252 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Xerxes, when he invaded Greece — his bridging the Hellefpont — and 

 with his army drinking up whole rivers *, though no man, who 

 reads Herodotus, can doubt of the truth of any of thofe particulars, 



There is another fingularity of our fpecies, which Strabo likewife 

 fays he does not believe, though attefted by the feveral authors whom 

 he names. It is that of men who had their eyes in their breads "f. 

 To the authors he quotes, 1 will add a Bifhop and a Father of the 

 Church, who relates, that when he, with other fervants of Chrift, 

 went to iE hiopia to preach the gofpel there, he faw many men and 

 women without heads, but having great eyes in their breads, their 

 other parts being fuch as ours. And he relates fuch circumilances 

 concernmg their priefts, as fhow that he had been fome time among 

 them, and was well acquainted with them ; fo well, at lead, that 

 it was impofhble he could be midaken in what he fays of their 



per- 



* Cretlitur olim 



Velificatus Athos, et qu^cquid Graecia mendax 



Audet in hiltoria ; cum ftratum claffibus iifdem 



SuppoTitumque rotis foiidum mare. Credimus altos 



Defecifle amnes, tpotaque flumina Medo 



Prandente, et madidis cantat quae Soflratus alls ? 



Sat. X. V. 173. 

 The ftate of the world, particularly as to numbers, was fo much altered, even 

 ■when Juvenal wrote, that I am not much furprifed that he, judgng, as many now 

 do, of part t.mcrs by the prefent, (hould not believe in the millions of men that 

 Xerxes brought with him into Greece, and all the wonderful works he performed 

 with them, liut there was one of them, viz. the bridging of thr Hellefpont, in 

 which, I think, he migtit have believed, bccaufe there was fometh.ng like it done 

 a very little before h;s time by Caliguh the Emperor ; 1 mean the bridging a bay of 

 the lea from Baiae to Puteoli, (a length of three miles and fix hundred paces, 

 greater than the length of Xerxes' bridge), acrofs which Caligula drove his chariot 

 in triumph >ver Neptune and his waves. See Suetonius's account of the work. Ca^ 

 liguU, Ca ). 19 



t See Origin of Lang. Vol. 1. page 268. Second Edition Strabo calls them 

 ZTig_*6<pixXuf>t Pomronius Mela, who, I think, is an author of good authority, and 

 as fuch is quoted by Piiny the Naturalifl, mentions a people of that kind in Africa, 

 whom he rails B'-mmii. O' them he fays, • Blrmmiis capita abiunt, vultus in pec- 

 * tore ;' Lid i. C .p. 8. De Situ Or bis. Nor does he give this as a report only, but 

 as a h€t, of which he does not appear to have doubted. 



