146 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



the wonderful ftrength of his heroes, I have mentioned in the pre- 

 ceding chapter : And, if the Reader believe him in that particular, 

 he can have no doubt, that men of fuch furprifing ftrength were 

 likevvife of fuperior fize. He has fiid nothing pofitiveV of the fta- 

 ture of any of his heroes, but only comparatively, as I fhall prefently 

 obferve : Nor is this to be wondered at ; for I know no hiftorian, 

 antient or modern, that fays any thing of the fize of the men of his 

 own nation, except comparatively with that of other nations. But, 

 in that fine epifode of his, called, by the antient critics, the Tei^Qay.0- 

 TTiXy or Profpe^from the Walls *, he has given us a very accurate de- 

 fcription of the perfons of feveral of the Greek heroes, which, I am 

 perfuaded, he had from very good information. In this defcription 

 he tells us that Ulyfles was fhorter than Agamemnon by the head, 

 iliorter than Menelaus by the head and fhoulders ; and that Ajax 

 was taller than any of the Greeks, by the head and fhoulders ; con- 

 fequently Ulyfles was fhorter than Ajax, by two heads and fhoulders, 

 which we cannot reckon lefs than four feet. Now, if we fuppofe 

 thofe heroes to have been no bigger than we, then Ajax muft have 

 been a man about fix feet and a half, or, at moft, feven feet : And, 

 iffo, Ulyfles mufl; have been mofl: contemptibly fhort, not more 

 than three feet, which is certainly not the truth, but a mofl: abfurd 

 and ridiculous fidion, fuch as we cannot fuppofe in Homer: Where- 

 as, if we allow Ajax to have been twelve or thirteen feet high, 

 and much more, if we fuppofe him to have been eleven cubits, as 

 Philoftratus makes him f, Ulyfl^es, though four feet fliort of him,, 

 would have been of a good fize, and, with the extraordinary 

 breadth which Homer obferves he had, may have been as ftrong a 

 man as Ajax. 



It was only in after ages, when the fize of men was greatly de- 



creafed, that the bodies of thofe heroes, if they happened to be dif- 



covered, were, as was natural, admired and exadtly meafured. 



Such 

 • Iliad, r. Verf. 121. 

 t Hcrokor- Prooem. Cap. i. N. 2, 



