Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Dionysius, in converting the Homeric heroic into the Sotadean,

Ως | ὁ πρόσθ ̓ ἵπ- | πων καὶ δίφρου | κεῖτο τανυσ- θείς. introduces into the second foot a dispondee, unless we consider the last syllable of ippov as common, as terminating both a foot and a word, and then the second foot would be only an epitritus quartus επτάσημος.

There are many verses that are capable of being scanned into two, or perhaps more, different rhythms; as the Virgilian line,

Cui non dictus Hylas puer, et Latonia De- | los, may be scanned into a Glyconian and Pherecratian, forming together a Priapeian, and on the contrary the Priapeian,

Hunc lucum tibi dedico, consecroque, Priape,

may be scanned into an heroic hexameter. If we wish to know which is the rhythm intended by the poet, the company in which it is found is often the best guide. Noscitur a sociis.

Nor is it a mere matter of barren curiosity to be able to ascertain the true rhythm intended by the poet, as in lyrical pieces the distribution of the strophe and antistrophe is regulated according to the rhythm.

Thus for instance, if the Pherecratian line,

Grato Pyrrha sub antro,

|

consisted of a spondee, a dactyl, and a spondee, it never could, when so scanned, be made to antistrophize, like the same line scanned in another manner, to

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

3

θέλω · φιλῆς

σαι τὸν ἔρω

τίαις ποθ' ώ

σαι.

τα.

pais.

Pyrrha sub an- | tro.

I shall leave it to others to determine what is the rhythmical character of the following verses, whether they are Sapphics defective in the beginning, or glyconian choriambics hypercatalectic, or to what other metre they are allied, and may belong. ἐν Δελ | φοῖς TOTE Νικο- λάδας.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

I have in the preceding observations endeavoured to show that it is common to many metres to have some dominant and conspicuous foot in the middle of the verse, so as frequently to make the end an antistrophe or echo to the beginning, and that in particular it is the characteristic of the Sapphic hendecasyllable, to have a dactyl in the middle, and a ditrochee on each side of it.

ON A PASSAGE OF LIVY.

LIVY, after relating the defeat and death of Asdrubal at the Metaurus, and the manner in which it was notified to Hannibal, says: "Hannibal, tanto simul publico familiarique ictus luctu, agnoscere se fortunam Carthaginis fertur dixisse: castrisque inde motis," &c. It would seem from this, that it had been observed as a characteristic of the fortune of Carthage, to meet with signal reverses in the midst of success. Probably the observation might be popular among the Carthaginians. It may be not uninteresting to examine how far this saying was verified by facts.

We have little of the early history of Carthage, being only in possession of a few detached facts, as its foundation, the organization of its force by Mago, the death of the Philoni, the escape of Carthage from subjugation to Persia by the refusal of the Tyrians to serve against them, their naval defeat by the Massilians, &c. On this part of their annals, therefore, we can found no reasoning. I will begin therefore with their first recorded invasion of Sicily. We may infer considerable prior successes, of whatever kind, from the magnitude of the armament, and the various nations from which it was collected. The army is stated by Herodotus at three hundred thousand men: of the number of the fleet we have no authenticated account. Herodotus also mentions the countries which contributed to the force. The army, however, was totally defeated by Gelo of Syracuse and Theron of Agrigentum, and the fleet, together with the Tuscan, by Hiero; and but a small part of the expedition appears to have escaped. Seventy years after, they invaded Sicily again with two successive armaments, subdued five of the principal cities, and were near besieging Syracuse, when the ravages of a pestilence reduced them to make terms with Dionysius and the Sicilians; and the distress, to which Carthage and Africa were reduced by the spreading sickness, is said to have been extreme. Soon after, provoked by the atrocious treatment of their countrymen in Sicily, they sent a hundred ships to raise the siege of Motya by Dionysius; which, failing in their enterprize, were followed by an immense force under the same commander, Himilco, leader in a former expedition; who, having conquered nearly the whole island, stormed one quarter of Syracuse, and reduced the rest to difficulties, was, by an epidemical sickness occa

sioned by the circumstances of the place, and by a masterly attack of Dionysius, compelled to fly with a scanty remnant, leaving the rest to Sicilian vengeance. The Africans, we are told, exasperated by this desertion, marched, to the number of two hundred thousand men, to Carthage, took Tunis, and menaced the city itself; but, wanting able leaders, the disorderly multitude soon dispersed to their several cities.

Passing over some campaigns in Sicily of inferior consequence, we come to the times of Timoleon. The Punic influence was extended at this time very widely in Sicily; and the disorders there, the smallness of Timoleon's force, and the magnitude of that opposed to it, (stated by Diodorus at seventy thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and two hundred ships) might seem to promise almost certain success. Yet, through the interposition chiefly of an unusually violent storm, their army was totally routed at the Crimesus, and with such slaughter, that peace was soon concluded on terms highly advantageous to Sicily. The "fortune of Carthage" appears again in the war of Agathocles; whose expedition to Africa, conquest of the country, and siege of Carthage, while Syracuse itself was invested, are well known, and perhaps gave Hannibal the idea of his descent on Italy. They had again nearly subdued that island, when they were expelled by Pyrrhus. They regained, however, a footing, and their affairs seem to have been flourishing, when the first Punic war broke out. After various turns of fortune, in this contest, the grand naval defeat near Ecnomus, and the descent of Regulus, reduced them to extremity. Yet the tide was again turned by the defeat and capture of Regulus, and the disaster of Claudius Pulcher; and the state of affairs immediately preceding the sea-fight of the gates is marked by the observation of Hanno, in the Carthaginian senate (Liv. xxiii. 13.): "Nunquam terrâ marique magis prosperæ res nostræ visæ sunt, quàm ante consules C. Lutatium et A. Postumium fo erunt." I need scarcely mention, in contrast to this, the defeat of Hanno, the submission of Carthage, the horrors of the servile war, and the seizure of Sardinia, and the twelve hundred talents, by the Romans. Yet the conquests and negociations of Hamilcar Barcas and his successors in Spain, gradually repaired the power and resources of Carthage; and the observation above recorded of Hannibal was perhaps never so signally exemplified as in the second Punic war; the grand victories of Trebia, Trasimenus, and Cannæ, and the gradual decay of his mighty army ensuing; the descent of Asdrubal, again threatening ruin to Italy, and his utter discomfiture at the Metaurus, which forced Hannibal to retire to Bruttium, and occasioned the remarkable exclamation related by Livy.

W.

117

NOTICE OF

OUVAROFF on the Eleusinian Mysteries.

No. III. (Continued from No. XXVII. p. 171.)

We now proceed to the fifth section of M. Ouvaroff's Essay, wherein he examines a very important question: whether the ancients taught in their mysteries that the gods of Polytheism had been only menand whether their gods had actually been men. Several illustrious writers have supported these two propositions on the authority of Herodotus, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, and the Fathers of the Church; but other learned antiquaries have opposed this system, which, however, presents itself under a very specious aspect. The Asiatic colonies, that peopled Greece, brought with them the elements of their religious worship; and these elements, confounded with the local notions already established, gave birth to the Grecian Theogony, which afterwards spread itself over so large a portion of the world, and ended by going back even to its original cradle. Thus, by a singular reaction, the Greeks, who received Bacchus from Egypt, gave the name of Bacchus to all the divinities with which he had any analogy: they even discovered in foreign theogonies, such divinities as exclusively belonged to Greece. From this principle resulted the multitude of Jupiters, Mercuries, Venuses, &c.

The Egyptian and Phœnician colonists brought with their religious systems, their languages, and traditions; of which some confused traces may yet be found in the remains of oriental idioms, and under the varied forms of their mythology may be discovered those features which declare a foreign origin.

M. Ouvaroff then notices the two parties which divided alternately the literature and public credulity of Greece. The Epicureans undertook to solve the theological problem by the aid of history. Euhemerus was chief of this party, and the system was denominated the "historical," or "the system of Apotheosis: " it bore also the name of Euhemerus, and this sect regarded the gods as men deified. On the other hand, that system called the allegorical was founded by the Stoics, who through the medium of abstract ideas reduced all the mythology of Greece to a tissue of moral allegories and physical phenomena. But the system of Euhemerus was widely diffused by the Epicureans, and adopted by many eminent personages. Cicero himself appears to have inclined towards it,' and the fathers of the church, finding it suitable to their designs, allowed it to subsist. A passage in the first book of Herodotus is perhaps the strongest authority in favor of this system. The Persians, as we there read, did not raise statues to their Gods, because they did not believe, as

De Natura Deorum, passim.

the Greeks, that “the Gods were born of men," for thus has generally been interpreted the word ȧvoporopvéas. We find, however, that Stanley, the learned editor of Eschylus, had already in the seventeenth century, comprehended the true signification of this compound, which he expresses by humana forma præditos. Larcher admitted this conjecture into his French trauslation of Herodotus, in the edition published at Paris in the year 1802; but it had been rejected by Warburton, nor did Wesseling venture to insert it into his Latin version of Herodotus.

To M. Ouvaroff this appears the only correct interpretation; for he says, (p. 74) if we translate "the Persians did not erect statues, as they did not believe that the Gods were born of men;" the sense becomes complicated and obscure; the two members of the phrase no longer depend on each other; and besides, a forced signification is given to the root pun, which the dictionaries always explain by φύσις, statura, status, (Βλάστησις, αύξησις ἡλικίας. Suidas. But if we adopt Stanley's interpretation of aropropuis, the sense becomes clear and satisfactory; and indeed Herodotus, in the same paragraph, tells us that the Persians adored on high mountains the sun, moon, and elements. Now it is manifest that, as the human form was not given to those objects of their worship, they escaped the statuary's art. Therefore, Herodotus merely wished to express that the Persians had not any images of Gods, because they worshipped immaterial objects which their imagination had not clothed with a human form, as that of the Greeks had done. Thus Herodotus only contrasts the anthropomorphism, so characteristic of the Greeks, with the immateriality of Eastern worship. So that far from supporting Euhemerus, this passage rightly understood has no reference to the historical system, designed to undermine all the foundations of the religion of the Greeks, as Cicero himself has allowed.3

4

It is true that the Greeks, confounding their religious notions with those transmitted from the east by Phoenicians, and still more by Egyptians, admitted among the objects of their worship some local divinities, and at the same time several of those extraordinary men whom they honored under the name of demigods. Herodotus expressly informs us, that most of the Gods came from the Egyptian colonies of Inachus, Cecrops, and Danaüs, but that some also came from the Pelasgians, and some that the Pelasgians had borrowed from other nations. Several national heroes among the Pelasgian divinities were possibly historic personages, and so far may be regarded as men deified; but it is contrary to sound reason and all the notions of antiquity that we should suppose the Deus optimus maximus, the Dii

1

Clio, cap. 131.

3 De Nat. Deor. lib. i. 83.

2

Stanley, ad Eschyli Pers. 811.

4 Herodotus (Lib. 1. cap. 50.) has shown that the Egyptians did not render divine honors to heroes.-The class of Demi-Gods is in its origin Grecian.

« ZurückWeiter »