metal. Five hundred young virgins followed, all decked with crowns of gold; after them, one hundred and twenty satyrs in complete armour, some of silver and others of brass; and these, to render the scene as varied and diverting as possible, were succeeded by five troops of asses, glittering in gold and silver trappings, with Sileni and satyrs mounted on their backs. Next came sixty Æthiopian savages, carrying vases full of gold and silver coin, and loaded with the gold dust which their country so abundantly produces. Priapus was too important to be excluded from a Phallic festival, and therefore he appeared conspicuous with a brilliant diadem of gold. The city of Corinth, then the centre of luxury and voluptuousness, was represented by a female of great majesty and beauty, and wore a diadem of equal brilliancy. Alexander himself conjured up from the shades of Erebus, accompanied by Ptolemy and his other favourite generals, was seen stalking among the motley crowd, admiring the magnificence of his new-built city, and issuing orders for the conquest of new worlds. Before him, was carried a monstrous vase of gold, possibly in allusion to his death by the Herculean cup, and it was full of small golden cups, by which the stream of intemperance flowed among the individuals present at the fatal banquet. But now

a still more splendid and crowded scenery took place, and the great distinguishing pageants of the pomp were ushered in by a vast and beautiful train of women, representing the cities of Ionia and the Grecian islands, all bearing crowns of gold, inscribed with the name of each city, represented and decorated with a profusion of golden ornaments allusive to its peculiar history and commerce. They moved on majestically, with measured step, before a fourwheeled car, bearing an immense thyrsus of gold, ninety cubits long; and by its side a silver lance of the length of sixty cubits. On another superb car was elevated a PHALLUS of gold, one hundred and twenty cubits in length, and of the circumference of six cubits; crowned on the summit with a radiated star that blazed in gold. Three hundred youths followed this stupendous ensign of Bacchus, wearing on their heads crowns of gold, and carrying, in their hands, guitars overlaid with plates of that metal, which sounded forth symphonies that waked the transported soul to the pleasures of love and the festivities of wine. The procession, in honour of Bacchus, closed with a procession of no less than two thousand bulls, the animal sacred to that deity, each wearing a frontlet of gold, surmounted with a golden crown; and also adorned with a collar and AGIS of gold.-Bacchus,

under the terrestrial name of Osiris, being the god-king of Egypt, and the founder of its most ancient dynasty, the reader will scarcely be surprised, that, in the celebration of his rites, all the treasures of that kingdom should be displayed, and that it even surpassed in splendor the pomp of Jupiter and other deities, which now took place, but which can only be cursorily noticed.

As Alexander was the son of Jupiter, his statue, in massy gold, appeared conspicuous in that procession, and, after them, were borne several royal thrones, fabricated of gold and ivory, (among them, probably Solomon's,) to mark his subversion and seizure of the imperial thrones of Asia. All these thrones bore crowns of gold, and golden cornucopia, a symbol which we see constantly impressed on the coins of the Ptolemies. Nothing, however, could equal in value or lustre the gorgeous throne of Ptolemy Soter himself, set with jewels, and decorated, with a crown; in making which, our author informs us, were expended ten thousand pieces of gold, though of what weight he does not specify. Then followed three hundred censers of gold, in which were burned the richest perfumes of Egypt and Arabia, and which wafted around the assembly those exquisite odours so necessary to relieve the spirits, that began to be

wearied with a procession so prolonged, though so brilliant. After the censers, were borne fifty gilt altars, with crowns of gold on each, and on one of which were fixed four torches cased with gold, six cubits in height; twelve gilt hearths, of vast dimensions, for the sacred fires; nine Delphic tripods of solid gold, four cubits in height; eight others, six cubits high; another worthy of Apollo himself, thirty cubits in height, adorned with animals, wrought in gold, each five cubits high, and circled with a chaplet of gold, formed to resemble vine-leaves. Besides these, there was an infinite variety of vessels richly gilt, which it is beyond our purpose to enumerate; but the historian, summing up the number of gold crowns, exhibited in the pomp of Jupiter alone, makes the whole amount to three thousand and two hundred, independent of a most magnificent one, of the height of eighty cubits, which was placed over the portal of the temple of Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy, but taken down to increase the unequalled splendor of this festival.

The most remarkable articles exhibited in

the pomps of other deities were a great ægis of gold; the innumerable crowns of gold worn by the virgins that contributed to form those pomps; a gold thorax of twelve cubits; another of silver, eighteen cubits high; a peculiarly

splendid diadem formed to resemble oak-leaves, and glittering with precious stones; twenty shields of solid gold; sixty-four sets of complete armour all of gold, with greaves of gold, probably of a vast magnitude, and these were displayed in the procession in honour of Mars or Hercules; dishes, phials, vases, and pitchers, of gold; and, in particular, five tables, decorated with gold goblets; a prodigious cornucopia of gold, of the height of thirty cubits; the whole pomp being closed with twenty carts loaded with smaller vessels of gold; and four hundred full of pateræ, vessels, and other utensils of silver.*

The reader, who does not possess a warm Oriental fancy, may possibly be inclined to think all this a fable wilder than Arabian; and yet Athenæus is an author of great respectability, and due attention to what has before been observed, concerning the rich and abundant sources whence the treasures of Eastern princes were derived, renders the whole account extremely probable; for, notwithstanding all the expensive, and some disastrous, wars, in which the Ptolemies were engaged for a series of years with the kings of Syria, their potent rivals in wealth and fame, from the Roman accounts

* Vide Athenæi Deipnosophist. lib. v. p. 197 to 203. Edit. Casaubon.