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departed. Having thus confumed two years, they in the third doubled the columns of Hercules, and returned to Ægypt. Their relation may obtain attention from others, but to me it feems incredi ble", for they affirmed, that having failed round Africa, they had the fun on their right hand. Thus was Africa for the first time known.

XLHI. If the Carthaginian account may be credited, Satafpes, fon of Teafpes, of the race of the Achæmenides, received a commiffion to circumna vigate Africa, which he never executed: alarmed by the length of the voyage, and the folitary ap pearance of the country, he returned without accomplishing the task enjoined him by his mother. This man had committed violence on a virgin, daughter of Zopyrus, fon of Megabyzus, for which offence Xerxes had ordered him to be crucified; but the influence of his mother, who was fifter to Darius, faved his life. She avowed, however, that it was her intention to inflict a ftill feverer punishment upon him, by obliging him to fail round Africa, till he fhould arrive at the Aras

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51 To me it seems incredible.]-Herodotus does not doubt that the Phoenicians made the circuit of Africa, and returned to Egypt by the ftraits of Gibraltar; but he could not believe that in the courfe of the voyage they had the fun on their right hand. This, however, must neceffarily have been the cafe after the Phoenicians had paffed the line; and this curious circumstance, which never could have been imagined in an age when aftronomy was yet in its infancy, is an evidence to the truth of a voyage, which without this might have been doubted,➡ Larcher,

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bian Gulph, To this Xerxes affented, and Sataf pes accordingly departed for Ægypt; he here embarked with his crew, and proceeded to the columns of Hercules; paffing thefe, he doubled the promontory which is called Syloes, keeping a fouthern courfe. Continuing his voyage for feveral months, in which he paffed over an immenfe tract of fea, he faw no probable termination of his labours, and therefore failed back to Egypt. Returning to the court of Xerxes, he amongst other things related, that in the most remote places he had vifited he had feen a people of diminutive appearance, cloathed in red garments 52, who on the approach of his

veffel

52 Red garments. This paffage has been indifferently rendered Phoenician garments and red garments; the original is

Anti Coxnin-Larcher, diffenting from both thefe, tranflates it des habits de palmier:" his reafoning upon it does not appear quite fatisfactory. "It feems very fufpicious," fays he, "that people fo favage as these are defcribed by Herodotus, should either have cloth or ftuff, or if they had should poffefs the means of dying it red." But in the first place, Herodotus does not Eall thefe a favage people; and in the next, the narrative of Satafpes was intended to excite aftonishment, by reprefenting to Xerxes what to him at leaft feemed marvellous. That a

race of uncivilized m 'men should-cloath themselves with skins, or garments made of the leaves or bark of trees, could not appear wonderful to a fubject of Xerxes, to whom many barbarous nations were perfectly well known. His furprize would be much more powerfully excited, at feeing a race of men of whom they had no knowledge, habited like the members of a civilized fociety; add to this, that granting them to be what they are not here reprefented, Barbarians, they might fill have in their country fome natural or prepared substances, communicative of different coJours. I therefore accede to the interpretation of rubrâ utentes

veffel to the fhore, had deferted their habitations,
and fled to the mountains. But he affirmed, that his
people, fatisfied with taking a fupply of provifions,
offered them no violence. He denied the poffibi-
lity of his making the circuit of Africa, as his vef-
fel was totally unable to proceed . Xerxes gave
5.
no credit to his affertions; and, as he had not fulfill-
ed the terms impofed upon him, he was executed ac-
cording to his former fentence. An eunuch belong-
ing to this Satafpes, hearing of his master's death,
fled with a great fum of money to Samos, but he was
there plundered of his property by a native of the
place, whofe name I know, but forbear to men-
tion.

XLIV. Of Afia, a very confiderable part was first discovered by Darius. He was very defirous of 25 afcertaining where the Indus meets the ocean, the

only river but one in which crocodiles are found; to effect this, he fent, amongst other men in whom he could confide, Scylax of Caryandia 54. Depart

ing

vefte, which is given by Valla and Gronovius, and which the word Conin will certainly juftify.-T.

53 Unable to proceed.]-This was, according to all appearances, the east wind which impeded the progrefs of the veffel, which conftantly blows in that fea during a certain period. Larcher. See the note of Weffeling.

54 Scylax of Caryandia.]-About this time, Darius being de-. firous to enlarge his dominions eaftward, in order to the conquering of those countries laid a defign of first making a discovery of them for which reason, having built a fleet of ships at Cafpatyrus, a city on the river Indus, and as far upon it as the

borders

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ing from Cafpatyrus in the Pactyian territories, // they followed the eastern course of the river, till they came to the fea; then failing weftward, they arrived, after a voyage of thirty months, at the very point from whence, as I have before related, the Ægyptian prince difpatched the Phoenicians to cir412 cumnavigate Africa. After this voyage Darius fub

dued the Indians, and became mafter of that ocean: whence it appears that Afia in all its parts, except thofe more remotely to the east, entirely resembles Africa.

XLV. It is certain that Europe has not hitherto been carefully examined; it is by no means certain whether to the east and north it is limited by the

borders of Scythia, he gave the command of it to Scylax, à Grecian of Caryandia, a city in Caria, and one well skilled in maritime affairs, and fent him down the river to make the best discoveries he could of all the parts which lay on the banks of it on either fide; ordering him for this end to fail down the current till he should arrive at the mouth of the river; and that then; paffing through it into the Southern Ocean, he should shape his course weftward, and that way return home. Which orders he having exactly executed, he returned by the fraits of Babelmandel and the Red Sea; and on the thirtieth month after his firft fetting out from Cafpatyrus landed in Ægypt, at the fame place from whence Necho king of Egypt formerly fent out his Phoenicians to fail round the coafts of Africa, which it is most likely was the port where now the town of Suez stands, at the hither end of the said Red Sea.-Prideaux.

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There were three eminent perfons of this place, and of this name:-The one flourished under Darius Hyftafpes, the fecond under Darius Nothus, the third lived in the time of Polybius, This was also the name of a celebrated river in Cappadocia.

-T.

ocean.

MELPOMENE.

2212

ocean. In length it unquestionably exceeds the two other divifions of the earth; but I am far from fatisfied, why to one continent three different names, taken from women, have been affigned. To one of 199 thefe divifions fome have given as a boundary the Ægyptian Nile, and the Colchian Phafis; others the 2 Tanais, the Cimmerian Bofphorus, and the Palus

Mootis. The names of thofe who have thus diftinguished the earth, or the firft occafion of their different appellations, I have never been able to learn. Libya, or Africa, is by many of the Greeks faid to have been fo named from Libya, a woman of the country; and Afia from the wife of Prometheus. The Lydians contradict this, and affirm that Afia 55 was fo called from Afias, a fon of Cotys, and grandfon of Manis, and not from the wife of Prometheus; to confirm this, they adduce the name of a tribe at Sardis, called the Afian tribe. It has certainly never been ascertained, whether Europe be furrounded by the ocean: it is a matter of equal uncertainty, whence or from

$5 Afia.]-In reading the poets of antiquity, it is necessary carefully to have in mind the diftinction of this divifion of the earth into Afia Major and Minor.-When Virgil fays

Poftquam res Afix, Priamique evertere gentem
Immeritam vifum fuperis,

it is evident that he can only mean to fpeak of a small por-
tion of what we now understand to be Afia; neither may it be
amifs to remember, that there was a large lake of this name
near mount Tmolus, which had its first fyllable long.

Longa canoros

Dant per colla modos, fonat amnis et Afia longe
Pulfat palus.

T.

whom

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