CLASSICAL WORKS, Published by G. and W. B. WHITTAKER, Ave-Maria-lane, London. 1. POLYBIE MEGALOPOLITANI HISTORIARUM quidquid superest. Recensuit, digessit, emendatiore Interpretatione, Varietate Lectionis, Indicibus illustravit JOHANNES SCHWEIGHEUSER, Argentoratensis. Editio Nova. LEXICON POLYBIANUM ab Is. et Merico Casaubonis olim adumbratum, inde ab Jo. AUG. ERNESTI elaboratum, nunc ab J. SCHWEIGHEUSERO passim emendatum, plurimisque partibus auctum. In 5 vols. 8vo. price 47. boards. 2. ARISTOPHANIS COMEDIÆ, ex optimis exemplaribus emendatæ : cum Versione Latina, Variis Lectionibus, Notis, et Emendationibus. Accedunt deperditarum Comoediarum Fragmenta. A RICH. FRANC. PHIL. BRUNCK. In 3 vols. 8vo. price 21. 2s. boards. 1 3. ÆSCHYLI TRAGEDI quæ supersunt. Recensuit, Varietate Lectionis, et Commentario perpetuo illustravit CHR. GOD. SCHUTZ. In 2 vols. 8vo. price 1. 8s. boards. The SCHOLIA and FRAGMENTS, forming the Third Volume, price 14s. boards. 4. C. CORNELII TACITI OPERA. Recognovit, emendavit, Supplementis explevit, Notis, Dissertationibus illustravit GABRIEL BROTIER. In 4 vols. 8vo. price 27. 16s. boards. 5. PINDARI CARMINA ET FRAGMENTA; cum Lectionis Varietate et Annotationibus. Iterum curavit CHR. GOTTL. HEYNE. In 3 vols. 8vo. price 21. 8s. 6. CLAVIS HORATIANA; or, a KEY to the ODES of HORACE. To which are prefixed, a Life of the Poet, and an Account of the Horatian Metres. For the use of Schools. 12mo. price 7s. boards. 7. NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRÆCE. Cura LEUSDENII et GRIESBACHII. In 18mo., uniform with the Regent's Classics. A New Edition, price 7s. boards. J. MITCHELL, who advertised his TRANSLATION OF DAVID'S GRAMMATICAL in the last Journal, begs to observe it may be had of himself, The Monthly Critical Gazette for August, 1824, No. 3, after a diffuse and luminous comment on Greece, Ancient and Modern, the Languages of either epoch, and of the Work itself, thus concludes: We earnestly recommend this useful little work to the notice of the Scholar, the Liberal, the Philhellenist, and the Traveller. It will tend to diffuse a knowledge of Modern Greek at a time when such a knowledge must naturally be a subject of interest, policy, and emulation. The vestiges of Greece's ancient greatness are to be traced by the Traveller. The people retain an accurate echo of that Language, so dear to the Scholar, which, in old times, was so harmonious, so eloquent, and so powerful; and the generation before us recalls to our recollection the Heroes, the Poets, the Philosophers, the Orators, the Historians, of yore, who adorned the most brilliant spot of the civilised world. END OF NO. LIX. THE CLASSICAL CLASSICAL JOURNAL; N°. LX. DECEMBER, 1824. PROFESSOR SCHLEGEL'S HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT AND SPHINX; with Classical and Oriental Remarks. IN undertaking to add my contributions to the history of the Elephant, I allude to its history in the most extended sense. For there is not only a natural history of the Elephant, of which the Antediluvian forms an important part, but also a political and a military; and from the impression which this has made on men's minds have also arisen a mythological, a generic, and a literary. The possession of the Elephant as the strongest of all beasts of burden, has been the mean of increasing the activity of commerce, and augmenting the warlike power of states: in numberless wars, Elephants have been the allies of the human race in the South of Asia in every age, and for some centuries past in those countries which encompass the Mediterranean Sea. The art of taming the Elephant and breaking him into the purposes of war, which we may call the masterpiece of man's bold ingenuity in the exercise of his dominion over the brute creation, was practised in India from an indefinitely remote antiquity :-there it was original and exclusively native. When a similar attempt was, afterwards, made in different countries of Africa, it arose from the instructions in the art, which they had received in India; it by no means originated in the natives of the land, who were deficient in adequate means and motives, but in the more polished people who had settled there. In Natural History, the Indian Elephants have very generally been confounded with the African: not long since, however, a celebrated Naturalist accurately determined the essential difference VOL. XXX. Cl. JI. NO. LX. between these two species of the same genus. The ancients, indeed, were aware that the Indian Elephant, at least in those regions which were accessible to them, surpassed the African iu size, in strength, and in courage. The Indian Elephant was, in general, in higher repute, inasmuch as for thousands of years he had been the territorial partner of men who knew how to tax his capabilities, and who possessed the most correct judgment not only relating to the beautiful, but also to the formidable productions of nature. The Indian mythology is the only one known to us, wherein the Elephant occupies an important post, and where a sort of apotheosis is partly conceded to him. In the architectural remains of India, we not only discover him frequently introduced in sculptures of basso and alto-relievo; but he is blended in the whole of the decorations, and bears artificially formed masses of rock, as a colossal Caryatides. The ancient heroic poems celebrate him as the constant follower of kings and heroes. We may generally remark, that to the allegorical imagery of the poets colossal figures were continually present:-hence many favorite representations were derived, and proverbial expressions which betray an intimate acquaintance with, as it were, the rational properties of the animal:-in fact, a certain reverence is expressed ́in his manifold appellatives, which may have arisen from a conjecture of the rank, which the Elephant may have formerly possessed in another state of our planet among the creatures that lived upon it. On the contrary, the African Elephant partly inhabits unsearchable wildernesses; he scarcely accounts the Lion of the desert a more worthy opponent, than those weak beasts, whose miserable habitations he tramples under his feet, without even remarking it. The Indian Elephant is an Achilles, who has found his Homer: to the African, on the contrary, may be applied the complaint of Alexander the Great, that the deeds of heroes may be lost without the praise of the bard. In our western part of the world, the Elephant was not early known, in general, but he was known in a far more luminous manner. He was introduced to science by the deepest and acutest of observers to the art of war by the most noble of all conquerors; and the knowlege of this distinguished animal, which is unique in his kind, for ever unites itself with the great names of Aristotle and Alexauder. In subsequent centuries, also, when Elephants appeared in increased numbers on the theatre of the world's history, the mention of them (through what divine dispensation I know not) is frequently combined with the memory of the most illustrious men, and the most brilliant events. First of all, for the sake of beginning with the earliest of the 'The Antediluvian. ancients, it is most worthy of remark (as it appears to me) that in the Egyptian remains, not even the smallest trace of an acquaintance with the Elephant appears, notwithstanding in a neighboring country, the upper Ethiopia, he ever has been and still is a native. We have subsequent accounts of the Elephant-hunts of the Ptolemies: the prætors, whom Nero sent to explore Ethiopia, reported,' that they found traces of the Elephant just above Meroë. The Egyptian priests were very attentive to all the productions of nature, which might be useful or detrimental to mankind; and we may reasonably conceive, that among the enormous buildings which they were continually undertaking, where the removal of huge masses of stone must have taken place by land, if they had such a beast of burden, they would have been able to have made good use of him, and to have easily supported him with the superfluity of their corn. But, laying aside the possibility of taming the Elephant, how came it to pass, that they neglected to describe in sculpture so remarkable a colossal figure, if it was known to them, and did not introduce it, as a suitable ornament for their temples and palaces? that they did not take it as an emblem among their hieroglyphics? Egypt was fortunate in its scarcity of wild beasts; -the few which were there, were in many different ways represented in basso-relievo; not only the Crocodile and the Hippopotamus, but even those, which more rarely appeared, as the Wolf or Jackal. Among the Egyptian sculptures, the form of the Camelopardalis,3 too true to be mistaken, is even discovered. This could only have been brought into Egypt as an exhibition; yet, indeed, it is more easily taught by the uncivilised inhabitants of inner Africa, than the formidable Elephant, totally unprovided as he is, with the means of rapid flight. There are not even any Lions in Egypt: the Lion-hunts, of which we have such splendid representations, must, therefore, be supposed to have occurred in the Libyan territories: nevertheless, the Lion, either in his unmixed form, or in one coupled with that of other beasts, was a favorite object of ancient Egyptian sculpture. These Lions, as well as those on Diocletian's baths at Rome, are of such excellent workmanship, and their peculiar properties are executed in such masterly style, that they presuppose a peaceful and undisturbed observation of the habits of the animal on the part of the artist. Beyond doubt, therefore, the Egyptian kings maintained Lions in 'Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. vi. c. 19. 2 Herod. ii. c. 65. 3 See the French description of Egypt, Antiquités, T. i. Planche 95. No. 7. This basso-relievo was found in a temple at Hermonthis, just above Thebes, therefore, certainly, on a very old monument. 4 Description de l'Egypte, Antiquités, T. ii. Planche 9, on the Royal Palace at Thebes. |