in Spain[1]. I shall presently have occasion to mention what I conceive to be another parallel instance. But without dwell- ing on this point, it might be enough to say that, as there can be no doubt that from the earliest times the plains of Asia were covered with numberless barrows, raised by the various tribes who had contended for the possession of the country, if the name of Memnon was celebrated there, it would have been scarcely possibly that it should not have been connected with some of these monuments even before the Trojan war. Wherever a nameless sepulchre was found, there was probably a tale to account for it : just as in all parts of Peloponnesus, but especially in Laconia, the people shewed great barrows which they called the graves of the Phrygians who accom- panied Pelops on his famous expedition[2]. Yet those Phrygians were conquerors. And must we here have recourse to the hypothesis of an Egyptian worship? It would surely not be a very extravagant conjecture, that among those numerous barrows which, as Strabo informs us[3], were in his day shewn almost all over Asia, and called by the name of Semiramis, some at least passed among the natives for her tombs. This however, I must acknowledge, is an argument which would drop out of my hands, if any one should choose to deny that Semi- ramis had any thing to do with the Assyrian dominion, and should contend that she is only another representative of the Egyptian worship, which Mr J. supposes to have prevailed throughout Asia until it was compelled to give way to the Persian arms[4]. The barrow on the Æsepus was apparently distinguished by the neighbourhood of Troy, and by being
- ↑ Jug. 18 — postquam in Hispania Hercules, sicut Afri putant, interiit, exercitus ejus compositus ex variis gentibus, amisso duce ac passim multis, sibi quisque, imperium petentibus, brevi'dilabitur. Ex eo numero Medi, Persae, et Armeni, navibus ill Africam trans vecti proxumos nostro mari locos occupavere. So that Hercules must have come from Susa and Ecbatana. Pliny N. H. v. 8 : Pharusii quondam Persae comites fuisse dicuntur Herculis ad Hesperidas tendentis.
- ↑ Athen. p. 625. F. (
Greek characters)
- ↑ XVI. p. 737. (Greek characters)
- ↑ Note p. 27. " The triumph of the Persian arms put an end to the Egyptian worship in Asia, and the sepulchral palaces of Memnon were converted into residences of kings."
