cxvm NOTES. 



tradition, more or less prevalent opinions or beliefs, I think that the fol- 

 lowing explanation may not be unwelcome to a portion of my readers : 



"We begin with some leading passages from the ancients, which treat of 

 the Proselenes. Stephanus, of Byzantium (V. 'Apxds) mentions the logo- 

 graph Hippys, of Rhegium, a contemporary of Darius and Xerxes, as the first 

 who called the Arcadians irpofff\4\vovs. The Scholiasts ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 

 264, and ad Aristoph. Nub. 397, concur in saying, that the high anti- 

 quity of the Arcadians is most clearly shown by their being called n-poffeXtjvot ; 

 and th?t they would seem to have been there before the Moon, as is also said 

 by Eudoxus and Theodorus ; to which the latter adds that the Moon appeared 

 a short time before the combat of Hercules. Aristotle, in speaking of the 

 civil constitution of the Tegeates, says that the barbarians who previously 

 inhabited Arcadia were driven out by the later Arcadians before the Moon 

 appeared, and were called on that account po(r4\yvoi. Others say that 

 Endyinion discovered the revolutions of the Moon, and that as he was an 

 Arcadian, his countrymen were called after him irpoffe^voi. Lucian speaks 

 in terms of censure, saying (Astrolog. 26) that the Arcadians, from waut of 

 understanding, and from folly, asserted that they were a people more ancient 

 than the Moon. In Schol. ad ^Eschyl. Prom. 436, it is remarked : 

 is v/BpigAp.fi'ov, whence also the Arcadians are termed 

 t, because they have too much pride. The passages in Ovid re- 

 specting the prelunar existence of the Arcadians are well known. Very 

 recently the idea has tjeen propounded that the ancients were themselves 

 generally deceived by the form irpo<reAijj/ot ; the word (properly, irpoe\\-r}voi) 

 signifying prehellenic, as Arcadia was a Pelasgic country." 



" Jf, now, it can be proved," continues Professor Franz, " that another 

 nation connects its descent with another heavenly body, we may be spared the 

 trouble of having recourse to illusive etymologies ; and the means of such 

 proof do actually exist in the best form. The learned Rhetor Meriauder 

 (about A.D. 270), sayS in his writing " de encomiis" (sect. ii. cap. 3, ed. 

 Heeren) as follows : A third topic of praise is afforded by time, as is the 

 case with all that is most ancient ; as when we say of a city or of a country, 

 that it was built or was settled before this or that star or luminary, or 

 coeval with the stars, or before or soon after the flood : as the Athenians 

 assert that they were coeval with the Sun, the Arcadians that they were more 

 ancient than the Moon, and the Delphiaus that they originated immediately 

 after the flood : for these are eras or periods of commencement in time. 



