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 sernia. ESION. Vid. Supplement. ESON, 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 leadet 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 Alcimede 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 a quite 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.) his name was rendered peculiarly famous. The re utation for wisdom which he enjoyed, induced Cra sus, 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 Esop in Greece at this time would seem to have been a long 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, however, eventually to the court of the Lydian monarch. Whether the well known conversation between Esop 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 Esop's death are stated as follows by Plutarch (de sera numinis vindicta, p. 556.—Op. ed. Reiske, vol. 8, p. 203.) Croesus sent him to Delphi with a large amount of gold, in order to offer a mag. nificent sacrifice to Apollo, and also to present four mine 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 Æsopus, 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 d'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. Litt. Gr. und R., ed. Bip., 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 proclamation 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 fadmon, 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 sop now turned his attention to named Nauplia. Other accounts, however, inform us, foreign travel, partly to extend the sphere of his own that sop 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 vases consecrated to Apollo. The scholiast on Arisperiod. Æsop is said to have visited Persia, Egypt, tophanes (Vesp., 1486) informs us, that Esop had ir Asia Minor, and Greece, in the last of which countries ritated the Delphians by remarking of them, that they SONIDES, a patronymic of Jason, as being descended from son. sop 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 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 comadias, 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 Æsop 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. Cie., 5), who informs us, at present go under the name of Æsop 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 mforms 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 repre these fables. (Compare Plut. de Aud. Poet., p. 16, c., sented on the stage. Whenever a cause of any im and Wyttenbach, ad loc.) His example found numer-portance was to be tried, and an orator of any emi ous imitators. A collection of the fables of sop, 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. Esopus, like Ros Tyrwhitt, 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 probfabulist by Planudes, a Greek monk of the fourteenth ably of Sigeum. The time when he lived is uncercentury. The second collection was made by an un-tain. In connexion with some brother-artist, he made known hand in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The monk Planudes formed the third collection. The fourth, called the Heidelberg collection, together with the fifth and sixth, styled, the former the Augsburg collection, the latter that of the Vatican, are the work 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 castern 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. Litt. 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 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 last is a general name for any country lying to the Universelle, vol. 24, p. 631, s. v. Lokman), the apo- east, or else the Esthians of Esthonia came originally logues of the Arabian fabulist are nothing more than from what is now Prussia. The Estii worshipped, a large cup, with a stand and strainer, dedicated by Phanodicus, son of Hermocrates, in the Prytaneum at Sigæum. (Consult the remarks of Hermann, über Böckh's Behandlung der Griech. Inschrift., p. 216219.)-IV. Vid. Supplement. "the 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 Venus, and as Freya is often confounded with Frigga, the mother of the gods in the Scandinavian mythology, Tacitus evidently fell into a similar error, and misunderstood his informers. (Tacit., M. G., 45.-Pinkerton, Diss. on Scythians, &c., p. 168.)" 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 Æsulum, and reckons it among the colonies of Rome. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 66.) ETHER (Ai0p), a personified idea of the mythical cosmogonies. (Vid. Supplement.) ETRICES, a Thessalian tribe of uncertain but ancient origin, since they are mentioned by Homer (Пl., 2, 744), who states that the Centaurs, expelled by Pirithous from Mount Pelion, withdrew to the Ethices. Strabo (327 and 434) says, that they inhabited the Thessalian side of Pindus, near the sources of the Peneus, but that their possession of the latter was disputed by the Tymphæi, who were contiguous to them on the Epirotic side of the mountain. Marsyas, a writer cited by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. Ailikía), described the Ethices as a most daring race of barbarians, whose sole object was robbery and plunder. Lycophron (v. 802) calls Polysperchon Aitikov pouoc. Scarcely any trace of this people remained in the time of Strabo. ETHICUS. Vid. Supplement. thi the caravans which had come in from Southern Africa. Homer makes express mention of the Ethiopians in many parts of his poems, and speaks of two divisions of them, the Eastern and Western. The explanation given by Eustathius and other Greek writers respecting these two classes of men, as described by the poet, cannot be the true one. They make the Nile to have been the dividing line (Eustath., p. 1386, ad Hom., Od., ESYETES, a Trojan prince, supposed by some to ETHIOPIA, an extensive country of Africa, to the have been the parent of Antenor and Ucalegon, while south of Egypt, lying along the Sinus Arabicus and others make him to have been descended from a more Mare Erythraum, and extending also far inland. An ancient Ucalegon, who had married Ilios, the daughter idea of its actual limits will best be formed from a view of Laomedon. Homer (Il., 13, 427) mentions Alcath- of the gradual progress of Grecian discovery in relation ous as the son of Esyetes, and the son-in-law of An- to this region. Ethiops (Ailio) was the expression chises, who had given him his eldest daughter Hippo- used by the Greeks for everything which had contractdamia in marriage. (Heyne, ad Il., 2, 793.) The ed a dark or swarthy colour from exposure to the heat tomb of Æsyetes is alluded to by Homer (Il., 2, 793), of the sun (alow, "to burn," and, "the visage"). and is said by Strabo (599) to have been five stadia dis- The term was applied also to men of a dark complexion, tant from Troy, and on the road leading to Alexandrea and the early Greeks named all of such a colour Troas. It afforded a very convenient post of observa- opes, and their country Ethiopia, wherever situated. tion in the Trojan war. Dr. Clarke gives the follow-It is more than probable that the Greeks obtained their ing account of it (Travels, &c., vol. 3, p. 92, seqq., knowledge of the existence of such a race of men from Eng. ed): "Coming opposite to the bay, which has the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and that this knowledge, been considered as the naval station used by the Greeks founded originally on mere report, was subsequently during the Trojan war, and which is situate on the confirmed by actual inspection, when the Greek coloeastern side of the embouchure of the Mender, the eye nists along the shores of Asia Minor, in their commerof the spectator is attracted by an object predomina-cial intercourse with Sidon and Egypt, beheld there ting over every other, and admirably adapted, by the singularity of its form, as well as by the peculiarity of its situation, to overlook that station, together with the whole of the low coast near the mouth of the river. This object is a conical mound, rising from a line of elevated territory behind the bay and the mouth of the river. It has, therefore, been pointed out as the tomb of Esyetes, and is now called Udjek Tépe. If we had never heard or read a single syllable concern-1, 23); but this is too refined for Homer's geographiing the war of Troy, or the works of Homer, it would have been impossible not to notice the remarkable appearance presented by this tumulus, so peculiarly placed as a post of observation commanding all approach to the harbour and river." In another part (p. 198), the same intelligent traveller observes: "The tumulus of Æsyetes is, of all others, the spot most remarkably adapted for viewing the Plain of Troy, and it is visible in almost all parts of Troas. From its top may be traced the course of the Scamander; the whole chain of Ida, stretching towards Lectum; the snowy heights of Gargarus, and all the shores of the Hellespont near the mouth of the river, with Sigwum, 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. cal acquaintance with the interior of Africa. By the Eastern Ethiopians he means merely the imbrowned natives of Southern Arabia, who brought their wares to Sidon, and who were believed to dwell in the immediate vicinity of the rising sun. The Egyptians were acquainted with another dark-coloured nation, the Libyans. These, although the poet carefully distinguishes their country from that of the Ethiopians (Od., 4, 84), still become, in opposition to the Eastern, the poet's Western Ethiopians, the more especially as it remained unknown how far the latter extended to the west and south. This idea, originating thus in early antiquity, respecting the existence of two distinct classes of darkcoloured 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 SYMNETES. Vid. Supplement. make, arinour, &c., were entirely different. NotwithTHALIA. vid. Ilva. standing this, however, they were both regarded as ÆTHALIDES, a son of Mercury, and herald of the Ar- Ethiopians. (Compare Herodotus, 7, 69, seqq., and 3, gonauts, who obtained from his father the privilege of 94, seqq) The Ethiopians of the farther east disap being among the dead and the living at stated times. peared gradually from remembrance, while a more inHence he was called éτɛpýμɛpoç kýpus, from his spend-timate intercourse with Egypt brought the Ethiopians ing one day in Hades, and the next upon earth, alternately. It is said also that his soul underwent various transmigrations, and that he appeared successively as Euphorbus, son of Panthûs, Pyrus the Cretan, an Elean whose name is not known, and Pythagoras. (Schol. of Africa more frequently into view, and it is to these, 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 Æthiopian races begin. 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 Meroë and the Macrobii.rious belief respecting the Ethiopian race, that they În 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 roe 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 Ethiopian 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 Æthiwere 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 princes, and whole dynasties, occupied the throne of populous tribe, who fed on locusts, which came in the Pharaohs at various times, even to a late period swarms from the southern and unknown districts. before the Persian conquest. The Ethiopians had (Agatharch.,de Rubr. Mar.-Geograph. Gr. Min., ed. the same religion, the same sacerdotal order, the Hudson, vol. 1, p. 37, seqq.) The accuracy with which same hieroglyphic writing, the same rites of sepulAgatharchides has pointed out the situation of these ture and ceremonies as the Egyptians. Religious tribes, does not occasion much difficulty in assimilating pomps and processions were celebrated in common them to the modern inhabitants of Ethiopia. Accord- between the two nations. The images of the gods ing to him, they dwelt along the banks of the Astabo- were at certain times conveyed up the Nile, from their ras, which separated them from Meroë; this river is Egyptian temples to others in Ethiopia; and, after the the Atbar, or, as it is also called, the Tacazze; they conclusion of a festival, were brought back again into must, consequently, have dwelt in the present Shan- Egypt. (Diod. Sic., 1, 33.- Eustath., ad Il., 1, 423.) galla. The mode of life with these people has not in The ruins of temples found of late in the countries the least varied for 2000 years; although cultivated above Egypt (vid. Meroë), and which are quite in the nations are situate around them, they have made no Egyptian style, confirm these accounts; they were, progress in improvement themselves. Their land be- doubtless, the temples of the ancient Ethiopians. It ing unfavourable both to agriculture and the rearing of is nowhere asserted that the Æthiopians and Egyptians cattle, they are compelled to remain mere hunters. used the same language, but this seems to be implied, Most of the different tribes mentioned by Agatharchi- and is extremely probable. We learn from Diodorus, des subsist in a similar manner. The Dobenahs, the that the Ethiopians claimed the first invention of the most powerful tribe among the Shangallas, still live arts and philosophy of Egypt, and even pretended to on the elephant and the rhinoceros. The Baasa, in have planted the first colonies in Egypt, soon after that the plains of Sire, yet eat the flesh of the lion, the country had emerged from the waters of the Nile, or wild hog, and even serpents and farther to the west rather of the Mediterranean, by which it was traditiondwells a tribe, who subsist in the summer on the locust, ally reported to have been covered. The Ethiopians, and at other seasons on the crocodile, hippopotamus, and in later times, had political relations with the Ptole fish. Diodorus Siculus (3, 28) remarks, that almost all mies, and Diodorus saw ambassadors of this nation these people die of verminous diseases produced by this in Egypt in the time of Cæsar, or Augustus. An food; and Bruce (Travels, 3d ed., vol. 5, p. 83) makes Ethiopian queen, named Candace, made a treaty with the same observation with respect to the Waito, on the Augustus, and a princess of the same name is menLake Dambea, who live on crocodiles and other Nile tioned by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. How animals. Besides these inhabitants of the plains, Ethi- far the dominion of the Ethiopian princes extended opia was peopled by a more powerful, and somewhat is unknown, but they probably had at one period posmore civilized, shepherd-nation, who dwelt in the caves sessions on the coast of the Red Sea, and relations of the neighbouring mountains, namely, the Troglo- with Arabia. After this we find no farther mention of dyta. A chain of high mountains runs along the Afri- the ancient Ethiopian empire. Other names occur in can shore of the Arabian Gulf, which in Egypt are com- the countries intervening between Egypt and Abysposed of granite, marble, and alabaster, but farther south sinia; and when the term Æthiopian is again met with of a softer kind of stone. At the foot of the gulf these in a later age, it is found to have been transferred to mountains turn inward, and bound the southern portion the princes and people of Habesh. Such is the hisof Abyssinia. This chain was, in the most ancient tory of Ethiopia among the profane writers. By the times, inhabited by these Troglodyta, in the holes and Hebrews the same people are mentioned frequently grottoes formed by nature but enlarged by human la- under the name of Cush, which by the Septuagint bour. These people were not hunters; they were translators is always rendered Aidiones, or Æthiopians. herdsmen, and had their chiefs or princes of the race. The Hebrew term is, however, applied sometimes to Remains of the Troglodyta still exist in the Shipo, nations dwelling on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, Hazorla, &c., mentioned by Bruce (vol. 4, p. 266). and hence a degree of ambiguity respecting its meanA still more celebrated Ethiopian nation, and one ing in some instances. This subject has been amply which has been particularly described to us by Herod- discussed by Bochart and Michaëlis. Among the Heotus (3, 17, seqq.), was the Macrobii, for an account of brews of later times, the term Cush clearly belongs to white," was a proverbial expression applied to a hope- the Ethiopians. The Ethiopians, who were con- | people known in the world. "To wash the Æthiopian 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 mertioned by Strabo, and the same who is termed Tarakos, and is set down by Manetho, in the wellknown tables of dynasties, as an Ethiopian 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 Ethiopians 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 Ethiopia has been preBerved. 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 Ethiopians. On the whole, it may be considered as clearly established, that the Cush are the genuine Ethiopian race, and hat 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 authors of the Universal History, and by Michaëlis, 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, seqq.)-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 Per THRA, daughter of Pittheus, king of Træzene, and mother of Theseus by Ægeus. (Vid. Egeus) She was betrothed, in the first instance, to Bellerophon; but this individual being compelled to fly, in conse quence of having accidentally killed his brother, thra 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.) Athra 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 |