2"^ S. VI. 140., Sett. 4. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



181 



LONDON, SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 4. 1858. 



ROME ON THE GREAT SEA. 



Plutarcb, in his Life of Camillus, after having 

 described the capture of Rome by the Gauls, pro- 

 ceeds to remark that an indistinct rumour of that 

 event appears to have immediately passed into 

 Greece. This remark he supports by the following 

 passage. 



" Heraclides of Pontns, ivho lived not long after those 

 times, states in his Treatise concerning the Soul, that a 

 report arrived from the west, of an army which had 

 issued from the land of the Hyperboreans having taken a 

 Greek cit)' named Eome situated, in that part of the 

 world, near the Great Sea. It does not surprise me that 

 Heraclides, being fond of fable and fiction, should have 

 decked the true story of the capture of Rome with a 

 rhodomontade about Hyperboreans and the Great Sea.* 

 Aristotle the philosopher had, however, manifestly heard 

 that the city was taken by Celts ; he says, indeed, that 

 it was saved by a certain Lucius ; whereas the name of 

 Camillus was Marcus, not Lucius " (c. 22.). 



An indication of the date of Heraclides is af- 

 forded by an anecdote preserved in Proclus, 

 Comm. in Plat. Tim. p. 64. ed. Schneider. It is 

 there stated that Plato induced Heraclides Ponti- 

 cus to go to Colophon in order to collect the poems 

 of Antimachus, whom Plato preferred to Choerilus, 

 notwithstanding the high reputation which the 

 latter poet then enjoyed. The death of Choerilus 

 was prior to the year 399 b. c, and his reputation 

 may be considered to have been at its height at 

 the beginning of the fourth century b. c. (See 

 Naeke's Choerilus, p. 92. ; Anth. Pal. xi. 218.) 

 The admiration of Plato for Antimachus is men- 

 tioned by Cicero, Brut. 51., and Plutarcb, Lysand. 

 18. See Welcker, Ep. Cyclus, vol. i. p. 105., 

 whose scepticism appears exaggerated. 



Antimachus was posterior to Choerilus ; he 

 flourished about 405 u.c. (Diod. xiii. 108.) He 

 was already a celebrated poet when Plato, born in 

 429 B. c, was a young man. (Plut. ib.) His 

 poems are cited by Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 6. 7. 



The interval between the births of Plato and 

 Aristotle was forty-five years : it is probable that 

 Heraclides was more the contemporary of the 

 former than of the latter. According to Suidas 

 , in 'HpaKKeioris, he was left in charge of Plato's 

 I school, when that philosopher went to Sicily ; 

 j that is, about the year 368 or 361 n.c. Cicero 

 . (Leg. iii. 6.) regards Heraclides as the disciple of 

 Plato, and Theonhrastus as the disciple of Aris- 

 ' totlc. The History of Plan tx by Theophrastus, in 

 I which tliere i« a mention of the Romans, showing 

 an accurate knowledge of the geographical posi- 

 tion of Rome (v. 8.), contains allusions to events 

 which occurred in 31 1 and 308 ii. c. Theophras- 



• The word imKoiirtaiv recurs in Eurip. Here. Fur. 981. 



tu3 died in 287 b. c. Clinton, Fast. Hell. toI. iii. 

 p. 469. thinlcs that Heraclides survived Plato full 

 forty years. This would suppose him to have died 

 as late as 307 b.c, which is fifteen years after the 

 death of Aristotle. His lifetime may be placed 

 with greater probability from about 410 to 340 b.c 



Aristotle was born in 384 b. c, and therefore, 

 assuming 390 b. c. as the date of the capture of 

 Rome by the Gauls, his birth happened si.x years 

 after that event. The passage in which he men- 

 tioned the occurrence was probably written about 

 340 B. c. ; in one of his works he alluded to the 

 expedition of Alexander to Italy, which took place 

 in 334 b. c. (Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 180.) 



The treatise of Heraclides, irepl "Vvxns, occurs in 

 the list of his works in Diog. Laert. v. 86. Other 

 historical facts are cited from his treatises on ab- 

 stract subjects, as on justice, pleasure, and love. 

 (Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 199.) His disposi- 

 tion to indulge in fabulous embellishments is ad- 

 verted to by Cicero : " Ex eadem Platonis schola 

 Ponticus Heraclides puerilibus fabulis refersit li- 

 bros." (De N. D. i. 13.) Timseus the historian 

 likewise characterised Heraclides as fond of mar- 

 vels ; and gave as an instance a story told by him 

 of a man having fallen from the moon. (Diog. 

 Laert. viii. 72.) 



The Hyperboreans were a fabulous people, who 

 were supposed to dwell in a warm region, lying 

 beyond the mountains where the cold north wind 

 took its origin. When they were conceived as hav- 

 ing a place in positive geography, they were gene- 

 rally referred to the far north : Hecatffius of Ab- 

 dera, who wrote a separate work upon this nation, 

 and who lived at the time of Alexander the Great, 

 described them as inhabiting a large island op- 

 posite the coast of Celtica. (Diod. ii. 47.) Their 

 position was, however, unfi.xed. Thus Apollodo- 

 rus connects them with Atlas (ii. 5. 11.) in the far 

 west, while other writers banished them into the 

 eastern extremity of Asia. Strabo treats the 

 existence of the Hyperboreans and the Rhipsean 

 mountains as a fable, and classes them with the 

 figments of Pytheas respecting the northern ocean 

 (vii. 3. 1.); Pliny, however, and IMela return to 

 the ancient faith in the reality of this holy people : 

 both of them celebrate its happy climate, blessed 

 with perpetual sunshine. (Plin. iv. 12.; Mela, iii. 

 5. Compare Ukert, Geogr. iii. 2. pp. 393—406.) 



The sea which was believed to surround the 

 inhabited earth was sometimes called the ocean ; 

 sometimes the external, the Atlantic, or the Great 

 Sea. From this circumfluous ocean four bays or 

 internal seas were supposed to spring; namely, 

 the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and 

 the Mediterranean. (Plut. Alex. 44. ; Dionys. Per. 

 43—57.) The Mediterranean was the sea with 

 which the Greeks and Romans were most con- 

 cerned : they called it " our sea," the " internal 

 sea : " thus Polybius opposes i) Ka.6' tj/^Ss to »/ ^ia> 



