ness in friendship, wère mere illusions, which would vanish on the first appearance of danger or distress. To prove this assertion, they agreed to accuse Pythias (properly Phintias) of a conspiracy against the sovereign. He was summoned before the tyrant, accused, and condemned to die. Pythias replied, if it were so, he would only beg the favour of a few hours, that he might go home and settle the common concerns of his friend Damon and himself; in the mean time, Damon would be security for his appearance. Dionysius assented to this proposal; and when Damon surrendered himself, the courtiers all sneered, concluding that he was duped; but on the return of Pythias in the evening to release his bail, and submit to his sentence, they were quite astonished; and none more than the tyrant himself, who embraced the illustrious pair, and requested they would admit him to a share of their friendship.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

Damocles was a flatterer of the tyrant Dionysius, who, to show him how little was the value of grandeur in the midst of terror, caused a sword to be suspended by a horsehair over the parasite's head, as he sat amidst the enjoyments of the banquet. Hence," the sword of Damocles" denotes imminent danger in fancied security. Sir Thomas Browne says: "There is no Damocles like unto self-opinion."

66 THE EAR OF DIONYSIUS."

This traditional wonder is a remarkable excavation in a rock in the neighbourhood of Syracuse, which is said to have been employed in ministering to the tyranny of Dionysius. It is thus described by Capt. Smyth in his Memoir descriptive of Sicily:

"It is in the shape of a parabolic curve, ending in an elliptical arch, with sides parallel to its axis, perfectly smooth, and covered with a slight stalactitic incrustation that renders its repercussions amazingly sonorous. Although a considerable portion of it has been filled up, which I ascertained by excavation, it is still 64 feet high, from 17 to 35 in breadth, and 187 deep. It has an awful and gloomy appearance, which, with its singular shape, perhaps gave rise to the popular and amusing paradox, that Dionysius had it constructed for the confinement of those whom he deemed inimical to his authority; and that from the little apartment above he could hear all the conversation among the captives.... He could not, however, have listened with satisfaction or advantage; for if two or more people are speaking together, it occasions only a confused clamour."

THE GREAT SIEGE OF SYRACUSE.

This memorable siege (212 B.c.) by the Carthaginian and Roman land and naval armaments lasted three years, principally through the successful resistance by means of the ma

chines constructed by Archimedes; and the city was finally taken by surprise, owing to the carelessness of the besieged during the festival of Diana. Among the Syracusan defences were catapults and ballista; arrows shot from the top of the walls and through loop-holes; machines which threw masses of stone or lead upon the Roman engines previously caught by ropes; iron hands or hooks attached to chains, and thrown to catch the prows of the vessels, which were then overturned by the besieged; and to catch the assailants on the land side and throw them to the ground. Archimedes is also said to have set the enemy's ships on fire by burning-mirrors, by Diodorus ; but Galen, in the second century, states this to have been doue by some machine for throwing lighted materials: and Montucla thinks the statement arose from the joining together of two others, namely, that Archimedes wrote a treatise on burning-mirrors, and that he did burn the Roman ships. Rivault, in 1615, was informed by a very learned Greek, who had translated from that language the lives of the Sicilian martyrs, and that one of them, a lady named Lucia, was a descendant of Archimedes, and an ancestress of the Bourbons!

WHO WERE THE SYBARITES?

Of the Sybarites, a prosperous and powerful nation in the Gulf of Tarentum, few statements have reached us, save of their luxury, fantastic self-indulgence, and extravagant indolence, for which they have become proverbial. Among gay companies "Sybaritic tales" were the sayings and doings of ancient Sybarites. Herodotus tells of one Smyndrides of Sybaris, "the most delicate and luxurious man ever known,' who was said to have taken with him to Greece, on his marriage, 1000 domestic servants, fishermen, bird-catchers, and cooks. Alkimenes, the Sybarite, dedicated, as a votive offering, in the temple of the Lakinian Hêrê, a splendid figured garment, fifteen cubits in length; Dionysius of Syracuse plundered that temple, got possession of the garment, and is said to have sold it to the Carthaginians for 120 talents. Five thousand, horsemen, we are told, showily caparisoned, formed the processional march in certain Sybaritic festivals.. Aristotle relates that the Sybaritic horses were taught to move to the sound of the flute; and the garments of these wealthy citizens were composed of the finest wool from Miletus in Ionia, with which Sybaris carried on great traffic. The town was named from the river on which it was built, and this from Sybaris, a fountain in Achaia, which intoxicated the people who drank of it.

Legendary and Fabulous.

ORIGIN OF THE CENTAURS.

"THUS," says Sir Thomas Browne, "began the conceit and opinion of the Centaurs; that is, in the mistake of the first beholders, as is declared by Servius. When some young Thessalians on horseback were beheld afar off, while their horses watered—that is, while their heads were depressed-they were conceived by the first spectators to be but one animal; and answerable hereunto have their pictures been drawn ever since."

A similar mistake is recorded by Herrera, the Spanish historian of America, to have been committed by the people of New Spain, when they first beheld the Spanish cavalry. They imagined the horse and his rider to be some monstrous animal of a terrible form; and supposing that their food was the same as that of men, brought flesh and bread to nourish them.

66

Ross, who in 1645 attacked both Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Kenelm Digby, strangely believed certain of the vulgar superstitions of his day. Thus, he says: There is no doubt but Centaurs, as well as other monsters, are produced, partly by the influence of the stars, and partly by other causes," &c.

66 CIMMERIAN GLOOM."

The name Cimmerian appears in the Odyssey-the fable describes them as dwelling beyond the ocean-stream, immersed in darkness, and unblest by the rays of Helios, or the sun. They belong partly to legend, partly to history; but they seem to have been the chief occupants of the Tauric Chersonesus (Crimea), and of the territory between that peninsula and the river Tyras (Dniester), at the time when the Greeks first commenced their permanent settlement on these coasts in the seventh century B.C.

THE AUGEAN STABLE.

Augeas, king of the Elians, is designated by Theocritus as the son of the god Helios. He was rich in all sorts of rural wealth, and through the god's favour his cattle prospered and multiplied with astonishing success. His herds were so numerous,

that the dung of the animals accumulated in the stable or cattle-enclosures beyond all power of endurance. Eurystheus, as an insult to Hercules, imposed upon him the obligation of cleansing this stable; the hero, disdaining to carry off the dung upon his shoulders, turned the course of the river Alpheios through the building, and swept the encumbrance away. Hence the phrase, to cleanse the Augean stable-to clear away any monstrous abuse.

ARGUS AND HIS HUNDRED EYES.

Argus was one of the mythological heroes of Ovid, and was fabled to have a hundred eyes, of which two only slept in succession. On this account, Juno sent him to watch Io; when Mercury, by command of Jupiter, lulled Argus to sleep with the music of his flute, and then killed him. Juno then transferred Argus's eyes to the tail of the peacock.

PHILOMELA, THE NIGHTINGALE.

The beautiful Philomela, going to visit her sister Procne, the wife of Tereus, king of Thrace, Philomela fell a victim to his barbarous passion; when, the two sisters seeking to be revenged on Tereus, he snatched up a hatchet to put Procne to death she fled along with Philomela, and all three were changed into birds-Procne became a swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Tereus a hoopoe. This tale, so characteristic of legend, is alluded to by the Greek historian as an historical fact; and the hoopoe still chases the nightingale.

SINGING SWANS.

From the fabulous but universally received tradition of Swans singing most sweetly before their death (though the truth is, geese and they are alike melodious), the poets have assumed to themselves the title of swans. Horace was believed to be metamorphosed into one. Theocritus terms the poets the Birds of the Muses. Sweet-tongued Pindar was called the Heliconian Swan of Thebes; Virgil the Swan of Mantua; and Shakspeare the Swan of the Avon.

GYGES AND HIS RING.

Plato has preserved a legend of Gyges, according to which he was a mere herdman of the king of Lydia : after a terrible storm and earthquake, he saw near him a chasm in the earth, into which he descended, and found a vast horse of brass, hollow and partly open, wherein there lay a gigantic corpse with a golden ring. This ring he carried away, and discovered unexpectedly that it possessed the miraculous property of ren

dering him invisible at pleasure. Being sent on a message to the king, he made the magic ring available to his ambition : he first possessed himself of the person of the queen, then with her aid assassinated the king, and finally seized the sceptre. Plato compares very suitably the Ring of Gyges to the Helmet of Hades.—Grote's History of Greece, vol. iii.

RIGHT-HANDED AND LEFT-HANDED.

The Greeks had their superstitions, as directed by right and left; and the epithets right-handed man and left-handed man grew necessarily out of these ominous opinions as common terms of eulogy and reproach. Thus Aristophanes, in The Wasps:

"After much and deep reflection

I this last conclusion draw,

That for smart right-handed wisdom
None my equal ever saw;

But your branded and left-handed
Folly I beg leave to pass,

That, and more, sirs, at the door, sirs,
Drop I of Amyni-Ass!"

CLASSIC CHARMS.

The word abracadabra, for fevers, is as old as Sammonicus. Haut haut hista pista vista were recommended for a sprain by Cato. Homer relates, that the sons of Autolycus stopped the bleeding of Ulysses' wound by a charm.

THE OWL A BIRD OF OMEN.

When Agathocles, the Syracusan, attacked the Carthaginians with inferior numbers, he sought to encourage his troops by letting fly in various parts of the camp a number of owls, which perched upon the shields and helmets of the soldiers. These birds, the favourites of Athene, were supposed, and generally asserted, to promise victory; and the minds of the soldiers are reported to have been much reassured by the sight. The whole of the Carthaginian army was defeated; and among their baggage Agathocles found twenty thousand pairs of handcuffs, which they had brought for fettering their expected captives.

PYTHAGORAS AND BEANS.

66 Many errors crept in and perverted the doctrine of Pythagoras (says Sir Thomas Browne), whilst men received his precepts in a different sense from his intention, converting metaphors into proprieties, and receiving as literal expressions obscure and involved truths. Thus, when he enjoined his disciples an abstinence from beans, many conceived they were with