Boo K V 1 1 .] History of Nature. 233 



before Died for his Country, was the most Happy. Again, 

 being consulted by Gyges, the most sumptuous King in all 

 the Earth, the answer was, that Aylaus Psophidius was the 

 more Happy. This Aglaus was a Man somewhat advanced 

 in Years, dwelling in a very narrow corner of Arcadia, 

 where he had a little Estate, which himself cultivated ; and 

 it was sufficient with its yearly Produce to Support him 

 plentifully ; out of it he never went : so that (as appeared by 

 his course of Life,) as he coveted very little, so he expe- 

 rienced as little Trouble while he Lived. 



CHAPTER XLV1I. 



Whom, while Living, they ordered to be Worshipped 

 as a God. 1 



BY the appointment of the same Oracle, arid by the 

 approbation of Jupiter , the Sovereign of the Gods, Euthymus 

 the Wrestler, who always was Conqueror at Olympia, except 

 once, was Consecrated a God while he lived, and knew of it ; 

 he was born at Locri, in Italy, where one Statue of his, as 

 also another at Olympia, were both on one Day struck with 

 Lightning : which I see CaUimachus wondered at, as if 

 nothing else were worthy of Admiration ; and gave order 

 that he should be Sacrificed to, as to a God : which was per- 

 formed accordingly, both while he Lived and after he was 

 Dead. A thing that I wonder at more than at any thing 

 else : that the Gods should have been pleased with such 

 a thing. 



1 It was scarcely more reasonable to worship a man after he was dead 

 than during his life ; and yet Pliny must have joined in the worship of 

 Augustus and Julius Caesar, and have been conscious, as appears from 

 several places of his writings, that the greatest gods of his country had 

 formerly been living men. The egregious vanity of desiring to be sup- 

 posed a god was felt by Alexander the Great, to whose application for 

 recognition in this character the Lacedaemonians replied by an edict, that 

 " If Alexander wished to be a god, he might be a god." Pliny lived to 

 see the brother of his patron Titus, Domitian, exemplify the absurdity of 

 which he complains ; for it appears that the latter emperor was more than 

 ordinarily fond of this assumption of divinity. Wem. Club. 



