their firm adherence to the Roman power during the war with Hannibal. It was subsequently recolonized by Augustus and Nero (Front., de Col.), but Strabo (239 and 249) makes it a very inconsiderable place, having suffered materially in the Marsic war. The modern Isernia is supposed to represent Æsernia. ESION. Vid. Supplement. his name was rendered peculiarly famous. The reputation for wisdom which he enjoyed, induced Crosus, king of Lydia, to invite him to his court. The fabulist obeyed the call, but, after residing some time at Sardis, again journeyed into Greece. At the period of his second visit, the Athenians are said to have been oppressed by the usurpation of Pisistratus, and to console them under this state of things, Æsop is related to have invented for them the fable of the frogs petitioning Jupiter for a king. The residence of Æsop Esox, son of Cretheus and Tyro. He succeeded his father in the kingdom of Iolchos, but was dethroned by his half-brother Pelias. Eson became the father, by Alcimede, of the celebrated Jason, the lead-in Greece at this time would seem to have been a long er of the Argonauts. Through fear of the usurper, Jason was intrusted to the care of the centaur Chiron, and brought up at a distance from the court of Pelias. On his arriving at manhood, however, he came to Iolchos, according to one account, to claim his inheritance; but, according to another, he was invited by Pelias to attend a sacrifice to Neptune on the seashore. The result of the interview, whatever may have been the cause of it, was an order from Pelias to go in quest of the golden fleece. (Vid. Jason.) During the absence of Jason on this well-known expedition, the tyranny of Pelias, according to one version of the story, drove Eson and Aleimedes to self-destruction; an act of cruelty, to which he was prompted by intelligence having been received that all the Argonauts had perished, and by a consequent wish on his part to make himself doubly secure, by destroying the parents of Jason. He put to death also their remaining child. (Apollod., 1,9, 16, seqq.-Diod. Sic., 4, 50.-Hygin., 24.) Ovid, however, gives quite a different account of the latter days of Eson. According to the poet (Met., 7, 297, seqq.), Jason, on his return with Medea, found his father son still alive, but enfeebled by age; and the Colchian enchantress, by drawing the blood from his veins and then filling them with the juices of certain herbs which she had gathered for the purpose, restored him to a manhood of forty years. The daughters of Pelias having entreated Medea to perform the same operation on their aged father, she embraced this opportunity of avenging the wrongs inflicted on Jason and his parents by the death of the usurper. (Vid. Pelias.) one, if any argument for such an opinion may be drawn from a line of Phædrus (3, 14), in which the epithet of senex is applied to the fabulist during the period of this his stay at Athens. He returned, how ever, eventually to the court of the Lydian monarch. Whether the well-known conversation between Æsop and Solon occurred after the return of the former from his second journey into Greece, or during his previous residence with Croesus, cannot be satisfactorily ascertained: the latter opinion is most probably the more correct one, if we can believe that the interview between Solon and Croesus, as mentioned by Herodotus (1, 30, seqq.), ever took place. It seems that Solon had offended Croesus by the low estimation in which he held riches as an ingredient of happiness, and was, in consequence, treated with cold indifference. (Herod., 1, 33.) Esop, concerned at the unkind treatment which Solon had encountered, gave him the following advice: "A wise man should resolve either not to converse with kings at all, or to converse with them agreeably." To which Solon replied, " Nay, he should either not converse with them at all, or converse with them usefully." (Plut., Vit. Sol., 28.) The particulars of Æsop's death are stated as follows by Plutarch (de sera numinis vindicta, p. 556.-Op., ed. Reiske, vol. 8, p. 203). Crœsus sent him to Delphi with a large amount of gold, in order to offer a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo, and also to present four mina to each inhabitant of the sacred city. Having had some difference, however, with the people of Delphi, he offered the sacrifice, but sent back the money to Sardis, regarding the intended objects of the king's bounty as totally unworthy of it. The irritated Delphians, with one accord, accused him of sacrilege, and Esopus, I. a celebrated fabulist, who is supposed he was thrown down the rock Hyampea. Suidas to have flourished about 620 B.C. (Larcher, Hist. makes him to have been hurled from the rocks called Herod, Table Chronol., vol. 7, p. 539.) Much un- Phædriades, but the remark is an erroneous one, since certainty, however, prevails both on this point, as well these rocks were too far from Delphi, and the one from as in relation to the country that gave him birth. which he was thrown was, according to Lucian, in the Some ancient writers make him to have been a Thra- neighbourhood of that city. (Phalaris prior-Op., cian. (Compare Mohnike, Gesch. Lit. Gr. und R., ed. Bp., vol. 5, p. 46.—Compare Larcher, Hist. d'Hevol. 1, p. 291) Suidas states that he was either of rod., vol. 7, p. 539.) Apollo, offended at this deed, Samos or Sardis; but most authorities are in favour sent all kinds of maladies upon the Delphians, who, in of his having been a Phrygian, and born at Cotyæum. order to free themselves, caused proclamations to be All appear to agree, however, in representing him as made at all the great celebrations of Greece, that if of servile origin, and owned in succession by several there was any one entitled so to do, who would demasters. The first of these was Demarchus, or, ac-mand satisfaction from them for the death of Æsop, cording to the reading of the Florence MS., Timar- they would render it unto him. In the third genera chus, who resided at Athens, where Esop, conse- tion came a Samian, named Iadmon, a descendant of quently, must have had many means of improvement one of the former masters of the fabulist, and the Delwithin his reach. From Demarchus he came into the phians, having made atonement, were delivered from possession of Xanthus, a Samian, who sold him to the evils under which they had been suffering. Such ladmon, a philosopher of the same island, under whose is the narrative of Plutarch. And we are also inroof he had for a fellow-slave the famous courtesan formed, that, to evince the sincerity of their repentRhodope. (Herod., 2, 134.) Iadmon subsequently ance, they transferred the punishment of sacrilege, for gave him his freedom, on account of the talents which the time to come, from the rock Hyampea to that he displayed, and Esop now turned his attention to named Nauplia. Other accounts, however, inform us, foreign travel, partly to extend the sphere of his own that Esop offended the people of Delphi by compaknowledge, and partly to communicate instruction to ring them to floating sticks, which appear at a disothers. The vehicles in which this instruction was tance to be something great, but, on a near approach, conveyed were fables, the peculiar excellence of which dwindle away into insignificance, and that he was achas caused his name to be associated with this pleas-cused, in consequence, of having carried off one of the ing branch of composition through every succeeding period Æsop is said to have visited Persia, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece, in the last of which countries ESONIDES, a patronymic of Jason, as being descended from Æson. vases consecrated to Apollo. The scholiast on Aristophanes (Vesp., 1486) informs us, that Esop had irritated the Delphians by remarking of them, that they had no land, like other people, on the produce of which an imitation of some of those ascribed to Æsop, and to support themselves, but were compelled to depend that they in no respect bear the marks of an Arabian for subsistence on the remains of the sacrifices. De- invention. (Compare the observations of Erpenius, termined to be revenged on him, they concealed a in the preface to his edition of Lokman, 1615.)—With consecrated cup amid his baggage, and, when he was respect to the person of Æsop, it has been generally some distance from their city, pursued and arrested supposed that the statement of Planudes, which makes him. The production of the cup sealed his fate, and him to have been exceedingly deformed, his head of a he was thrown from the rock Hyampea, as already conical shape, his belly protuberant, his limbs distortmentioned. As they were leading him away to exe- ed, &c., was unworthy of credit. Visconti, however, cution, he is said to have recited to them the fable of supports the assertions of Planudes in this particular, the eagle and beetle, but without producing any effect. from the remains of ancient sculpture. (Iconografia The memory of Esop was highly honoured through- Greca, vol. 1, p. 155.) The best editions of sop out Greece, and the Athenians erected a statue to him are the following: that of Heusinger, Lips., 1741, (Phædrus, 2, Epil., 2, seqq.), the work of the cele- 8vo; that of Ernesti, Lips., 1781, 8vo; that of Cobrated Lysippus, which was placed opposite those of ray, Paris, 1810, 8vo; and that of De Furia, Lips., the seven sages. It must be candidly confessed, 1810, 8vo.-II. An eminent Roman tragedian, and however, that little, if anything, is known with cer- the most formidable rival of the celebrated Roscius, tainty respecting the life of the fabulist, and what we though in a different line. Hence Quintilian (11, 3) have thus detailed of him appears to rest on little more remarks, "Roscius citatior, Esopus gravior fuit, than mere tradition, and the life which Planudes, a quod ille comœdias, hic tragadias egit." His surname monk of the fourteenth century, is supposed to have was Clodius, probably from his being a freedman of given to the world; a piece of biography possessing the Clodian or Claudian family. He is supposed to few intrinsic claims to our belief. Hence some wri- have been born in the first half of the seventh century ters have doubted whether such an individual as Esop of Rome, since Cicero, in a letter written A.U.C. 699 ever existed. (Compare Visconti, Iconografia Greca, (Ep. ad Fam., 7, 1), speaks of him as advanced in vol. 1, p. 154, where the common opinion is advoca- years. Some idea of the energy with which he acted ted.) But, whatever we may think on this head, one his parts on the stage may be formed from the anecpoint at least is certain, that none of the fables which dote related by Plutarch (Vit. Cic., 5), who informs us, at present go under the name of Esop were ever that on one occasion, as Esopus was performing the written by him. They appear to have been preserved part of Atreus, at the moment when he is meditating for a long time in oral tradition, and only collected and vengeance, he gave so violent a blow with his sceptre reduced to writing at a comparatively late period. to a slave who approached, as to strike him lifeless to Plato (Phædon. -Op., pt. 2, vol. 3, p. 9, ed. Bekker) the earth. A circumstance mentioned by Valerius informs us, that Socrates amused himself in prison, to- Maximus (8, 10, 2) shows with what care Esopus wards the close of his life, with versifying some of and Roscius studied the characters which they reprethese fables. (Compare Plut., de Aud. Poet., p. 16, c., sented on the stage. Whenever a cause of any imand Wyttenbach, ad loc.) His example found numer-portance was to be tried, and an orator of any emious imitators. A collection of the fables of Æsop, nence was to plead therein, these two actors were as they were called, was also made by Demetrius accustomed to mix with the spectators, and carefully Phalereus (Diog. Laert., 5, 80), and another, between observe the movements of the speakers as well as the 150 and 50 B.C., by a certain Babrius. (Compare expression of their countenances. Æsopus, like RosTyrwhitt, Dissert. de Babrio, Lond., 1776, 8vo.) The cius, lived in great intimacy with Cicero, as may be former of these was probably in prose; the latter was seen in various passages in the correspondence of the in choliambic verse (vid. Babrius). But the bad taste latter. He appeared for the last time in public on of the grammarians, in a subsequent age, destroyed the the day when the theatre of Pompey was dedicated, metrical form of the fables of Babrius, and reduced A.U.C. 699, but his physical powers were unequal to them to prose. To them we owe the loss of a large the effort, and his voice failed him at the very beginportion of this collection. Various collections of so- ning of an adjuration, "Si sciens fallo." (Cic., Ep. pian fables have reached our times, among which six ad Fam., 7, 1.) He amassed a very large fortune, have attained to a certain degree of celebrity. Of which his son squandered in a career of the most ridicthese the most ancient is not older than the thirteenth ulous extravagance. It is this son of whom Horace century; the author is unknown. It is called the (Sat., 2, 3, 239) relates, that he dissolved a costly pearl collection of Florence, and contains one hundred and in vinegar, and drank it off. Compare the statement ninety-nine fables, together with a puerile life of the of Pliny (9, 59).-III. An engraver, most probably fabulist by Planudes, a Greek monk of the fourteenth of Sigæum. The time when he lived is uncertain. In century. The second collection was made by an un- connection with some brother-artist, he made a large known hand in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. cup, with a stand and strainer, dedicated by PhanodiThe monk Planudes formed the third collection. The cus, son of Hermocrates, in the Prytaneum at Sigæum. fourth, called the Heidelberg collection, together with (Consult the remarks of Hermann, über Böckh's Bethe fifth and sixth, styled, the former the Augsburg handlung der Griech. Inschrift., p. 216–219.)—IV. collection, the latter that of the Vatican, are the work Vid. Supplement. of anonymous compilers. These last three contain ÆSTI, a nation of Germany, dwelling along the many of the fables of Babrius reduced to bad prose. southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Hence the Besides the collections which have just been enumer- origin of their name, from the Teutonic Est, "east," ated, we possess one of a character totally distinct as indicating a community dwelling in the eastern part from the rest. It is a Greek translation, executed in of Germany. (Compare the English Essex, i. e., the fifteenth century by Michael Andreopulus, from a Estsexia.) They carried on a traffic in amber, which Syriac original, which would appear itself to have been was found in great abundance along their shores. nothing more than a translation from the Greek, by a This circumstance alone would lead us to place them Persian named Syntifa. (Schöll, Hist. Lat. Gr., vol. in a part of modern Prussia, in the country probably 1, p. 253.)-As regards the question, whether the fa- beyond Dantzic. Tacitus calls their position "the bles of the Arabian Lokman have served as a proto- right side of the Suevic" or Baltic "Sea." It is incortype for those of Æsop, or otherwise, it may be re-rect to assign them to modern Esthonia. Either this marked, that, in the opinion of De Sacy (Biographie Universelle, vol. 24, p. 631, s. v. Lokman), the apologues of the Arabian fabulist are nothing more than last is a general name for any country lying to the east, or else the Esthians of Esthonia came originally from what is now Prussia. The Estii worshipped, ETHER (Ap), a personified idea of the mythical cosmogonies. (Vid. Supplement.) according to Tacitus, the mother of the gods, Hertha, and the symbol of her worship was a wild boar Now, as this animal was sacred to Freya, the Scandinavian ETHICES, a Thessalian tribe of uncertain but ancient Venus, and as Freya is often confounded with Frigga, origin, since they are mentioned by Homer (Il., 2, 744), the mother of the gods in the Scandinavian mythology, who states that the Centaurs, expelled by Pirithous from Tacitus evidently fell into a similar error, and misun-Mount Pelion, withdrew to the Ethices. Strabo (327 derstood his informers. (Tacit., M. G., 45.-Pinkerton, Diss. on Scythians, &c., p. 168.) and 434) says, that they inhabited the Thessalian side ESULA, a town of Latium, the site of which remains undiscovered. Horace (Od., 3, 29, 6) speaks of it in the same line with Tibur, whence it is naturally supposed to have stood in the vicinity of that place. Pliny (3, 5) enumerates Esula among the Latin towns, which no longer existed in his time. Velleius Paterculus (1, 14) calls the place Esulum, and reckons it among the colonies of Rome. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, 2, 66.) ESTETES, a Trojan prince, supposed by some to have been the parent of Antenor and Ucalegon, while ETHIOPIA, an extensive country of Africa, to the others make him to have been descended from a more south of Egypt, lying along the Sinus Arabicus and ancient calegon, who had married Ilios, the daughter Mare Erythræum, and extending also far inland. An of Laomedon. Homer (Il., 13, 427) mentions Alcath- idea of its actual limits will best be formed from a view ous as the son of Æsyetes, and the son-in-law of An- of the gradual progress of Grecian discovery in relation chises, who had given him his eldest daughter Hippo-to this region. Æthiops (Aitío) was the expression damia in marriage. (Heyne, ad Il., 2, 793.) The used by the Greeks for everything which had contracttomb of Esyetes is alluded to by Homer (Il., 2, 793), ed a dark or swarthy colour from exposure to the heat and is said by Strabo (599) to have been five stadia dis- of the sun (ai0w, “to burn," and , "the visage"). tant from Troy, and on the road leading to Alexandrea The term was applied also to men of a dark complexion, Troas. It afforded a very convenient post of observa- and the early Greeks named all of such a colour Æthition in the Trojan war. Dr. Clarke gives the follow- opes, and their country Æthiopia, wherever situated. ing account of it (Travels, &c., vol. 3, p. 92, seqq., It is more than probable that the Greeks obtained their Eng. ed.): "Coming opposite to the bay, which has knowledge of the existence of such a race of men from been considered as the naval station used by the Greeks the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and that this knowledge, during the Trojan war, and which is situate on the founded originally on mere report, was subsequently eastern side of the embouchure of the Mender, the eye confirmed by actual inspection, when the Greek coloof the spectator is attracted by an object predomina- nists along the shores of Asia Minor, in their commerting over every other, and admirably adapted, by the cial intercourse with Sidon and Egypt, beheld there singularity of its form, as well as by the peculiarity the caravans which had come in from Southern Africa. of its situation, to overlook that station, together Homer makes express mention of the Æthiopians in with the whole of the low coast near the mouth of the many parts of his poems, and speaks of two divisions river. This object is a conical mound, rising from a of them, the Eastern and Western. The explanation line of elevated territory behind the bay and the mouth given by Eustathius and other Greek writers respectof the river. It has, therefore, been pointed out as the ing these two classes of men, as described by the poet, tomb of Esyetes, and is now called Udjek Tépe. If cannot be the true one. They make the Nile to have we had never heard or read a single syllable concern-been the dividing line (Eustath., p. 1386, ad Hom., Od., ing the war of Troy, or the works of Homer, it would 1, 23); but this is too refined for Homer's geographihave been impossible not to notice the remarkable ap- cal acquaintance with the interior of Africa. By the pearance presented by this tumulus, so peculiarly Eastern Ethiopians he means merely the imbrowned placed as a post of observation commanding all ap- natives of Southern Arabia, who brought their wares proach to the harbour and river." In another part (p. to Sidon, and who were believed to dwell in the imme198), the same intelligent traveller observes: "The diate vicinity of the rising sun. The Egyptians were actumulus of Esyetes is, of all others, the spot most re- quainted with another dark-coloured nation, the Libymarkably adapted for viewing the Plain of Troy, and ans. These, although the poet carefully distinguishes it is visible in almost all parts of Troas. From its top their country from that of the Æthiopians (Od., 4, 84), may be traced the course of the Scamander; the whole still become, in opposition to the Eastern, the poet's chain of Ida, stretching towards Lectum; the snowy Western Ethiopians, the more especially as it remainheights of Gargarus, and all the shores of the Helles-ed unknown how far the latter extended to the west and pont near the mouth of the river, with Signum, and the other tumuli upon the coast." Bryant endeavours to show, that what the Greeks regarded as the tombs of princes and warriors, were not so in reality, but were, for the most part, connected with old religious rites and customs, and used for religious purposes. (Mythology, vol. 2, p. 167, seqq.) Lechevalier, however, successfully refutes this. ESYMNETES. Vid. Supplement. south. This idea, originating thus in early antiquity, respecting the existence of two distinct classes of dark coloured men, gained new strength at a later period. In the immense army of Xerxes were to be seen men of a swarthy complexion from the Persian provinces in the vicinity of India, and others again, of similar visage, from the countries lying to the south of Egypt. With the exception of colour, they had nothing in common with each other. Their language, manners, physical make, armour, &c., were entirely different. NotwithTHALIDES, a son of Mercury, and herald of the Ar- standing this, however, they were both regarded as ponauts, who obtained from his father the privilege of Ethiopians. (Compare Herodotus, 7, 69, seqq., and 3, ing among the dead and the living at stated times. 94, seqq.) The Ethiopians of the farther east disapBence he was called érɛpýμɛpoç kýpus, from his spend-peared gradually from remembrance, while a more inone day in Hades, and the next upon earth, alter-timate intercourse with Egypt brought the Ethiopians Lely It is said also that his soul underwent various of Africa more frequently into view, and it is to these, transmigrations, and that he appeared successively as Euphorbus, son of Panthûs, Pyrus the Cretan, an Elean whose name is not known, and Pythagoras. (Schol., ed loc.) therefore, that we now turn our attention.-Ethiopia, according to Herodotus, includes the countries above Egypt, the present Nubia and Abyssinia. Immediately above Syene and Elephantine, remarks this writer (2, 29), the Ethiopian race begins. As far as the town | whom, and of the state and city of Meroë, the student and island of Tachompso, seventy or eighty miles above is referred to these articles respectively. Under the Syene, these are mixed with Egyptians, and higher up latter of these heads some remarks will also be offered dwell Ethiopians alone. The Ethiopians he distin- respecting the trade of Ethiopia.—The early and cuguishes into the inhabitants of Meroe and the Macrobii. rious belief respecting the Ethiopian race, that they In Strabo (800) and Pliny (6, 29) we find other tribes and stood highest in the favour of the gods, and that the towns referred to, but the most careful division is that deities of Olympus, at stated seasons, enjoyed among by Agatharchides, whose work on the Red Sea is unfor- them the festive hospitality of the banquet, would seem tunately lost, with the exception of some fragments. to have arisen from the peculiar relation in which MeAgatharchides divides them according to their way of roë stood to the adjacent countries as the parent city life. Some carried on agriculture, cultivating the mil- of civilization and religion. Piety and rectitude were let; others were herdsmen; while some lived by the the first virtues with a nation whose dominion was chase and on vegetables, and others, again, along the founded on religion and commerce, not on oppression. sea-shore, on fish and marine animals. The rude tribes The active imagination, however, of the early Greeks, who lived on the coast and fed on fish are called by gave a different turn to this feature in the Æthiopian Agatharchides the Ichthyophagi. Along both banks of character, and, losing sight of the true cause, or, perthe Astaboras dwelt another nation, who lived on the haps, never having been acquainted with it, they suproots of reeds growing in the neighbouring swamps: posed that a race of men, who could endure such inthese roots they cut to pieces with stones, formed them tense heat as they were thought to encounter, must be a into a tenacious mass, and dried them in the sun. Close nobler order of beings than the human family in gento these dwelt the Hylophagi, who lived on the fruits eral; and that they who dwelt so near the rising and of trees, vegetables growing in the valleys, &c. To setting of the orb of day, could not but be in closer the west of these were the hunting nations, who fed union than the rest of their species with the inhabitants on wild beasts, which they killed with the arrow. There of the skies. (Compare Mannert, 10, 103.)—The Ethiwere also other tribes, who lived on the flesh of the ele- opians were intimately connected with the Egyptians phant and the ostrich, the Elephantophagi and Struth-in the early ages of their monarchy, and Ethiopian ophagi. Besides these, he mentions another and less populous tribe, who fed on locusts, which came in swarms from the southern and unknown districts. (Agatharch., de Rubr. Mar.-Geograph. Gr. Min., ed. Hudson, vol. 1, p. 37, seqq.) The accuracy with which Agatharchides has pointed out the situation of these tribes, does not occasion much difficulty in assimilating them to the modern inhabitants of Ethiopia. According to him, they dwelt along the banks of the Astaboras, which separated them from Meroë; this river is the Atbar, or, as it is also called, the Tacazze; they must, consequently, have dwelt in the present Shangalla. The mode of life with these people has not in the least varied for 2000 years; although cultivated nations are situate around them, they have made no progress in improvement themselves. Their land being unfavourable both to agriculture and the rearing of cattle, they are compelled to remain mere hunters. Most of the different tribes mentioned by Agatharchides subsist in a similar manner. The Dobenahs, the most powerful tribe among the Shangallas, still live on the elephant and the rhinoceros. The Baasa, in the plains of Sire, yet eat the flesh of the lion, the wild hog, and even serpents: and farther to the west dwells a tribe, who subsist in the summer on the locust, and at other seasons on the crocodile, hippopotamus, and fish. Diodorus Siculus (3, 28) remarks, that almost all these people die of verminous diseases produced by this food; and Bruce (Travels, 3d ed., vol. 5, p. 83) makes the same observation with respect to the Waito, on the Lake Dambea, who live on crocodiles and other Nile animals. Besides these inhabitants of the plains, Æthiopia was peopled by a more powerful, and somewhat more civilized, shepherd-nation, who dwelt in the caves of the neighbouring mountains, namely, the Troglodyta. A chain of high mountains runs along the African shore of the Arabian Gulf, which in Egypt are composed of granite, marble, and alabaster, but farther south of a softer kind of stone. At the foot of the gulf these mountains turn inward, and bound the southern portion of Abyssinia. This chain was, in the most ancient times, inhabited by these Troglodyta, in the holes and grottoes formed by nature but enlarged by human labour. These people were not hunters; they were herdsmen, and had their chiefs or princes of the race. Remains of the Troglodyta still exist in the Shipo, Hazorta, &c., mentioned by Bruce (vol. 4, p. 266). A still more celebrated Æthiopian nation, and one which has been particularly described to us by Herodotus (3, 17, seqq.), was the Macrobii, for an account of princes, and whole dynasties, occupied the throne of the Pharaohs at various times, even to a late period before the Persian conquest. The Ethiopians had the same religion, the same sacerdotal order, the same hieroglyphic writing, the same rites of sepulture and ceremonies as the Egyptians. Religious pomps and processions were celebrated in common between the two nations. The images of the gods were at certain times conveyed up the Nile, from their Egyptian temples to others in Æthiopia; and, after the conclusion of a festival, were brought back again into Egypt. (Diod. Sic., 1, 33.—Eustath. ad Il., 1, 423.) The ruins of temples found of late in the countries above Egypt (vid. Meroë), and which are quite in the Egyptian style, confirm these accounts; they were, doubtless, the temples of the ancient Ethiopians. It is nowhere asserted that the Ethiopians and Egyptians used the same language, but this seems to be implied, and is extremely probable. We learn from Diodorus, that the Ethiopians claimed the first invention of the arts and philosophy of Egypt, and even pretended to have planted the first colonies of Egypt, soon after that country had emerged from the waters of the Nile, or rather of the Mediterranean, by which it was traditionally reported to have been covered. The Ethiopians, in later times, had political relations with the Ptolemies, and Diodorus saw ambassadors of this nation in Egypt in the time of Cæsar, or Augustus. An Ethiopian queen, named Candace, made a treaty with Augustus, and a princess of the same name is mentioned by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. How far the dominion of the Ethiopian princes extended is unknown, but they probably had at one period possessions on the coast of the Red Sea, and relations with Arabia. After this we find no farther mention of the ancient Ethiopian empire. Other names occur in the countries intervening between Egypt and Abyssinia; and when the term Æthiopian is again met with in a later age, it is found to have been transferred to the princes and people of Habesh. Such is the history of Ethiopia among the profane writers. By the Hebrews the same people are mentioned frequently under the name of Cush, which by the Septuagint translators is always rendered Aitores, or Æthiopians. The Hebrew term is, however, applied sometimes to nations dwelling on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and hence a degree of ambiguity respecting its meaning in some instances. This subject has been amply discussed by Bochart and Michaëlis. Among the Hebrews of later times, the term Cush clearly belongs to white," was a proverbial expression applied to a hopeless attempt. It may be thought that the term Ethiopian was perhaps used vaguely, to signify all or many Af rican nations of dark colour, and that the genuine Ethiopians may not have been quite so black as others But it must be observed, that though other black nations may be called by that name when taken in a wider sense, this can only have happened in consequence of their resemblance to those from whom the term originated. It is improbable that the Æthiopians were destitute of a particular character, the possession of which was the very reason why other nations participated in their name, and came to be confounded with them. And the most accurate writers, as Strabo, for example, apply the term Æthiopian in the same way. Strabo, in the 15th book (686), cites the opinion of Theodectes, who attributed to the vicinity of the sun the black colour and woolly hair of the Æthiopians. Herodotus expressly affirms (7, 70), that the Æthiopians of the west, that is, of Africa, have the most woolly hair of all nations: in this respect, he says, they differed from the Indians and Eastern Ethiopians, who were likewise black, but had straight hair. Moreover, the Hebrews, who, in consequence of their intercourse with Egypt under the Pharaohs, could not fail to know the proper application of the national term Cush, seem to have had a proverbial expression similar to that of the Greeks, "Can the Cush change his colour, or the leopard his spots?" (Jeremiah, 13, 23.) This is sufficient to prove, that the Ethiopian was the darkest race of people known to the Greeks, and, in earlier times, to the Hebrews. The only way of avoiding the inference, that the Ethiopians were genuine negroes, must be by the supposition, that the ancients, among whom the foregoing expressions were current, were not acquainted with any people exactly resembling the people of Guinea, and therefore applied the terms woolly-haired, flat-nosed, &c., to nations who had these characters in a much less degree than those people whom we now term negroes. It seems possible, that the people termed Ethiopians by the Greeks, and Cush by the Hebrew writers, may either of them have been of the race of the Shangalla, Shilluk, or other negro tribes, who now inhabit the countries bordering on the Nile, to the southward of Sennaar; or they may have been the ancestors of the present Nouba or Barabra, or of people resembling them in description. The chief obstacle to our adopting the supposition that these Ethiopians were of the Shangalla race, or of any stock resembling them, is the circumstance, that so near a connexion appears to have subsisted between the former and the Egyptians; and we know that the Egyptians were not genuine negroes. Perhaps, after all, however, we would be more correct in considering the Bedjas, and their descendants the Abadbé and Bisharein, as the posterity of the ancient Ethiopians. Both the Abadbé and Bisharein belong to the class of red, or copper-coloured people. The former are described by Belzoni (Travels, p. 310), and the latter by Burckhardt (Travels in Nubia). ETHLIUS. Vid. Supplement. the Ethiopians. The Ethiopians, who were con- | people known in the world. "To wash the Ethiopian nected with the Egyptians by affinity and intimate political relations, are by the later Hebrew historians termed Cush. Thus Tizhakah, the Cushite invader of Judah, is evidently Tearchon the Ethiopian leader mentioned by Strabo, and the same who is termed Tarakos, and is set down by Manetho, in the wellknown tables of dynasties, as an Æthiopian king of Egypt. In the earlier ages the term Cush belonged apparently to the same nation or race; though it would appear that the Cush or Æthiopians of those times occupied both sides of the Red Sea. The Cush mentioned by Moses are pointed out by him to be a nation of kindred origin with the Egyptians. In the Toldoth Beni Noach, or Archives of the sons of Noah, which Michaelis (Spicileg. Geogr. Hebr. Ext.) has proved to contain a digest of the historical and geographical knowledge of the ancient world, it is said, that the Cush and the Misraim were brothers, which means, as it is generally allowed, nations nearly allied by kindred. It is very probable that the first people who settled in Arabia were Cushite nations, who were afterward expelled or succeeded by the Beni Yoktan or true Arabs. In the enumeration of the descendants of Cush in the Toldoth Beni Noach, several tribes or settlements are mentioned in Arabia, as Saba and Havila. When the author afterward proceeds to the descendants of Yoktan, the very same places are enumerated among their settlements. That the Cush had in remote times possessions in Asia, is evident from the history of Nimrod, a Cushite chieftain, who is said to have possessed several cities of the Assyrians, among which was Babel, or Babylon, in Shinar. Long after their departure the name of the Cush remained behind them on the coast of the Red Sea. It is probable that the name of Cush continued to be given to tribes which had succeeded the genuine Cushites in the possession of their ancient territories in Arabia, after the whole of that people had passed into Africa, just as the English are termed Britons, and the Dutch race of modern times Belgians. In this way it happened, that people, remote in race from the family of Ham, are yet named Cush, as the Midianites, who were descended from Abraham. The daughter of Jethro, the Midianite, is termed a Cushite woman. Even in this instance, the correspondence of Cush and Æthiopia has been preserved. We find the word rendered Ethiopissa by the Septuagint translators, and in the verses of Ezekiel, the Jewish Hellenistic poet, Jethro is placed in Africa, and his people are termed Æthiopians. On the whole, it may be considered as clearly established, that the Cush are the genuine Ethiopian race, and that the country of the Cush is generally in Scripture that part of Africa which lies above Egypt. In support of these positions may be cited, not only the authority of the Septuagint, and the writers already mentioned, but the concurring testimony of the Vulgate, and all other ancient versions, with that of Philo, Josephus, Eupolemus, and all the Jewish commentators and Christian fathers. There is only one writer of antiquity on the other side, and he was probably misled by the facts which we have already considered. This single dissentient is the writer of Jonathan's Targum, and on this authority the learned Bochart, supported by some doubtful passages, maintains that the land of Cush was situated on the eastern side of the Arabian Gulf. It has been satisfactorily shown, however, by the authers of the Universal History, and by Michaelis, that many of these passages require a different version, and prove that the land of Cush was Ethiopia. (Prichard's Physical History of Man, 2d ed., vol. 1, p. 289, segg-As regards the physical character of the ancient Ethiopians, it may be remarked that the Greeks commonly used the term Ethiopian nearly as we use that of negro: they constantly spoke of the Ethiopians, as we speak of the negroes, as if they were the blackest ETHRA, daughter of Pittheus, king of Trazene, and mother of Theseus by Egeus. (Vid. Egeus.) She was betrothed, in the first instance, to Bellerophon; but this individual being compelled to fly, in consequence of having accidentally killed his brother, Æthra remained under her father's roof. When Egeus came to consult Pittheus respecting an obscure oracle which the former had received from the Delphic shrine, Pittheus managed to intoxicate him, and give him the company of his daughter. From this intercourse sprang Theseus. (Vid. Egeus.) Ethra was afterward taken captive by Castor and Pollux, when these two came in quest of Helen, whom Theseus had carried off, and made themselves masters of Athens. She accompa |