sustain the weight of the heavens. Ovid, however, represents him as a powerful and wealthy monarch, proprietor of the gardens of the Hesperĭdes, which bore golden fruit; but that being warned by the oracle of Themis that he should suffer some great injury from a son of Jupiter, he strictly forbade all foreigners access to his presence. Perseus, however, having the courage to appear before him, was ordered to retire, with strong menaces in case of disobedience; but the hero presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, turned him into the mountain which still bears his name.

The Abbé la Pluche has given a very clear and ingenious explication of this fable. Of all nations the Egyptians had, with the greatest assiduity, cultivated astronomy. To point out the difficulties attending the study of this science, they represented it by an image bearing a globe or sphere on its back, which they calledAtlas, a word signifyinggreat toil or labor; but the word also signifyingsupport, the Phœnicians, led by the representation, took it in this sense, and in their voyages to Mauritania, seeing the high mountains of that country covered with snow, and losing their tops in the clouds, gave them the name ofAtlas, and thus produced the fable by which the symbol of astronomy used among the Egyptians became a Mauritanian king, transformed into a mountain, whose head supports the heavens.

The rest of the fable is equally obvious to explanation. The annual inundations of the Nile obliged the Egyptians to be very exact in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Hyades, or Huades, took their name from the figure V, which they form in the head of Taurus. The Pleiades were a remarkable constellation and of great use to the Egyptians in regulating the seasons: hence they became the daughters of Atlas; and Orion, who arose just as they set, was called their lover.

By the golden apples that grew in the gardens of the Hesperides, the Phœnicians expressed the rich and beneficial commerce they had in the Mediterranean, which being carried on during three months only of the year, gave rise to the fable of the Hesperian sisters. The most usual way of representing Atlas, among the ancient artists, was as supporting a globe; for the old poets commonly refer to this attitude in speaking of him.

PROMETHEUS was son of Japĕtus, but it is doubtful whether his mother were Asia, or Themis. Having incurred the displeasure of Jupiter, either for stealing some of the celestial fire, or for forming a man of clay, Jupiter, in resentment, commanded Vulcan to make a woman of clay, which, when finished, was introduced into the assembly of the gods, each of whom bestowed on her some additional charm or perfection. Venus gave her beauty, Pallas wisdom, Juno riches, Mercury taught her eloquence, and Apollo music. From all these accomplishments she was styled Pandōra, that is, loaded with gifts and accomplishments, and was the first of her sex.

Jupiter, to complete his designs, presented her a box, in which he had enclosed age, disease, war, famine, pestilence, discord, envy, calumny, and, in short, all the evils and vices with which he intended to afflict the world. Thus equipped, Pandōra was sent to Prometheus, who, being on his guard against the mischief designed him, declined accepting the box; but Epimetheus, his brother, though forewarned of the danger, had less resolution; for, being enamored of the beauty of Pandōra, he married her, and opened the fatal treasure, when immediately flew abroad the contents, which soon overspread the world, hope only remaining at the bottom.

Prometheus escaping the evil which the god designed him, and Jupiter not being appeased, Mercury and Vulcan were despatched by him to seize Prometheus, and chain him onMount Caucasus, where a vulture, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, was commissioned to prey upon his liver, which, that his torment might be endless, was constantly renewed by night in proportion to its increase by day; but the vulture being soon destroyed by Hercules, Prometheus was released. Others say, that Jupiter restored Prometheus to freedom, for discovering the conspiracy of Saturn, his father, and dissuading his intended marriage with Thetis.

Nicander, to this fable, offers an additional one. He tells us, that when mankind had received the fire from Prometheus, some ungrateful men discovered the theft to Jupiter, who rewarded them with the gift ofperpetual youth. This present they put on the back of an ass, which stopping at a fountain to quench his thirst, was prevented by a water-snake which would not suffer him to drink till he gave him his burden; hence the serpent renews his youth upon changing his skin.

Prometheus was esteemed the inventor of many useful arts. He made man of the mixture and temperament of all the elements, gave him strength of body, vigor of mind, and the peculiar qualities of all creatures, as the craft of the fox, the courage of the lion, &c. He had an altar in the academy of Athens in common with Vulcan and Pallas. In his statues he holds a sceptre in the right hand.

Several explanations have been given of this fable. Prometheus, whose name is derived from a Greek word, signifying foresight and providence, was conspicuous for that quality; and because he reduced mankind, before rude and savage, to a state of culture and improvement, he was feigned to have made them from clay: being a diligent observer of the motions of the heavenly bodies from Mount Caucasus, it was fabled that he was chained there: having discovered the method of striking fire from the flint, or perhaps, the nature of lightning, it was pretended that he stole fire from the gods: and, because he applied himself to study with intenseness, they imagined that a vulture preyed continually on his liver.

There is another solution of this fable, analogous to the preceding. According to Pliny, Prometheus was the first who instituted sacrifices. Being expelled his dominions by Jupiter, he fled to Scythia, where he retired to Mount Caucasus, either to make astronomical calculations or to indulge his melancholy for the loss of his dominions, which occasioned the fable of the vulture or eagle feeding onhis liver. As he was the first inventor of forging metals by fire, he was said to have stolen that element from heaven; and, as the first introduction of agriculture and navigation had been ascribed to him, he was celebrated as forming a living man from an inanimate substance.

AMPHION, king of Thebes, son of Jupiter and Antiŏpe, was instructed in the use of the lyre by Mercury, and became so great a proficient, that he is reported to have built the walls of Thebes by the power of his harmony, which caused the listening stones to ascend voluntarily. He married Niŏbe, daughter of Tantălus, whose insult to Diāna occasioned the loss of their children by the arrows of Apollo and Diāna. The unhappy father, attempting to revenge himself by the destruction of the temple of Apollo, was punished with the loss of his sight and skill, and thrown into the infernal regions.

ORPHEUS, son of Apollo by the Muse Calliŏpe, was born in Thrace, and resided near Mount Rhodŏpe, where he married Eurydice, a princess of that country. Aristæus, a neighboring prince, fell desperately in love with her, but she flying from his violence, was killed by the bite of a serpent. Her disconsolate husband was so affected at his loss, that he descended by the way of Tænărus to hell, in order to recover his beloved wife. As music and poetry were to Orpheus hereditary talents, he exerted them so powerfully in the infernal regions, that Pluto and Proserpine, touched with compassion, restored to him his consort on condition that he should not look back upon her till they came to the light of the world. His impatience, however, prevailing, he broke the condition, and lost Eurydice forever.

Whilst Orpheus was among the shades, he sang the praises of all the gods but Bacchus, whom he accidentally omitted; to revenge this affront, Bacchus inspired the Mænădes, his priestesses, with such fury, that they tore Orpheus to pieces, and scattered his limbs about the fields. His head was cast into the river Hebrus, and (together with his harp) was carried by the tide to Lesbos, where it afterwards delivered oracles. The harp, with seven strings, representing the seven planets, which had been given him by Apollo, was taken up into heaven, and graced with nine stars by the nine Muses. Orpheus himself was changed into a swan. He left a son called Methon, who founded in Thrace a city of his own name.

It is certain that Orpheus may be placed as the earliest poet of Greece, where he first introduced astronomy, divinity, music and poetry; all which he had learned in Egypt. He introduced also the rites of Bacchus, which from him were called Orphica. He was a person of most consummate knowledge, and the wisest, as well as the most diligent scholar of Linus.

If we search for the origin of this fable, we must again have recourse to Egypt, the mother-country of fiction. In July, when the sun entered Leo, the Nile overflowed all the plains. To denote the public joy at seeing the inundation rise to its due height, the Egyptians exhibited a youth playing on the lyre, or the sistrum, and sitting by a tame lion. When the waters did not increase as they should, the Horus was represented stretched on the back of a lion, as dead. This symbol they called Oreph, or Orpheus, (fromoreph, the back part of the head) to signify that agriculture was then quite unseasonable and dormant.

The songs with which the people amused themselves during this period of inactivity, for want of exercise, were called the hymns of Orpheus; and as husbandry revived immediately after, it gave rise to the fable of Orpheus's returning from hell. The Isis placed near this Horus, they called Eurydice, (fromeri, alion, anddaca,tamed, is formedEridica,Eurydice, or the lion tamed,i.e.the violence of the inundation overcome), and as the Greeks took all these figures in the literal, not in the emblematical sense, they made Eurydice the wife of Orpheus.

OSIRIS, son of Jupiter and Niŏbe, was king of the Argives many years; but, being instigated by the desire of glory, he left his kingdom to his brother Ægiălus, and went into Egypt, in search of a new name and kingdom there. The Egyptians were not so much overcome by the valor of Osīris, as obliged to him for his kindness towards them. Having conferred the greatest benefits on his subjects, by civilizing their manners, and instructing them in husbandry and other useful arts, he made the necessary disposition of his affairs, committed the regency to Isis, and set out with a body of forces in order to civilize the rest of mankind. This he performed more by the power of persuasion, and the soothing arts of music and poetry, than by the terror of his arms.

In his absence, Typhœus, the giant, whom historians call the brother of Osīris, formed a conspiracy to dethrone him;for which end, at the return of Osīris into Egypt, he invited him to a feast, at the conclusion of which a chest of exquisite workmanship was brought in, and offered to him who, when laid down in it, should be found to fit it the best. Osīris, not suspecting a trick to be played him, got into the chest, and the cover being immediately shut upon him, this good but unfortunate prince was thus thrown into the Nile.

When the news of this transaction reached Coptus, where Isis his wife then was, she cut her hair, and in deep mourning went every where in search of the dead body. This was at length discovered, and concealed by her at Butus; but Typhœus, while hunting by moonlight, having found it there, tore it into many pieces, which he scattered abroad. Isis then traversed the lakes and watery places in a boat made of thepapyrus, seeking the mangled parts of Osīris, and where she found any, there she buried them; hence the many tombs ascribed to Osīris.

Plutarch seems evidently to prove that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun under the name of Osīris. His reasons are: 1. Because the images of Osīris were always clothed in a shining garment, to represent the rays and light of the sun. 2. In their hymns, composed in honor of Osīris, they prayed to him who reposes himself in the bosom of the sun. 3. After the autumnal equinox, they celebrated a feast called,The disappearing of Osīris, by which is plainly meant the absence and distance of the sun. 4. In the month of November they led a cow seven times round the temple of Osīris, intimating thereby, that in seven months the sun would return to the summer solstice.

He is represented sitting upon a throne, crowned with a mitre full of small orbs, to intimate his superiority over all the globe. The gourd upon the mitre implies his action and influence upon moisture, which, and the Nile particularly, was termed by the Egyptians, the efflux of Osīris. The lower part of his habit is made up of descending rays, and his body is surrounded with orbs. His right hand is extended in a commanding attitude, and his left holds athyrsusor staff of thepapyrus, pointing out the principle of humidity, and the fertility thence flowing, under his direction.

ÆSCULAPIUS. The name of Æsculapius, whom the Greeks called Ασκληπιος, appears to have been foreign, and derived from the oriental languages. Being honored as a god in Phœnicia and Egypt, his worship passed into Greece,and was established, first at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, bordering on the sea, where, probably, some colonies first settled; a circumstance sufficient for the Greeks to give out that this god was a native of Greece.

Not to mention all we are told of his parents, it will be enough to observe, that the opinion generally received in Greece, made him the son of Apollo by Corōnis, daughter of Phlegyas; and indeed the Messenians, who consulted the oracle of Delphi to know where Æsculapius was born, and of what parents, were told by the oracle, or more properly Apollo, that he himself was his father; that Corōnis was his mother, and that their son was born at Epidaurus.

Phlegyas, the most warlike man of his age, having gone into Peloponnesus under pretence of travelling, but, in truth, to spy into the condition of the country, carried his daughter Corōnis thither, who, to conceal her situation from her father, went to Epidaurus: there she was delivered of a son, whom she exposed upon a mountain, called to this day Mount Titthion, orof the breast; but before this adventure, Myrthion, from the myrtles that grew upon it.

The reason of this change of name was, that the child, having been here abandoned, was suckled by one of those goats of the mountain, which the dog of Aristhĕnes the goat-herd guarded. When Aristhĕnes came to review his flock, he found a she-goat and his dog missing, and going in search of them discovered the child. Upon approaching to lift him from the earth, he perceived his head encircled with fiery rays, which made him believe the child to be of divine origin.

As Κορωνη in the Greek language signifies a crow, hence another fable arose importing, as we see in Lucian, that Æsculapius had sprung from an egg of a bird, under the figure of a serpent. Whatever these fictions may mean, Æsculapius being removed from the mount on which he was exposed, was nursed by Trigo or Trigone, who was probably the wife of the goat-herd that found him; and when he was capable of improving by Chiron, Phlegyas (to whom he had doubtless been returned) put him under the Centaur's tuition.

Being of a quick and lively genius, he made such progress as soon to become not only a great physician, but at length to be reckoned the god and inventor of medicine; though the Greeks, not very consistent in the history of those early ages, gave to Apis, son of Phoroneus, the glory of having discovered the healing art. Æsculapius accompanied Jason in his expedition to Colchis, and in his medical capacity was of great service to the Argonauts. Within a short time after his death he was deified, and received divine honors: some add, that he formed the celestial sign, Serpentarius.

As the Greeks always carried the encomiums of their great men beyond the truth, they feigned that Æsculapius was so expert in medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead. Ovid says he did this by Hippolĭtus, and Julian says the same of Tyndărus: that Pluto cited him before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his empire was considerably diminished and in danger of becoming desolate, from the cures Æsculapius performed; so that Jupiter in wrath slew Æsculapius with a thunder-bolt; to which they added that Apollo, enraged at the death of his son, killed the Cyclops who forged Jupiter's thunder-bolts: a fiction which obviously signifies only, that Æsculapius had carried his art very far, and that he cured diseases believed to be desperate.

Æsculapius is always represented under the figure of a grave old man wrapped up in a cloak, having sometimes upon his head thecalăthusof Serāpis, with a staff in his hand, which is commonly wreathed about with a serpent; sometimes again with a serpent in one hand, and apatĕrain the other; sometimes leaning upon a pillar, round which a serpent also twines. The cock, a bird consecrated to this god, whose vigilance represents that quality which physicians ought to have, is sometimes at the feet of his statues. Socrates, we know, when dying, said to those who stood around him in his last moments, “We owe a cock to Æsculapius; give it without delay.”

ULYSSES, king of Ithăca, was the son of Laertes, or Laertius and Anticlēa. His wife Penelŏpe, daughter of Icarius brother of Tyndărus king of Sparta, was highly famed for her prudence and virtue; and being unwilling that the Trojan war should part them, Ulysses to avoid the expedition, pretended to be mad, and not only joined different beasts to the same plough, but sowed also the furrows with salt.

Palamēdes, however, suspecting the frenzy to be assumed, threw Telemachus, then an infant, in the way of the plough, to try if his father would alter its course. This stratagem succeeded; for when Ulysses came to the child he turned off from the spot, in consequence of which Palamēdes compelled him to take part in the war. He accordingly sailed with twelve ships, and was signally serviceable to the Greeks.

To him the capture of Troy is chiefly to be ascribed, since by him the obstacles were removed, which had so long prevented it. For as Ulysses himself was detected by Palamēdes, so he in his turn detected Achilles, who, to avoid engaging in the same war, had concealed himself in the habits of a woman, at the court of Lycomēdes, king of Scyros. Ulysses there discovered him, and as it had been foretold that without Achilles Troy could not be taken, thence drew him to the siege.

He also obtained the arrows of Hercules, from Philoctētes, and carried off that hero from the scene of his retreat. He brought away also the ashes of Laomĕdon, which were preserved in Troy on the Scœan gate. By him the Palladium was stolen from the same city; Rhesus, king of Thrace, killed, and his horses taken before they had drank of the Xanthus. These exploits involved in them the destiny of Troy; for had the Trojans preserved them, their city could never have been conquered.

Ulysses contended afterwards with Telamonian Ajax, the stoutest of all the Grecians, except Achilles, for the arms of that hero, which were awarded to him by the judges, who were won by the charms of his eloquence. His other enterprises before Troy were numerous and brilliant, and are particularly related in the Iliad. When Ulysses departed for Greece, he sailed backwards and forwards for twenty years, contrary winds and severe weather opposing his return to Ithăca.

During this period, he extinguished, with a firebrand, the eye of Polyphēmus; then sailing to Æolia, he obtained from Æŏlus all the winds which were contrary to him, and put them into leathern bags; his companions, however, believing these bags to be full of money, entered into a plot to rob him, and accordingly, when they came on the coast of Ithăca, untied the bags, upon which the wind rushing out, he was again blown back to Æolia.

When Circe had turned his companions into swine and other brutes, he first fortified himself against her charms with the herb Moly, an antidote Mercury had given him; and then rushing into her cave with his drawn sword, compelled her to restore his associates to their original shape.

He is said to have gone down into hell, to know his future fortune, from the prophet Tiresias. When he sailedto the islands of the Sirens, he stopped the ears of his companions, and bound himself with strong ropes to the ship's mast, that he might secure himself against the snares into which, by their charming voices, passengers were habitually allured. Lastly, after his ship was wrecked, he escaped by swimming, and came naked and alone, to the port of Phæacia, in the island of Corcyra, where Nausicăa, daughter of king Alcinŏus, found him in a profound sleep, into which he was thrown by the indulgence of Minerva.

When his companions were found, and his ship refitted, he bent his course toward Ithăca, where arriving, and having put on the habit of a beggar, he went to his neatherds, with whom he found his son Telemachus, and with them went home in disguise. After having received several affronts from the suitors of Penelŏpe, with the assistance of his son Telemachus and the neatherds, to whom he had discovered himself, he killed Antinŏus, and the other princes who were competitors for her favor. After reigning some time, he resigned the government of his kingdom to Telemachus.

CASTOR and POLLUX were the twin sons of Jupiter and Leda. These brothers entered into an inviolable friendship, and when they grew up, cleared the Archipelago of pirates, on which account they were esteemed deities of the sea, and accordingly were invoked by mariners in tempests. They went with the other noble youths of Greece in the expedition to Colchis, in search of the golden fleece, and on all occasions signalized themselves by their courage.

In this expedition Pollux slew Amycus, son of Neptune, and king of Bebrycia, who had challenged all the Argonauts to box with him. This victory, and that which he gained afterwards at the Olympic games which Hercules celebrated in Elis, caused him to be considered the hero and patron of wrestlers, while his brother Castor distinguished himself in the race, and in the management of horses.

Cicero relates a wonderful judgment which happened to one Scopas, who had spoken disrespectfully of these divinities: he was crushed to death by the fall of a chamber, whilst Simonĭdes, who was in the same room, was rescued from the danger, being called out a little before, by two persons unknown, supposed to be Castor and Pollux.

The Greek and Roman histories are full of the miraculous appearance of these brethren; particularly we are told they were seen fighting upon two white horses, at the headof the Roman army, in the battle between the Romans and Latins, near the lake Regillus, and brought the news of the decisive victory of Paulus Æmilius to Rome, the very day it was obtained.

Frequent representations of these deities occur on ancient monuments, and particularly on consular medals. They are exhibited together, each having a helmet, out of which issues a flame, and each a pike in one hand, and in the other a horse held by the bridle: sometimes they are represented as two beautiful youths, completely armed, and riding on white horses, with stars over their helmets.

AJAX, son of Telămon, king of Salămis, by Beribœa, was, next to Achilles, the most valiant among the Greeks at the seige of Troy. He commanded the troops of Salămis in that expedition, and performed the various heroic actions mentioned by Homer, and Ovid, in the speech of Ajax contending for the armor of Achilles. This armor, however, being adjudged to his competitor Ulysses, his disappointment so enraged him, that he immediately became mad, and rushed furiously upon a flock of sheep, imagining he was killing those who had offended him: but at length perceiving his mistake, he became still more furious, and stabbed himself with the fatal sword he had received from Hector, with whom he had fought. Ajax resembled Achilles in several respects; like him he was violent, and impatient of contradiction; and, like him, invulnerable in every part of the body except one.

He has been charged with impiety; not that he denied the gods a very extensive power, but he imagined that, as the greatest cowards might conquer through their assistance, there was no glory in conquering by such aids; and scorned to owe his victory to aught but his own prowess. Accordingly, we are told that when he was setting out for Troy, his father recommended him always to join the assistance of the gods to his own valor; to which Ajax replied, that cowards themselves were often victorious by such helps, but for his own part he would make no reliance of the kind, being assured he should be able to conquer without.

It is further added, upon the head of his irreligion, that to Minerva, who once offered him her advice, he replied with indignation: “Trouble not yourself about my conduct; of that I shall give a good account; you have nothing to do but reserve your favor and assistance for the other Greeks.” Another time she offered to guide hischariot in the battle, but he would not suffer her. Nay, he even defaced the owl, her favorite bird, which was engraven on his shield, lest that figure should be considered as an act of reverence to Minerva, and hence as indicating distrust in himself.

Homer, however, does not represent him in this light, for though he does not pray to Jupiter himself when he prepares to engage the valiant Hector, yet he desires others to pray for him, either in a low voice, lest the Trojans should hear, or louder if they pleased; for, says he, I fear no person in the world.

The poets give to Ajax the same commendation that the holy scripture gives to king Saul, with regard to his stature. He has been the subject of several tragedies, as well in Greek as Latin; and it is related that the famous comedian, Æsop, refused to act that part. The Greeks paid great honor to him after his death, and erected to him a noble monument upon the promontory of Rhœteum, which was one of those Alexander desired to see and honor.

JASON was son of Æson, king of Thessaly, and Alcimĕde. He was an infant when Pelias, his uncle, who was left his guardian, sought to destroy him; but being, to avoid the danger, conveyed by his relations to a cave, he was there instructed by Chiron in the art of physic; whence he took the name of Jason, or the healer, his former name being Diomēdes. Arriving at years of maturity, he returned to his uncle, who, probably with no favorable intention to Jason, inspired him with the notion of the Colchian expedition and agreeably flattered his ambition with the hopes of acquiring the golden fleece.

Jason having resolved on the voyage, built a vessel at Iolchos in Thessaly, for the expedition, under the inspection, of Argos, a famous workman, which, from him, was called Argo: it was said to have been executed by the advice of Pallas, who pointed out a tree in the Dodonæan forest for a mast, which was vocal, and had the gift of prophecy.

The fame of the vessel, the largest that had ever been heard of, but particularly the design itself, soon induced the bravest and most distinguished youths of Greece to become adventurers in it, and brought together about fifty of the most accomplished young persons of the age to accompany Jason in this expedition; authors, however, are not agreed on the precise names or numbers of the Argonauts; some state them to have been forty-nine; others more, and amongst them several were of divine origin.

On his arrival at Colchis he repaired to the court of Æētes, from whom he demanded the golden fleece. The monarch acceded to his request, provided he could overcome the difficulties which lay in his way, and which appeared not easily surmountable; these were bulls with brazen feet, whose nostrils breathed fire, and a dragon which guarded the fleece. The teeth of the latter, when killed, Jason was enjoined to sow, and, after they had sprung up into armed men, to destroy them.

Though success attended the enterprise, it was less owing to valor, than to the assistance of Medēa, daughter of Æētes, who, by her enchantments, laid asleep the dragon, taught Jason to subdue the bulls, and when he had obtained the prize, accompanied him in the night time, unknown to her brother.

The return of the Argonauts is variously related; some contend it was by the track in which they came, and say that the brother of Medēa pursued them as far as the Adriatic, and was overcome by Jason; which occasioned the story that his sister had cut him in pieces, and strewed his limbs in the way, that her father, from solicitude to collect them, might be delayed in the pursuit.

GRACESorCHARITES. Among the multitude of ancient divinities, none had more votaries that the Graces. Particular nations and countries had appropriate and local deities, but their empire was universal. To their influence was ascribed all that could please in nature and in art; and to them every rank and profession concurred in offering their vows.

Their number was generally limited, by the ancient poets, to three:Euphrosyne,Thalīa, andAglaia; but they differed concerning their origin. Some suppose them to have been the offspring of Jupiter and Eunomia, daughter of Oceănus; but the most prevalent opinion is, that they were descended from Bacchus and Venus. According to Homer, Aglaia, the youngest, was married to Vulcan, and another of them to the god of Sleep. The Graces were companions ofMercury,Venus, and theMuses.

Festivals were celebrated in honor of them throughout the whole year. They were esteemed the dispensers of liberality, eloquence, and wisdom; and from them were derived simplicity of manners, a graceful deportment, and gaiety of disposition. From their inspiring acts of gratitude and mutual kindness they were described as uniting hand in hand with each other. The ancients partook of but few repasts without invoking them, as well as the Muses.

SIRENS were a kind of fabulous beings represented by some as sea-monsters, with the faces of women and the tails of fishes, answering the description of mermaids; and by others said to have the upper parts of a woman, and the under parts of a bird. Their number is not determined; Homer reckons only two; others five, namely, Leucosia, Ligeia, Parthenŏpe, Aglaŏphon, and Molpe; others admit only the three first.

The poets represent them as beautiful women inhabiting the rocks on the sea-shore, whither having allured passengers by the sweetness of their voices, they put them to death. Virgil places them on rocks where vessels are in danger of shipwreck; Pliny makes them inhabit the promontory of Minerva, near the island Capreæ; others fix them in Sicily, near cape Pelōrus.

Claudian says they inhabited harmonious rocks, that they were charming monsters, and that sailors were wrecked on their coasts without regret, and even expired in rapture. This description is doubtless founded on a literal explication of the fable, that the Sirens were women who inhabited the shores of Sicily, and who, by the allurements of pleasure, stopped passengers, and made them forget their course.

Ovid says they accompanied Proserpine when she was carried off, and that the gods granted them wings to go in quest of that goddess. Homer places the Sirens in the midst of a meadow drenched in blood, and tells us that fate had permitted them to reign till some person should over-reach them; that the wise Ulysses accomplished their destiny, having escaped their snares, by stopping the ears of his companions with wax, and causing himself to be fastened to the mast of his ship, which, he adds, plunged them into so deep despair, that they drowned themselves in the sea, where they were transformed into fishes from the waist downwards.

Others, who do not look for so much mystery in this fable, maintain that the Sirens were nothing but certainstraits in the sea, where the waves whirling furiously around seized and swallowed up vessels that approached them. Lastly, some hold the Sirens to have been certain shores and promontories, where the winds, by various reverberations and echoes, cause a kind of harmony that surprises and stops passengers. This probably might be the origin of the Sirens' song, and the occasion of giving the name of Sirens to those rocks.

Some interpreters of the ancient fables contend, that the number and names of the three Sirens were taken from the triple pleasure of the senses, wine, love, and music, which are the three most powerful means of seducing mankind; and hence so many exhortations to avoid the Sirens' fatal song; and probably it was hence that the Greeks obtained their etymology of Siren from a Greek word signifying achain, as if there were no getting free from their enticement.

But if in tracing this fable to its source, we take Servius as our guide, he tells us that it derived its origin from certain princesses who reigned of old upon the coasts of the Tuscan sea, near Pelōrus and Caprea, or in three small islands of Sicily which Aristotle calls the isles of the Sirens. These women were very debauched, and by their charms allured strangers, who were ruined in their court, by pleasure and prodigality.

This seems evidently the foundation of all that Homer says of the Sirens, in the twelfth book of the Odyssey; that they bewitched those who unfortunately listened to their songs; that they detained them in capacious meadows, where nothing was to be seen but bones and carcasses withering in the sun; that none who visit them ever again enjoy the embraces and congratulations of their wives and children; and that all who dote upon their charms are doomed to perish. What Solomon says in the ninth chapter of Proverbs, of the miseries to which those are exposed who abandon themselves to sensual pleasures, well justifies the idea given us of the Sirens by the Greek poets, and by Virgil's commentator.

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