Ancient Fallacy. ■ 35 



9poi') should yet be able to dance. ^ The fiction was too 

 agreeable to be readily abandoned by the poets of the 

 Lower Empire and the Romancers of the middle ages ; 

 and Phile, a contemporary of Petrarch and Dante, 

 who in the early part of the fourteenth century addressed 

 his didactic poem on the elephant to the emperor Andro- 

 nicus II., untaught by the exposition of Aristotle, still 

 clung to the old delusion, 



Ilo6e5 5e TOVTO) Sav^a Koi (ra<}>e^ r€pa^j 

 Ov?, ov Ka.9a.-mp raAAa zuiv ^lixav yevq, 

 Eibidf Ktveli' ef avdpdpujv xXaapartav ' 

 Kai yap a-ji.fiapoi'; o-ufTeBevTe^ oareoLi;, 

 Kal 717 Tr\aSapa ran/ (TifwpCov /carao'Tdcrei, 

 Kat T15 TTpb; iipOpa tviv rsKikwv VTrrKpia-eL, 

 NOi/ et? Toi'ov; ayovcri, vvv ti? v(|)t<Tecy, 

 Ta? Trai/ToSaTra! exSpo/aas toO Brjpinv. 



'BpaxvTepov; oi'ros Se xuic 6nia9iu>i' 

 " Ai^a)U(/jLAe'K7(0T oiSa tov<; ifXTrpoadiov^ ' 



Toi)TOt9 eAe'i/)a? ei/xofleis uxnrep trxuAois 

 OpQoaTC'.Sqv aK0ip.7TT0<; viri/uiTTwv jueVet, 



V. 106, &C. 



SoLiNUS introduced the same fable into his Polyhistor ; 

 and DicuiL, the Irish commentator of the ninth century, 

 who had an opportunity of seeing the elephant sent by 

 Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne ^ in the 

 year So 2, corrects the error, and attributes its perpetua- 

 tion to the circumstance that the joints in the elephant's 

 leg are not very apparent, except when he lies down.^ 



Zao!/ Se di/rtpPpoi' rrvi'iei'ai Kal dum ille sicut bos certlssime jacet, lit 



pvBpov Kal fie'Aov?, Kal (fiiiAaTTtii' populi communiter regni Francorum 



a-xvp-a <f)va-eu><; Suipa TavTa otfia Kal ISio- elephantem, in tempore Imperatoris 



Tijs KaO' eVacTTOi' eKTrXriKTLKij. {JEli- Karoli, viderunt. Sed, forsitan, ideo 



AN, De Nat. Anim. lib. ii. cap. xi.) hoc de elephante ficte asstimando scrip- 



Eginhard, Vita Karoli, c. xvi. turn est, eo quod genua et sufFragines 



and Annales Fra!icor7iJii, a.d. 8io. sui nisi quando jacet, non palam ap- 



" Sed idem Julius, unum de ele- parent." (DicuiLUS, De Meusura 



phantibus mentiens, falso loquitur; Orbis TerrcE, q. y\i.) 

 dicens elephantem nunquam jaccre ; 



