THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY. 



93 



the Persian Gulf : it is altogether unlikely that he reached the 

 shores of India. Euergetes plundered him of his wealth upon 

 his return, but died soon after, leaving the throne to his widow 

 Cleopatra. 



The queen took Eudoxus into favor, and sent him upon a 

 fresh voyage. He seems to have been driven by unfavorable 

 winds upon the coast of Abyssinia, where he made advan- 

 tageous bargains with the inhabitants. He rescued from the 

 water a fragment of a wreck, — the prow of a vessel which, from 

 a sculpture representing the figure of a horse, seemed to have 

 come from the West. This prow was exhibited by Eudoxus 

 in the harbor of Alexandria, and was declared by some mari- 

 ners from Cadiz to be of the precise form peculiar to large vessels 

 which went from that port to fish upon the coast of Mauritania, or 

 Morocco. It was evident, therefore, to the ardent mind of Eu- 

 doxus, that this fragment of a wrecked vessel, left to the mercy of 

 the waves, had performed the grand maritime problem of antiquity, 

 — the circuit of Africa. He abandoned himself with enthusiastic 

 credulity to the enticing hope that he might himself succeed in 

 achieving this darling object of the ambition of princes, kings, 

 and states. 



He determined to renounce the deceitful patronage of courts, 

 and to start with a new expedition from Cadiz. He went thither 

 by way of Massilia and other trading settlements, and urged 

 all who were animated by the spirit of progress to follow him. 

 He thus succeeded in equipping an armada, consisting of one 

 ship and two large boats, on board of which were not only goods 

 and provisions and the necessary crews, but artisans, scientific 

 men, and musicians. The very ardor and extravagance of their 

 hopes, and perhaps, too, the undue gayety in which they took 

 their departure, unfitted them to encounter the dangers and 

 hardships of African discovery. The crew were frightened 

 at the swell of the open sea through which Eudoxus wished 

 to make his way, and insisted upon following the shore, accord- 



