440 COSMOS. 



I conclude these considerations respecting the distances of 

 the planets, and their arrangement in space, with a law, 

 which however scarcely deserves this name, and which is 



countrymen were called after him 7rpoffe\r)voi. Lucian ex- 

 presses himself slightingly. (Astrolog. 26.) According to 

 him it was from stupidity and folly that the Arcadians said 

 they were there before the Moon. In the Schol. ad ^Eschyl. 

 Prom. 436, it is observed, that Trpoae\ovfjievov is called 

 vfipi^ofjievov, whence, therefore, the Arcadians were called 

 rrpoffcX'rjvoi, because they are arrogant. The passages in Ovid 

 as to the existence of the Arcadians before the Moon, are 

 universally known. Recently, indeed, the idea has sprung up 

 that all the ancients were deceived by the form Trpoaekyvoi, 

 and that the word (properly TrpoeXXrjvoi) meant only pre- 

 Hellenic, as Arcadia certainly was a Pelasgian country. 



" If, now, it can be proved," continues Professor Franz, 

 "that another people connected their origin with another 

 cosmical body, the trouble of taking refuge in deceptive 

 etymological explanations will be obviated. This kind of 

 testimony exists in the most suitable form. The learned 

 rhetorician Menander says literally in his work, DeEconomiis 

 (sec. ii. cap. 3, ed. Heeren), as follows : ' A third motive for 

 the praise of objects is the time ; this is the case in all the 

 most ancient nations : when we say of a town or of a country 

 it was founded before this or that star, or with those stars, 

 before the flood or after the flood ; as the Athenians affirm 

 they originated at the same time as the Sun, the Arcadians 

 before the Moon, the Delphians immediately after the flood ; 

 these are epochs, and, as it were, starting-points in time.' 



" Therefore Delphi, the connection of which with the flood 

 of Deucalion is otherwise proved (Pausan. x. 6), is surpassed 

 by Arcadia, and Arcadia by Athens. Apollonius Rhodius, 

 who was so fond of imitating old models, expresses himself 

 quite in accordance with this passage, where he says (iv. 

 261), Egypt is said to have been inhabited before all other 

 countries ; ' the stars did not yet all revolve in the heavens ; 

 the Danaides had not yet appeared, nor the race of Deuca- 

 lion; the Arcadians alone existed ; those of whom it is said, 

 that they lived before the Moon, eating acorns upon the 

 mountains.' In the same manner, Nonnus (xli.) says of the 

 Syrian Beroe' 3 that it was inhabited before the time of the Suii. 



