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Rh No more victims, and gifts, and incense-offering,—"the gods may sit in heaven and starve." Damis and Timocles are to meet again, he understands, for public discussion, and Jupiter verily fears that unless the gods give some help to their own champion, the other will get the best of it. He begs that some one of the assembly will get up in his place and offer some advice. Mercury invites any "who are of the legal standing in point of age" (we are to understand there are a great many newly-introduced deities in the council) to rise and deliver his opinion.

To make the burlesque more complete, it is Momus, the jester of the Olympian conclave, who first rises in reply to Jupiter's invitation. He has long expected this, and is not surprised at it. The gods have brought it upon themselves, by neglecting their duties notoriously. Here, among friends and gods, with no mortal to hear, he may venture to speak openly. Has Jupiter himself been careful to make distinction between the good and the evil upon earth? Has virtue found any reward, or vice any punishment? What have any of them been caring for but their victims and their dues? What shameful stories they have allowed the poets to tell of their private life!—stories which, he


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34 admits, may possibly be true enough, yet not meet to be told to mortal hearers. And then the oracles, worse than vague, positively deceptive—witness those notorious productions of Apollo's about the empire which Crœsus was to destroy by crossing the Halys, and the sons of women who were to meet their fate at Salamis. No marvel if, when the gods are so remiss in their duties, men begin to grow tired of worshipping them.

Jupiter protests against such ribald language. He quotes his Demosthenes to the effect that it is much more easy to abuse and to find fault than to offer suggestions under difficulties.

Then Neptune asks leave to say a few words. He lives, indeed, at the bottom of the sea, and is not in the habit of interfering much in affairs on land, but he strongly advises that this Damis shall be silenced at once—by lightning, or some such irresistible argument. But Jupiter replies, very fairly, that this would only be a tacit admission on the part of the gods that they had no other kind of argument to offer. Apollo gives it as his opinion that the fault lies in Timocles himself, who, though a very sensible man, has not the knack of putting an argument clearly. Upon which Momus remarks that the recommendation of clearness and perspicuity certainly comes with a curious kind of propriety from Apollo, considering the style of his own oracular utterances. He invites him to give them an oracle now,—which of the two disputants will get the better in this contest? Apollo tries to excuse himself, on the ground that he has no tripod or incense, or other appliances at hand, and

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Rh that he can do this kind of thing in much better style at Colophon or at Delphi. At last, urged by Jupiter to prove his art, and so put a stop to the jeers of Momus, he proceeds, with same apology for extempore versifying, to deliver an utterly incomprehensible oracle, which fully justifies the criticisms of his brother deity. Hercules offers to pull down the whole portico on the head of Damis, if the controversy should seem to be taking a turn unfavourable to the Olympian interests.

But now a messenger arrives from earth, no other than the brazen statue of Hermagoras—Mercury of the Forum—who stands in front of the Pœcile at Athens. He comes to announce—adopting the new fashion of heroics set by Jupiter—that the duel of the philosophers has been renewed. The gods agree to go down to see the battle, and the scene of the dialogue is supposed to change at once to Athens. There Timocles is trying to argue with his infidel opponent. He wonders, he says, that men do not stone him for his impious assertions. Damis does not see why men should take that trouble: the gods, if gods they be, can surely take their own part; they hear him, and yet they do not strike. But they will, replies Timocles; their vengeance is sure though slow. They are otherwise occupied, retorts the sceptic—gone out to dinner, perhaps, with those "blameless Ethiopians"—they often do, according to Homer; possibly, sometimes, even without waiting for an invitation. In vain does his opponent argue from the harmony and order of creation, and from the general consent of mankind: the very diversities of national worship, the many


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36 absurd forms of superstition, are claimed by his opponent as arguments on the other side. Timocles compares the world to a ship, which could not keep its course without a steersman. Damis replies that if there were, indeed, a divinity at the helm of this world's affairs, he would surely parcel out the duties of his crew better than he appears to do—putting the rascals and lubbers in command, and letting the best men be stowed away in holes and corners, and kept on short rations besides. Timocles, as a last resource, threatens to break the head of his opponent, who runs away laughing. Jupiter is in doubt, however, on which side the real victory lies. Mercury consoles him that the gods have still the majority on their side—three-fourths of the Greeks, all the rabble, and all the barbarians. "Nay, my son," replies Jupiter, "but that saying of Darius had much truth, which he uttered of his faithful general Zopyrus: I, too, had rather have one man like Damis on my side than ten thousand Babylonians."

The satire, in its bold scepticism, seems to go much beyond the "Dialogues of the Gods." In those, it is but the absurdities of the popular mythology—always incredible, one cannot but think, to the educated intelligence—which he ridicules and exposes; a creed which, if it could be supposed to have any influence upon the moral conduct of men, could only have had an influence for evil. But in that which has now been sketched, he attacks the belief in a divine providence


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Rh altogether: and though most of the arguments against such government of the world are chiefly taken from the manifest falsehood of certain items of the Greek popular creed, still the tone is too much that of pure materialism.

In this amusing scene the absurdities of polytheism are put in the broadest light, and treated with the most admirable humour. The object of the Council, which is summoned by Jupiter's orders, is to institute a strict scrutiny into the right and title of the new gods—aliens and foreigners of all kinds and shapes—to a seat in the house of Olympus. They have lately found their way into heaven in such numbers that they are becoming quite a nuisance, as we have seen in the complaint made both by Neptune and Mercury in the dialogue just preceding.

Momus is again the chief spokesman; freedom of speech is, as he says, one of his main characteristics, and he is in the habit of giving his opinion without fear or favour. So, with Jupiter's permission, he will name some of what he considers the most gross cases of intrusion.

Momus. First, there is Bacchus; a grand pedigree his is!—half a mortal, not even a Greek by his mother's side, but the grandson of some Syro-Phœnician merchant-captain, Cadmus. Since he has been dignified with immortality, I shall say nothing about himself,—his style of head-dress, his drinking, or his unsteady gait. You can all see what he is, I suppose—more like a woman


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 outward bound, and I assure you changing at Lagos Bar throws changing at Clapham Junction into the shade. Now in order to make this latter point clear to that unfortunate victim the general reader, he, or she, must be dragged througha disquisition on Lagos and its bar.

Lagos is a marvellous manifestation of the perversity of man coupled with the perversity of nature, being at one and the same time one of the most important exporting ports on the West African seaboard, and one of the most difficult to get at. The town of Lagos is situated on an island in the Lagos River, a river which is much given to going into lagoons and mud, and which has its bar about two miles out. The entire breadth of the channel through this bar is half a mile, at least on paper. On each side of this channel are the worst set of breakers in West Africa, and its resident population consists of sharks, whose annual toll of human life is said by some authorities to be fourteen, by others forty, but like everything else connected with Lagos Bar, it is uncertain, but bad. This entrance channel, however, at the best of times has not more than thirteen feet of water on it, and so although the British African and Royal African lines of steamers are noble pedestrians, thinking nothing of walking a mile or so when occasion requires, and as capable of going over a grass-plot with the dew on it as any ocean vessels ever built, I am bound to own they do require a certain amount of water to get on with. They can sit high and dry on a sand or mud-bank—they prefer mud I may remark with any vessel. I have often been on them when engaged in this pastime, but it does undoubtedly cause delay, and this being the case they do not go alongside at Lagos, but lie outside the bar. Now such is the pestilential nature of Lagos Bar that even the carefully built branch boats, the noble Dodo and Qwarra, to say nothing of the Forcados and others, although drawing only ten feet, are liable to stick. For the channel, instead of sticking to its governmentally reported thirteen feet, is prone to be nine feet, and exceeding prone also to change its position; and moreover, even supposing the branch boat to get across all right, the heavy swell outside with its great rollers lounging along, intent on breaking on the bar,


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Rh

The Tannaim were the possessors of what was perhaps the greatest principle that dominated a literature until the close of the eighteenth century. They maintained that literature and life were co-extensive. It was said of Jochanan, the son of Zakkai, that he never walked a single step without thinking of God. Learning the Torah, that is, the Law, the authorized Word of God, and its Prophetical and Rabbinical developments, was man's supreme duty. “If thou hast learned much


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24 Torah, ascribe not any merit to thyself, for therefor wast thou created.” Man was created to learn; literature was the aim of life. We have already seen what kind of literature. Jochanan once said to his five favorite disciples: “Go forth and consider which is the good way to which a man should cleave.” He received various answers, but he most approved of this response: “A good heart is the way.” Literature is life if it be a heart-literature—this may be regarded as the final justification of the union effected in the Mishnah between learning and righteousness.

Akiba, who may be taken to represent the second generation of Tannaim, differed in character from Jochanan. Jochanan had been a member of the peace party in the years 66 to 70; Akiba was a patriot, and took a personal part in the later struggle against Rome, which was organized by the heroic Bar Cochba in the years 131 to 135. Akiba set his face against frivolity, and pro-


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754 Westmorland, Roman road in, 377; sur- vival of Keltic speech in, 546 West Saxons, invasion of Britain by, 380;

conquests of, 380 Whitby, 379

Whymper, Edward, sees halo on the Matter- horn, 4

Wid, River. 8m Utus Widimir, King of the Ostrogoths, 429, 438; comes to relief of Theodoric, 439; settles in Pannonia, 468; attacks Italy, 471

Wig, traditional ancestor of royal family of Wessex, 384

Wight, Isle of, included in defence of coast, 378 ; Jutes in, 382 sq., 389 ; kingdom of, 389

Wihtgar, nephew of Cerdic, said to have occupied the Isle of Wight, 383, 389 Willibrod, Benedictine missionary, 541 Winchester (Venta Belgarum), Romano- British town, 373 ; Roman road through, 376

Wipbach. See Frigidus Withicab, King of the Alemanni, murdered, 224

Withimir, King of the Ostrogoths, defeated and slain, 215, 253

Withington, Roman pavement at, 614 note Woden, chief divinity of Teutonic mytho- logy, 386 Wdrpe-Bach, 186 Wolkoi (Volcae). See Walchen Worcestershire, kingdom of Hwicoe includes part of, 390

Worms, taken by the Alemanni, 66, 266;

victory of AStius at, 361 Wreocensaete. Sec Shropshire Wroxeter (Viroconium or Urioonium), Ro- mano-British town, 373; results of ex- cavations at, 374; 380; Roman roads at, 376 sq.

Wilrtemberg, 853 note Wulfila, Gothic general, commands for Honorius in Gaul, 274 Wyrtgeorn. See Vortigern

X an ten, country of the Chattuarii, 295 Xystus. See Sixtus

Yenisei, River, 324

Yexdegerd I, King of Persia, commercial treaty with, 462 ; makes his brother king of Armenia, 463; persecutes Christians, 464 ; death, ib.

Yesdegerd II, King of Persia, at war with Rome, 466 sq.

York (Ebur&cum), death of Constantius at,

3 ; Roman fortress at, 309 ; Roman town, 370; Roman civilisation in the vale of. 372; foundation of, 373; Roman road at, 377

York, Bishop of, at Council of Arles, 12 Yorkshire, Roman forts in, 369; Deira includes part of, 390 ; El met part of, 391 Yseel (Isala), River, Saxons return to, 69; Chamavi settled near, 295 ; 296

Zabdicene, 74

Zabern, Julian reaches, 66 sq. ; Julian fortifies pass of, 68; 209 note Zaragoza, Majorian at, 309 Zaragoza, Council of, reference to monasti- dam in canons of, 532 Zeno, Emperor of the East (Tarasicodisaa), 113 ; makes treaty with Burgundian king, 284 ; coins of, found in Childeric’s tomb, 299; makes peace with Gaiseric, 311; driven out by Basiliscus, 429, 437, 473, 515; becomes sole emperor, 431, 472: restored, 435, 473, 515 ; receives embassy from Western Empire, 435, 443 ; statues of, eet up in Rome, 436; sends Theodoric to Italy, 438 ; 467 ; leader of Isaurians, 470 ; marries Ariadne, ib. ; made maffister militum, ib. ; reveals treachery of Arda- burius, 471 ; and the affairs of the Western Empire, 474 ; and Ulus, 475 sq. ; treats with both Theodorics, 476 sq.; gives up Verina to 111 us, 476; promotes Ulus. 477; 478; and the succeesion, 479; death, ib. ; sale of property of, 480 ; 483 ; policy of, 515 ; and the Henoticon, 516 sq. : excommunicated by Simplicius, 517, 518 : closes school of Edessa, 519; land legis- lation under, 560 sq.

Zeno, son of the Emperor Zeno, dies, 479 Zeno, leader of Isaurians, defends Con- stantinople 467 ; made maffister mildlum per Orientem, ib. ; death, ib.

Zenonis, wife of Basiliscus, favours Armatus. 473

Zeugitana (Africa Proconsularis), assigned to Vandrls, 307, 413 ; 316; Catholic clergy expelled from, 320 ; 410 Zizais, King of the Sarm&tae Liberi, 71 Zonaraa, cited, 61 note Zosimus, Bishop of Rome, 151, 179 sq. ; decretal letters of, 182

Zosimus, historian, 21 ; opposes Christianity.

113 ; cited, 8, 15, 236, 273 Zlilpich (Tolbiacum), a principal city of the Ripu&rian Franks, 300 ; battle at, ib. Zuiderzee, 296; Saxons settled near, 3S4