114 Account of the antient City of Agrigentum. lux, there was once a farge lake, called the Piscina, seven stadia in circuit, and 20 cubits deep; it was cut out of the solid rock, and the water was conveyed to it from the hills. In this lake great quantities of fish were bred for the public feasts; and numerous were the swans and wild fowl on its surface for the amusement of the Citizens, and the depth of it prevented an enemy from surprising the Town from that side. This once beautiful lake is now nearly dry, there only being a small run of water in the centre, and converted into a very fertile garden. The following Account of the antient city of Agrigentum may be interesting: Antient Historians state that Dædalus fled to this spot for protection against Minos, and built many considerable edifices for Cocalus, King of the island*. Polybius says, it was founded by a colony of Rhodians, and that it was situated on a rock, and guarded by a fortress, to which there was only one way of access; and that in the citadel there was a Temple of Minerva, and also of Jupiter Atabyrius, who was worshipped under this appellation, in the isle of Rhodes. Thucydides relates, that Acragas was founded by a colony from Gela, under the command of Aritonous and Pystillus, in the 50th Olympiad, or 579 before Christ. It stood between the rivers Agragas and Hypsa; the former of which is now called Fiume di Gergenti, and Fiume di san Biaggio; and the other, Fiume Drago. The situation of Agrigentum was admirably adapted to the purposes of defence, commerce, and pleasure. It was guarded by a barrier of rocks, which were strongly fortified, sheltered by pleasant hills, and enjoyed the view of a spacious plain, watered [Feb. by the Acragas, and a convenient port or emporium at the mouth of the river. Its free government and commercial spirit raised it to a degree of wealth and power, exceeded only by those of Syracuse. Its buildings of every kind were magnificent and splendid. Besides the Temples of Minerva and Jupiter Atabyrius, that of Jupiter Olympus deserves particular notice. According to Diodorus Siculus, it was 340 feet long §, 60 broad, and 120 feet high, with beautiful columns and porticos, and basreliefs and paintings, executed with exquisite taste. On the East side the Battle of the Giants was exhibited; under the West the Capture of Troy, with the figures of the heroes in their appropriate costumes; but this Temple was never finished; and at the present day there is not one stone remaining upon another, and it is scarcely possible to discover the traces of its plan and dimensions. The inhabitants of Agrigentum, with all their advantages, were corrupted and enfeebled by luxury and pleasure, and fell a sacrifice to the power of their enemies. Empedocles, one of the wisest and best philosophers of antiquity, attempted to reform them, and reproached I them with devoting themselves every day to pleasure, as if they were to die on the morrow, and with building their houses, as if they were to live for ever. They were no less distinguished for their hospitality than for their magnificence and luxury. Gellius, a rich citizen, placed porters at his gate, to invite strangers to take their repast, and rest in his house; and he is said to have once entertained 500 horsemen with meat, drink, and clothes. Xinetus, on being successful at the Olympic games, made his public entry *King of Sicily, who hospitably received Dædalus, when he fled from Minos, King of Crete, whom he had offended, by reason of his imprudence in assisting Pasiphäe in the gratification of her unnatural desires. The inceused Monarch pursued Dædalus, and having arrived at Sicily, was entertained by Cocalus with dissembled friendship, and that he might not deliver to him a man whose ingenuities and abilities he well knew, put Minos to death. It is, however, said by some, that it was one of the daughters of Cocalus who put Minos to death, by detaining him so long in a bath till he fainted, after which they suffocated him. This happened 35 years before the Trojan War. Hist. lib. iv. p. 380, Annal, p. 23. ed. Dukeri. Lib. xiii. tom. i. p. 607. ed. Wesseling. § It is doubtful whether these dimensions are correct, as the extent of the ruins could not be traced 340 feet in 1816; but it is certain this Temple was very extensive. Swinburne's Travels, vol. IV. p. 24. ¶ Diogenes Laertius, 1. 8. segm. 63. vol. I. p. 532. on on his return to the city, with 300 white horses. Phalaris usurped the Sovereignty of Agrigentum in the 2d year of the 52d Olympiad (before Christ 571), and having possessed it about 16 years, shared the common fate of tyrants, and is said to have been put to death by his own bull. After the death of Phalaris, the Agrigentines enjoyed their liberty about 50 years, at the end of which, Theron assumed the sovereign authority. Under his government, which was just and moderate, Agrigentum was tranquil and secure, and in consequence of his union with his son-inlaw, Gelon, King of Syracuse, in a war against the Carthaginians, Sicily was for a time delivered from her African oppressors. He was succeeded by his son, Thrasybulus, who was deprived of the royal authority; and Agrigentum was restored to her old democratical government. Its tranquil lity was interrupted by Ducetius, a chief of the mountaineer descendants of the Siculi, but restored by the co-operation of the Syracusans. The union of the Agrigentines and Syracusans did not long continue; and the former, after an unsuccessful contest, were obliged to submit to humiliating terms of peace. The enemies with whom they had next to contend were the Carthaginians, who routed their armies, took their city, and almost extirpated their race. The situation of Agrigentum, on that Coast of Sicily which faced Africa, and its prodigious wealth, induced Hannibal (in the 92d Olympiad, before Christ 410) to open his campaign with the siege of that city, and the event was peculiarly distressing to the inhabitants. Those who were able to remove during the progress of the siege, which lasted eight months, went to Gela; those who were left behind were put to the sword by the orders of Himilco; and the riches of a city, which bad contained 200,000 inhabitants, and which had never been plundered, were rifled by the conquerors. The city itself was reduced to ruins. Agrigentum remained 50 years buried under its own ruins, till Timo A name familiar to most, on account of his cruelty, and the brazen bull in which he tortured his enemies. leon, after vanquishing the Carthaginians, and restoring liberty to Sicily, collected the descendants of the Agrigentines, and sent them to reestablish the habitations of their ancestors. Such was the vigour and success of their exertions, that Agrigentum was soon in a condition to arrogate supremacy over all the Sicilian republics. At length they and their leader, Xenodices, after some favourable operations against Agathocles, who was supported by the Carthaginians in his usurpation of the sovereignty of Syracuse, were reduced to the necessity of humbly suing to him for peace. afterwards This Commonwealth took a strong part with Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, in his attempt upon Italy; and when he left Sicily to the mercy of her enemies, threw itself into the arms of Carthage. During the first Punic war Agrigentum was the head quarters of the Carthaginians; it was defended by a numerous garrison, under the command of Hanno; and, after resisting a blockade of seven or eight months, was at last surrendered to the Consul Lævinus, in consequence of the trea chery of Mulines, about the year be fore Christ 198. This officer being deprived of his commission by Hanno, because he envied and dreaded his increasing reputation, meditated revenge; and conspiring with the Numidians, who were attached to him, against Hanno, he placed himself at their head, and having seized one of the gates, put the Romans in possession of it. Hanno and a few officers made their escape; but the rest of the army were murdered by the guards, which Lavinus had posted in all the avenues to intercept their flight. The Chiefs of the Agrigentines were, by the Consul's order, first scourged with rods, and then beheaded. The common people were made slaves, and sold to the best bidder. The spoils of the pillaged city were put up to sale, and the money returned to the public treasury t. After this period Agrigentum is seldom mentioned in History; nor is it easy to ascertain the precise time of the destruction of the old city, and the building of Girgenti. W. R. + Livy, lib. xxvi. cxl. vol. III. p. 1138. Ed. Drakenb. Polybius, lib. i. pp. 15-19. PROGRESS 116 Progress of Literature in different Ages. PROGRESS OF LITERATURE IN DIF- (Resumed from p. 16.) [Feb. genius, or by what means it rose to such unexampled brilliancy and celebrity, in a comparatively short space of time after letters had been NATURE, diversified throughout known and cultivated in Greece. all her productions, as well intellectual as material, has, at certain intervals, unveiled her fecundity in the cotemporary existence of a race of intellects, who, to their severe walks of intellectual lucubration, add beauty, dignity, and elevation of thought, and by their joint influence, throw around their country and their age a halo of literary splendour, which by its unusual blaze, draws the eyes of mankind, and arrests, in after ages, the progress and the reflections of all-while, at others, she has in periods, on the whole equally refined, exhibited a lamentable dearth of every thing which stands characterized by invention or genius. Greece first, either through the native invention of her embryo minds, broke the gloom of ignorance and .rudeness which before characterized the apprehensions of mankind, and may be said to have given birth to Philosophy, the Muses, and polite Literature. Although Shaftesbury, and various other writers have attempted to trace the causes which generated in the sons of Greece a standard of thinking, at once, compared with other nations, polished and profound, and founded a literary æra ;-the succession of Orators, Sages, Poets, and Historians, which have not yielded to any who have since striven for fame in the empire of intellect, together with the eminent Artists, Statesmen, and Legislators which, either contemporaries or within a short interval of each other, trod the small extent of her classic ground, have never perhaps received that complete elucidation which some investigators, who delight to mark the progress of manners and of mind, and the circumstances which are auxiliary or pernicious to the growth of each, could desire. The genius of those in antient Greece who made it their concern to examine causes and trace effects, rather turned to hypotheses connected with the study of Nature, in her wide dominions, or to moral philosophy, than employed in contemplating the degrees of capacity in the human and The progression of the human mind, as far as concerns the inventive faculty of the Poet, or the profound investigating capacity of the Philosopher, did not, among the antients, appear to be an object of serious attention, and yet it has, doubtless, in succeeding ages, been frequently a subject of curiosity and admiration with posterity, that the flame and the ardour of inspiration was lighted up with such generous emulation and effect in the breast of Homer, Archilochus, and Pindar; invigorated with such comprehension and force, the minds of Thales, and Anaximander, before society had assumed her settled form and polish,before the enlightened patronage of Pericles had commenced, or ere the wise laws of Solon bad fully operated to add strength to the Government, and security to the Citizen. But although genius and intellect among the Greeks seem, in those ages of antiquity, to have been plants more spontaneously generated, and of quicker growth than on most other soils, their æra of letters and of science has repeatedly, in after-times, been paralleled, in the existence of men of the first eminence, who have flourished contemporaries. These periods in which Nature has been thought, and with reason, to have ripened into more than usual fecundity, are usually designated the ages of Ptolemy, of Augustus, of Leo, of Lewis, and of Anne; and, how. ever through the favour of contemporaries, or the gratitude of poste rity, the claims of some of the individuals who then respectively flourished, may appear sometimes to be overrated, still it will by the candid student be admitted, that the brilliancy of talent in those, who then strove together for literary immortality, far eclipsed in the aggregate similar exhibitions of a prior or succeeding age. Whoever, then, attentively considers the subject, will see sufficient reason for adopting at least the received bypothesis,-that men of brilliant, extensive, and commanding genius have often flourished contemporaries, or within a short time of each other, other, whereas, on the other hand, certain periods of society, which rank equally high in point of civilization, manners, and advantages of an outward kind, present little more than what may be termed a blank in the advances of the human mind, and are certainly unillumined by any brilliant or extensive displays of mental energy. Although not entirely unexplored, -a pretty extensive field for speculative disquisition may be here thought to open to the mind fond of investigating causes, and of tracing effects to their source (if such sources be indeed within the compass of human activity and research,)—a field whose boundaries are yet uninclosed, and the nature of whose productions may detain the traveller for a time without the charge of idle or unprofitable speculation. That one particular age should abound in talent, and become the concentrated seat of the Muses above another, must, doubtless, arise from causes foreign to those of education. -Although Education, or a perceptive cause of training,-the constant and salutary exercise of the mental powers, a meliorating example,—and all the numerous aids attendant upon a constant and intimate intercourse with intelligent society, are very powerful instruments for expanding the faculties, and even of giving them force, still those faculties must originally exist in the germ, in order to be so improved ;-the seeds must be first engendered, or the fruit_will scarcely be matured by any culture of art. When we revert to the History of Literature, and contemplate the biographical annals of past times, it is scarcely to be conceived that the long succession of celebrated men, whether eminent for brilliancy of taste, and acumen of genius, who then stood arrayed in imperishable laurels, arrived at this eminence solely through excellency of those rules and exercises inculcated and enforced upon their youth. The intelligences which animated and inspired a Homer, a Plato, a Milton, or a Newton, —and even the fine taste and captivating graces of sentiment and of style which shone forth in a Xenophon, a Virgil, or an Addison-all will immediately allow to have emanated from causes foreign to those of the polish imbibed from others.-The able and illustrious men of all ages, whose writings we are accustomed to contemplate with respect and admiration, were, doubtless, greatly assisted by those principles of knowledge inculcated by their various masters; it will not be denied, that their intellectual improvement, respectively, was much accelerated, and their talents unfolded through the precepts of those who were intrusted with the direction of their youth;but these precepts were only operating means, they were not the ultimate efficient cause; they were only, so to speak, the tool for polishing the precious metal, which, yet it must be assumed, previously possessed the same value and lustre, although concealed from observation. If the same care and attention had been bestowed upon narrow capacities, the world for ever in vain might have looked for those bright and elevating ideas which, as it now remains, have so often formed, and must ever form, a source of much intellectual delight." The rude and unlettered savage, let his gifts of nature be what they may, is palpably unfit for the exertions of literature; a proper edu. cation, in which he must acquire a world of new ideas, is imperiously requisite to his assuming the character and office of a man of genius ;but even here, nothing can be clearer than that an individual of strong natural talents would be infinitely more qualified to move in the highest sphere, both of science and the Muses, than one of his countrymen of a mean and slender understanding. It can scarcely be owing, (which hypothesis, however, Helvetius, when he speaks of the different excitability in men, must be understood to teach,) to that emulative disposition to become distinguished, and to excel, which is generally observed to rule in minds of any unusual endowments, that men of extraordinary intellec tual accomplishments associate and mutually reflect lustre upon their numerous possessors at particular periods; and after long intervals of comparative ignorance; as this disposition is reducible to the same spring or source as education, which, although it greatly assists in cultivating and forming the understanding, appears, of itself, wholly inadequate to sup ply 118 Progress of Literature.-Palia Gadh, described. ply that parsimony of mental endowments which often seems, among men, capriciously to distinguish Nature's productions. Neither can it be, with any degree of feasibility, pronounced to be the effect merely of a general and excessive refinement in national manners, which is often observed to result from habits of luxury and a super-abundance of wealth. Repeated instances may be selected in the history of the polite nations in the various parts of the world, where all these requisites have been possessed, in which, nevertheless, no signs of attachment to the arts, or a generous and emulative progress in intellectual attainments, have been visible; but where mind has rather, compared with some other epochs, assumed an aspect of shameful imbecility. That the political form of government, under which any particular people associate, has sometimes a material influence upon the general aspect of its literature;—that, as are the degrees of liberty and wisdom which characterize its laws, so, in proportion, is the successful progress of genius displayed,-the most eminent speculators on these subjects have readily acknowledged. History needs only to be examined with that attention which every reflective mind is wont to bestow upon it, in order to be convinced that such influences have indeed been sometimes felt, and have had more than a fancied share in the intellectual exercises of a nation. Although it may be justly doubted whether all the ingenious hypotheses which Dr. Warton, among others, has advanced on this 'subject, are conclusive, it may, yet, perhaps be safely assumed that some of the most celebrated æras of human genius, knowledge, and the arts, have each displayed, in their general character, a complexion somewhat suited to their different political situations and circumstances. The wide range of thought,-the boldness of invention,-the sublimity of sentiment, the speculative turn of mind, which distinguished the Greeks in philosophy, in poetry, and in morals, the liveliness and freedom which characterized most of their compositions in the fine arts, [Feb. and in eloquence, may in a considerable degree be traced to the laws and independence, which, with all its defects, distinguished their republics. The delicacy of thought, and of sentiment, the warmth of fancy,and the force and varied beauty of expression conspicuous among the Romans, bespeak them to be in the highest state of refinement; but, nevertheless, subject to powers whom they held it their duty to conciliate, or saw it their interest to please. Melksham. IN (To be continued.) PALIA GADH. E. P. N our preceding pages we have noticed Capt. Hodgson's discovery of the sources of the Jumna and the Ganges *; and the following curious extract from Mr. Fraser's Tour to the sources of those celebrated rivers, may be considered as interesting. It is a description of a deep and dark glen, named Palia Gadh, which strongly reminds us of the celebrated Tale of the Vampire. "But it would not be easy to convey by any description a just idea of the peculiarly rugged and gloomy wildness of this glen: it looks like the ruins of nature, and appears, as it is said to be, completely impracticable and impenetrable. Little is to be seen except dark rock; wood only fringes the lower parts and the water's edge: perhaps the spots and streaks of snow, contrasting with the general blackness of the scene, heighten the appearance of desolation. No living thing seen; no motion but that of the waters; no sound but their roar. Such a spot is suited to engender superstition, and here it is accordingly found in full growth. Many wild traditions are preserved, and many extravagant stories related of it. On one of these ravines there are places of worship not built by men, but natural piles of stones, which have the said to be the residence of the dewtas, or appearance of small temples. These are spirits, who here haunt and inveigle human beings away to their wild abodes. It is said that they have a particular predilection for beauty in both sexes, and remorsely seize on any whom imprudence or accident may have placed within their power, and whose spirits become like theirs after they are deprived of their corporeal frame. Many instances were given of these ravishments: on one occasion, a young man, who had wandered near their haunts, being carried trance to the p. 350. * See vol. LXXXIX, valley, |