THEORY OF THE EARTH. 87 



or wild ass, armed with a long horn on its fore- 

 head.* 



Ctesias, who reports these as actual living ani- 

 mals, has been looked upon by some authors as 

 an inventor of fables ; whereas he only attributes 

 real existence to hieroglyphical representations. 

 These strange compositions of fancy have been 

 seen in modern times on the ruins of Persepolis.t 

 It is probable that their hidden meanings may 

 never be , ascertained; but at all events we are 

 quite certain that they were never intended to be 

 representations of real animals. 



Agatharcides, another fabricator of animals, drew 

 his information in all probability from a similar 

 source. The ancient monuments of Egypt still 

 furnish us with numerous fantastic representations, 

 in which the parts of different kinds of creatures 

 are strangely combined men with the heads of 

 animals, and animals with the heads of men; 

 which have given rise to cynocephali, satyrs, and 

 sphinxes. The custom of exhibiting in the same 

 sculpture, in bas-relief, men of very different 

 heights, of making kings and conquerors gigantic, 

 while their subjects and vassals are represented 

 as only a fourth or fifth part of their size, must 



* Id. XVI. 20. Photii Bibl. art. .72 Ctes. Indie. 

 f Le Brun. Voy. to Muscovy, Persia, and India, vol. II. See alse 

 the German work by M. Heeren, on the Commerce of the^Ancients. 



