Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

well-known town of that province on the Arcadian | ed, two-footed, and at last three-footed?" or, as oth frontier. (Strabo, 339.—Cramer's Anc. Grecce, vol. 3, p. 146, seqq.)

CECUMENIUS, an ancient Greek Commentator on the Scriptures. The time at which he lived is uncertain; but it was after the eighth century and before the tenth. He is generally placed in the ninth century; Cave assigns to him the date A.D. 990; Lardner, A.D. 950. Ecumenius was bishop of Tricca, and the author of commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, the fourteen epistles of St. Paul, and the seven Catholic epistles, which contain a concise and perspicuous illustration of these parts of the New Testament. Besides his own remarks and notes, they consist of a compilation of the notes and observations of Chrysostom, Cyrill of Alexandrea, Gregory Nazianzen, and others. He is thought to have written also a commentary on the four gospels, compiled from the writings of the ancient fathers, which is not now ex-ed; and (Ed.pus now unknowingly accomplished the tant. The works of Ecumenius were first published in Greek at Verona in 1532, and in Greek and Latin at Paris in 1631, in 2 vols. fol. To the second volume of the Paris edition is added the commentary of Arethas on the book of Revelations. (Consult Hoffmann, Lex. Bibliogr., vol. 3, p. 156.)

EDIPUS (Oidious), was the son of Laïus, king of Thebes, and of Jocasta, the daughter of Menaceus. Homer calls his mother Epicasta. An oracle had warned Laïus against having children, declaring that he would meet his death by means of his offspring; and the monarch accordingly refrained, until, after some lapse of time, having indulged in festivity, he forgot the injunction of the god, and Jocasta gave birth to a son. The father immediately delivered the child to his herdsman to expose on Mount Citharon. The herdsman, moved to compassion, according to one account (Soph., Ed. Tyr., 1038), gave the babe to a neatherd belonging to Polybus, king of Corinth, or, as others say (Eurip., Phæniss., 28), the neatherds of Polybus found the infant after it had been exposed, and brought it to Periboea, the wife of Polybus, who, being childless, reared it as her own, and named it Edipus, on account of its swollen feet (from oidéw, to swell, and rous, a foot); for Laïus, previous to its exposure, had pierced its ankles, and had inserted through the wound a leathern thong. The foundling Edipus was brought up by Polybus as his heir. Happening to be reproached by some one at a banquet with being a supposititious child, he besought Peribaa to inform him of the truth; but, unable to get any satisfaction from her, he went to Delphi and consulted the oracle. The god directed him to shun his native country, or else he would be the slayer of his father and the sharer of his mother's bed. He therefore resolved never to return to Corinth, where so much crime, as he thought, awaited him, and he took his road through Phocis. Now it happened that Laius, at this same time, was on his way to Delphi, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child which had been exposed had perish He was in a chariot, accompanied by his herald Polyphontes; a few attendants came after. The father and son, total strangers to each other, met in a narrow road in Phocis. Edipus was ordered to make way, and, on his disregarding the command, the charioteer endeavoured to crowd him out of the path. A contest thereupon ensued, and both Laïus and the charioteer, together with all the attendants except one, who fled, were slain by the hand of Edipus. Immediately after the death of Laius, Juno, always hostile to the city of Bacchus, sent a monster named the Sphinx to ravage the territory of Thebes. It had the face of a woman, the breast, feet, and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. This monster had been taught riddles by the Muses, and she sat on the Phicean Hill, and propounded one to the Thebans. It was this: "What is that which has one voice, is four-foot

ed or not.

ers give it, "What animal is that which goes on for feet in the morning, on two at noon, and on three a* evening?" The oracle told the Thebans that they would not be delivered from her until they had solved her riddle. They often met to try their skill; and when they had failed, the Sphinx always carried off and devoured one of their number. At length Hæmon, son of Creon, having become her victim, the father offered by public proclamation the throne, to which he had succeeded on the death of Laïus, and the hand of his sister Jocasta, to whoever should solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Edipus, who was then at Thebes, hearing this, came forward and answered the Sphinx that it was Man; who, when an infant, creeps on all fours; when he has attained to manhood, goes on two feet; and when old, uses a staff, a third foot. The Sphinx thereupon flung herself down to the earth and perishremainder of the oracle. He had by his mother two sons, Eteocies and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.-After some years Thebes was afflicted with famine and pestilence; and the oracle being cor.sulted, ordered the land to be purified of the blood which defiled it. Inquiry was set on foot after the murder of Laïus, and a variety of concurring circumstances brought the guilt home to Edipus. Jocasta, on the discovery being made, hung herself, and her unhappy son and husband, in his grief and despair, put out his eyes. He was banished from Thebes; and, accompanied by his daughters, who faithfully adhered to him, he came, after a tedious period of miserable wandering, to the grove of the Furies at Colonus, a village not far from Athens, and there found the termination of his wretched life, having mysteriously disappeared from mortal view, and been received into the bosom of the earth. (Apollod., 3, 5, 8, seg.-Soph., Ed. Col.) The history of his sons will be found under the articles Eteocles and Polynices. Such is the form in which the history of Edipus has been transmitted to us by the Attic dramatists. We will now consider its more ancient shape. The hero of the Odyssey says, "I saw (in Erebus) the mother of Edipodes (such being his Homeric name), the fair Epicasta, who, in her ignorance, did an awful deed, marrying her own son, and he married, having slain his own father, and immediately the gods made this known unto men. Now he ruled over the Cadmæans in desirable Thebes, suffering woes through the pernicious counsels of the gods; but she, oppressed with grief, went to the abode of Aides, the strong gatekeeper, having fastened a long halter to the lofty roof, and left to him many woes, such as the Furies of a mother produce." (Od., 11, 271, seqq.) In the Iliad (23, 679) the funeral games are mentioned which were celebrated at Thebes in honour of the "fallen Edipodes." Hesiod (Op. et D., 162) speaks of the heroes who fell fighting at the seven-gated Thebes, on account of the sheep of Edipodes. It would also seem that, according to the above passage of the Odyssey, and to the epic poem the "Edipodea" (Pausan., 9, 5, 11), Epicasta had not any children by her son; Eurygeneia, the daughter of Hyperphas, being the mother of his well-known offspring. According to the cyclic Thebaïs, the fatal curse of Edipus on his sons had the following origin: Polynices placed before his father a silver table which had belonged to Cadmus, and filled a golden cup with wine for him; but when Edipus perceived the heir-looms of his family thus set before him, he raised his hands and prayed that his sons might never divide their inheritance peaceably, but ever be at strife. Elsewhere (ap. Schol. ad Soph.,

d. Col., 1440) the Thebais said, that his sons hav ing sent him the loin, instead of the shoulder of the victim, he flung it to the ground, and prayed that they might fall by each other's hands. The motives as.

signed by the tragedians are certainly of a more digni- | of Alexander the Great. (Plut., Vit. Alex.) By the fied nature than these, which seem trifling and insig. advice of Cassander, the Eniade settled at Sauria nificant. This story affords convincing proof of the (probably Thyria), another Acarnanian town. Many great liberties which the Attic tragedians allowed them-years afterward, the Etolians were compelled to evacselves to take with the ancient myths. It was purely uate Eniade by Philip the son of Demetrius, king of to gratify Athenian vanity that Sophocles, contrary to Macedon, in an expedition related by Polybius. This the current tradition, made Edipus die at Colonus. monarch, aware of the advantage to be derived from His blindness also seems a tragic fiction. Euripides the occupation of a place so favourably situated with makes Jocasta survive her sons, and terminate her life regard to the Peloponnesus, fortified the citadel, and by the sword. (Keightley's Mythology, p. 340, seqq.) enclosed within a wall both the fort and arsenal. (PoENEUS, a king of Calydon in Etolia, son of Par- lyb., 4, 65.) In the second Punic war this town was thaon. He married Althea, the daughter of Thestius, taken by the Romans, under Valerius Lævinus, and by whom he had, among other children, Meleager and given up to the Etolians their allies (Liv., 26, 24.— Deianira. After Althea's death, he married Periba, Polyb., 9, 39); but, on a rupture taking place with the daughter of Hipponous, by whom he became the fa- that people, it was finally restored to the Acarnanians. ther of Tydeus. In a sacrifice which Eneus made (Liv. 38, 11.—Polyb., fragm., 22, 15) The precise to all the gods, upon reaping the rich produce of his site of this ancient city remains yet unascertained; fields, he forgot Diana, and the goddess, to revenge for, though many antiquaries have supposed that it is this neglect, sent a wild boar to lay waste the terri- represented by a place called Trigardon, close to the tory of Calydon. The animal was at last killed by Me- mouth of the Achelous, and on its right bank, there leager and the neighbouring princes of Greece, in a are several strong objections against the correctness celebrated chase known by the name of the chase of of this. A principal obstacle to the reception of such the Calydonian boar. (Vid. Meleager.) After the an opinion is found in the fact, that Trigardon is sitdeath of Meleager, Eneus was dethroned and impris- uated on the right bank of the Achelous, whereas the oned by the sons of his brother Agrius. Diomede, ancient town was evidently on the left. The ruins having come secretly from the city of Argos, slew all which Sir W Gell describes as situated above Missothe sons of Agrius but two, who escaped to the Pelo- longhi and the lake of Anatolico, on the spot named ponnesus, and then, giving the throne of Calydon to An- Kuria Irene, seem to possess many of the characterisdræmon, son-in-law of Eneus, who was himself now tic features appertaining to Œniada. (Itin. of Greece, too old to reign, led the latter with him to Argolis. p. 297.) Dodwell, however, decides against Kuria Eneus was afterward slain by the two sons of Agrius, Irene, and in favour of Trigardon. (Cramer's Anc. who had fled into the Peloponnesus. Diomede buried Greece, vol. 2, p. 21, seqq.) him in Argolis, on the spot where the city of Enoë, called after Eneus, was subsequently erected. Eneus is said to have been the first that received the vine from Bacchus. The god taught him how to cultivate it, and the juice of the grape was called after his name (oivos, "wine."—Apollod, 1, 8.-Hygin., fab., 129).

CENIDES (Olveidns), a patronymic of Meleager, son of Eneus. (Ovid, Met., 8, 414.)

ENŎE, I. a town, and demus or borough, of At tica, classed by Harpocration and the other lexicogra phers under the tribe antis. We are informed by the same writers that it was part of the Tetrapolis. (Harpocr., s. v. Oivón.-Steph. Byz., s. v.— -Strabo, 383.) From Dodwell we learn (vol. 2, p. 163) that the site of this town still retains its name and some vestiges near the cave of Pan.-II. Another borough of Attica, on the confines of Boeotia, near Eleutheræ.-III. A small Corinthian fortress, near the promontory of Olmiæ. (Strabo, 380.) Xenophon states (Hist. Gr., 4, 5, 5) that it was taken on one occasion by Agesilaus.-IV. A city of Elis, supposed by some to be the same with Ephyre, situated near the sea on the road leading from Elis to the coast, and 120 stadia from that city. (Strabo, 338.)-V. A town of Argolis, between Argos and Mantinea, and on the Arcadian frontier. It was said to have been founded by Diomede, and named after his grandfather Eneus. (Pausan., 2, 25.-Apollod., 1, 8, 6.) The site of this place, according to modern maps, is still called Enoa. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol 3, p. 292.)

ENIADE, a city of Acarnania, near the mouth of the Achelous. Thucydides represents it as situated, on the Achelous, a little above the sea, and surrounded by marshes caused by the overflowing of the river, which rendered it a place of great strength, and deterred the Athenians from undertaking its siege; when, unlike the other cities of Acarnania, it embraced the cause of the Peloponnesians, and became hostile to Athens. (Thucyd., 1, 111; 2, 102.) At a later period of the war, it was, however, compelled by the Acarnanian confederacy to enter into an alliance with that power. (Thucyd, 3, 77.) The same writer gives us to understand, that Eniadae was first founded by Alemæon, according to an oracle which he consulted after the murder of his mother, and that the province was named after his son Acarnan (2, 102). Ste phanus asserts that this city was first called Erysiche, a fact of which the poet Aleman had made mention in a passage cited by more than one writer; but Strabo, on the authority of Apollodorus, places the Erysichæi in the interior of Acarnania, and consequently appears to distinguish them from the ŒEniada. From Pausan- CENONE, a nymph of Mount Ida, daughter of the ias we learn (4, 25), that the Messenians, who had river Cebrenus in Phrygia. Paris, when a shepherd been settled at Naupactus by the Athenians not long on Mount Ida, and before he was discovered to be a after the Persian invasion, made an expedition from son of Priam, had united himself in marriage to that city to Eniade, which, after some resistance, Enone; and as she had received from Apollo the they captured and held for one year, when they were gift of prophecy, she warned her husband against the in their turn besieged by the united forces of the consequences of his voyage to Greece. She at the Acarnanians. The Messenians, despairing of being same time told him to come to her if ever he was able to defend the town against so great a number of wounded, as she alone could cure him. Paris came troops, cut their way through the enemy, and reached to her, accordingly, when he had been wounded by Naupactus without experiencing any considerable loss. one of the arrows of Philoctetes, but Enone, offended The Etolians having, in process of time, conquered at his desertion of her, refused to aid him, and he that part of Acarnania which lay on the left bank of died on his return to Ilium. Repenting of her cruelthe Achelous, became also possessed of Eniada, ty, Enone hastened to his relief; but, coming too when they expelled the inhabitants under circumstan- late, she threw herself on his funeral pile and perished. ces apparently of great hardship and cruelty, for which, (Apollod., 3, 12, 6.- Quint., Smyr., 10, 259, seqq.→ it was said, they were threatened with the vengeance Conon., 22.)

ENOM US, a son of Mars by Sterope, the daughter of Atlas. The legend connected with his name will be found under the article Pelops.

NOPIA, one of the ancient names of the island | as Alponus, the first Locrian town (7, 216). On Egina. (Ovid, Met., 7, 473.) the summit of Mount Eta were two castles, named Tichrus and Rhoduntia, which were successfully defended by the Etolians against the Romans. (Lav., 36, 19:-Strabo, 428.-Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 1, p. 445.)

CENOPION, a son of Bacchus and Ariadne, and king of Chios. His name is connected with the legend of Orion. (Vid. Orion.)

CENOTRI, the inhabitants of notria.

ENOTRIA, a name derived from the ancient race of the Enotri, and in early use among the Greeks to designate a portion of the southeastern coast of Italy. The name is derived by some from olvos, "wine,' and they maintain that the early Greeks called the country Enotria, or the wine-land, from the number of vines they found growing there when they first became acquainted with the region. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 542.) With the poets of a later age it is a general appellation for all Italy. The Enotri, as they were called, appear to have been spread over a large portion of Southern Italy, and may be regarded, not as a very early branch of the primitive Italian stock, but rather as the last scion propagated in a southerly direction. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 336.)

ENOTRIDES, Small islands, two in number, off the coast of Lucania, and a little above the promontory of Palinurus. They lay in front of the city of Velia, where the river Heles empties into the sea. (Plin., 7, 7.)

ENŌTRUS, a son of Lycaon. He was fabled to have passed with a body of followers from Arcadia into Southern Italy, and to have given the name of Enotria to that part of the country where he settled. (But consult remarks under the article Enotria, where a more probable etymology is given for the Lame of the country.)

CETYLUS, a town of Laconia, so called from an Argive hero of that name, was situate eighty stadia from Thalamæ. (Pausan., 3, 26.) Homer has noticed it among the towns subject to Menelaus. (Il., 2, 585.) Strabo observes that it was usually called Tylus. (Strab., 360.) Ptolemy writes the name Bityla (p. 90), and it is still known by that of Vitulo. (Gell's Itin., p. 237.) Pausanias noticed here a temple of Serapis, and a statue of Apollo Carneius in the forum. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 187.)

OFELLUS, a character drawn in one of the satires of Horace. Ofellus represents a Sabine peasant, whose plain good sense is agreeably contrasted with the extravagance and folly of the great. (Horat., Sat., 2, 2.)

OGLASA, a small island off the coast of Etruria, some distance below Planasia, famed for its wine, now Monte Cristo. (Plin., 3, 7.)

OGYGEs or OGYGus (Ωγυγης οι "Ωγυγος) is said to have been the first king of Athens and of Thebes. (Tzetz. ad Lycophr., 1206.) Thus, Pausanias tells us that the Ectenes, who were the most ancient inhabitants of Boeotia, were the subjects of Ogyges, and that Thebes itself was called Ogygian, an epithet which is also applied to it by Eschylus. (Pausan, 9, 5, 1. —Esch., Pers., 37.) That Ogyges was closely connected with Thebes as well as Attica, appears from the tradition, according to which he was said to be the son of Bootus. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rh., 3, 1178.)

CENUSE OF ENUSSE, I. small islands in the Æge-It may also be mentioned, that the oldest gate in an Sea, between Chios and the mainland, now Spermadori, or (as the modern Greeks more commonly term them) Egonuses. (Herod., 1, 165.- Thucyd., 8, 24.-Plin., 5, 31.-Bischoff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 800.)-II. Small islands off the coast of Messenia, and nearly facing the city of Methone. They are two in number, and are now called Sapienza and Cabrera. (Pausan., 4, 34.—Plin., 4, 11.)

CENUS, I. a town of Laconia, supposed to have been situated on the river of the same name flowing near Sellasia. (Polyb., 2, 65.—Liv., 34, 28.) The modern name is Tchelesina. Sir W. Gell describes the river as a large stream, which falls into the Eurotas a little north of Sparta. (Itin. of the Morea, p. 223.) -II. or Enus, a river of Germany, separating Noricum from Vindelicia, and falling into the Danube at Boiodurum or Passau. It is now the Inn. (Tacit., Hist., 3, 5.-Id., Germ., 28.-Ptol., 2, 14.)

ETA, a celebrated chain of mountains in Thessaly, whose eastern extremity, in conjunction with the sea, forms the famous pass of Thermopyla. It extended its ramifications westward into the country of the Dorians, and still farther into tolia, while to the south it was connected with the mountains of Locris, and those of Baotia. (Liv., 36, 15.-Strabo, 428.-Herod., 7, 217.) Its modern name is Katavothra. Sophocles represents Jove as thundering on the lofty crags of Eta. (Trach., 436.) As regards the expression of Virgil, "tibi deserit Hesperus Etam," the meaning of which many have misconceived, consult the remarks of Heyne (ad Eclog., 8, 30). The highest summit of Eta, according to Livy, was named Callidromus it was occupied by Cato with a body of troops in the battle fought at the pass of Thermopyla between the Romans under Acilius Glabrio and the army of Antiochus, and, owing to this manoeuvre, the latter was entirely routed. (Liv., 36, 15.-Plin., 4, 7.) Herodotus describes the path by which the Persian army turned the position of the Greeks as begin ning at the Asopus. Its name, as well as that of the mountain, is Anopea. It leads along this ridge as far

:

Thebes was called Ogygian. (Pausan., 9, 8, 3.) The name of Ogyges is connected with the ancient deluge which preceded that of Deucalion, and he is said to have been the only person saved when the whole of Greece was covered with water. We possess scarcely any particulars respecting him; and the accounts which have come down to us are too vague and unsatisfactory to form any definite opinion on the subject. He clearly belongs to mythology rather than to history. The earlier Greek writers, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, &c., make no mention of his name; but the accounts preserved by Pausanias and other authors appear to indicate the great antiquity of the traditions respecting him. Varro places the deluge of Ogyges, which he calls the first deluge, 400 years before Inachus, and, consequently, 1600 years before the first Olympiad This would refer it to a period of 2376 years before Christ; and the deluge of Noah, according to the Hebrew text, is 2349, there being only 27 years difference. Varro's opinion is mentioned by Censorinus (de Die Nat., c. 21). It appears from Julius Africanus (ap. Euseb., Præp. Ev.) that Acusilaus, the first author who placed a deluge in the reign of Ogyges, made this prince contemporary with Phoroneus, which would have brought him very near the first Olympiad. Julius Africanus makes only an interval of 1020 years between the two epochs; and there is even a passage in Censorinus conformable to this opinion. Some also read Erogitium in place of Ogygium, in the passage of Varro which we have quoted. But what would this be but an Erogitian cataclysm, of which nobody has ever heard? (Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 144, Jameson's transl.)-In a note appended to Lemaire's edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cuvier enumerates the Mosaic, Grecian, Assyrian, Persian, Indian, and Chinese traditions concerning a universal deluge, and concludes from them that the surface of the globe, five or six thousand years ago, underwent a general and sudden revolution, by which the lands inhabited by the human beings who lived at that time, and by the

some traces of it still remain on the shores of the bay of Volpe. (Itin. Ant., p. 79)-V. Or Borysthenis, called also Olbiopolis and Miletopolis, a city of European Sarmatia, according to Stephanus of Byzantium and Mela, at the mouth of the Borysthenes, but, according to other writers, at some distance from the sea. It was colonized by the Milesians, and is at the present day, not Otchakow, as some have thought, but Kudak, a small place in the vicinity. (Bischoff und Möller, Wörterb. der Geogr., p. 195.) The latest of the ancient names of this place was Borysthenis, and the one preceding it Olbia.

OLCHINIUM OF OLCINIUM, now Dulcigno, a town of Dalmatia, on the coast of the Adriatic. (Liv., 45, 26 OLEIROS. Vid. Antiparos.

various species of unimals known at the present day, | northern part of the island. According to Reichard, were overflowed by the ocean; out of which emerged the present habitable portions of the globe. This celebrated naturalist maintains, that these regions of the earth were peopled by the few individuals who were saved, and that the tradition of the catastrophe has been preserved among these new races of people, variously modified by the difference of their situation and their social condition. According to Cuvier, similar revolutions of nature had taken place at periods long antecedent to that of the Mosaic deluge. The dry land was inhabited, if not by human beings, at least by land animals at an earlier period; and must have been changed from the dry land to the bed of the ocean; and it might even be concluded, from the various species of animals contained in it, that this-Plin., 3, 22 ) change, as well as its opposite, had occurred more than once. (Theory of the Earth, Jameson's transl., OLEN (22), the name of one of the earliest bards p. 418.) This theory, however, has been ably attack- mentioned in the history of Greek Poetry. Accorded by Jameson.-Various etymologies have been pro-ing to a tradition preserved by Pausanias (10, 5, 4), posed for the name Ogyges. Kenrick supposes that he came originally from the country of the Hyperbothe word was derived from the root yvyn, signifying reans, and the Delphian priestess Boo called him the darkness or night, and quotes a passage of Hesychi- first prophet of Phoebus, and the first who, in early us in support of his view, which appears, however, times, founded the style of singing in epic metre (¿π2 to be corrupt. The more favourite theory of mod- éwv ȧoidú). He appears to have settled in Lycia, ern scholars connects the name with Oceanus: which and afterward to have proceeded to Delos, whither he etymology is supported, as is thought, by the tradi- transplanted the worship of Apollo and Diana, and the tion that places Ogyges in the time of the deluge. birth of which deities, in the country of the HyperboIn support of this view, it is remarked that Ogyges reans, he celebrated in his hymns. Many ancient is only a reduplication of the radical syllable Og or hymns, indeed, attributed to Olen, were preserved at Oc, which we find in Oceanus (vid. Oceanus II.), and Delos, which are mentioned by Herodotus (4, 35), also in Ogen (which is explained by Hesychius as and which contained remarkable mythological tradiequivalent to Oceanus: 'Nуýv, 'Kɛavós). A similar tions and significant appellatives of the gods. Menreduplication appears to take place in črvμos, éτýrv-tion is also made of his nomes, that is, simple and anμας· ὅπτομαι, οπιπτεύω· ἀταλος, ἀτιτάλλω. (Kenrick, Philol. Museum, No. 5, On the early Kings of Attica.". - Thirlwall, Philol. Mus., No. 6, On Ogyges." -Creuzer und Hermann, Briefe über Homer und Hesiodus, p. 105, in notis.-Völcker, Mythol. des Iap. Geschl., p. 67.-Schwenck, Andeut., p. 179.) Regarding, therefore, the name Ogyges as a general type of the waters, we may trace a resemblance between its radical syllable and the forms ux-a, "water" (compare the Latin aq-ua); aly-eç, "the waves;" 'Ax-ins, "the water-god;" Alak-óc, another marine deity, and the ruler over the island Aly-va (Schwenck, l. c.) But, whatever may be the etymology of the name, the adjective derived from it is frequently employed by the Greek writers to indicate any thing ancient or unknown. We learn from the scholiast on Hesiod, that, according to one tradition, Ogyges was the king of the gods, and some think that the name originally indicated nothing more than the high antiquity of the times to which it referred. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 16, p. 412.)

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

OGYGIA, I. an ancient name of Boeotia, from Ogyges, who reigned there. (Vid. Ogyges.)-II. The island of Calypso. (Vid. Calypso.) The name Ogygia is supposed to refer to its being in the middle of the ocean. (Vid. Ogyges.)

OILEUS, king of the Locrians, was son of Odadocus, and father of Ajax the Less, who is called, from his parent, the Oilean Ajax. Oileus was one of the Argonauts. (Apollod., 3, 10, 7. — Hygin., fab., 14, 18.)

ÓLBIA, I. a city of Bithynia, in the eastern angle of the Sinus Olbianus, and probably the same with AstaCUS. (Plin., 5, 27-Steph Byz., p. 512.)-II. A city on the coast of Pamphylia, west of Attalea. (Ptol.Steph. Byz., p. 512)-III. A town on the coast of Gaul, founded by Massilia. It was also called Athenopolis, and is supposed by Mannert to have been the same with Telo Martius, or Toulon, these three ancient names indicating, as he thinks, one and the same city. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 2, p. 81.) IV. A town on the eastern coast of Sardinia, in the

It is

tique songs, combined with certain fixed tunes, and fitted to be sung for the circular dance of a chorus. The time when Olen flourished is uncertain. supposed to have been before Orpheus. (Scholl, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 1, p. 33.-Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr., p, 24.)

OLENUS, I. an ancient city of Ætolia, in the vicinity of Pleuron, and known to Homer, who enumerates it in his catalogue. (Il., 2, 638.) It was destroyed by the Etolians, and preserved but few vestiges in Strabo's time. (Strab., 460.) The goat Amalthea is called Olenia by the poets (Orid, Met., 2, 594), because nurtured in the vicinity of this place.-II. One of the most ancient of the cities of Achaia, situate on the western coast, at the mouth of the river Peyrus. According to Polybius (2, 41, 7), it was the only one of the twelve cities which refused to accede to the confederation, upon its renewal after an interruption of some years. In Strabo's time it was deserted, the inhabitants, as Pausanias affirms, having retired to the adjacent villages. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 70.)

OLISIPPO, a city of Lusitania, at the mouth of the Tagus, near the Atlantic Ocean. (Plin., 4, 35.—Id., 8, 67.-Varro, R. R., 2, 1.) It was the only municipium in this section of the country, and, as such, had the appellation of Felicitas Julia. It was very probably of Roman origin, and the story of its having been founded by Ulysses is a mere fable, arising out of an accidental coincidence of name. The horses bred in the territory adjacent to this place were remarkable for their speed. (Plin., 8, 42.) Mannert and many other geographical writers make Olisippo coincide with the modern Lisbon (Lissabon), but others oppose this. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 1, p. 342.-Compare Ukert, vol. 2, p. 394.) The name of this city is variously written. Thus we have Olisipo in some authors, and in others, who favour the account of its foundation by Ulysses, we find Ulysippo. (Consult Wesseling, ad Itin., p. 416.-Tzschucke, ad Mel., 3, 1, vol. 2, pt. 3, p. 25.)

OLLIUS, a river rising in the Alps, and falling into the Po. It is now the Oglio, and forms in its course the Lake Sebinus, now Lago d'Iseo. (Plin., 3, 19.)

OLYMPIA (orum), I. the chief of the four great na- esteemed an act of sacrilege. On this privilege the tional games or festivals of the Greeks. They were Eleans founded a claim to have their territory always celebrated at Olympia, a sacred spot on the banks of considered sacred, though in fact they themselves did the Alpheus, near Elis, every fifth year. The exact not abstain from war. As the presiding nation, they interval at which they recurred was one of forty-nine gave laws for the regulation of the festival, imposed and fifty lunar months alternately; so that the cele- penalties on individuals and states, and had the power bration sometimes fell in the month Apollonius (July), of excluding from the games those who resisted their sometimes in the month Parthenius (August). (Bockh, decrees. They actually thus excluded the Lacedæad Pind., Olymp., 3, 18-Müller's Dorians, vol. 1, monians on one occasion, and the Athenians on anp. 281, Eng. transl.) The period between two cele- other. The Eleans appointed the judges of the conbrations was called an Olympiad.-The Olympic fes- test, who were called Hellanodica (E22avodíkai) tival lasted five days. Its origin is concealed amid These were instructed in the duties of their office, for the obscurity of the mythic period of Grecian history. a period of ten months before the festival, by Elean Olympia was a sacred spot, and had an oracle of Ju- officers called Nomophylaces (Noμoovλakes): they piter long before the institution of the games. The were sworn to act impartially, and an appeal might be Eleans had various traditions, which attributed the made from their decision to the Elean senate. Their original foundation of the festival to gods and heroes number varied at different periods: in the 106th at a long period prior to the Trojan war, and among Olympiad it was fixed at ten, which was the number these to the Idæan Hercules, to Pelops, and to Her- ever afterward. The judges had under them different cules the son of Alcmena. The Eleans farther stated, officers, called &λúra, whose business it was to keep that, after the Etolians had possessed themselves of order. These officers were called μaoriyopopor in Elis, their whole territory was consecrated to Jupiter; the other Grecian games. (Consult, in relation to that the games were revived by their king Iphitus, in these details, Pausanias, 5, 9, 4, seg. —6, 24, 3.)— conjunction with Lycurgus, as a remedy for the disor- The Olympic festival consisted of religious ceremoders of Greece; and that Iphitus obtained the sanc-nies, athletic contests, and races. The chief deity tion of the Delphic oracle to the institution, and ap- who presided over it was Jupiter Olympius, whose pointed a periodical sacred truce, to enable persons to temple at Olympia, containing the ivory and gold attend the games from every part of Greece, and to statue of the god, was one of the most magnificent return to their homes in safety. This event was re- works of art in Greece. The worship of Apollo was corded on a disc, which was preserved by the Eleans, associated with that of Jupiter (Müller's Dorians, vol. and on which the names Iphitus and Lycurgus were 1, p. 279, seqq., Eng. transl.); and the early tradiinscribed. (Plut., Vit. Lycurg., 1.-Pausan., 5, 20, tions connect Hercules with the festival. (ld. ib., p. 21.) Other accounts mention Cleosthenes of Pisa as 453.) This is another proof of the Dorian origin of an associate of Iphitus and Lycurgus in the revival of the games, for Apollo and Hercules were two of the the festival. All that can safely be inferred from this principal deities of the Doric race. There were altradition, which has been embellished with a variety of tars at Olympia to other gods, which were said to legends, seems to be, that Sparta concurred with the have been erected by Hercules, and at which the victwo states most interested in the plan, and mainly con- tors sacrificed. The most magnificent sacrifices and tributed to procure the consent of the other Pelopon- presents were also offered to Jupiter Olympius by the nesians. (Thirlwall's Greece, vol. 1, p. 386.) The competitors, and by the different states of Greece.date of the revival by Iphitus is, according to Eratos- The games consisted of horse and foot races, leaping, thenes, 884 B.C.; according to Callimachus, 828 B.C. throwing, wrestling and boxing, and combinations of Mr. Clinton prefers the latter date. (Fast. Hell., these exercises. I. The earliest of these games was vol. 2, p. 408, note h.) The Olympiads began to be the foot-race (dpóμos), which was the only one revived reckoned from the year 776 B.C., in which year Co- by Iphitus. The space run was the length of the starobus was victor in the foot-race. We have lists of dium, in which the games were held, namely, about the victors from that year, which always include the 600 English feet. In the 14th Olympiad (724 B.C.), victors in the foot-race, and in later times those in the the diavos was added, in which the stadium was travother games. (Pausan., 5, 8, 3.)-The Olympic, like ersed twice. The doλxos, which consisted of several all the other public festivals, might be attended by all lengths of the stadium (seven, twelve, or twenty-four, who were of the Hellenic race; though at first prob- according to different authorities), was added in the ably the northern Greeks, and perhaps the Achæans of 15th Olympiad (B. C. 720). A race in which the runPeloponnesus, were not admitted. Spectators came ners wore armour (ónλτāv dрóuoç) was established in to Olympia, not only from Greece itself, but also from the 65th Olympiad, but soon after abolished. the Grecian colonies in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Wrestling (nan) was introduced in the 18th OlymAmong them were solemn deputations sent to repre- piad (B.C. 708). The wrestlers were matched in sent their respective states. Women, however, were pairs by lot. When there was an odd number, the forbidden to appear at Olympia, or even to cross the person who was left by the lot without an antagonist Alpheus, during the festival, under pain of death. But wrestled last of all with him who had conquered the at a later period we find women taking part in the others. He was called pɛdpoç. The athlete who chariot-race, though it is doubtful whether they ever gave his antagonist three throws gained the victory. drove their own chariots. An exception was made to There was another kind of wrestling (úvakλvoñáλŋ), this law of exclusion in favour of the priestess of Ceres in which, if the combatant who fell could drag down and certain virgins, who were permitted to be pres- his antagonist with him, the struggle was continued ent at the games, and had a place assigned to them op- on the ground, and the one who succeeded in getting posite the judges. The management of the festival uppermost and holding the other down gaine the vicwas in the hands of the Eleans. Originally, indeed, tory.-3. In the same year was introduced the pentathPisa, in whose territory Olympia lay, seems to have lon (Tévrahov), or, as the Romans called it, quinhad an equal share in the administration; but in the quertium, which consisted of the five exercises enumerfiftieth Olympiad the Eleans destroyed Pisa, and from ated in the following verse, ascribed to Simonides that time they had the entire management of the *Αλμα, ποδωκείην, δίσκον, ἄκοντα, πάλην, games. They proclaimed the sacred truce, first in their own territories, and then throughout the whole of that is, "leaping, running, throwing the quoit, throwGreece. This truce took effect from the time of its ing the javelin, wrestling." Others, however, give a proclamation in Elis, and while it lasted the Elean ter- different enumeration of the exercises of the pentathlon. ritory was inviolable, any armed invasion of it being|In leaping, they carry weights in their hands or on

2.

« PoprzedniaDalej »