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.

    89/532 (page 23)
    delire to qualify themfelves for political debates j to fuch, as are engaged in philofophical fpeculations 5 and to all, who propofe no other end in the contemplation of military a&ions, than an undifturbed entertainment. Thefe things, therefore, will be the fubjeft of my hiftory, and this the form of it. The author is Dionyfius of Halicarnafllis, the fon of Alexander; and, from hence, I begin. IX. THE moft ancient polleffors of the place, where this city, the miftrefs of the whole earth and fea, now ftands, and which the Romans inhabit, are faid to have been the barbarous30 Siceli, natives of the country. As to the con¬ dition of the place before their time, whether it was inha¬ bited, or defert, none can certainly fay. Afterwards, the Aborigines made themfelves mafters of it, having dilpoflefled the inhabitants after a long war: Thefe people lived, before that, on the mountains, in villages without walls, and dif- he will find inftances without number of his ufing it in this fenfe. In fpeak- ing of Demofthenes, he fays, a Ex T«v tvuycoviwv ccu\x Aoyuv cVocrot Siv.txr SY]Pio(, ytyovctri rt a(x.x.Ay,(rioc<;. The lair thing I fhall mention in this note, which I am afraid is, already, too long, is,that, by philofophers, for whofe fatif- fa&ion he propofes the ihoi he does not mean either natural, or moral, but politicalphilofophers : And, however unnatural this alliance may ieem, yet our author, himfelf, fays, that he writ a treatife (now loft) againft thofe, who, unjuftly, cenfured political vTrsf THE nOAITIICHS «>1A020$IAS zrqog TX( KulalgiXovlas cco]tjf 30, ErtiAoi. I do not wonder that the Latin tranflators call thefe people Siculi •, becaufe That was the name they were known by among the Ro¬ mans : But I wonder the French tranf¬ lators fhould call them les Sicilies. However, Thucydides calls them E^ xs;\of, and tells us that, being driven out of Italy, they pafted over into Si¬ cily *, and, having overcome the Si- canians, who were then in poffeflion of that ifland, they caufed it to be hilofophy •, b v (wgayficdvoiv) (rvviia^iutjv a Ilegy Aripotr. Any or. C. 45* ^ ts QvxvS. C. 2, called ZikzAux,c, inftead of Thucyd. B. vi. c. z. nerfed