Léẞovraι TOTαμovs] They worship the rivers. Ridetis temporibus priscis Persas fluvios coluisse.' Πέρσης εἰμὶ γὰρ ἐκ πατέρων σέβομαι, δέσποτα, καὶ ποταμούς. "I am by birth a Persian; ...and I also worship the rivers." "In superstitionibus atque curâ deorum, præcipua amnibus veneratio est.' Teridates, brother of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, and of Pacorus, king of the Medes, who was king of Armenia by virtue of the cession of that country made to him by Nero, was one of the order of Magi. It is of him that Pliny said, ' navigare noluerat, quoniam exspuere in maria aliisque mortalium necessitatibus violare naturam eam fas non putant.' Chrysippus relates, in his fifth Book, on Nature, that Hesiod forbade the people to make water in rivers or in fountains. The worship of rivers was very ancient. We find examples of it in Homer, who speaks of the horses that were thrown into the Scamander, in honor of the god of that river. CXXXIX. Tuy Пlepoéwv ra ovrópara] The names of the Persians. Scaliger, Hyde," and Gataker' assert, that Herodotus is mistaken on this point. Sanè Cyrus,' says Scaliger in the passage referred to, 'et Darius tam Græcè quam Persicè eam litteram habent ultimam : atque Mithridates, Oxydates, Tiridates, Artaxerxes, et similia, quæ Græci per sigma terminant, Persicè desinunt in A.' Stanley remarks, that the names which Scaliger cites in support of his opinion are borrowed from the Chaldee, and are not Persian. The same observation will apply to those quoted by Gataker. They are all borrowed from Esdras and Nehemiah, which are written in Chaldee. CXL. Tavra pèv årperéos exw] These customs being known to me. A part of this paragraph, and thence to the 177th paragraph inclusive, is omitted in Ms. B. of the Royal library. Ὑπ ̓ ὄρνιθος ἢ κυνὸς ἑλκυσθῆναι] Torn by a bird or by a dog. On this custom, the reader may consult Dr. Hyde, de veterum Persarum Religione, chap. xxxiv. 414th and following pages, where will be found some curious observations on the burial-rites of the Persians. - Κατακηρώσαντες δὴ ὧν τὸν νέκυν Πέρσαι, γῇ κρύπτουσι] Wrap round with wax the dead bodies, and then they put them in the earth. Cicero says the same thing: Persæ etiam cerâ circumlitos condunt, ut quàm maximè permaneant diuturna corpora.' Which the late Abbé Olivet has thus translated: "Les Perses enduisent de cire (les corps morts) pour les conserver le plus qu'ils peuvent." From this translation, it appears that the Abbé thought that Cicero meant to say that the Persians preserved the bodies of their dead after the manner of the Egyptians; but 'condunt,' which is a translation of yn KρúлTOVσL, signifies, they place in the earth.' The bodies, then, which they enclosed in wax had not been torn or mangled; or it was the remains of these bodies that were wrapped in wax, or which were salted with nitre, and afterwards enclosed with linen bandages, as Sextus Empiricus relates. The bodies of the Magi were altogether abandoned to the dogs and the birds of prey. "The Persians," says Strabo, "bury their dead bodies after having anointed them with wax; the Magi, on the contrary, do not commit theirs to the earth, but abandon them to the birds." Bodies so enclosed in wax will keep for centuries. Some members of the Society of Antiquaries, curious to know the state in which the body of Edward I. would be found, and which had been wrapped in wax, obtained permission to examine it. They found it in very good condition on the 2d May, 1774. The wax had been renewed under Edward III. and under Henry IV. by virtue of orders issued to the Treasury. See Rymer's Fœdera. It has not been renewed since: therefore the body has been in the same state for three centuries and a half. But as Edward I. died in 1307, at Burgh upon Sands, in Cumberland, on a march against the Scots, this body has in the whole been preserved 492 years, reckoning from that period to the year 1800, the time when I correct this note. The Magi long maintained the exclusive privilege of exposing their bodies to be devoured by carnivorous animals; but as Fabricius remarks, after Procope and Agathias, the Persians afterwards indiscriminately abandoned all corpses to the birds and beasts of prey. This custom still partially subsists. The cemetery of the Guebers, half a league distant from Ispahan, is a round tower, constructed of large stones, thirty-five feet high and ninety in diameter, without any door or other entrance. The only access to it, is by means of a ladder. In the middle of this tower is a species of huge grave or pit, into which the bones were thrown. With regard to the corpses, they are ranged along the wall in their clothes, each on a little bed, with bottles of wine, &c. The ravens that perpetually haunt the cemetery devour them. They neither burned dead bodies, nor washed them; witness the following epigram of Dioscorides. Euphrates, a Persian by birth, thus addresses his master: • Ευφράτην μὴ κατε, Φιλώνυμε, μηδὲ μιήνης ̓Αλλὰ περιστείλας με δίδου χθονί· μηδ' ἐπὶ νεκρῷ b "Philonymus, do not burn Euphrates, nor pollute the element of fire on my account. For I am a Persian; a Persian both by ancestry and by birth. To die is to us less dreadful than to pollute fire. But wrap up my body, and cover it with earth, without washing it; for I worship the rivers likewise." In the second verse, in Planudes, there is eiμì xaì; in the Ms. of the Vatican kal is omitted. A more recent hand has written it over, probably from Planudes. Brunck has substituted yàp for xai, I know not for what reason. Kai is equivalent to our word 'même' (even), and appears to me preferable to yáp. Múpμnkas] The ants, &c. It is a precept of the Sad-der. 'Diligentem conatum adhibe enecando sanguisugas; et præsertim hæcce quinque interficito, ut merita invenias copiosa: horum primum est, Ranæ aquaticæ, (scil. earum genus); secundum est, Serpentes et Scorpiones; tertium est Muscæ, (scil. Culices et Pumices pungentes); quartum est, Formice; quintum Mures, fures illi errabundi. Ranas si interfecerit aliquis, quicumque fortis eorum adversarius, ejus quidem merita propterea erunt mille et ducenta. Aquam eximat eamque removeat, et locum siccum faciat, et tum eas necabit a capite ad calcem. Hinc diaboli, damnum percipientes maximum, flebunt et ploratum edent copiosissimum. Quando Serpentes interficis, recitabis Vestâ (scil. Zendavestâ) et inde merita copiosa reportabis: nam perinde se habet ac si tot dæmones interfeceras,' &c. "The Guebers believe that it is not only lawful to kill insects and all other useless animals, but likewise that it is an action acceptable to the Deity, and a meritorious work; because these noxious creatures having been produced only by an evil principle and a wicked agent, to suffer his productions is to conciliate him: that therefore it is proper to destroy them, to testify the abhorrence in which he is held.” CXLI. Aéyos] Apologue. The Greek phrase means an apologue, a moral fable. Εἶτα οὐ λέγεις αὐταῖς τὸν τοῦ κυνὸς λόγον ; “Why do you not tell them the fable of the dog?' Herodotus calls Esop Moyooids, the fabulist.' See Book 11. § CXXIV. note 7. Ἐπεὶ οὐδ ̓ ἐμέο αὐλέοντος ἠθέλετε ἐκβαίνειν ὀρχεόμενοι] Since you have not thought proper to do it. The Greek has, since you have not chosen to dance out to the sound of my flute.' The Greeks frequently give to fish the epithet of opxnarñpes, ‘dancers.' Oppian uses it in his poem on the Chase. Τερπωλὴ δ' ὅτε Εἰνάλιον φορέῃσι δι' ἠέρος ὀρχηστῆρα. с Literally,' He has great pleasure when a marine dancer springs into the air.' CXLII. Twv ópéwv év tý kaλλiory] Or for the temperature of the seasons. There was before, opéwv or ovpéwr, montium,' which did not give an intelligible meaning. Geinoz, I believe, was the first who perceived that we should read wpéwv, with an omega; a slight change, but which furnishes a very satisfactory meaning. This correction has therefore been adopted both by Valckenaer and Wesseling. But I am surprised that the latter has not admitted it into the text. Borheck has not been so scrupulous. The sequel of the sentence authorises the correction; and what follows a little further on, confirms its propriety. The country in which they established themselves, proceeds the historian, is better and more fertile than that of the Ionians; but it is neither so fine nor so agreeable with respect to the temperature of the seasons, wpéwv de ἤκουσαν οὐκ ὁμοίως. Τρόπους τέσσερας παραγωγέων] Four sorts of terminations. The text has 'four sorts of paragoge;' and perhaps I should have done better so • Travels of Chardin in Persia, Vol. ii. P. 185. Xenoph. Socratis Memorab. lib. ii. cap. vii. § xiii. p. 121. с 61. Oppiani Cynegetic. lib. i. vers. 59. d Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscr., tom. xviii. Hist. p. 125. to translate it; but I was fearful of using a purely Greek word. "The paragoge," says the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, "is placed only at the beginning of a word." This is not only incorrect, but the direct opposite of the fact, for the commencement of the word is precisely the situation where it is never found; and amongst all the examples of paragoge which he cites, there is not one where the paragoge begins the word. с The paragoge is an added syllable either in the middle or at the end of a word. For example, from dañávŋ comes dañavnpòs by a paragoge. From ἀΐδης ἀΐδηλον, by a paragoge, in the same manner that ἁλυκὸν comes from ἁλάς. Sophocles & also has said εἰκάθειν for εἴκειν : εἰκάθειν (they are the terms of the Scholiast) παραγώγως ἀντὶ τοῦ εἴκειν. From γαμφὴ, a noun verbal which comes from γνάμTT, is made, by a paragoge, yaμønλh. From ywƒ signifying λaμBávw, comes yów, by a paragoge. Though there were but four principal dialects amongst the Greeks, each of these dialects was again subdivided. The Dorian of Lacedemon was different from that of Sicily and of Magna Græcia; and even in Sicily, the language varied in different cities. See Salmasius De Hellenistica, 71st and following pages; and especially the Prince de Torremuzza, in his excellent work entitled, 'Siciliæ et objacentium Insularum veterum inscriptionum nova Collectio,' 17th and following pages. The same was the case with the Ionian. Its idiom was varied in the different Ionian cities; some admitting a paragoge, which was rejected by the others. CXLIII. Ησαν ἐν σκέπῃ τοῦ φόβου] Το secure themselves from all danger. "I cannot conceive what has concealed from the translators the true meaning of this passage. Laurentius Valla, in his Latin version, says, that the Milesians entered into a treaty with Cyrus, urgler pretext that they were in fear: 'metus prætextu.' The subsequent editors of Herodotus have found nothing to object to in this translation, with the exception of Gronovius, who, not considering it rational, as in fact it is not, yet being unable to substitute a better, has thought to compromise the matter by translating, ' in obtegendo metu fœdus pepigerant,' which, of the two, is the less intelligible. It appears to me, that the meaning of Herodotus is sufficiently clear and unambiguous. Ησαν ἐν σκέπῃ τοῦ φόβου, • They were safe from every danger.' See the same expression, Book VII. § CLXXII. and CCXV." -BELLANGER. a Etymolog. Magn. voc. Aíkaios, p. 275. -lin. 39. › Id. voc. ▲ardyn, p. 248. lin. 8. Minora Scholia ad Sophoclis Ajacem, p. 38. col. 2. ex edit. Brunckii. Sophoclis Edip. Colon. vers. 1178 et ibi Scholia ex edit. Brunckii. Orionis Etymol. Mss. Biblioth. Reg. S Idem. |