220 pirs'T's yATURAL nisTOnr. [BookVII. 



the diadem, the emblem of royalty, and the triumphal pro- 

 cession. Ceres ^ introduced com, the acorn having been pre- 

 viously used by man for food ; it was she, also, who introduced 

 into Attica the art of grinding com^ and of making bread, 

 and other similar arts into Sicily ; and it was from these cir- 

 cumstances that she came to be regarded as a divinity. She 

 was the first also to establish laws;^° though, according to 

 some, it was Ehadamanthus. I have always been of opinion, 

 that letters were of Assyrian origin, but other writers, Gellius,*' 

 for instance, suppose that they were invented in Egypt by 

 Mercury : others, again, will have it that they were discovered 

 by the Syrians ; and that Cadmus brought from Phoenicia six- 

 teen letters into Greece. To these, Palamedes, it is said, at the 

 time of the Trojan war, added these four, 0, S, O, and X. 

 Simonides,"*' the lyric poet, afterwards added a like number, 

 Z, H, Y, and H ; the sounds denoted by all of which are now 

 received into our alphabet."*^ 



** "We have a long discussion bv Poinsinet, vol. iii. pp. 234, 235, on the 

 derivation of the name of Ceres, in which he endeavours to explain the 

 various attributes that were ascribed to her. The character in which she 

 was generally regarded by the writers of antiquity, was the one here given 

 to her by Piiny ; in proof of which we may refer, among other authorities, 

 to Tireit, Geor. B. i. 1. 147. and to Ovid, Metam. B. iii. 1. 341. — B. 



^ The earliest method of reducing com to the state proper for the food 

 of man, was by pounding it in a mortar ; afterwards, when it was ground 

 between stones", they were moved by the hand, as is stiU the practice in 

 many parts of the East. It was not until a comparatively late period that 

 water was employed as the moving power for mills. — B. 



^ It has been supposed by some commentators, that the character of 

 legislator was bestowed upon Ceres, in consequence of the name by which 

 she was designated, in the ancient northern languages, being incorrectly 

 transferred to the Greek. Others have thought that it might be referred 

 to the connection which may be supposed to exist between an advance in 

 the arts of hfe generally and an improvement of the laws. — B. 



'' We do not find the circumstance here referred to in the '* Noctes At- 

 ticae" of Aulus Gellius. — B. 



*= It would appear that there were two individuals of this name, who 

 were confounded with each other ; Simonides. the celebrated poet, hved as 

 late as the fifth century before Christ, so that it has been thought impro- 

 bable that the Greek language co^ild have existed without the four letters 

 here mentioned, until so recent a period. — B. 



^ The account of the original introduction of the alphabet into Greece, 

 here given, is the one generally adopted in his time. Most readers will 

 be aware, that the actual invention of letters, the share which the Egyp- 

 tians and the Phoenicians had in it, the identification of Cadmus, and still 

 more of Mercury, with any of the heroes or legislators of antiquity, of 



