§ 6 Ancient buildings and monuments, whose true origin has been forgotten, are likewise often referred to fabulous or celebrated authors, according to the fancy of the narrator, or the current mythology of the country. Thus, the Memnonia in Western Asia were anciently named after the mythical son of Aurora, and the Jasonia after the leader of the Argonauts ; (*) there were roads and works of the fabulous queen Semiramis ; (*) while the modern legends of Syria attribute all great works to Solomon ;(4) and in England ancient towers are sometimes called after Cæsar; Ovid's tower, the tower of Leander, and Pompey's pillar, owe their appellations to a similar cause.(**)

pare Ovid, Met. vii. 652-7, where the mythe is partly etymological). Fab. 124 assigns an origin for the peculiarities of the bat, the bramble, and the seagull. Fab. 138 explains a habit of the ass; and Fab. 152, 281, the shape of the camel's ears. Babrius (Fab. 73) accounts for the scream of the kite. Phædrus (iv. 17) for a habit of dogs. An Esopian fable, mentioned by Aristoph. Av. 474-8, explains the feathers on the head of the tufted lark. A similar explanation of the Indian hoopoe, attributed to the Bramins, is related by Elian, N. A. xvi. 5. Various peculiarities in human nature likewise receive a fanciful explanation in Esop, Fab. 255, 256, 320, 347, 365; Babrius, Fab. 66; Phædrus, iv. 14. The ancient fable of Pandora's box (see Babrius, Fab. 58; Anth. Pal. x. 71) belongs to the same class. Babrius (Fab. 57) accounts for the falsehood of the Arabians.

(46) See Diod. ii. 22; Strabo, xi. 13, § 16; ib. 14, § 12; Grote, vol. i. p. 329. In the latter passage of Strabo, the word KaтéσKayav has been incorrectly altered by the recent editor, Kramer. Compare Justin, xlii. 3, concerning the destruction of Jasonia by Parmenio.

(47) Diod. ii. 13, 14.

(48) Dans toute la Syrie, les Mahométans, comme les Juifs et les Chrétiens, attribuent tous les grands ouvrages à Salomon; non que la mémoire s'en soit perpetuée sur les lieux, mais parcequ'ils font des applications des passages de l'Ancien Testament: c'est, avec l'Evangile, la source de presque toutes les traditions, parceque ce sont les seuls livres historiques qui soient lus et connus; mais comme les interprètes sont trèsignorans, leurs applications manquent presque toujours de vérité : c'est ainsi qu'ils sont en erreur, quand ils disent que Balbek est la domus saltús Libani de Salomon; et ils choquent également la vraisemblance, quand ils attribuent à ce roi les puits de Tyr et les édifices de Palmyre.'-Volney, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, tom. ii. p. 124. The Kochlani horses of the Arabs are traced up to the stud of Solomon.-Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 142.

When the Arabs plundered the Spanish treasury, they took a table, said to be formed of a single emerald, and valued at 500,000 pieces of gold. This table (says Gibbon), was called the Table of Solomon, according to the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe to that prince every ancient work of knowledge or magnificence.'-Decl. and Fall, c. 31, note.

(49) See Mémoires de Tott, tom. i. p. 128.

The story of Arion and the dolphin appears to have originated in a bronze statue at Tænarum.(50) Explanations of the origin of the Corinthian capital, and of the architectural figures named Caryatides, given by Vitruvius, probably belong to the legendary class.(1) Large walls, or bridges thrown over a river with precipitous banks, are popularly considered as the work of the devil.(52) Works of art preserved in temples, or in other depositories of antiques, have, both in ancient and modern times, been a fertile subject for the ever-ready invention of the cicerone.(53) Of the facility with which such explanatory stories are fabricated, a more striking example can scarcely be found than that of the Oldenburg horn-a valuable silver-gilt horn, richly ornamented, which was preserved in the family of the Counts of Oldenburg. A detailed account is given in several chronicles of the manner in which this horn was presented to a Count of Oldenburg, in the 10th century, by a supernatural being, whom he met in a mountain when hunting. The horn, however, which is still extant, is proved, by coats of arms and inscriptions engraved upon it, to be not earlier than the end of the 15th century. (5*)

The origin of the useful arts, and of their several tools, processes, and products, has afforded a wide field for the imagination of the ætiologist. A long chapter in the seventh book of

(50) Herod. i. 24; Elian, N. A. xii. 45.
(51) Vitruv. i. 1, § 5; iv. 1, § 9, 10.

(52) Grimm, ib. p. 573-4.

(53) On the facility with which explanatory stories for relics preserved in ancient temples were invented, see Blakesley's Life of Aristotle, p. 91-3. It has been remarked by Heeren (says Mr. Blakesley), that Herodotus's account of the history of Egypt is derived entirely from local narrations, connected with public monuments. This remark admits of far wider application. It would not be difficult to show that almost all the early events recorded by that author rest on the same basis. For instance, the history of the Lydian kings, in the first book, is obviously made up of stories connected with offerings in the temples of Apollo at Delphi and Miletus. This is plain from the fact, that every narrative at all circumstantial of any of these monarchs terminates with a reference to one of these temples. The historians before him, with perhaps the exception of Hellanicus, made use even of the topographical form in the composition of their works.'

(54) See Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 417, 516.

Pliny's Natural History,(5) enumerates the supposed inventors in every department of the arts known to the ancients; in general, the invention is referred to a fabulous personage, or to an entire nation, merely upon the ground that they excelled in that article during the historical period. Thus, Ceres is described as the inventor of grinding corn; Danaus, of wells; Thrason, of walls; the Cyclopes, of towers; Arachne, of linen and nets; Eumolpus, of the culture of the vine; Buzyges, or Triptolemus, of the plough; Penthesilea, of the javelin; Amphion, of music; the Egyptians were the inventors of medicine; the Phrygians, of four-wheeled carriages; the Ætolians, of the lance; the Thessalians, of fighting on horseback.(56) Several of these and other stories, fabricated by the ancients on etymological and other grounds, without a tittle of contemporary evidence, are reported by Goguet, in his work on the origin of laws, arts, and sciences, as if they rested on some authentic tradition.

87 Fictitious etymologies for existing names have likewise often been fabricated, implying an imaginary cause. Thus, ethnic appellatives have been explained, by forming out of them an eponymous progenitor of the nation. The Hellenes were reported to spring from an ancient king, Hellen; the Dorians, from Dorus; the Ionians, from Ion; the Pelasgians, from Pelasgus; the Danai, from Danaus; the Trojans, from Tros; the Ægyptians, from Ægyptus; the Armenians, from Armenus. So the Italians

(55) vii. 57.

(56) Palamedes is said to have invented numbers, weights and measures, beacon-fires, and the use of stars in navigation.-Sophocl. Fragm. 379, ed. Dindorf.; Plat. Rep. vii. 6. There were, however, other claimants for the invention of numbers. Eschylus (Prom. 459) gives it to Prometheus, while Livy (vii. 4) assigns it to Minerva. Two stories concerning the discovery of the Tyrian die by Hercules, and of the use of iron by Vulcan, are extracted from the Paschal Chronicle, in Westermann's Mythographi, p. 310-2. The Athenians considered themselves as having taught the use of food, water, and fire.-Plutarch, Cimon, 10. Mercury, Apollo, the Muses, Bacchus, and other gods, were supposed to have been deified on account of their inventions. See Diod. i. 16; v. 72-5; Augustin, de Civ. Dei, xviii. 8.

were traced to an ancient Italus; (57) the Latins, to King Latinus;(58) the Romans, to Romulus; Capua, to Capys;(59) and the Claudian gens, to Clausus, a Sabine leader in the time of Eneas. (60) The Median dress, afterwards worn by the Persians, was derived from Medea. (61) The Afghauns trace their origin to Afghaun, a grandson of Saul. (2) The Aborigines were said to take their name either from opn, as mountaineers, from being the original inhabitants of Italy, or from being wanderers (aberrare).() The Etruscans were thought to have received their name Tusci from their skill in religious ceremonies, as being OvoσKóOL.(4) The sect of the Ebionites was derived from an imaginary founder, named Ebion. The formation of men from stones (aac, a stone) by Deucalion and Pyrrha performs a double etymological service; it explains the word λão, and also accounts for the hard lot of mankind. (6)

Almost every distinguished Greek family terminated in a divine or heroic progenitor, from whom the lineage was derived. (“)

(57) Italia was derived from a chieftain named Italus, or from the oxen of Geryon, vituli, Dion. A. R. i. 35. Other rationalizing writers saw in the latter word an allusion to the abundance of cattle in Italy, Gell. N. A. xi. 1.

(58) The name Latium was also explained, by its being the country which had afforded a hiding-place to Saturn, when driven from heaven by Jupiter : 'Is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis Composuit, legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari Maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.'

Compare Dion. Hal. ii. 2.

(59) Virg. Æn. x. 145; Livy, iv. 37.

(60)

En. viii. 321-3.

‘Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur et tribus et gens
Per Latium, postquam in partem data Roma Sabinis.'

En. vii. 706-9.

Another legend of the origin of the same family in Plut. Publ. 21; Livy, ii. 16.

(61) Strab. xi. 13, § 10.

(62) Elphinstone's Account of Caubul, vol. i. p. 205, 207; ed. 1842. (63) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. i. 9, 10.

(64) Ib. c. 30.

(65) Apollod. i. 6, 2, from Hesiod and Pindar, as to the etymon of Mãos. For the hard lot of mankind, see Ovid, Met. i. 414.

'Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,

Et documenta damus quâ simus origine nati.'

Also, Virg. Georg. i. 63:

'Unde homines nati, durum genus.'

(66) The Greek habit of genealogizing real families and clans up to a mythical ancestor is fully explained by Mr. Grote, Hist. of Gr. vol. iii.,

Hence, flattery was busy in tracing a fabulous origin for distinguished men. When the Cæsars had raised themselves to supreme power, the derivation of the Julian gens from Iulus, the son of Æneas, was brought into prominent relief. (67) Vespasian, indeed, did not conceal the obscurity of his family, and ridiculed an attempt to deduce his origin from the founders of Reate, and a companion of Hercules, whose monument was extant on the Salarian road.(6) Pallas, however, the freedman, in the time of Claudius, was, notwithstanding his notorious servile origin, proud to hear himself called in the senate the descendant of the mythical king of the Arcadians, celebrated by Virgil.(69) In the fifth century, too, the principal senatorial houses did not scruple to fabricate genealogies which connected them with heroic or renowned ancestors. (70) Even for later times the early steps in pedigrees have been supplied by fiction, without the least scruple, in order to gratify the pride of families.("1)

All the gentile and family names which have been cited, and numerous others of the same character, are etymological fictions: the name of the nation, race, or family, suggested the fictitious name of the progenitor, and did not grow out of it. They, therefore, are unlike such names as Scipio Africanus, or Cato Uticensis, where the origin of the appellative is known from contemporary history. In such names as Marcius Coriolanus, Manlius Torquatus, and Valerius Corvinus, it may be doubtful whether the taking of Corioli, the stripping of the collar from the Gaul, and

p. 73-89. The Tartar tribes, in like manner, traced their descent to a common ancestor, and prided themselves on their genealogy; but (says Gibbon) the custom which still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives, may countenance the very probable suspicion, that this extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious.' -Decl. and Fall, c. 26.

(67) See Klausen, Eneas und die Penaten, vol. ii. p. 1071. Compare a genealogical legend in Dion. Hal. iii. 29.

(68) Sueton. Vesp. 12.

(69) Tac. Ann. xii. 53; Virg. Æn. viii. 51.

(70) See Gibbon, c. 31, A.D. 408. The early part of the pedigree of Mahomet is fabulous, Gibbon, c. 50, note.

(71) Eichhorn states that authentic genealogies do not reach beyond the twelfth century, and that the earlier descents in pedigrees are fictitious. -Geschichte der Litteratur, vol. ii. part i. p. 269.