exift in full force at the prefent hour; thefe are, the name of Peloponnefus, and the walls of Mycena. Paufanias faw thofe walls thirteen hundred years after they were built, and Mr. Morrit has feen them in his laft vifit to Greece. If now Mr. Bryant fhould ask whether Britain had its name from Brutus, it might be anfwered, that if the hiftory of Brutus were fupported by half this evidence, it would be credible; and this evidence, compared and connected in time with the family of Edipus, at Thebes, and the other contemporary families, forms fuch a body, that Mr. B. will hardly venture to push the controverfy further on this head. From the general chronology of the houfe, we will proceed to that of an individual; for Mr. Bryant fays, that Helen muft be above an hundred years old at the conclufion of the war (M. p. 25); it is very ftrange that he should build this upon the authority of Scaliger, Petavius, and Clemens Alexandrinus, when he declares, at the fame time, he places no truft in their deductions. This is literally, as Homer fays, raifing an objection like a plaything, for the pleasure of kicking it down. ρεια μάλ', ὡς ὅτε τις ψάμαθον παῖς ἄγχι θαλάσσης "Ος' ἐπεὶ ἐν ποιήσῃ ἀθύρματα νηπιίησιν, *Αψ αὖτις συνέχευε ποσὶν καὶ χερσὶν ἀθύρων. Il. O. 362. Now, the dates relating to Helen ftand thus, in Blair : Rape of Helen by Thefeus 1213 A. C. Rape of Helen by Paris - 1198 Troy taken - 1184. This ftatement gives a fpace of twenty-nine years, to which, if we add from twelve to fifteen for the age of Helen, it makes * The circumference was left, and the gate with lions on it, as well as the treafury of Agamemnon under ground. Who were the Cyclopes that built them? A nation driven out of Thrace, which fettled in Afia, and which came intoGreece to work for hire. Strabo, lib. 8, 373. They built works at Mycenae, others at Argos, Tiryns, and Orchomenus; whatever fable there be in their character as one-eyed monsters, their existence as a nation is tettified by Homer, Strabo, Euripides, Paufanias, and many others, and by their works ftill exifting in 1798. It fhould feem as if fome civilized people had exifted in Thrace previous to Grecian history, and been driven out by a Getic or Tartar invafion: from this civilized people, the Greeks derived fuch remnants of accounts, as they had of Orpheus, Linus, &c. &c. and the Cyclopes. The Cyclopes were not of a divine origin (Pauf. 26), that is, not oriental; but giants, and next to the gods. The beft history of them is found in the Scholiaft of Euripides [Oreftes. Lin, 963. Ed. Barn.] who calls Argos Γα Κυκλωπέια. her forty-four at moft, when the city was taken, and fifty-four at moft when Telemachus faw her ftill beautiful as a goddcfs, at the court of Sparta. Women, it must be confeiled, are ufually ungoddeffed at that age; but we have inftances in our own days, that all do not lose their attractions. This however will be called, perhaps, the accommodation of chronology; but it is the duty of a chronologer, when he has facts to diftribute, to reconcile them to each other, as much as it is the intereft of the difputant to puzzle and confound. Helen and Penelope were probably both of the fame age. Both feem to have preferved their charms; and though Penelope complains, Θεοὶ δ ̓ ἔπαζον διζὺν Οι νῶῖν ἀγάσαντο πας' αλλήλοισι μένοντα Ήβης τας πῆναι. Ulyffes ftill found her lovely, and Ασπάσιοι λέκτροιο παλαιον θεσμὸν ἴκοντο. ψ. 296. Number of Men and Ships. B. p. 20. M. p. 11. Mr. B. is not content with afferting the incredibility of collecting the army which Agamemnon commanded, but he denies the poffibility of finding fuch a number of troops in fo early an age; in anfwer to this, Mr. M. juftly obferves, that an uncivilized state of fociety is much more likely to produce armies of great magnitude, than a period after civilization has taken place. He inftances the northern fwarms which overwhelmed the Roman empire; and he might have added the Tartar invafions, in all ages; the conquefts of the Perfians, and thofe of the Arabians, in the first ages of Mohammedifm. But Greece, if we take the picture of it from Homer, was in a fituation of all others the most conducive to the increafe of the human fpecies. The people were not yet crouded into great cities for protection, or driven into them for the intereft of their more powerful neighbours. But they were fpread loosely over the whole furface of the country, living in small towns, or rather villages, which are as favourable to population as great cities are noxious. This is likewife fome proof that, notwithstanding the predatory excurfions of the age, fociety was comparatively in a state of fafety; for, in times of danger, the villages ceafe, and the cities are crowded. Examine the catalogue of Homer with the aflistance of Euftathius, Strabo, and Paufanias, and you find more names of places than his commentators can find fituations to receive. Try the experiment upon Beo-' tia, and judge whether the population is not felf-evidently more numerous in that age than in the hiftoric period, when Thebes Y y BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XII, DEC. 1798. was was become the fole potentate, and at laft the tyrant and deftroyer of Platæa and Orchomenus. The Æolian colony is 348 years prior to the first Olympiad, where Mr. B. commences the hiftorical period, and 552 years before Crofus, where Herodotus opens his narrative of events. The Ionian colony is dated 472 years previous to the reign of Cræfus ; and both colonies afford proofs of the population of Greece, its vigour, and its ftrength, in an age when Mr. B. fupposes it in a state of infancy. Does not the venerable controverfialist fee, that if he will believe nothing prior to the first Olympiad, he must deny the existence of thefe colonies, as well as the exiftence of Agamemnon, Mycenæ, and Troy? The numbers of the Greek army, as calculated by Thucydides, amount to 102,000 men, by no means an immoderate amount even by comparison with the forces in the Perfian war, if we confider the countries which contributed to the fupply. The forces at Platea in that war were 110,000, including the Helots; in which armament, the Theffalians, Phocæans, Boeotians, Argives, and the islands, had no fhare; whereas, all were united under Agamemnon; and if the Greeks could have found a principle of union in the Perfian war, they might have doubled their numbers, at leaft; for Peloponnefus alone contained 100,000 fighting men, if they could all have been brought into action. The means of uniting fo many independent ftates under Agamemnon, it must be confeffed, is the greateft difficulty relative to the war. The oaths of Helen's lovers were but a weak obligation, though the oath of a Greek was not fo proverbial in that age as in the time of Polybius; but if the difficulty admits of a folution, it must be found in the fuperior power of the Houfe of Atreus, compared with the rest of Greece. Agamemnon had an hundred fhips, Menelaus fixty, and fixty were lent by Agamemnon to Arcadia. The power of Menelaus extended over Meffene; and Argos* was in fome degree dependent upon Mycena. The only territories in the Peloponnefus not dependent feem to be Pylos and Elis, and Homer is very express in marking the fuperior forces of Agamemnon both in number and quality, * Ατερέιδης ἅμα τῷγε πολὺ πλείςοι καὶ ἄριζοι *This may be collected from Homer, who fays of Agamemnon, "AрYEι TXνTI άvá, b. 108. including, as it fhould feem, all Argolis, or, in a larger fenfe, all Peloponnefus. In a fimilar manner Phoenix and Menoetius were kings in Theffaly under Peleus, Euri pides at least favours this opinion, when, upon the trial of Oreftes, he makes Diomede deliver his opinion in the public affembly. According According to Mr. Bryant's own eftimate, if the Pylians and Eleans are taken out of the account, the forces of the fons of Atreus would amount to 25,500 men; and this number, compared with the followers of any other chief, will account for the influence of Mycena over the rest of Greece, in a inanner that may fatisfy any common doubter. Achilles, the moft confidered of all the chiefs, brought only 2500 myrmidons to the war*. Mifreprefentation of cited Paffages. It is a ferious thing to bring fuch a charge, against a man of Mr. B.'s acknowledged probity, as a neglect of veracity; and indeed, Mr. M. with candour equal to his judgment, avoids it. But there is a love of fyftem, and a fondnefs for an hypothesis of one's own railing, to which an author inadvertently yields, with the blindness of a parent. It is this that warps the judgment from the ftrait line of confiftency, and makes Mr. B. fee thofe facts in the authorities he appeals to, which no one can discover but himself. It is on this ground that Mr. M. complains of unfairness in the citation from Varro and Juftin Martyr, p. 4; and the mifreprefentation of a paffage from Thucydides, p. 10. It is with great juftice alfo that he reprehends the adduction of a sentence. from Libanius, a fophift of the fourth century, in oppofition to the ancient hiftorians; and fupports this, not indeed by falfifying, but by fuppreffing the evidence of Herodotus. p. 19. "Mr. Bryant," he fays, "puts a little dash where a part of the fentence is omitted, but the reader fhould be informed, that the fentence runs thus: all beyond feemed full of danger, as they had little knowledge of those parts which appeared to be full of enemies." This paffage was cited to prove, that the Greeks never failed beyond Delos, because the fleet of Sparta refufed to proceed further upon a fingle occafion. Their want of knowledge therefore is enhanced; the fear of their enemies fuppreffed. But, in truth, what avails the knowledge of Sparta in this cafe? The argument ought to have proved the ignorance of the Greeks in general; and if they were ignorant of the fea beyond Delos, how could the Eolian colony have been founded? Or, after it was founded, how could the intercourfe between Greece and her colonies have been preferved, but by croffing this fea in every direction? * 50 hips with fifty men each; five bodies of 500 each. Il. ii. 168. Another inftance which ought not to be fuppreffed, is one which Mr. M. has reprehended with juft indignation, but not half so much as it deferves, p. 34. It is a paffage from Diodorus (iv, 269) where the author fays, that the Epigoni after taking Thebes, confecrated Daphne, daughter of Tirefias, prieffefs of Delphi; fhe was a verfifier of the oracles, and from her Homer borrowed many verfes to adorn his works. By this, fays Mr. B. was not originally meant Thebes in Boeotia, but Θήβαι Αιγυπτίαι ἑκατόμπυλοι.- What? when the author fays exprefsly, that it was Thebes in Bocotia, fhall Mr. B. by his [originally] turn it into Thebes of Egypt and fhall his own unaccented Greek be put upon a careless reader, as if it were the expreffion of Diodorus? Is it fair, is it candid to quote an author for what he does not write? or to turn what he does write, to prove an exact contradiction to what he means? And yet this is a reafoner, who imputes prejudice to all who fhall controvert his hypothesis. But we will proceed now, in return, to quote Bryant against Bryant. In the differtation before us, he maintains, p. 71, "That the chief objects of worship in this part of the world were Attis and Cybele, called Rhea Dindy mene and Berecynthia, the mother of the Gods; fhe was ftyled a guyia, the Phrygian Goddefs, and her priests were the Corybantes, the fame as the Idei Dactyli and Curetes. But Homer makes Apollo the guardian God; and Minerva the chief Goddess, whose tutelary image was the Palladium." But in his Analyfis of Ancient Mythology, vol. iii, p. 435, Mr. B. writes, "The Trojans and Myfians were of a different race from the native Phrygians, being of the fame language with the people of Hellas and Ionia... the Grecians and Trojans were of the fame family, as fpeaking the fame language." Morrit from Bryant, p. 47. Thefe two paffages, in direct oppofition to each other, cited from the fame author, cannot perhaps be paralleled in point of contradiction, by any extracts from the moft voluminous writer extant; and these two opinions Mr. B. delivered posfibly at the fame moment, for he affures us that his differtation is no new work, it has been in preparation thefe thirty years. Mr. M. with great juftice, turns this contradiction to further advantage, by fhowing, that Mr. B. not only once thought that the Trojans were of the fame family with the Grecks, but alfo that they exifted, which in his differtation he has thought fit to deny; and whenever Mr. M. fhall bring his work to a fecond edition, we hope he will not forget to remind Mr. B. that his Attis and Cybele were Phrygian deities and not Trojan; and that the Phrygia they belong to, is not on the coast of the Ægean |