FORMICID^ — ANTS. 1 5 1 



slant sparing, joyned with virtue, and they grew thereby so 

 rich, that they passed the common condition and ingenuity of 

 men, and Theogonis knew not how to compare them better 

 than to Pismires, that they were originally descended from 

 them, or were transformed into them, and as Strabo reports 

 they were therefore called Myrmidons. The Greeks relate 

 the history otherwise than other men do ; namely, that 

 Jupiter was changed into a Pismire, and so deflowered 

 Eurymedusa, the mother of the Graces, as if he could no 

 otherwise deceive the best woman, then in the shape of the 

 best creature. Hence ever after was he called Pismire Ju- 

 piter, or, Jupiter, King of Pismires 



" They do better, in my opinion, who observe the Pismire, 

 and grow rich by following his manners in labor, industry, 

 rest, and study. We read of Midas that he was the richest 

 King of all the West, and when he was a boy, the Pismires 

 carryed grains of wheat into his mouth while he slept, and 

 so foreshowed without doubt that he should be endowed 

 with the Pismire's prudence, and should by his labour and 

 frugality, gain so much riches, that he should be called the 

 Golden boy of fortune, and the Darling of prosperity. 

 JElianus. And when the Ants did devour and eat up the 

 live serpent of Tiberius C«sar, which he so dearly loved, 

 did they not thereby give him sufficient warning that he 

 should take heed to himself for fear of the multitude, by 

 whom he was afterwards cruelly murthered? Suetonius. ^''^ 



Of the wars and battles of the Ants, now so familiar from 

 the writings of Huber and others, one of the oldest records 

 is that given by ^neas Sylvius, who afterward became Pope 

 Pii^ II., of an engagement contested with obstinacy by a 

 great and a small species, on the trunk of a pear-tree. 

 "This action," he states, "was fought in the pontificate of 

 Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistori- 

 ensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of 

 the battle with the greatest fidelity." Another engagement 

 of the same description is recorded by Olaus Magnus, as 

 having happened previous to the expulsion of Christiern 

 the Second, of Sweden, and the smallest species, having 

 been victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their 



1 Theatr. Ins., p. 245-6. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 1078. Vide 

 Pierius' Hieroghjjih., p. 73-G. 



