h

times, which was, to give the names of the elements and lights of heaven (they being deities now worshipped) to eminent persons, took the names of Terra or Tellus, as her husband was called Coelum or Ouranus. The children born of these two parents were first the Centimani; namely, Briareus, Gyes, and Caus. The fabulous writers say, that each of these men had a hundred hands and fifty heads." They were of larger size, of greater strength, and perhaps of more cunning and contrivance than common men; and fable has given them the hands and heads of multitudes, for being superior to single men in their wisdom and valour. Ouranus sent them to inhabit the land of Tartarus; for here we find them in power and command in the days of Jupiter. What or where the country was, which was thus named, may be difficult to determine. Pluto was afterwards king of it, and I imagine it was no part of Crete; for when Pluto took away Proserpine from her mother Ceres, Ceres sought her, xala naσav тnv ynv, i. e. all over Crete, but could not find her;' afterwards she heard that she was with Pluto; so that Pluto's dominions were not in Crete, but in some foreign country. We are told by Apollodorus, that the Cyclops were sent into this

Apollod. Bibloth. lib. 1. c 1.

• Id. ibid.

Η Μεγέθει τε ανυπερβλητοι και δύναμαι καθείςήκεσαν. Id. ibid. Apollod. Biblioth. lib. 1, c. 2.

k

Id. ibid.

* Δημητρα δε μετά λαμπάδων νύκλος τε και ημέρας κατα πασαν THE UND ENTHOL TEPI. Apollodor. Biblioth. lib. 1, c. 5.

m

land of Tartarus; and Homer appears to think that they lived in the island of Sicily." Strabo supposed that in this point he had given us not fiction, but true history; and we find Thucydides, though he had nothing to offer about the rise or exit of this set of men; whence they came hither, or whither they removed; yet not doubting but that they were of the most ancient inhabitants of this island. Agreeably hereto, Tartarus the father of Typhon appears from Apollodorus, to have lived in Sicily in the age I am treating of: and in these days probably this island was called after his name. This land of Tartarus was said to be as far distant from the earth, as the earth is from heaven. This might be the ancient Cretan account of it, and by the earth they might mean their own island, and intended only to assert that Tartarus was at an immeasurable distance from their shore; and unquestionably from Crete to Sicily was a considerable voyage in those ages. As Pluto, from his having been the person who invented the rites and ceremonies, used at funerals, came in after-ages to be

¶ Id. ibid. lib. 1. c.6, §. 3.

• Τόπος δε ετος τοσατον από γης έχων διάσημα, όσον απ' έρανε γη. Apollod. lib. 1. c. 1.

• Τον δε Α'δην, λέγεται, τα περι και τιμας των τεθνεώτων καταδείξαι ο θεος στις παρειληπίαι κυριεύειν. p.323.

τας ταφάς, και τας εκφοράς, -διο και των τετελευτηκότων Diodorus, Sic. lib. 5,

called the god of the dead; so the country where he had been king, was reputed to be their region, and all the gloomy fictions imagined to belong to the state of the departed, were related to have their place in this land of Tartarus. But it is obvious that these fables were not invented, until ages after the times of the Centimani; and not until long after Sicily censed to be called by this, its ancient name. 2, The Cyclops were also sons of Ouranus and Tellus; whose names were Harpes, Steropes, and Brontes. They were said to have but one eye apiece, and that situate in the middle of their foreheads." These men were the archers of their times, and usually shut one eye, to take their aim in shooting; which occasioned the

t

Apollod. lib. 1, c. 1.

" Id. ibid.

I have forgot from whom I had this conjecture: I think it is Eustathius'. But I would observe, that the ingenious annotator upon the English Homer, whose real worth, as well as learning, makes it a pleasure to me to say, I have a friendship for him, gives a better account of this fable of the Cyclops; ascribing it to their wearing a head piece or martial vizor, that had but one sight through it.

The vulgar, says he, form their judgments from appear. ances; and a mariner who passed these coasts at a distance, observing the resemblance of a broad eye in the forehead of one of these Cyclops, might relate it accordingly, and impose it as a truth upon the ignorant. It is notorious, that things equally monstrous have found belief in all ages. See Dr. Broome's Notes upon Homer's Odyssey, b. ix. ver. 119,

fable of their having only one eye. Ouranus sent them to Tartarus unto their brethren. 3, Ouranus and Tellus were the parents of the Titans also, whose names were Oceanus, Carus, Hyperion, Crius, Japetus and Saturn, and of the Titanides, who were Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione and Thia.* Tellus the wife of Ouranus had also other children, namely, Phorcus, Thaumas, Nereus, Eurybæa, and Ceto, by a person named Pontus, who perhaps after the death of Ouranus was her second husband; and Ouranus had several children by a concubine named Ops; who were Porphyrion, Halcyoneus, Ephialtes, Clytius, Enceladus, Polybotes, Gratian and Thoon. Tellus made a voyage into Sicily, and stayed there some time, until she had a son named Typhon, by Tartarus, a person of the highest eminence in Sicily, in these ages. Ops was no Cretan, but a foreigner; who came into Crete out of a more northern nation." She is often taken to be the same person as Tellus; but it is evident she was not so, probably she was the Cybele of the ancients.

b

At the death of Ouranus, his son Saturn had his kingdom; who is said to have castrated and deposed

Apollodor. ubi sup.

lib. 5, p. 241.

▾ Id. ibid. Diodor.

Apollodor. Biblioth. lib. 1, c. 1. Diodorns mentions only five, and calls them, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Thetis, lib. 5, p. 231.

Apollodor. c. 2.

b Id. c. 6.

* Η πιν, μιαν των εξ υπερβόρων παραγενομένων παρθενων. Id. c.4.

his father. But we have no reason to imagine that he did so, or that what is told us of the birth of the furics from Ouranus was real fact. Varro judiciously thought these relations to be parts of what he calls the Mythic Theology; which afforded many narrations of imaginary actions never really done, but founded upon the ancient philosophy and religion, historically put together. Saturn married his sister Rhea, and had by her three sons and three daughters, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Vesta, Ceres, and Juno." It is said of Saturn that he ate up his children as soon as they were born,* that Jupiter only escaped, by a contrivance of his mother Rhea, who bundled up a stone in his clothes, and sent it to Saturn,

d Apollodor. c. 1.

f Vid. Varron. Frag. p. 13.

e

Id. ibid.

See what I have offered upon this subject, vol. ii, book viii. Saturnus-falcem habet ob agriculturam. Quòd Calum patrem saturnus castrâsse in fabulis dicitur, hoc significat, penes Saturnum, non penes Cœlum, semen esse divinum; hoc propterea quantum intelligi datur, quia nihil in Cœlo de seminibus nascitur. Varro in Frag. p. 42.

h Diodor. Apollodor. ubi sup.

This fable is explained by Cicero, (de Nat. Deor. lib. 2.). as being only a metaphorical account of Time's destroying own produce. His words are, Kgovos, qui est idem povos, i. e. spatium temporis, appellatus est saturnus, quod saturetur annis. Ex se enim natos comesse fingitur solitus, quia consumit atas temporum spatia, annisq: præteritis insaturabiliter expleter.'

EDIT.