. : can gratify his passions; and has little to apprehend from accidental injuries. The poor man's condition exempts him entirely from these sources of affliction. He moreover possesses strength and health; a stranger to misfortune, he is blessed in his children and amiable in himself. If at the end of such a life, his death be fortunate, this, O king, is the truly happy man; the object of your curious inquiry. Call no man happy till you know the nature of his death; he is at best but fortunate. All these requisites for happiness it is in no man's power to obtain, for no one region can supply them; it affords perhaps the enjoyment of some, but it is remarkable for the absence of others. That which yields the more numerous sources of gratification is so far the best: such also is the imperfection of man, excellent in some respects, weak and defective in others. He who possesses the most advantages, and afterwards leaves the world with composure, he alone, O Croesus, is entitled to our admiration. It is the part of wisdom to look to the event of things; for the Deity often overwhelms with misery, those who have formerly been placed at the summit of felicity." sider the divine beings as viewing us men 3 With invidious and malignant aspects.]-This is one of the passages in which the malignity of Herodotus, according to Plutarch, is most conspicuous. Thus, says Plutarch, attributing to Solon what he himself thinks of the gods, he adds malice to blasphemy.-T. 4 The term of human life to extend to seventy years, &c.]-This passage is confessedly one of the most difficult in Herodotus. Larcher has a long and ingenious note upon the subject, which we have omitted; as well from its extreme length, as from its not being entirely consistent with our plan. It is not unworthy observation, that Stobæus, who has given this discourse of Solon, omits altogether the passage in question; and, indeed, "The days of our age are threescore years and ten, and Must not here think to live, for life is wretchedness. 6 His end of life be fortunate.]—This sentence of Solon is paraphrased by Sophocles, in his (Edipus Tyrannus. It was, indeed, a very favourite sentiment with the Greeks in general. See the Andromache of Euripides, verse 99; with many other places in his tragedies.-Larcher. XXXIII. To these words of Solon, Croesus refused both his esteem and praise, and he afterwards dismissed the philosopher with indiffer The sentiment which prompts us not to be elate with temporary bliss, but to look beyond the present moment appeared to Crœsus neither wise nor just. XXXIV. Solon was no sooner departed, than, as if to punish Croesus for his arrogance, in esteeming himself the happiest of mankind, a wonderful event befell him, which seemed a visitation from heaven. He saw in his sleep a vision, menacing the calamity which afterwards deprived him of his son. Croesus had two sons: the one marked by natural defect, being dumb: the other, whose name was Atys, was distinguished by his superior accomplishments. The intimation of the vision which Croesus saw, was, that this Atys should die by the point of 7 Dismissed the philosopher with indifference.]—At this period the celebrated Æsop was also at the court of Croesus, and much respected. He was afflicted with the disgrace of Solon; and, conversing with him as a friend, -"You see, Solon," said he, "that we must either not come nigh kings, or we must entertain them with things agreeable to them." "That is not the point," replied Solon; "you should either say nothing to them, or tell them what is useful."-"I must confess," says Bayle, after relating the above, "that this caution of Esop, argues a man well acquainted with the court and great men ; but Solon's answer is the true lesson of divines, who direct the consciences of princes. ”—T. : an iron spear. Roused and terrified by this | tus: unwillingly I have killed my brother, XXXV. Whilst the nuptials of this son employed his attention, an unfortunate homicide arrived at Sardis, a Phrygian by nation, and of the royal family. He presented himself at the palace of Crœsus, from whom he required and received expiation with the usual ceremonies. The Lydian mode of expiation nearly resembles that in use among the Greeks. When Croesus had performed what custom exacted, he inquired who and whence he was, "From what part," said he, " of Phrygia, do you come? why are you a suppliant to me? what man or woman have you slain ?" "O king?" replied the stranger, "I am the son of Gordius, who was the son of Midas. My name is Adras 1 Expiation.]-It was the office of the priests to expiate for crimes committed either from accident or de. sign, and they were therefore called Kathartai, Purifiers : but it should appear from the above, and other similar incidents, that kings anciently exercised the functions of the priesthood.-T. The scholiast of Homer informs us, (see verse 48, last book of the Iliad) that it was customary amongst the an cients, for whoever had committed an involuntary murder, To expiate their crime in order due, First to her shrine a sucking pig she drew, Its neck she struck and bathed their hands in blood. Of friends' or strangers' blood, by treachery spilt. XXXVI. There appeared about this time, near Olympus in Mysia, a wild boar of an extraordinary size, which, issuing from the mountain, did great injury to the Mysians. They had frequently attacked it; but their attempts to destroy it, so far from proving successful, had been attended with loss to themselves. In the extremity, therefore, of their distress, they sent to Croesus a message of the following import: "There has appeared among us, O king! a wild boar of a most extraordinary size, injuring us much; but to destroy which all our most strenuous endeavours have proved ineffectual. We entreat you, therefore, to send to us your son, at the head of a chosen band, with a number of dogs, to relieve us from this formidable animal." Croesus, remembering his dream, answered them thus: "Of my son you must forbear to make mention: him I cannot send; he is lately married, and his time and But a chosen attention sufficiently employed. band of Lydians, hunters and dogs, shall attend you; and I shall charge them to take every possible means of relieving you, as soon as possible, from the attacks of the boar." 2 Adrustus.]—There is a passage in Photius relative to this Adrastus, which two learned men, Palmerius and Larcher, have understood and applied very differently. The passage is this: Photius, in his Bibliotheca, giving an account of the historical work of Ptolemæus son of Hephaestion, says thus: "He also relates that the name of the person who, in the first book of Herodotus, is said to have been killed by Adrastus son of Gordius, was Agathon, and that it was in consequence of some dispute about a quail." The above, and, as it should seem with greater probability, Palmerius, applies to the brother of Adrastus ; Larcher understands it of the son of Croesus. With respect to the quail, some of our readers may probably thank us for informing them, that the ancients had their quail as the moderns have their cock-fights.-T. His cocks do win the battle still of mine When it is all to nought, and his quails ever 3 A wild boar.]-It should seem, from the accounts of ancient authors, that the ravages of the wild boar were considered as more formidable than those of the other savage animals. The conquest of the Erymanthian boar was one of the fated labours of Hercules; and the story of the Caledonian boar is one of the most beautiful in Ovid.-T. XXXVII. This answer of Croesus satis- XLI. The king then sent for Adrastus the fied the Mysians; but the young man hear- Phrygian; whom, on his appearing, he thus ing of the matter, and that his father had re-addressed: "I do not mean to remind you of fused the solicitations of the Mysians for him to accompany them, hastened to the presence of the king, and spoke to him as follows: "It was formerly, Sir, esteemed, in our nation, both excellent and honourable to seek renown in war, or in the hunting of wild beasts: but you now deprive me of both these opportunities of signalizing myself, without having reason to me either of cowardice or sloth. Whenever I am now seen in public, how mean and contemptible shall I appear! How will my fellow-citizens, or my new wife, esteem me? what can be her opinion of the man whom she has married? Suffer me, then, Sir, either to proceed on this expedition, or condescend to convince me that the motives of your refusal are reasonable and sufficient." accuse your former calamities; but you must have in memory, that I relieved you in your distress, took you into my family, and supplied all your necessities. I have now, therefore, to solicit that return of kindness which my conduct claims. In this proposed hunting excursion, you must be the guardian of my son: preserve him on the way from any secret treachery which may threaten your common security. It is consistent that you should go where bravery may be distinguished, and reputation gained: valour has been the distinction of your family, and with personal vigour has descended to yourself. XLII. 66 At your request, O king!" replied Adrastus, "I shall comply with what I should otherwise have refused. It becomes not a man like myself, oppressed by so great a calamity, XXXVIII. "My son," replied Croesus, to appear among my more fortunate equals: I "I do not in any respect think unfavourably of have never wished, and I have frequently avoidyour courage, or your conduct. My behavioured it. My gratitude, in the present instance, towards you is influenced by a vision, which has lately warned me that your life will be short, and that you must perish from the wound of an iron spear. This has first of all induced me to accelerate your nuptials, and also to refuse your presence in the proposed expedition, wishing, by my caution, to preserve you at least as long as I shall live. I esteem you as my only son; for your brother, on account of his infirmity, is in a manner lost to me." impels me to obey your commands. I will therefore engage to accompany and guard your son, and promise, as far as my care can avail, to restore him to you safe." sus. : XLIII. Immediately a band of youths were selected, the dogs of chace prepared, and the train departed. Arrived in the vicinity of Olympus, they sought the beast and having found his haunt, they surrounded it in a body, and attacked him with their spears. It so hap. XXXIX. "Having had such a vision," pened, that the stranger Adrastus, who had returned Atys to his father, I can easily for- been purified for murder, directed a blow at the give your anxiety concerning me but as you boar, missed his aim, and killed the son of Croapparently misconceive the matter, suffer me to Thus he was destroyed by the point of a explain what seems to have escaped you. The spear, and the vision proved to be prophetic. vision, as you affirm, intimated that my death | A messenger immediately hastened to Sardis, should be occasioned by the point of a spear; informing Croesus of the event which occasionbut what arms or spear has a wild boar, thated the death of his son. you should dread? If, indeed, it had been told you that I was to perish by a tusk, or something of a similar nature, your conduct would have been strictly proper; but, as a spear's point is the object of your alarm, and we are not going to contend with men, I hope for your permis-voked Jupiter, the deity of expiation, in attession to join this party." XL. "Son," answered Croesus, "your reasoning, concerning my dream, has induced me to alter my opinion, and I accede to your wishes." 4 Satisfied the Mysians.]-Valla, Henry Stephens, and Gronovius, in their versions of this passage, had, quum non essent contenti. Wesseling has taken away the negative particle. XLIV. Croesus, much as he was afflicted with his domestic loss, bore it the less patiently, because it was inflicted by him whom he had himself purified and protected. He broke into violent complaints at his misfortune, and in tation of the injury he had received. He invoked him also as the guardian of hospitality and friendship; of hospitality, because, in re 5 I relieved you.]—If translated literally, it should have been, "I purified you," &c. 4 Guardian of hospitality and friendship.]-Jupiter was adored under different titles, according to the place and circumstance of his differentw orshippers.-Larcher. The sky was the department of Jupiter: hence he was ceiving a stranger, he had received the murderer | great and too extensive, was the object of his of his son; of friendship, because the man whose aid he might have expected, had proved his bitterest enemy. XLV. Whilst his thoughts were thus occupied, the Lydians appeared with the body of his son: behind followed the homicide. He advanced towards Croesus, and, with extended handlored that he might suffer death upof him whom he had slain. He on' recit 2 : 3 riner calamities; to which was now to be aded, that he was the destroyer of the man who had expiated him he was consequently no longer fit to live. Cræsus listened to him with attention; and, although oppressed by his own paternal grief, he could not refuse his compassion to Adrastus; to whom he spake as follows: "My friend, I am sufficiently revenged by your voluntary condemnation of yourself. You are not guilty of this event, for you did it without design. The offended deity, who warned me of the evil, has accomplished it." Croesus, therefore, buried his son with the proper ceremonies: but the unfortunate descendant of Midas, who had killed his brother and his friend, retired at the dead of night to the place where Atys was buried, and, confessing himself to be the most miserable of mankind, slew himself on the tomb. solicitude. Listening to these suggestions, he determined to consult the different oracles of Greece, and also that of Lybia; and for this purpose sent messengers to Delphi, the Phocian Abas, and to Dodona: he sent also to 4 Oracles.]—On the subject of oracles, it may not be improper, once for all, to inform the English reader, that the Apollo of Delphi was, to use Mr Bayle's words, the judge without appeal; the greatest of the heathen gods not preserving, in relation to oracles, his advantage or superiority. The oracles of Trophonius, Dodona, and Ammon, had not so much credit as that of Delphi, nor did they equal it either in esteem or duration. The ora. cle at Abas was an oracle of Apollo; but, from the little mention that is made of it by ancient writers, it does not appear to have been held in the extremest veneration. At Dodona, as we describe it from Montfaucon, there were sounding kettles; from whence came the proverb of the Dodonean brass; which, according to Menander, if a man touched but once, would continue ringing the whole day. Others speak of the doves of Dodona, which spoke and delivered the oracles: of two doves, according to Statius, one flew to Lybia, to pronounce the oracles of Jupiter; the other staid at Dodona: of which the more rational explanation is, that two females established religious ceremonies at the same time, at Dodona, and in Lybia; for, in the ancient language of the people of Epirus, the same word signifies a dove and an old woAt the same place also was an oak, or, as some say, a beech tree, hallowed by the prejudices of the people, from the remotest antiquity. man. The oracle of Trophonius' cave, from its singularity, deserves minuter mention. He, says Pausanias, who desired to consult it, was obliged to undergo various preparatory ceremonies, which continued for several days: he was to purify himself by various methods, to offer sacrifices to many different deities; he was then conducted by night to a neighbouring river, where he was anointed and washed; he afterwards drank of the water of forgetfulness, that his former cares might be buried; and of the water of remembrance, that he might forget nothing of what he was to see. The cave was surrounded by a wall; it resembled an oven, was four cubits wide, and XLVI. The two years which succeeded the death of his son, were passed by Croesus in extreme affliction. His grief was at length suspended by the increasing greatness of the Persian empire, as well as by that of Cyrus son of Cambyses, who had deprived Astyages, son of Cyaxares, of his dominions. To restrain the power of Persia, before it should become too eight deep: it was descended by a ladder; and he who deemed the god of tempests. The following titles were given him: Pluvius, Pluviosus, Fulgurator, Fulgurum Effector, Descensor, Tonans. Other epithets were given him, relative to the wants of men, for which he was thought to provide. See Bos, Antiquities of Greece. The above observation is confined to the Greeks.-The epithets of the Roman Jupiter were almost without number; and there was hardly, as Spence observes, a town, or even hamlet, in Italy, that had not a Jupiter of its own.-T. went down, carried with him cakes made of honey; when he was got down, he was made acquainted with futurity. For more particulars concerning this oracle, consult Montfaucon, Voyage de Jeune Anacharsis, in which the different descriptions of antiquity, concerning this and other oracles, are collected and methodized. also Van Dale. Of the above a classical and correct description may also be found in Glover's Athenaid. See Amphiaraus was one of the seven warriors who fought against Thebes; he performed on that occasion the func tions of a priest, and was supposed, on that account, to communicate oracles after his death. They who con. 1 Body of his son.]-This solemn procession of the Ly-sulted him, were to abstain from wine for three days, dians, bearing to the presence of the father the dead body of his son, followed mournfully by the person who had killed him, would, it is presumed, afford no mean subject for an historical painting.-T. 2 Condemnation of yourself.]-Diodorus Siculus relates, that it was the first intention of Croesus to have burned Adrastus alive; but his voluntary offer to submit to death, deprecated his anger.-T. and from all nourishment for twenty-four hours. They then sacrificed a ram before his statue, upon the skin of which, spread in the vestibule, they retired themselves to sleep. The deity was supposed to appear to them in a vision, and answer their questions. The temple of Branchidae was afterwards, according to Pliny, named the temple of Didymean Apollo. It was burned by Xerxes, but afterwards built with such extra 3 You are not guilty of this event.]-See Homer, Iliad ordinary magnificence, that according to Vitruvius, it 3d, where Priam thus addresses Helen: No crime of thine our present sufferings draws: Not thou, but Heaven's disposing will, the cause.--Pope. was one of the four edifices which rendered the names of their architects immortal. Some account may be found of this temple in Chishull's Asiatic Antiquities.-T. Amphiaraus, Trophonius, and the Milesian Branchida. The above-mentioned are the oracles which Croesus consulted in Greece: he sent also to the Lybian Ammon. His motive in these consultations, was to form an idea of the truth of the oracles respectively, meaning afterwards to obtain from them a decisive opinion concerning the propriety of an expedition against the Persians. XLVII. He took this method of proving the truth of their different communications. He computed with his Lydian messengers, that each should consult the different oracles on the hundredth day of their departure from Sardis, and respectively ask what Croesus the son of Alyattes was doing: they were to write down, and communicate to Croesus, the reply of each particular oracle. Of the oracular answers in general we have no account remaining; but the Lydians had no sooner entered the temple of Delphi, and proposed their questions, than the Pythian answered thus, in heroic verse: 6 I count the sand, I measure out the sea; XLVIII. They wrote down the communication of the Pythian, and returned to Sardis. Of the answers which his other messengers brought with them on their return, Croesus found none which were satisfactory. But a fervour of gratitude and piety was excited in him, as soon as he was informed of the reply of the Pythian; and he exclaimed, without reserve, that there was no true oracle but at Delphi, for this alone had explained his employment at the stipulated time. It seems, that on the day appointed for his servants to consult the different oracles, determining to do what it 5 Reply of each particular oracle.]-Lucian makes Jupiter complain of the great trouble the deities undergo on account of mankind. "As for Apollo," says he, "he has undertaken a troublesome office: he is obliged to be at Delphi this minute, at Colophon the next, here at Delos, there at Branchidæ, just as his ministers choose to require him: not to mention the tricks which are played to make trial of his sagacity, when people boil together the flesh of a lamb and a tortoise; so that if he had not had a very acute nose, Croesus would have gone away, and abused him."-T. 6 Pythian.]—The Pythian Apollo, if we may credit the Greeks themselves, was not always upon the best terms with the Muses.-Lowth on the poetry of the Hebrews. Van Dale, in his book de Oraculis, observes, that at Delphi the priestess had priests, prophets, and poets, to take down and explain and mend her gibberish: which served to justify Apollo from the imputation of making bad verses; for, if they were defective, the fault was laid upon the amanuensis.-Jortin. would be equally difficult to discover or explain, he had cut in pieces a tortoise and a lamb, and boiled them together in a covered vessel of brass. XLIX. We have before related what was the answer of the Delphic oracle to Croesus: what reply the Lydians received from Amphiaraus, after the usual religious ceremonies, I am not able to affirm; of this it is only asserted, that its answer was satisfactory to Croesus. L. Croesus, after these things, determined to conciliate the divinity of Delphi, by a great and magnificent sacrifice. He offered up three thousand chosen victims; he collected a great number of couches decorated with gold and silver," many goblets of gold, and vests of purple; all these he consumed together upon one immense pile, thinking by these means to render the deity more auspicious to his hopes: he persuaded his subjects also to offer up, in like manner, the proper objects for sacrifice they respectively possessed. As, at the conclusion of the above ceremony, a considerable quantity of gold had run together, he formed of it a number of tiles. The larger of these were six palms long, the smaller three, but none of them was less than a palm in thickness, and they were one hundred and seventeen in number: four were of the purest gold, weighing each one talent and a half; the rest were of inferior quality, but of the weight of two talents. He constructed also a lion of pure gold, which weighed ten talents. It was originally placed at the Delphian temple, on the above gold tiles; but when this edifice was burned, it fell from its place, and now stands in the Corinthian treasury: it lost, however, by the fire, three talents and a half of its former weight. 9 LI. Croesus, moreover, sent to Delphi two 7 Three thousand chosen victims.]-This astonishing profusion was perfectly consistent with the genius of a superstitious people. Theodoret reproaches the Greeks with their sacrifices of hundreds and of thousands.Larcher 8 Couches decorated with gold and silver.]-Prodigal as the munificence of Cræsus appears to have been on this occasion, the funeral pile of the emperor Severus, as described by Herodian, was neither less splendid nor less costly. He tells us, that there was not a province, city, or grandee throughout the wide circuit of the Roman empire, which did not contribute to decorate this superb edifice. When the whole was completed, after many days of preparatory ceremonies, the next successor to the empire, with a torch, set fire to the pile, and *.. a little time every thing was consumed.-T. 9 Lion of pure gold.]— These tiles, this lion, 1 the statue of the breadmaker of Croesus, were, ail of Chem, 2 a subsequent period, seized by the Phocians, to any the expenses of the holy war.-Larcher. |