turban, and are lavish in their use of perfumes 25. Each person has a seal ring, and a cane, or walking-stick, upon the top of which is carved an apple 252, a rose, a lily, an eagle*, or some figure or other for to have a stick without a device, is unlawful. 251 Perfumes.]-The use of aromatics in the East may be dated from the remotest antiquity; they are at the present period introduced, not only upon every religious and festive occasion, but as one essential instrument of private hospitality and friendship. "Ointment and perfume," says Solomon," rejoice the heart." At the present day, to sprinkle their guests with rose-water, and to perfume them with aloes wood, is an indispensable ceremony at the close of every visit in Eastern countries. At the beginning of the present century they were considered as a proof of great extravagance and unusual luxury; they have of late years. been continually becoming more and more familiar, till they have at length ceased to be any distinction of elegance, of fortune, or of rank.-T. 252 An Apple.]-What, in common with Littlebury and Larcher, I have translated apple, Mr. Bryant understands to be a pomegranate, which, he says, was worn by the ancient Persians on their walking-sticks and sceptres, on account of its being a sacred emblem.-T. *An Eagle.] The sovereign Princes of Greece wore on their sceptres the figure of a bird, and often that of an eagle. The Monarchs of Asia had the same custom. The eagle is always represented as crowning the summit of Jupiter's sceptre. See West's Translation of Pindar. Then by the music of thy numbers charm'd, The bird's fierce Monarch drops his vengeful ire. Perch'd on the sceptre of the Olympian king, And indolently hangs his rapid wing, While gentle sleep bis closing eye-lid seals. CXCVI. In my description of their laws, I have to mention one, the wisdom of which I must admire; and which, if I am not misinformed, the Eneti*, who are of Illyrian origin, use also. In each of their several districts this custom was every year observed: such of their virgins as were marriageable, *Eneti.]-This people, from whom perhaps the Venetians of Italy are descended, Homer mentions as famous for their breed of mules: The Paphlagonians Pylæmenes rules, Where rich Henetia breeds her savage mules. Before I proceed, I must point out a singular error of Pope; any reader would imagine that Pylæmenes, as it stands in his translation, had the penultimate long; on the contrary it is short. There is nothing like rich Henetia in Homer; he simply says, & EVETOV. Upon the above lines of Homer, I have somewhere seen it remarked, that probably the poet here intended to inform us, that the Eneti were the first people who pursued and cultivated the breed of mules. They were certainly so famous for this heterogeneous mixture, that Evers and EveTos denote that particular foal of the horse and the mule, which the Eneti bred.-See Hesychius. A remarkable verse occurs in Genesis, see chapter xxxvi. verse 24. “These are the children of Zibeon; both Ajah, and Anah: this was that Anah, who found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father." Does not this mean that Anah was the first author and contriver of this unnatural breed? This mixture was forbidden by the Levitical law.-See Leviticus, ch. xix. ver. 19. "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind." Is it impossible that from Anah the Eneti might take their name? Strabo informs us that the Eneti of Asia were called afterwards Cappadocians, which means breakers of horses; and he adds, that they who marched to the assistance of Troy, were esteemed a part of the Leuco-Syri.-T. marriageable, were at an appointed time and place assembled together. Here the men also came, and some public officer sold by auction 253 the young women one by one, beginning with the most beautiful. When she was disposed of, and as may be supposed for a considerable sum, he proceeded to sell the one who was next in beauty, taking it for granted that each man married the maid he purchased. The more affluent of the Babylonian youths contended with much ardour and emulation to obtain the most beautiful: those of the common people who. were desirous of marrying, 253 Sold by auction.]-Herodotus here omits one circumstance of consequence, in my opinion, to prove that this ceremony was conducted with decency. It passed under the inspection of the magistrates; and the tribunal whose office it was to take cognizance of the crime of adultery, superintended the marriage of the young women. Three men, respectable for their virtue, and who were at the head of their several tribes, conducted the young women that were marriageable to the place of assembly, and there sold them by the voice of the public crier.-Larcher. If the custom of disposing of the young women to the best bidder was peculiar to the Babylonians, that of purchasing the person intended for a wife, and of giving the father a sum to obtain her, was much more general. It was practised amongst the Greeks, the Trojans, and their allies, and even amongst the deities.-Bellanger. Three daughters in my court are bred, Laodice, and Iphigenia fair, And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair. rying, as if they had but little occasion for personal accomplishments, were content to receive the more homely maidens, with a portion annexed to them. For the crier, when he had sold the fairest, selected next the most ugly, or one that was deformed; she also was put up to sale, and assigned to whoever would take her with the least money. This money was what the sale of the beautiful maidens produced, who were thus obliged to portion out those who were deformed, or less lovely than themselves. No man was permitted to provide a match for his daughter, nor could any one take away the woman whom he purchased, without first giving security to make her his wife. To this if he did not assent, his money was returned him. There were no restrictions with respect to residence; those of another village might also become purchasers. This, although the most wise of all their institutions, has not been preserved to our time. One of their later ordinances was made to punish violence offered to women, and to prevent their being carried away to other parts; for after the city had been taken, and the inhabitants plundered, the lower people were reduced to such extremities, that they prostituted their daughters for hire. CXCVII. They have also another institution, the good tendency of which claims applause. Such Such as are diseased 254 among them they carry into some public square: they have no professors of medicine, but the passengers in general interrogate the sick person concerning his malady; that if any person has either been afflicted with a similar disease himself, or seen its operation on another, he may communicate the process by which his own recovery was effected, or by which, in any other instance, he knew the disease to be removed. No one may pass by the afflicted person in silence, or without enquiry into the nature of his complaint. CXCVIII. Previous to their interment, their dead are anointed with honey, and, like the Ægyptians, they are fond of funeral lamentations *. Whenever a man has had communication with his 254 Diseased.]-We may from hence observe the first rude commencement of the science of medicine. Syrianus is of opinion, that this science originated in Ægypt, from those persons who had been disordered in any part of their bodies writing down the remedies from which they received benefit. -Larcher. * Funeral lamentations.]-The custom of hiring people to lament at funerals is of very great antiquity. Many passages in the Old Testament seem to allude to this.-Jeremiah, xvi. 5. Baruch, vi. 32. "They roar and cry before their gods, as men do at the feast when one is dead." A similar custom prevails to this day in Ireland, where, as I have been informed, old women are hired to roar and cry at funerals. |