norant of the use of arts, and the proper food of man, fup. porting themselves with fruits, with roots, and wild plants. The conquerors who went out of Egypt a few ages af. ter the deluge, had probably carried into Greece fome tincture of the arts; but these first seeds could not profper. The extinction of the family of the Titans, and the destruction of their empire, replunged Greece into anarchy and ignorance. The different colonies which paffed fome time after this event into that part of Europe from Afià and Egypt, drew them from barbarism and rudenefs. Thefe new colonies by mixing themselves with the ancient inhabitants, foftened their manners. They engaged fome families to quit the woods, and join them. They formed focieties in many diftricts. The chiefs of these new establishments imparted to their fubjects the most necessary knowledge for man, and provided for their most preffing neceffities. Greece was infenfibly polished. It was enriched fucceffively by discoveries from Afia and Egypt. Every thing changed its face in that part of Europe. The people were humanized, the arts were folidly established, and acquired even a new degree of perfection. Light fucceeded to the darkness of ignorance and rudeness. Ancient authors do not agree about the time of these happy changes. It is very difficult to determine from their relations, by whom and in what time the arts, were introduced among the Greeks. There remain on these facts the greatest obscurity and the greatest contradictions. Let us try to discover the fource of them. The Greeks had received their arts from the people of Egypt and of Afia; but conformable in this point with all the other nations of antiquity, they would attribute their origin to the gods. This notion has thrown the greatest obfcurity over the history and the epocha of the arts in Greece. We may affign for it many causes. The chiefs of the firft colonies which came into Greece, brought into that part of Europe fome tincture of the arts. They introduced at the fame time the worship of the divi nities honoured in the countries from whence they came. Thefe divinities were for the moft part men whom they had deified in acknowledgment for the ufeful discoveries which they had imparted to mankind. The ftrangers who introduced thefe gods into Greece, without doubt made known alfo the motive of the worship which they paid to them. These first establishments, as I have already faid, did not fubfift long. The family and the empire of the Titans was extinguished after two or three generations. Greece fell immediately into its ancient ftate. Ignorance, an infeparable companion of trouble and anarchy, made them forget thefe events. There only remained a confufed remembrance. The Greeks did not hesitate to confound those who had fhewed them the arts, with the divinities under whofe aufpices they had been brought to them: the first cause of error and confufion. New colonies paffed into Greece fome time after the Titans. The conductors of these various colonies brought again into that part of Europe the arts and the divinities of the countries from whence they came. These countries were nearly the fame with thofe from whence the ancient colonies came, that is to fay, Egypt and Phoenicia. The worship of the divinities which these new colonies introduced, did not differ, either in the form or the motives, from that which the Titan princes had originally brought; a new fource of errors and uncertainties. Ignorance and the courfe of time had confounded these epochs; and they afterwards looked upon those as new inftitutions, whofe origin was very ancient. The divinities of Egypt and Phoenicia, by changing their retreat, infenfibly changed their name. The Greeks, after having adopted them, appropriated them to themselves, and would make it be believed that the gods whom they adored, were born in Greece. In confequence of this, they searched for explications and resemblances agreeable to thofe ideas. The priests took care to propagate them. They disguised the hiftory of the ancient divinities. The truth of the facts was was forgot by little and little. The poets, whom we regard as the divines of paganifm, but who were only in reality the divines of the people, foon made this appear the origin of the gods brought from Egypt and Phoenicia. They invented different circumftances proper to adorn and to clothe their fictions. Inftead of the ancient tradition, they fubftituted gods born in the heart of Greece. This fyftem took almost with every body; pride and superstition favouring it. The Greeks began very late to write hiftory. They had then almost loft fight of those firft events. Yet the memory of them was not fo far abolished, but that there remained fome traces. The fenfible writers of Greece have acknowledged, that all the divinities which they adored had been brought to them from the eaft. But thofe who followed the popular ideas, have written conformably to the system reigning in the minds of the people, and have propagated to us thofe errors adopted in the latter times. Hence that monftrous mixture of ridiculous and abfurd adventures with which the hiftory of the gods of Greece is filled in the greateft part of the writers of antiquity. Hence thofe contradictions which we fo often meetwith in the ancient authors of the origin of arts and the worship of the gods in Greece. We shall fee more than one example. ARTICLE I. Of Tillage. IF F we believe the most generally received opinion, the Greeks were indebted for the knowledge of tillage to a queen of Sicily named Ceres . They have joined to her Triptolemus, fon of Celeus King of Eleufis 1. Thele two perfonages were commonly thought to have fhewn to Greece iSee Herod. 1. 2. n. 50.; Plato, in Cratyl. p. 281. * Marm. Oxon. ep. 12.; Virgil. georg. l. 1. v. 147.; Diod. 1. 5. p. 333.; Ovid. Metam, 1. 5. v. 341.; Hygin. fab. 277.; Plin. I. 7. sect. 57. p. 412. & 415.; Juftin. 1. 2. c. 6. 1 Id. ibid. all all that concerns agriculture, the use of the plough, the way of breaking oxen and fixing them to the yoke, the art of fowing grain and grinding it ". They alfo give to Ceres the merit of having invented carts and other carriages proper to carry burdens. It was, fay they, Celeus, father of Triptolemus, who firft taught men to ufe panniers and bakets to collect and keep the fruits of the earth. The Athenians boast of having firft poffeffed the knowledge of all thofe things, and even of having imparted it to Greece ?. Such had been the most common and generally received fentiment; but it labours under many difficulties. Ancient memoirs give to Bacchus the introduction of tillage into Greece. Pliny and other authors have given the honour to one Buzyges an Athenian. An ancient hiftorian of Crete names for the firft inventor of agriculture one Philomelus. The Argives, laftly, and the Pheneates", difpute with the Athenians the glory of having firft known tillage. We find alfo great contradictions as to the time in which this art began to be established in Greece. If we follow the most common opinion, which gives that honour to Ceres, 'we fhall be much embarraffed about the epoch of that princefs. The Parian marbles, Juftin, and other authors, place the arrival of Ceres in the reign of Erechtheus fixth King of Athens, 1409 years before Chrift. How can we reconcile that date with other facts entirely oppofite, and which appear at least as well fupported? Fable and history agree to make Ceres cotemporary with the Titans, Saturn and Jupiter, &c. ; an ancient tradition fays, that this princefs had learned them to make harvest 2: m Ibid. Virgil. georg. 1. 1. v. 163. Aristid. orat. in Eleuf. t. 1. p. 257. P Diod. 1. 5. p. 333.; Justin. 1. 2. c. 6.; * L. 7. fect. 57. p. 415.; Aufon. ep. 22. p. 674. & 675.; Hefychius, voce they did not hefitate even to divide with her the honours of divinity. They had built temples to Ceres at the time of the son of Phoroneus, and Phoroneus paffed for the first mortal who had reigned in Greece. They say alfo, that the ancient Hercules, him whom they had put in the number of the Dactyli Idæi, had had the guard of the temple of Ceres Mycalefia. Indeed Herodotus does not make the worthip of this goddess fo ancient. He says, that it was brought into Greece by the daughters of Danaus. Yet this event precedes the reign of Erechtheus more than 100 years With refpect to Triptolemus, fome authors have advanced, that he was the fon of the Ocean. They anciently underftood by that expression, a perfon who came by fea in ages very remote. Paufanias confirms one part of these facts. He fays, that, according to the tradition of the Arcadians, Arcas, grandfon of Lycaon, learned from Triptolemus the manner of fowing corn, and that of making bread. This Arcas paffed for one of the fons of Jupiter ". The arrival of Cadmus in Greece falls 1519 years before Chrift. Through the fabulous tracts which diguife the hiftory of this prince, we juft perceive, that in his time the art of fowing grain must have been known, otherwife they could not have imagined to make him till the earth, to fow there the teeth of the dragon which he had conquered. But further, an ancient tradition fays, that Ino, daughter of this prince, wanting to cause a sterility in Boeotia, had engaged those who were to furnish the feeds which were destined to be fown, to place them before the fire to make the feed die . We farther fee, according to fome authors, that Myles fon of Lelex firft King of Laconia was looked upon as the inventor of the millftone. The reign of this prince pre Pauf. 1. 1. c. 39. 40. 1. 2. c. 35. See alfo Diod. I. 5. p. 379. d Pauf. 1. 9. c. 27. e L. 2. n. 171. *They have fixed the arrival of Danaus in Greece 1510 years before Chrißt. f Apollod. 1. 1. p. 13.; Pauf. I. 1. c. 14. 8 L. 8. c. 4. See alfo Strabo, 1. 14. p. 992. 1. 16. p. 1089. A Pauf. 1. 8. c. 3. Apollod. 1. 3. p. 136.; Ovid. metam. 1. 3. V. 102. &c. Apollod. 1. 1. p. 3r.; Hygin. fab. 2.; Pauf. 1. 1. c. 44. p. 108. Pauf 1. 3 C. 2). ceded |