Volume 1

The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman.

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    185/532 (page 119)
    they found the Trojans, who, with Elymus, and Aegeftus, had left Troy before them ; and who, being 176 favoured both by fortune, and the winds, and, at the fame time, not over burthened with baggage, had a quick paffage to Sicily, and were fettled near the river 177 Crimefus, in the country of the Sicani, who, out of friendfhip, had bellowed the land upon them by reafon of their relation to Aegeftus, who had been born, and bred in Sicily by the following accident: One of his anceftors, a man of diftindtion, and of Trojan extraction, being upon ill terms with Laomedon,, the king, feized him for fome reafon, and put him to death*, and, with him, all his male children, left he fhould fuffer fome mifchief from them; but, thinking it unbecoming him to put his daughters to death, as they were yet virgins*, I76, Oj T£ JCOtl TSViV[AOilo? AX- Co/xtvot. I cannot perfuade myfelf that our author defigned as an epithet both for and zvvevy.d]Qc, though I find the Latin tranflators have applied it to both j and fo would Ovid, no doubt, if he had tranfiated it, as any one mayguefs,by the following diftich, which, is, pretty much, in the fame tafte, and which I have heard much admired : Demophoon vent is, et verba, et vela dedijli : Vda queror redituy verba car ere Jide e. This is the language of a witty poet, not of a lovefiek girl, who would have exprelfed herfelf with lefs wit, and more paffion. If I have applied the word favoured both to fortune, and the winds, it is becaule favourable, in our e Phyll. to Demoph. f. language, is applicable to both in a figurative fenfe : But when ap¬ plied to fortune, is in the figurative j and, when to the wind,in a literal fenfe. But this epigrammatic way of writing is much below the dignity of hiftory, and no author defpifes it more than Dionyfius. The only difficulty is, that j, without this epithet, may be thought too general, and not to fignify good fortune: But this difficulty will be removed, if we confider the word, as explained by Hefychius. 177- K£iy.v<r»v. This river, is, fome- times, called K^^go-o?, and, by f Plu¬ tarch, K^jjo-of: It falls into the fea not far from Lilybaeum, on the fouth weft coaft of Sicily, and is, now, called Balici. i$. f Life of TimoX.