A classical dictionary / containing a copious account of all the proper names mentioned in ancient authors with tables of coins, weights, and measures used among the Greeks and Romans and a chronological table

by John Lemprière

O

Oarses, the original name of Artaxerxes Memnon.

Oarus, a river of Sarmatia, falling into the Palus Mœotis. Herodotus, bk. 4.

Oăsis, a town about the middle of Libya, at the distance of seven days’ journey from Thebes in Egypt, where the Persian army, sent by Cambyses to plunder Jupiter Ammon’s temple, was lost in the sands. There were two other cities of that name very little known. Oasis became a place of banishment under the lower empire. Strabo, bk. 17.—Zosimus, bk. 5, ch. 97.—Herodotus, bk. 3, ch. 26.

Oaxes, a river of Crete, which received its name from Oaxus the son of Apollo. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 1, li. 66.

Oaxus, a town of Crete where Etearchus reigned, who founded Cyrene.——A son of Apollo and the nymph Anchiale.

Obringa, now Ahr, a river of Germany, falling into the Rhine above Rimmagen.

Obultronius, a questor put to death by Galba’s orders, &c. Tacitus.

Ocalea, or Ocalia, a town of Bœotia. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2.——A daughter of Mantineus, who married Abas son of Lynceus and Hypermnestra, by whom she had Acrisius and Prœtus. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 2.

Oceia, a woman who presided over the sacred rites of Vesta for 57 years with the greatest sanctity. She died in the reign of Tiberius, and the daughter of Domitius succeeded her. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 2, ch. 86.

Oceănĭdes and Oceanītĭdes, sea nymphs, daughters of Oceanus, from whom they received their name, and of the goddess Tethys. They were 3000 according to Apollodorus, who mentions the names of seven of them: Asia, Styx, Electra, Doris, Eurynome, Amphitrite, and Metis. Hesiod speaks of the eldest of them, and reckons 41: Pitho, Admete, Prynno, Ianthe, Rhodia, Hippo, Callirhoe, Urania, Clymene, Idyia, Pasithoe, Clythia, Zeuxo, Galuxaure, Plexaure, Perseis, Pluto, Thoe, Polydora, Melobosis, Dione, Cerceis, Xantha, Acasta, Ianira, Telestho, Europa, Menestho, Petrea, Eudora, Calypso, Tyche, Ocyroe, Crisia, Amphiro, with those mentioned by Apollodorus, except Amphitrite. Hyginus mentions 16, whose names are almost all different from those of Apollodorus and Hesiod, which difference proceeds from the mutilation of the original text. The Oceanides, like the rest of the inferior deities, were honoured with libations and sacrifices. Prayers were offered to them, and they were entreated to protect sailors from storms and dangerous tempests. The Argonauts, before they proceeded on their expedition, made an offering of flour, honey, and oil, on the sea-shore, to all the deities of the sea, and sacrificed bulls to them, and entreated their protection. When the sacrifice was made on the sea-shore the blood of the victim was received in a vessel, but when it was in the open sea, the blood was permitted to run down into the waters. When the sea was calm, the sailors generally offered a lamb or a young pig, but if it was agitated by the winds, and rough, a black bull was deemed the most acceptable victim. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 3.—Horace.—Apollonius, Argonautica.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 341.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 349.—Apollodorus, bk. 1.

Oceănus, a powerful deity of the sea, son of Cœlus and Terra. He married Tethys, by whom he had the most principal rivers, such as the Alpheus, Peneus, Strymon, &c., with a number of daughters who are called from him Oceanides. See: [Oceanides]. According to Homer, Oceanus was the [♦]father of all the gods, and on that account he received frequent visits from the rest of the deities. He is generally represented as an old man with a long flowing beard, and sitting upon the waves of the sea. He often holds a pike in his hand, whilst ships under sail appear at a distance, or a sea monster stands near him. Oceanus presided over every part of the sea, and even the rivers were subjected to his power. The ancients were superstitious in their worship to Oceanus, and revered with great solemnity a deity to whose care they entrusted themselves when going on any voyage. Hesiod, Theogony.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 5, li. 81, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 3, ch. 20.—Homer, Iliad.

[♦] ‘fathers’ replaced with ‘father’

Ocellus, an ancient philosopher of Lucania. See: [Lucanus].

Ocēlum, a town of Gaul. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 1, ch. 10.

Ocha, a mountain of Eubœa, and the name of Eubœa itself.——A sister of Ochus, buried alive by his orders.

Ochesius, a general of Ætolia in the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad, bk. 5.

Ochus, a surname given to Artaxerxes III., king of Persia. See: [Artaxerxes].——A man of Cyzicus, who was killed by the Argonauts. Flaccus, bk. 3.——A prince of Persia, who refused to visit his native country for fear of giving all the women each a piece of gold. Plutarch.——A river of India, or of Bactriana. Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 16; bk. 31, ch. 7.——A king of Persia. He exchanged his name for that of Darius. See: [Darius Nothus].

Ocnus, a son of the Tiber and of Manto, who assisted Æneas against Turnus. He built a town, which he called Mantua after his mother’s name. Some suppose that he is the same as Bianor. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 9; Æneid, bk. 10, li. 198.——A man remarkable for his industry. He had a wife as remarkable for her profusion; she always consumed and lavished away whatever the labours of her husband had earned. He is represented as twisting a cord, which an ass standing by eats up as soon as he makes it; whence the proverb of the cord of Ocnus often applied to labour which meets no return, and which is totally lost. Propertius, bk. 4, poem 3, li. 21.—Pliny, bk. 35, ch. 11.—Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 29.

Ocricŭlum, now Otricoli, a town of Umbria near Rome. Cicero, For Milo.—Livy, bk. 19, ch. 41.

Ocridion, a king of Rhodes, who was reckoned in the number of the gods after death. Plutarch, Græcæ Quæstiones, ch. 27.

Ocrīsia, a woman of Corniculum, who was one of the attendants of Tanaquil the wife of Tarquinius Priscus. As she was throwing into the flames, as offerings, some of the meats that were served on the table of Tarquin, she suddenly saw in the fire what Ovid calls obscœni forma virilis. She informed the queen of it, and when by her orders she had approached near it, she conceived a son who was called Servius Tullus, and who, being educated in the king’s family, afterwards succeeded to the vacant throne. Some suppose that Vulcan had assumed that form which was presented to the eyes of Ocrisia, and that the god was the father of the sixth king of Rome. Plutarch, de Fortuna Romanorum.—Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 27.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 6, li. 627.

Octacillius, a slave who was manumitted, and who afterwards taught rhetoric at Rome. He had Pompey the Great in the number of his pupils. Suetonius, Rhetoricians.—Martial, bk. 10, ltr. 79.

Octāvia, a Roman lady, sister to the emperor Augustus, and celebrated for her beauty and virtues. She married Claudius Marcellus, and after his death, Marcus Antony. Her marriage with Antony was a political step to reconcile her brother and her husband. Antony proved for some time attentive to her, but he soon after despised her for Cleopatra, and when she attempted to withdraw him from this unlawful amour by going to meet him at Athens, she was secretly rebuked, and totally banished from his presence. This affront was highly resented by Augustus, and though Octavia endeavoured to pacify him by palliating her husband’s behaviour, he resolved to revenge her cause by arms. After the battle of Actium and the death of Antony, Octavia, forgetful of the injuries she had received, took into her house all the children of her husband and treated them with maternal tenderness. Marcellus her son by her first husband was married to a niece of Augustus, and publicly intended as a successor to his uncle. His sudden death plunged all his family into the greatest grief. Virgil, whom Augustus patronized, undertook upon himself to pay a melancholy tribute to the memory of a young man whom Rome regarded as her future father and patron. He was desired to repeat his composition in the presence of Augustus and of his sister. Octavia burst into tears as soon as the poet began; but when he mentioned, Tu Marcellus eris, she swooned away. This tender and pathetic encomium upon the merit and the virtues of young Marcellus was liberally rewarded by Octavia, and Virgil received 10,000 sesterces for every one of the verses. Octavia had two daughters by Antony, Antonia Major and Antonia Minor. The elder married Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, by whom she had Cnæus Domitius the father of the emperor Nero, by Agrippina the daughter of Germanicus. Antonia Minor, who was as virtuous and as beautiful as her mother, married Drusus the son of Tiberius, by whom she had Germanicus and Claudius, who reigned before Nero. The death of Marcellus continually preyed upon the mind of Octavia, who died of melancholy about 10 years before the christian era. Her brother paid great regard to her memory, by pronouncing himself her funeral oration. The Roman people also showed their respect for her virtues by their wish to pay her divine honours. Suetonius, Augustus.—Plutarch, Antonius, &c.——A daughter of the emperor Claudius by Messalina. She was betrothed to Silanus, but by the intrigues of Agrippina, she was married to the emperor Nero in the 16th year of her age. She was soon after divorced on pretence of barrenness, and the emperor married Poppæa, who exercised her enmity upon Octavia by causing her to be banished into Campania. She was afterwards recalled at the instance of the people, and Poppæa, who was resolved on her ruin, caused her again to be banished to an island, where she was ordered to kill herself by opening her veins. Her head was cut off and carried to Poppæa. Suetonius in Claudius, ch. 27; Nero, chs. 7 & 35.—Tacitus, Annals, bk. 12.

Octāviānus, or Octāvius Cæsar, the nephew of Cæsar the dictator. After the battle of Actium and the final destruction of the Roman republic, the servile senate bestowed upon him the title and surname of Augustus, as more expressive of his greatness and dignity. See: [Augustus].

Octāvius, a Roman officer who brought Perseus king of Macedonia a prisoner to the consul. He was sent by his countrymen to be guardian to Ptolemy Eupator the young king of Egypt, where he behaved with the greatest arrogance. He was assassinated by Lysias, who was before regent of Egypt. The murderer was sent to Rome.——A man who opposed Metellus in the reduction of Crete by means of Pompey. He was obliged to retire from the island.——A man who banished Cinna from Rome, and became remarkable for his probity and fondness of discipline. He was seized and put to death by order of his successful rivals Marius and Cinna.——A Roman who boasted of being in the number of Cæsar’s murderers. His assertions were false, yet he was punished as if he had been accessary to the conspiracy.——A lieutenant of Crassus in Parthia. He accompanied his general to the tent of the Parthian conqueror, and was killed by the enemy as he attempted to hinder them from carrying away Crassus.——A governor of Cilicia. He died in his province, and Lucullus made applications to succeed him, &c.——A tribune of the people at Rome, whom Tiberias Gracchus his colleague deposed.——A commander of the forces of Antony against Augustus.——An officer who killed himself, &c.——A tribune of the people, who debauched a woman of Pontus from her husband. She proved unfaithful to him, upon which he murdered her. He was condemned under Nero. Tacitus, Annals & Histories.—Plutarch, Lives.—Florus.—Livy, &c.——A poet in the Augustan age, intimate with Horace. He also distinguished himself as an historian. Horace, bk. 1, satire 10, li. 82.

Octodūrus, a village in the modern country of Switzerland, now called Martigny. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 3, ch. 1.

Octogesa, a town of Spain, a little above the mouth of the Iberus, now called Mequinensa. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 1, ch. 61.

Octolophum, a place of Greece. Livy, bk. 31.

Ocyălus, one of the Phæacians with Alcinous. Homer, Odyssey.

Ocypĕte, one of the Harpies, who infected whatever she touched. The name signifies swift flying. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 265.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 9.——A daughter of Thaumas.——A daughter of Danaus.

Ocy̆roe, a daughter of Chiron by Chariclo, who had the gift of prophecy. She was changed into a mare. See: [Melanippe]. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 638, &c.——A woman, daughter of Chesias, carried away by Apollo, as she was going to a festival at Miletus.

Odenātus, a celebrated prince of Palmyra. He early inured himself to bear fatigues, and by hunting leopards and wild beasts, he accustomed himself to the labours of a military life. He was faithful to the Romans; and when Aurelian had been taken prisoner by Sapor king of Persia, Odenatus warmly interested himself in his cause, and solicited his release by writing a letter to the conqueror and sending him presents. The king of Persia was offended at the liberty of Odenatus; he tore the letter, and ordered the presents which were offered to be thrown into a river. To punish Odenatus, who had the impudence, as he observed, to pay homage to so great a monarch as himself, he ordered him to appear before him, on pain of being devoted to instant destruction, with all his family, if he dared to refuse. Odenatus disdained the summons of Sapor, and opposed force to force. He obtained some advantages over the troops of the Persian monarch, and took his wife prisoner with a great and rich booty. These services were seen with gratitude by the Romans; and Gallienus, the then reigning emperor, named Odenatus as his colleague on the throne, and gave the title of Augustus to his children and to his wife, the celebrated Zenobia. Odenatus, invested with new power, resolved to signalize himself more conspicuously by conquering the northern barbarians, but his exaltation was short, and he perished by the dagger of one of his relations, whom he had slightly offended in a domestic entertainment. He died at Emessa, about the 267th year of the christian era. Zenobia succeeded to all his titles and honours.

Odessus, a seaport town at the west of the Euxine sea in Lower Mœsia, below the mouths of the Danube. Ovid, bk. 1, Tristia, poem 9, li. 57.

Odeum, a musical theatre at Athens. Vitruvius, bk. 5, ch. 9.

Odīnus, a celebrated hero of antiquity, who flourished about 70 years before the christian era, in the northern parts of ancient Germany, or the modern kingdom of Denmark. He was at once a priest, a soldier, a poet, a monarch, and a conqueror. He imposed upon the credulity of his superstitious countrymen, and made them believe that he could raise the dead to life, and that he was acquainted with futurity. When he had extended his power, and increased his fame by conquest and by persuasion, he resolved to die in a different manner from other men. He assembled his friends, and with a sharp point of a lance he made on his body nine different wounds in the form of a circle, and as he expired he declared he was going into Scythia, where he should become one of the immortal gods. He further added that he would prepare bliss and felicity for such of his countrymen as lived a virtuous life, who fought with intrepidity, and who died like heroes in the field of battle. These injunctions had the desired effect; his countrymen superstitiously believed him, and always recommended themselves to his protection whenever they engaged in a battle, and they entreated him to receive the souls of such as had fallen in war.

Odītes, a son of Ixion, killed by Mopsus at the nuptials of Pirithous. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, li. 457.——A prince killed at the nuptials of Andromeda. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, li. 97.

Odoācer, a king of the Heruli, who destroyed the western empire of Rome, and called himself king of Italy, A.D. 476.

Odomanti, a people of Thrace on the eastern banks of the Strymon. Livy, bk. 45, ch. 4.

Odŏnes, a people of Thrace.

Odry̆sæ, an ancient people of Thrace, between Abdera and the river Ister. The epithet of Odrysius is often applied to a Thracian. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, li. 490; bk. 13, li. 554.—Statius, Achilleis, bk. 1, li. 184.—Livy, bk. 39, ch. 53.

Odyssēa, one of Homer’s epic poems, in which he describes in 24 books the adventures of Ulysses on his return from the Trojan war, with other material circumstances. The whole of the action comprehends no more than 55 days. It is not so esteemed as the Iliad of that poet. See: [Homerus].

Odyssēum, a promontory of Sicily, at the west of Pachynus.

Œa, a city of Africa, now Tripoli. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 4.—Silius Italicus, bk. 3, li. 257.——Also a place in Ægina. Herodotus, bk. 5, ch. 83.

Œagrus, or Œager, the father of Orpheus by Calliope. He was king of Thrace, and from him mount Hæmus, and also the Hebrus, one of the rivers of the country, have received the appellation of Œagrius, though Servius, in his commentaries, disputes the explanation of Diodorus, by asserting that the Œagrus is a river of Thrace, whose waters supply the streams of the Hebrus. Ovid, Ibis, li. 414.—Apollonius, bk. 1, Argonautica.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 524.—Silius Italicus, bk. 5, li. 463.—Diodorus.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 3.

Œanthe and Œanthia, a town of Phocis, where Venus had a temple. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 38.

Œax, a son of Nauplius and Clymene. He was brother to Palamedes, whom he accompanied to the Trojan war, and whose death he highly resented on his return to Greece, by raising disturbances in the family of some of the Grecian princes. Dictys Cretensis.—Apollodorus, bk. 2.—Hyginus, fable 117.

Œbălia, the ancient name of Laconia, which it received from king Œbalus, and thence Œbalides puer is applied to Hyacinthus as a native of the country, and Œbalius sanguis is used to denominate his blood. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 10.——The same name is given to Tarentum because built by a Lacedæmonian colony, whose ancestors were governed by Œbalus. Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 125.—Silius Italicus, bk. 12, li. 451.

Œbălus, a son of Argalus or Cynortas, who was king of Laconia. He married Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, by whom he had Hippocoon, Tyndarus, &c. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 10.——A son of Telon and the nymph Sebethis, who reigned in the neighbourhood of Neapolis in Italy. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 734.

Œbăres, a satrap of Cyrus, against the Medes. Polyænus, bk. 7.——A groom of Darius son of Hystaspes. He was the cause that his master obtained the kingdom of Persia, by his artifice in making his horse neigh first. See: [Darius I.] Herodotus, bk. 3, ch. 85.—Justin, bk. 1, ch. 10.

Œchălia, a country of Peloponnesus in Laconia, with a small town of the same name. This town was destroyed by Hercules, while Eurytus was king over it, from which circumstance it was often called Eurytopolis.——A small town of Eubœa, where, according to some, Eurytus reigned, and not in Peloponnesus. Strabo, bks. 8, 9, & 10.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 291.—Ovid, Heroides, poem 9; Metamorphoses, bk. 9, li. 136.—Sophocles, Trachiniæ, li. 74 & Scholia.

Œclīdes, a patronymic of Amphiaraus son of Œcleus. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 7.

Œcleus. See: [Oicleus].

Œcumenius, wrote in the middle of the 10th century a paraphrase of some of the books of the New Testament in Greek, edited in two vols., folio, Paris, 1631.

Œdipŏdia, a fountain of Thebes in Bœotia.

Œdĭpus, a son of Laius king of Thebes and Jocasta. As being descended from Venus by his father’s side, Œdipus was born to be exposed to all the dangers and the calamities which Juno could inflict upon the posterity of the goddess of beauty. Laius the father of Œdipus was informed by the oracle, as soon as he married Jocasta, that he must perish by the hands of his son. Such dreadful intelligence awakened his fears, and to prevent the fulfilling of the oracle, he resolved never to approach Jocasta; but his solemn resolutions were violated in a fit of intoxication. The queen became pregnant, and Laius, still intent to stop this evil, ordered his wife to destroy her child as soon as it came into the world. The mother had not the courage to obey, yet she gave the child as soon as born to one of her domestics, with orders to expose him on the mountains. The servant was moved with pity, but to obey the commands of Jocasta, he bored the feet of the child, and suspended him with a twig by the heels to a tree on mount Cithæron, where he was soon found by one of the shepherds of Polybus king of Corinth. The shepherd carried him home; and Peribœa the wife of Polybus, who had no children, educated him as her own child, with maternal tenderness. The accomplishments of the infant, who was named Œdipus, on account of the swelling of his feet (οἰδεω tumeo, ποδες pedes), soon became the admiration of the age. His companions envied his strength and his address; and one of them, to mortify his rising ambition, told him he was an illegitimate child. This raised his doubts; he asked Peribœa, who, out of tenderness, told him that his suspicions were ill-founded. Not satisfied with this, he went to consult the oracle of Delphi, and was there told not to return home, for if he did, he must necessarily be the murderer of his father, and the husband of his mother. This answer of the oracle terrified him; he knew no home but the house of Polybus, therefore he resolved not to return to Corinth, where such calamities apparently attended him. He travelled towards Phocis, and in his journey, met in a narrow road Laius on a chariot with his arm-bearer. Laius haughtily ordered Œdipus to make way for him. Œdipus refused, and a contest ensued, in which Laius and his arm-bearer were both killed. As Œdipus was ignorant of the quality and of the rank of the men whom he had just killed, he continued his journey, and was attracted to Thebes by the fame of the Sphynx. This terrible monster, which Juno had sent to lay waste the country [See: [♦][Sphinx]], resorted in the neighbourhood of Thebes, and devoured all those who attempted to explain, without success, the enigmas which he proposed. The calamity was now become an object of public concern, and as the successful explanation of an enigma would end in the death of the Sphynx, Creon, who at the death of Laius had ascended the throne of Thebes, promised his crown and Jocasta to him who succeeded in the attempt. The enigma proposed was this: What animal in the morning walks upon four feet, at noon upon two, and in the evening upon three? This was left for Œdipus to explain; he came to the monster and said, that man, in the morning of life, walks upon his hands and his feet; when he has attained the years of manhood, he walks upon his two legs; and in the evening, he supports his old age with the assistance of a staff. The monster, mortified at the true explanation, dashed his head against a rock and perished. Œdipus ascended the throne of Thebes, and married Jocasta, by whom he had two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Ismene and Antigone. Some years after, the Theban territories were visited with a plague; and the oracle declared that it should cease only when the murderer of king Laius was banished from Bœotia. As the death of Laius had never been examined, and the circumstances that attended it never known, this answer of the oracle was of the greatest concern to the Thebans; but Œdipus, the friend of his people, resolved to overcome every difficulty by the most exact inquiries. His researches were successful, and he was soon proved to be the murderer of his father. The melancholy discovery was rendered the more alarming when Œdipus considered, that he had not only murdered his father, but that he had committed incest with his mother. In the excess of his grief he put out his eyes, as unworthy to see the light, and banished himself from Thebes, or, as some say, was banished by his own sons. He retired towards Attica, led by his daughter Antigone, and came near Colonus, where there was a grove sacred to the Furies. He remembered that he was doomed by the oracle to die in such a place, and to become the source of prosperity to the country in which his bones were buried. A messenger upon this was sent to Theseus king of the country, to inform him of the resolution of Œdipus. When Theseus arrived, Œdipus acquainted him, with a prophetic voice, that the gods had called him to die in the place where he stood; and to show the truth of this he walked, himself, without the assistance of a guide, to the spot where he must expire. Immediately the earth opened, and Œdipus disappeared. Some suppose that Œdipus had not children by Jocasta, and that the mother murdered herself as soon as she knew the incest which had been committed. His tomb was near the Areopagus, in the age of Pausanias. Some of the ancient poets represent him in hell, as suffering the punishment which crimes like his seemed to deserve. According to some, the four children which he had were by Euriganea the daughter of Periphas, whom he married after the death of Jocasta. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 5.—Hyginus, fable 66, &c.—Euripides, Phœnician Women, &c.—Sophocles, Œdipus Tyrannus & Colonus, Antigone, &c.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 1.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11, ch. 270.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 5, &c.—Statius, Thebaid, bk. 8, li. 642.—Seneca, Œdipus.—Pindar, Olympian, ch. 2.—Diodorus, bk. 5.—Athenæus, bks. 6 & 10.

[♦] ‘Sphynx’ replaced with ‘Sphinx’ to match listing

Œme, a daughter of Danaus by Crino. Apollodorus.

Œnanthes, a favourite of young Ptolemy king of Egypt.

Œne, a small town of Argolis. The people were called Œneadæ.

Œnea, a river of Assyria. Ammianus.

Œneus, a king of Calydon in Ætolia, son of Parthaon, or Portheus, and Euryte. He married Althæa the daughter of Thestius, by whom he had Clymenus, Meleager, Gorge, and Dejanira. After Althæa’s death, he married Peribœa the daughter of Hipponous, by whom he had Tydeus. In a general sacrifice, which Œneus made to all the gods upon reaping the rich produce of his fields, he forgot Diana, and the goddess, to revenge this unpardonable neglect, incited his neighbours to take up arms against him, and, besides, she sent a wild boar to lay waste the country of Calydonia. The animal was at last killed by Meleager and the neighbouring princes of Greece, in a celebrated chase, known by the name of the chase of the Calydonian boar. Some time after, Meleager died, and Œneus was driven from his kingdom by the sons of his brother Agrius. Diomedes, however, his grandson, soon restored him to his throne; but the continual misfortunes to which he was exposed rendered him melancholy. He exiled himself from Calydon, and left his crown to his son-in-law Andremon. He died as he was going to Argolis. His body was buried by the care of Diomedes, in a town of Argolis, which from him received the name of Œnoe. It is reported that Œneus received a visit from Bacchus, and that he suffered the god to enjoy the favours of Althæa, and to become the father of Dejanira, for which Bacchus permitted that the wine of which he was the patron should be called among the Greeks by the name of Œneus (οἰνος). Hyginus, fable 129.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 8.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 9, li. 539.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 25.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 510.

Œniadæ, a town of Acarnania. Livy, bk. 26, ch. 24; bk. 38, ch. 11.

Œnĭdes, a patronymic of Meleager son of Œneus. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 10.

Œnoe, a nymph who married Sicinus, the son of Thoas king of Lemnos. From her the island of Sicinus had been called Œnoe.——Two villages of Attica were also called Œnoe. Herodotus, bk. 5, ch. 74.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 7.——A city of Argolis, where Œneus fled when driven from Calydon. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 25.——A town of Elis in the Peloponnesus. Strabo.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 8.—Pausanias, bk. 1, &c.

Œnŏmaus, a son of Mars, by Sterope the daughter of Atlas. He was king of Pisa in Elis, and father of Hippodamia, by Evarete daughter of Acrisius, or Eurythoa the daughter of Danaus. He was informed by the oracle that he should perish by the hands of his son-in-law, therefore as he could skilfully drive a chariot he determined to marry his daughter only to him who could outrun him, on condition that all who entered the list should agree to lay down their life, if conquered. Many had already perished, when Pelops son of Tantalus proposed himself. He previously bribed Myrtilus the charioteer of Œnomaus, by promising him the enjoyment of the favours of Hippodamia, if he proved victorious. Myrtilus gave his master an old chariot, whose axletree broke on the course, which was from Pisa to the Corinthian isthmus, and Œnomaus was killed. Pelops married Hippodamia, and became king of Pisa. As he expired, Œnomaus entreated Pelops to revenge the perfidy of Myrtilus, which was executed. Those that had been defeated when Pelops entered the lists, were Marmax, Alcathous, Euryalus, Eurymachus, Capetus, Lasius, Acrias, Chalcodon, Lycurgus, Tricolonus, Prias, Aristomachus, Æolius, Eurythrus, and Chronius. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 17; bk. 6, ch. 11, &c.—Apollonius Rhodius, bk. 1.—Propertius, bk. 1, poem 2, li. 20.—Ovid, Ibis, li. 367; Ars Amatoria, bk. 2, li. 8; Heroides, poem 8, li. 70.

Œnon, a part of Locris on the bay of Corinth.

Œnōna, an ancient name of the island Ægina. It is also called Œnopia. Herodotus, bk. 8, ch. 46.——Two villages of Attica are also called Œnona, or rather Œnoe.——A town of Troas, the birthplace of the nymph Œnone. Strabo, bk. 13.

Œnōne, a nymph of mount Ida, daughter of the river Cebrenus in Phrygia. As she had received the gift of prophecy, she foretold to Paris, whom she married before he was discovered to be the son of Priam, that his voyage into Greece would be attended with the most serious consequences, and the total ruin of his country, and that he should have recourse to her medicinal knowledge at the hour of death. All these predictions were fulfilled; and Paris, when he had received the fatal wound, ordered his body to be carried to Œnone, in hopes of being cured by her assistance. He expired as he came into her presence; and Œnone was so struck at the sight of his dead body, that she bathed it with her tears, and stabbed herself to the heart. She was mother of Corythus by Paris, and this son perished by the hand of his father when he attempted, at the instigation of Œnone, to persuade him to withdraw his affection from Helen. Dictys Cretensis.—Ovid, de Remedia Amoris li. 457; Heroides, poem 5.—Lucan, bk. 9.

Œnŏpia, one of the ancient names of the island Ægina. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 7, li. 473.

Œnopĭdes, a mathematician of Chios. Diodorus, bk. 1.

Œnopion, a son of Ariadne by Theseus, or, according to others, by Bacchus. He married Helice, by whom he had a daughter called Hero, or Merope, of whom the giant Orion became enamoured. The father, unwilling to give his daughter to such a lover, and afraid of provoking him by an open refusal, evaded his applications, and at last put out his eyes when he was intoxicated. Some suppose that this violence was offered to Orion after he had dishonoured Merope. Œnopion received the island of Chios from Rhadamanthus, who had conquered most of the islands of the Ægean sea, and his tomb was still seen there in the age of Pausanias. Some suppose, and with more probability, that he reigned not at Chios, but at Ægina, which from him was called Œnopia. Plutarch, Theseus.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 4.—Diodorus.—Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 4.—Apollonius Rhodius, bk. 3.

Œnōtri, the inhabitants of Œnotria.

Œnōtria, a part of Italy, which was afterwards called Lucania. It received this name from Œnotrus the son of Lycaon, who settled there with a colony of Arcadians. The Œnotrians afterwards spread themselves into Umbria and as far as Latium, and the country of the Sabines, according to some writers. The name of Œnotria is sometimes applied to Italy. That part of Italy where Œnotrus settled, was before inhabited by the Ausones. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 8, ch. 11.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 3.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 536; bk. 7, li. 85.—Silius Italicus, bk. 8, li. 220.

Œnotrĭdes, two small islands on the coast of Lucania, where some of the Romans were banished by the emperors. They were called Ischia and Pontia.

Œnōtrus, a son of Lycaon of Arcadia. He passed into Magna Græcia with a colony, and gave the name of Œnotria to that part of the country where he settled. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 1, ch. 11.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 3.

Œnūsæ, small islands near Chios. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 31.—Thucydides, bk. 8.——Others on the coast of the Peloponnesus, near Messenia. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 17.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.

Œonus, a son of Licymnius, killed at Sparta, where he accompanied Hercules; and as the hero had promised Licymnius to bring back his son, he burnt his body and presented the ashes to the afflicted father. From this circumstance arose a custom of burning the dead among the Greeks. Scholia, Homer, Iliad.——A small river of Laconia. Livy, bk. 34, ch. 28.

Œnoe, an island of Bœotia formed by the Asopus. Herodotus, bk. 9, ch. 50.

Œta, now Banina, a celebrated mountain between Thessaly and Macedonia, upon which Hercules burnt himself. Its height has given occasion to the poets to feign that the sun, moon, and stars arose behind it. Mount Œta, properly speaking, is a long chain of mountains which runs from the straits of Thermopylæ and the gulf of Malia, in a western direction, to mount Pindus, and from thence to the bay of Ambracia. The straits or passes of mount Œta are called the straits of Thermopylæ, from the hot baths and mineral waters which are in the neighbourhood. These passes are not more than 25 feet in breadth. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Catullus, poem 66, li. 54.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 20, &c.—Ovid, Heroides, poem 9; Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 216; bk. 9, li. 204, &c.—Virgil, Eclogues, poem 8.—Pliny, bk. 25, ch. 5.—Seneca, Medea.—Lucan, bk. 3, &c.——A small town at the foot of mount Œta near Thermopylæ.

Œty̆lus, or Œty̆lum, a town of Laconia, which received its name from Œtylus, one of the heroes of Argos. Serapis had a temple there. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 25.

Ofellus, a man whom, though unpolished, Horace represents as a character exemplary for wisdom, economy, and moderation. Horace, bk. 2, satire 2, li. 2.

Ofi, a nation of Germany. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 28.

Ogdolăpis, a navigable river flowing from the Alps. Strabo, bk. 6.

Ogdōrus, a king of Egypt.

Oglosa, an island in the Tyrrhene sea, east of Corsica, famous for wine, and now called Monte Christo. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 6.

Ogmius, a name of Hercules among the Gauls. Lucian, Hercules.

Ogoa, a deity of Mylassa in Caria, under whose temple, as was supposed, the sea passed. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 10.

Ogulnia lex, by Quintus and Cnæus Ogulnius, tribunes of the people, A.U.C. 453. It increased the number of pontifices and augurs from four to nine. The addition was made to both orders from plebeian families.——A Roman lady as poor as she was lascivious. Juvenal, satire 6, li. 351.

Ogy̆ges, a celebrated monarch, the most ancient of those that reigned in Greece. He was son of Terra, or, as some suppose, of Neptune, and married Thebe the daughter of Jupiter. He reigned in Bœotia, which from him is sometimes called Ogygia, and his power was also extended over Attica. It is supposed that he was of Egyptian or Phœnician extraction; but his origin, as well as the age in which he lived, and the duration of his reign, are so obscure and unknown, that the epithet of Ogygian is often applied to everything of dark antiquity. In the reign of Ogyges there was a deluge, which so inundated the territories of Attica, that they remained waste for near 200 years. This, though it is very uncertain, is supposed to have happened about 1764 years before the christian era, and previous to the deluge of Deucalion. According to some writers, it was owing to the overflowing of one of the rivers of the country. The reign of Ogyges was also marked by an uncommon appearance in the heavens, and, as it is reported, the planet Venus changed her colour, diameter, figure, and her course. Varro, de Re Rustica, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 5.—Augustine, City of God, bk. 18, &c.

Ogy̆gia, a name of one of the gates of Thebes in Bœotia. Lucan, bk. 1, li. 675.——One of the daughters of Niobe and Amphion, changed into stones. Apollodorus.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 8.——An ancient name of Bœotia, from Ogyges, who reigned there.——The island of Calypso, opposite the promontory of Lacinium in Magna Græcia, where Ulysses was shipwrecked. The situation, and even the existence of Calypso’s island, is disputed by some writers. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 10.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 1, lis. 52 & 85; bk. 5, li. 254.

Ocy̆ris, an island in the Indian ocean.

Oicleus, a son of Antiphates and Zeuxippe, who married Hypermnestra daughter of Thestius, by whom he had Iphianira, Polybœa, and Amphiaraus. He was killed by Laomedon when defending the ships which Hercules had brought to Asia, when he made war against Troy. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 15.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 8; bk. 3, ch. 6.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 17.

Oīleus, a king of the Locrians. His father’s name was Odoedocus, and his mother’s Agrianome. He married Eriope, by whom he had Ajax, called Oileus from his father, to discriminate him from Ajax the son of Telamon. He had also another son called Medon, by a courtesan called Rhene. Oileus was one of the Argonauts. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 45.—Apollonius, bk. 1.—Hyginus, fables 14 & 18.—Homer, Iliad, bks. 13 & 15.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 10.

Olane, one of the mouths of the Po.——A mountain of Armenia.

Olanus, a town of Lesbos.

Olastræ, a people of India. Lucan, bk. 3, li. 249.—Pliny, bk. 6, ch. 20.

Olba, or Olbus, a town of Cilicia.

Olbia, a town of Sarmatia at the confluence of the Hypanis and the Borysthenes, about 15 miles from the sea, according to Pliny. It was afterwards called Borysthenes and Miletopolis, because peopled by a Milesian colony, and is now supposed to be Oczakow. Strabo, bk. 7.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.——A town of Bithynia. Mela, bk. 1, ch. 19.——A town of Gallia Narbonensis. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 5.——The capital of Sardinia. Claudian.

Olbius, a river of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 14.

Olbus, one of Æetes’ auxiliaries. Valerius Flaccus, bk. 6, li. 639.

Olchinium, or Olcinium, now Dulcigno, a town of Dalmatia, on the Adriatic. Livy, bk. 45, ch. 26.

Olbades, a people of Spain. Livy, bk. 21, ch. 5.

Oleăros, or Oliaros, one of the Cyclades, about 16 miles in circumference, separated from Paros by a strait of seven miles. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 126.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 7, li. 469.—Strabo, bk. 10.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.

Oleatrum, a town of Spain near Saguntum. Strabo.

Olen, a Greek poet of Lycia, who flourished some time before the age of Orpheus, and composed many hymns, some of which were regularly sung at Delphi, on solemn occasions. Some suppose that he was the first who established the oracle of Apollo at Delphi where he first delivered oracles. Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 35.

Olenius, a Lemnian killed by his wife. Valerius Flaccus, bk. 2, li. 164.

Olĕnus, a son of Vulcan, who married Lethæa, a beautiful woman, who preferred herself to the goddesses. She and her husband were changed into stones by the deities. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 10, li. 68.——A famous soothsayer of Etruria. Pliny, bk. 28, ch. 2.

Olĕnus, or Olenum, a town of Peloponnesus between Patræ and Cyllene. The goat Amalthæa, which was made a constellation by Jupiter, is called Olenia, from its residence there. Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 22.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 3.—Strabo, bk. 8.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 8.——Another in Ætolia.

Oleorus, one of the Cyclades, now Antiparo.

Olgasys, a mountain of Galatia.

Oligyrtis, a town of Peloponnesus.

Olinthus, a town of Macedonia. See: [Olynthus].

Olisipo, now Lisbon, a town of ancient Spain on the Tagus, surnamed Felicitas Julia (Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 22), and called by some Ulysippo, and said to be founded by Ulysses. Mela, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Solinus, bk. 23.

Olitingi, a town of Lusitania. Mela, bk. 3, ch. 1.

Olīzon, a town of Magnesia in Thessaly. Homer.

Titus Ollius, the father of Poppæa, destroyed on account of his intimacy with Sejanus, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 13, ch. 45.——A river rising in the Alps, and falling into the Po, now called the Oglio. Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 103.

Ollovĭco, a prince of Gaul, called the friend of the republic by the Roman senate. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 7, ch. 31.

Olmiæ, a promontory near Megara.

Olmius, a river of Bœotia, near Helicon, sacred to the Muses. Statius, Thebaid, bk. 7, li. 284.

Oloosson, now Alessone, a town of Magnesia. Homer.

Olophyxus, a town of Macedonia on mount Athos. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 22.

Olpæ, a fortified place of Epirus, now Forte Castri.

Olus (untis), a town at the west of Crete.

Olympeum, a place of Delos.——Another in Syracuse.

Olympia (orum), celebrated games which received their name either from Olympia, where they were observed, or from Jupiter Olympius, to whom they were dedicated. They were, according to some, instituted by Jupiter after his victory over the Titans, and first observed by the Idæi Dactyli, B.C. 1453. Some attribute the institution to Pelops, after he had obtained a victory over Œnomaus and married Hippodamia; but the more probable, and indeed the more received opinion is, that they were first established by Hercules in honour of Jupiter Olympius, after a victory obtained over Augias, B.C. 1222. Strabo objects to this opinion, by observing that if they had been established in the age of Homer, the poet would have undoubtedly spoken of them, as he is in every particular careful to mention the amusements and diversions of the ancient Greeks. But they were neglected after their first institution by Hercules, and no notice was taken of them, according to many writers, till Iphitus, in the age of the lawgiver of Sparta, renewed them, and instituted the celebration with greater solemnity. This reinstitution, which happened B.C. 884, forms a celebrated epoch in Grecian history, and is the beginning of the Olympiad. See: [Olympias]. They, however, were neglected for some time after the age of Iphitus, till Corœbus, who obtained a victory, B.C. 776, reinstituted them to be regularly and constantly celebrated. The care and superintendence of the games were entrusted to the people of Elis, till they were excluded by the Pisæans, B.C. 364, after the destruction of Pisa. These obtained great privileges from this appointment; they were in danger neither of violence nor war, but they were permitted to enjoy their possessions without molestation, as the games were celebrated within their territories. Only one person superintended till the 50th Olympiad, when two were appointed. In the 103rd Olympiad, the number was increased to 12, according to the number of the tribes of Elis. But in the following Olympiad, they were reduced to eight, and afterwards increased to 10, which number continued till the reign of Adrian. The presidents were obliged solemnly to swear that they would act impartially, and not take any bribes, or discover why they rejected some of the combatants. They generally sat naked, and held before them the crown which was prepared for the conqueror. There were also certain officers to keep good order and regularity, called ἀλυται, much the same as the Roman lictors, of whom the chief was called ἀλυταρχης. No women were permitted to appear at the celebration of the Olympian games, and whoever dared to trespass this law was immediately thrown down from a rock. This, however, was sometimes neglected, for we find not only women present at the celebration, but also some among the combatants, and some rewarded with the crown. The preparations for these festivals were great. No person was permitted to enter the lists if he had not regularly exercised himself 10 months before the celebration at the public gymnasium of Elis. No unfair dealings were allowed, and whoever attempted to bribe his adversary was subjected to a severe fine. No criminals, nor such as were connected with impious and guilty persons, were suffered to present themselves as combatants; and even the father and relations were obliged to swear that they would have recourse to no artifice which might decide the victory in favour of their friends. The wrestlers were appointed by lot. Some little balls, superscribed with a letter, were thrown into a silver urn, and such as drew the same letter were obliged to contend one with the other. He who had an odd letter remained the last, and he often had the advantage, as he was to encounter the last who had obtained the superiority over his adversary. He was called ἐφεδρος. In these games were exhibited running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, and the throwing of the quoit, which was called altogether πενταθλον, or quinquertium. Besides these, there were horse and chariot races, and also contentions in poetry, eloquence, and the fine arts. The only reward that the conqueror obtained, was a crown of olive; which, as some suppose, was in memory of the labours of Hercules, which was accomplished for the universal good of mankind, and for which the hero claimed no other reward than the consciousness of having been the friend of humanity. So small and trifling a reward stimulated courage and virtue, and was more the source of great honours than the most unbounded treasures. The statues of the conquerors, called Olympionicæ, were erected at Olympia, in the sacred wood of Jupiter. Their return home was that of a warlike conqueror; they were drawn in a chariot by four horses, and everywhere received with the greatest acclamations. Their entrance into their native city was not through the gates, but, to make it more grand and more solemn, a breach was made in the walls. Painters and poets were employed in celebrating their names; and indeed the victories severally obtained at Olympia are the subjects of the most beautiful odes of Pindar. The combatants were naked; a scarf was originally tied round the waist, but when it had entangled one of the adversaries, and been the cause that he lost the victory, it was laid aside, and no regard was paid to decency. The Olympic games were observed every fifth year, or, to speak with greater exactness, after a revolution of four years, and in the first month of the fifth year, and they continued for five successive days. As they were the most ancient and the most solemn of all the festivals of the Greeks, it will not appear wonderful that they drew so many people together, not only inhabitants of Greece, but of the neighbouring islands and countries. Pindar, Olympian, chs. 1 & 2.—Strabo, bk. 8.—Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 67, &c.—Diodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Plutarch, Theseus, Lycurgus, &c.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 10, li. 1.—Cicero, Tusculanæ Disputationes, bk. 1, ch. 46.—Lucian, Anacharsis.—Tzetzes, Lycophron.—[♦]Aristotle.—Statius, Thebaid, bk. 6.—Cornelius Nepos, Preface.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 49.——A town of Elis in Peloponnesus, where Jupiter had a temple with a celebrated statue 50 cubits high, reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. The Olympic games were celebrated in the neighbourhood. Strabo, bk. 8.—Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 8.

[♦] ‘Aristotel’ replaced with ‘Aristotle’

Olympias, a certain space of time which elapsed between the celebration of the Olympic games. The Olympic games were celebrated after the expiration of four complete years, whence some have said that they were observed every fifth year. This period of time was called Olympiad, and became a celebrated era among the Greeks, who computed their time by it. The custom of reckoning time by the celebration of the Olympic games was not introduced at the first institution of these festivals, but, to speak accurately, only the year in which Corœbus obtained the prize. This Olympiad, which has always been reckoned the first, fell, according to the accurate and learned computations of some of the moderns, exactly 776 years before the christian era, in the year of the Julian period 3938, and 23 years before the building of Rome. The games were exhibited at the time of the full moon, next after the summer solstice; therefore the Olympiads were of unequal length, because the time of the full moon differs 11 days every year, and for that reason they sometimes began the next day after the solstice, and at other times four weeks after. The computations by Olympiads ceased, as some suppose, after the 364th, in the year 440 of the christian era. It was universally adopted, not only by the Greeks, but by many of the neighbouring countries, though still the Pythian games served as an epoch to the people of Delphi and to the Bœotians, the Nemæan games to the Argives and Arcadians, and the Isthmian to the Corinthians and the inhabitants of the Peloponnesian isthmus. To the Olympiads history is much indebted. They have served to fix the time of many momentous events, and indeed before this method of computing time was observed, every page of history is mostly fabulous, and filled with obscurity and contradiction, and no true chronological account can be properly established and maintained with certainty. The mode of computation, which was used after the suppression of the Olympiads and of the consular fasti of Rome, was more useful as it was more universal; but while the era of the creation of the world prevailed in the east, the western nations in the sixth century began to adopt with more propriety the christian epoch, which was propagated in the eighth century, and at last, in the tenth, became legal and popular.——A celebrated woman, who was daughter of a king of Epirus, and who married Philip king of Macedonia, by whom she had Alexander the Great. Her haughtiness, and more probably her infidelity, obliged Philip to repudiate her, and to marry Cleopatra the niece of king Attalus. Olympias was sensible of this injury, and Alexander showed his disapprobation of his father’s measures by retiring from the court to his mother. The murder of Philip, which soon followed this disgrace, and which some have attributed to the intrigues of Olympias, was productive of the greatest extravagancies. The queen paid the highest honour to her husband’s murderer. She gathered his mangled limbs, placed a crown of gold on his head, and laid his ashes near those of Philip. The administration of Alexander, who had succeeded his father, was, in some instances, offensive to Olympias; but when the ambition of her son was concerned, she did not scruple to declare publicly that Alexander was not the son of Philip, but that he was the offspring of an enormous serpent which had supernaturally introduced itself into her bed. When Alexander was dead, Olympias seized the government of Macedonia, and to establish her usurpation, she cruelly put to death Aridæus, with his wife Eurydice, as also Nicanor the brother of Cassander, with 100 leading men of Macedonia, who were inimical to her interest. Such barbarities did not long remain unpunished; Cassander besieged her in Pydna, where she had retired with the remains of her family, and she was obliged to surrender after an obstinate siege. The conqueror ordered her to be accused, and to be put to death. A body of 200 soldiers were directed to put the bloody commands into execution, but the splendour and majesty of the queen disarmed their courage, and she was at last massacred by those whom she had cruelly deprived of their children, about 316 years before the christian era. Justin, bk. 7, ch. 6; bk. 9, ch. 1.—Plutarch, Alexander.—Curtius.—Pausanias.——A fountain of Arcadia which flowed for one year and the next was dry. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 29.

Olympiodōrus, a musician who taught Epaminondas music. Cornelius Nepos.——A native of Thebes in Egypt, who flourished under Theodosius II., and wrote 22 books of history, in Greek, beginning with the seventh consulship of Honorius, and the second of Theodosius, to the period when Valentinian was made emperor. He wrote also an account of an embassy to some of the barbarian nations of the north, &c. His style is censured by some as low, and unworthy of an historian. The commentaries of Olympiodorus on the Meteora of Aristotle, were edited with Aldus Manutius, 1550, in folio.——An Athenian officer, present at the battle of Platæa, where he behaved with great valour. Plutarch.

Olympius, a surname of Jupiter at Olympia, where the god had a celebrated temple and statue, which passed for one of the seven wonders of the world. It was the work of Phidias. Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 2.——A native of Carthage, called also Nemesianus. See: [Nemesianus].——A favourite at the court of Honorius, who was the cause of Stilicho’s death.

Olympus, a physician of Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who wrote some historical treatises. Plutarch, Antonius.——A poet and musician of Mysia, son of Mæon and disciple to Marsyas. He lived before the Trojan war, and distinguished himself by his amatory elegies, his hymns, and particularly the beautiful airs which he composed, and which were still preserved in the age of Aristophanes. Plato, Minos.—Aristotle, Politics, bk. 8.——Another musician of Phrygia, who lived in the age of Midas. He is frequently confounded with the preceding. Pollux, bk. 4, ch. 10.——A son of Hercules and Eubœa. Apollodorus.——A mountain of Macedonia and Thessaly, now Lacha. The ancients supposed that it touched the heavens with its top; and, from that circumstance, they have placed the residence of the gods there, and have made it the court of Jupiter. It is about one mile and a half in perpendicular height, and is covered with pleasant woods, caves, and grottoes. On the top of the mountain, according to the notions of the poets, there was neither wind nor rain, nor clouds, but an eternal spring. Homer, Iliad, bk. 1, &c.—Virgil, Æneid, bks. 2, 6, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses.—Lucan, bk. 5.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Strabo, bk. 8.——A mountain of Mysia, called the Mysian Olympus, a name which it still preserves.——Another in Elis.——Another in Arcadia.——Another in the island of Cyprus, now Santa Croce. Some suppose the Olympus of Mysia and of Cilicia to be the same.——A town on the coast of Lycia.

Olympusa, a daughter of Thespius. Apollodorus.

Olynthus, a celebrated town and republic of Macedonia, on the isthmus of the peninsula of Pallene. It became famous for its flourishing situation, and for its frequent disputes with the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, and with king Philip, who destroyed it, and sold the inhabitants for slaves. Cicero, Against Verres.—Plutarch, de Cohibenda Ira, &c.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 2.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 127.—Curtius, bk. 8, ch. 9.

Olyras, a river near Thermopylæ, which, as the mythologists report, attempted to extinguish the funeral pile on which Hercules was consumed. Strabo, bk. 9.

Olyzon, a town of Thessaly.

Omarius, a Lacedæmonian sent to Darius, &c. Curtius, bk. 3, ch. 13.

Ombi and Tentyra, two neighbouring cities of Egypt, whose inhabitants were always in discord one with another. Juvenal, satire 15, li. 35.

Ombri. See: [♦][Umbria].

[♦] ‘Umbri’ replaced with ‘Umbria’ to match listing

Omŏle, or Homŏle, a mountain of Thessaly. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 675.——There were some festivals called Homoleia, which were celebrated in Bœotia in honour of Jupiter, surnamed Homoleius.

Omophagia, a festival in honour of Bacchus. The word signifies the eating of raw flesh. See: [Dionysia].

Omphăle, a queen of Lydia, daughter of Jardanus. She married Tmolus, who, at his death, left her mistress of his kingdom. Omphale had been informed of the great exploits of Hercules, and wished to see so illustrious a hero. Her wish was soon gratified. After the murder of Eurytus, Hercules fell sick, and was ordered to be sold as a slave, that he might recover his health, and the right use of his senses. Mercury was commissioned to sell him, and Omphale bought him, and restored him to liberty. The hero became enamoured of his mistress, and the queen favoured his passion, and had a son by him, whom some call Agelaus, and others Lamon. From this son were descended Gyges and Crœsus; but this opinion is different from the account which makes these Lydian monarchs spring from Alcæus, a son of Hercules by Malis, one of the female servants of Omphale. Hercules is represented by the poets as so desperately enamoured of the queen that, to conciliate her esteem, he spins by her side among her women, while she covers herself with the lion’s skin, and arms herself with the club of the hero, and often strikes him with her sandals for the uncouth manner with which he holds the distaff, &c. Their fondness was mutual. As they once travelled together, they came to a grotto on mount Tmolus, where the queen dressed herself in the habit of her lover, and obliged him to appear in a female garment. After they had supped, they both retired to rest in different rooms, as a sacrifice on the morrow to Bacchus required. In the night, Faunus, or rather Pan, who was enamoured of Omphale, introduced himself into the cave. He went to the bed of the queen, but the lion’s skin persuaded him that it was the dress of Hercules, and therefore he repaired to the bed of Hercules, in hopes to find there the object of his affection. The female dress of Hercules deceived him, and he laid himself down by his side. The hero was awakened, and kicked the intruder into the middle of the cave. The noise awoke Omphale, and Faunus was discovered lying on the ground, greatly disappointed and ashamed. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 2, li. 305, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 9; bk. 2, ch. 7.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Propertius, bk. 3, poem 11, li. 17.

Omphălos, a place of Crete, sacred to Jupiter, on the borders of the river Triton. It received its name from the umbilical cord (ὀμφαλος) of Jupiter, which fell there soon after his birth. Diodorus.

Omphis, a king of India, who delivered himself up to Alexander the Great. Curtius, bk. 8, ch. 12.

Onæum, or Oæneum, a promontory and town of Dalmatia. Livy, bk. 43, ch. 19.

Onārus, a priest of Bacchus, who is supposed to have married Ariadne after she had been abandoned by Theseus. Plutarch, Theseus.

Onasĭmus, a sophist of Athens, who flourished in the reign of Constantine.

Onātas, a famous statuary of Ægina son of Micon. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 42.

Onchemītes, a wind which blows from Onchesmus, a harbour of Epirus, towards Italy. The word is sometimes spelt Anchesites and Anchemites. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 7, ltr. 2.—Ptolemæus.

Onchestus, a town of Bœotia, founded by Onchestus, a son of Neptune. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 26.

Oneion, a place of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 25.

Onesicrĭtus, a cynic philosopher of Ægina, who went with Alexander into Asia, and was sent to the Indian Gymnosophists. He wrote a history of the king’s life, which has been censured for the romantic, exaggerated, and improbable narrative it gives. It is asserted that Alexander, upon reading it, said that he should be glad to come to life again for some time, to see what reception the historian’s work met with. Plutarch, Alexander.—Curtius, bk. 9, ch. 10.

Onesĭmus, a Macedonian nobleman, treated with great kindness by the Roman emperors. He wrote an account of the life of the emperor Probus, and of Carus, with great precision and elegance.

Onesippus, a son of Hercules. Apollodorus.

Onesius, a king of Salamis, who revolted from the Persians.

Onetorĭdes, an Athenian officer, who attempted to murder the garrison which Demetrius had stationed at Athens, &c. Polyænus, bk. 5.

Onium, a place of Peloponnesus, near Corinth.

Onoba, a town near the columns of Hercules. Mela, bk. 3, ch. 1.

Onobala, a river of Sicily.

Onochŏnus, a river of Thessaly, falling into the Peneus. It was dried up by the army of Xerxes. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 196.

Onomacrĭtus, a soothsayer of Athens. It is generally believed that the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, attributed to Orpheus, was written by Onomacritus. The elegant poems of Musæus are also, by some, supposed to be the production of his pen. He flourished about 516 years before the christian era, and was expelled from Athens by Hipparchus, one of the sons of Pisistratus. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 6.——A Locrian, who wrote concerning laws, &c. Aristotle, bk. 2, Politics.

Onomarchus, a Phocian, son of Euthycrates and brother of Philomelus, whom he succeeded, as general of his countrymen, in the sacred war. After exploits of valour and perseverance, he was defeated and slain in Thessaly by Philip of Macedon, who ordered his body to be ignominiously hung up, for the sacrilege offered to the temple of Delphi. He died 353 B.C. Aristotle, Politics, bk. 5, ch. 4.—Diodorus, bk. 16.——A man to whose care Antigonus entrusted the keeping of Eumenes. Cornelius Nepos, Eumenes.

Onomastorĭdes, a Lacedæmonian ambassador sent to Darius, &c. Curtius, bk. 3, ch. 13.

Onomastus, a freedman of the emperor Otho. Tacitus.

Onophas, one of the seven Persians who conspired against the usurper Smerdis. Ctesias.——An officer in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece.

Onosander, a Greek writer, whose book De Imperatoris Institutione has been edited by Schwebel, with a French translation, folio, Nuremberg, 1752.

Onythes, a friend of Æneas, killed by Turnus. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 12, li. 514.

Opalia, festivals celebrated by the Romans, in honour of Ops, on the 14th of the calends of January.

Ophēlas, a general of Cyrene, defeated by Agathocles.

Opheltes, a son of Lycurgus king of Thrace. He is the same as Archemorus. See: [Archemorus].——The father of Euryalus, whose friendship with Nisus is proverbial. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 9, li. 201.——One of the companions of Acœtes, changed into a dolphin by Bacchus. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 3, fable 8.

Ophensis, a town of Africa. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 4, ch. 50.

Ophiădes, an island on the coast of Arabia, so called from the great number of serpents found there. It belonged to the Egyptian kings, and was considered valuable for the topaz it produced. Diodorus, bk. 3.

Ophias, a patronymic given to Combe, as daughter of Ophius, an unknown person. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 7, li. 382.

Ophioneus, was an ancient soothsayer in the age of Aristodemus. He was born blind.

Ophis, a small river of Arcadia, which falls into the Alpheus.

Ophiūsa, the ancient name of Rhodes.——A small island near Crete.——A town of Sarmatia.——An island near the Baleares, so called from the number of serpents which it produced (ὀφις, serpens). It is now called Formentera.

Ophrynium, a town of Troas on the Hellespont. Hector had a grove there. Strabo, bk. 13.

Opĭci, the ancient inhabitants of Campania, from whose mean occupations the word Opicus has been used to express disgrace. Juvenal, satire 3, li. 207.

Opilius, a grammarian who flourished about 94 years before Christ. He wrote a book called Libri Musarum.

Lucius Opimius, a Roman who made himself consul in opposition to the interests and efforts of the Gracchi. He showed himself a most inveterate enemy to Caius Gracchus and his adherents, and behaved, during his consulship, like a dictator. He was accused of bribery, and banished. He died of want at Dyrrachium. Cicero, For Sestius, For Plancius, & Against Piso.—Plutarch.——A Roman, who killed one of the Cimbri in single combat.——A rich usurer at Rome in the age of Horace, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 142.

Opis, a town on the Tigris, afterwards called Antiochia. Xenophon, Anabasis, bk. 2.——A nymph who was among Diana’s attendants. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 11, lis. 532 & 867.——A town near the mouth of the Tigris.——One of Cyrene’s attendants. Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 343.

Opĭter, a Roman consul, &c.

Opitergīni, a people near Aquileia, on the Adriatic. Their chief city was called Opitergum, now Oderso. Lucan, bk. 4, li. 416.

Opītes, a native of Argos, killed by Hector in the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad.

Oppia, a vestal virgin, buried alive for her incontinence.

Oppia lex, by Caius Oppius the tribune, A.U.C. 540. It required that no woman should wear above half an ounce of gold, have party-coloured garments, or be carried in any city or town, or to any place within a mile’s distance, unless it was to celebrate some sacred festivals or solemnities. This famous law, which was made while Annibal was in Italy, and while Rome was in distressed circumstances, created discontent, and, 18 years after, the Roman ladies petitioned the assembly of the people that it might be repealed. Cato opposed it strongly, and made many satirical reflections upon the women for their appearing in public to solicit votes. The tribune Valerius, who had presented their petition to the assembly, answered the objections of Cato, and his eloquence had such an influence on the minds of the people, that the law was instantly abrogated with the unanimous consent of all the comitia, Cato alone excepted. Livy, bks. 33 & 34.—Cicero, On Oratory, bk. 3.

Oppiānus, a Greek poet of Cilicia in the second century. His father’s name was Agesilaus, and his mother’s Zenodota. He wrote some poems, celebrated for their elegance and sublimity. Two of his poems are now extant, five books on fishing called alieuticon, and four on hunting called cynegeticon. The emperor Caracalla was so pleased with his poetry, that he gave him a piece of gold for every verse of his cynegeticon; from which circumstance the poem received the name of the golden verses of Oppian. The poet died of the plague in the 30th year of his age. His countrymen raised statues to his honour, and engraved on his tomb that the gods had hastened to call back Oppian in the flower of youth, only because he had already excelled all mankind. The best edition of his works is that of Schneider, 8vo, Strasbourg, 1776.

Oppidius, a rich old man introduced by Horace, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 168, as wisely dividing his possessions among his two sons, and warning them against those follies and that extravagance which he believed he saw rising in them.

Caius Oppius, a friend of Julius Cæsar, celebrated for his life of Scipio Africanus, and of Pompey the Great. In the latter he paid not much regard to historical facts, and took every opportunity to defame Pompey, to extol the character of his patron Cæsar. In the age of Suetonius, he was deemed the true author of the Alexandrian, African, and Spanish wars, which some attribute to Cæsar, and others to Aulus Hirtius. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 12.—Suetonius, Cæsar, ch. 53.——An officer sent by the Romans against Mithridates. He met with ill success, and was sent in chains to the king, &c.——A Roman who saved his aged father from the dagger of the triumvirate.

Ops (opis), a daughter of Cœlus and Terra, the same as the Rhea of the Greeks, who married Saturn, and became mother of Jupiter. She was known among the ancients by the different names of Cybele, Bona Dea, Magna Mater, Thya, Tellus, Proserpina, and even of Juno and Minerva; and the worship which was paid to these apparently several deities was offered merely to one and the same person, mother of the gods. The word Ops seems to be derived from Opus; because the goddess, who is the same as the earth, gives nothing without labour. Tatius built her a temple at Rome. She was generally represented as a matron, with her right hand opened, as if offering assistance to the helpless, and holding a loaf in her left hand. Her festivals were called Opalia, &c. Varro, de Lingua Latina, bk. 4.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 2, &c.—Tibullus, poem 4, li. 68.—Pliny, bk. 19, ch. 6.

Optātus, one of the fathers, whose works were edited by Du Pin, folio, Paris, 1700.

Optĭmus Maximus, epithets given to Jupiter to denote his greatness, omnipotence, and supreme goodness. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 25.

Opus (opuntis), a city of Locris, on the Asopus, destroyed by an earthquake. Strabo, bk. 9.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Livy, bk. 28, ch. 7.

Ora, a town in India, taken by Alexander.——One of Jupiter’s mistresses.

Oracŭlum, an answer of the gods to the questions of men, or the place where those answers were given. Nothing is more famous than the ancient oracles of Egypt, Greece, Rome, &c. They were supposed to be the will of the gods themselves, and they were consulted, not only upon every important matter, but even in the affairs of private life. To make peace or war, to introduce a change of government, to plant a colony, to enact laws, to raise an edifice, to marry, were sufficient reasons to consult the will of the gods. Mankind, in consulting them, showed that they wished to pay implicit obedience to the command of the divinity, and, when they had been favoured with an answer, they acted with more spirit and with more vigour, conscious that the undertaking had met with the sanction and approbation of heaven. In this, therefore, it will not appear wonderful that so many places were sacred to oracular purposes. The small province of Bœotia could once boast of her 25 oracles, and Peloponnesus of the same number. Not only the chief of the gods gave oracles, but, in process of time, heroes were admitted to enjoy the same privileges; and the oracles of a Trophonius and an Antinous were soon able to rival the fame of Apollo and of Jupiter. The most celebrated oracles of antiquity were those of Dodona, Delphi, Jupiter Ammon, &c. See: [Dodona], [Delphi], [Ammon]. The temple of Delphi seemed to claim a superiority over the other temples; its fame was once more extended, and its riches were so great, that not only private persons, but even kings and numerous armies, made it an object of plunder and of rapine. The manner of delivering oracles was different. A priestess at Delphi [See: [Pythia]] was permitted to pronounce the oracles of the god, and her delivery of the answers was always attended with acts of apparent madness and desperate fury. Not only women but even doves, were the ministers of the temple of Dodona; and the suppliant votary was often startled to hear his questions readily answered by the decayed trunk or the spreading branches of a neighbouring oak. Ammon conveyed his answers in a plain and open manner; but Amphiaraus required many ablutions and preparatory ceremonies, and he generally communicated his oracles to his suppliants in dreams and visions. Sometimes the first words that were heard, after issuing from the temple, were deemed the answers of the oracles, and sometimes the nodding or shaking of the head of the statue, the motions of fishes in a neighbouring lake, or their reluctance in accepting the food which was offered to them, were as strong and valid as the most express and the minutest explanations. The answers were also sometimes given in verse, or written on tablets, but their meaning was always obscure, and often the cause of disaster to such as consulted them. Crœsus, when he consulted the oracle of Delphi, was told that, if he crossed the Halys, he should destroy a great empire; he supposed that that empire was the empire of his enemy, but unfortunately it was his own. The words of Credo te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse, which Pyrrhus received when he wished to assist the Tarentines against the Romans, by a favourable interpretation for himself, proved his ruin. Nero was ordered by the oracle of Delphi to beware of 73 years; but the pleasing idea that he should live to that age, rendered him careless, and he was soon convinced of his mistake, when Galba, in his 73rd year, had the presumption to dethrone him. It is a question among the learned whether the oracles were given by the inspiration of evil spirits, or whether they proceeded from the imposture of the priests. Imposture, however, and forgery cannot long flourish, and falsehood becomes its own destroyer; and, on the contrary, it is well known how much confidence an enlightened age, therefore, much more the credulous and the superstitious, place upon dreams and romantic stories. Some have strongly believed that all the oracles of the earth ceased at the birth of Christ, but the supposition is false. It was, indeed, the beginning of their decline; but they remained in repute, and were consulted, though perhaps not so frequently, till the fourth century, when christianity began to triumph over paganism. The oracles often suffered themselves to be bribed. Alexander did it, but it is well known that Lysander failed in the attempt. Herodotus, who first mentioned the corruption which often prevailed in the oracular temples of Greece and Egypt, has been severely treated for his remarks by the historian Plutarch. Demosthenes is also a witness of the corruption, and he observed that the oracles of Greece were servilely subservient to the will and pleasure of Philip king of Macedon, as he beautifully expresses it by the word φιλιππιζειν. If some of the Greeks, and other European and Asiatic countries, paid so much attention to oracles, and were so fully persuaded of their veracity, and even divinity, many of their leading men and of their philosophers were apprised of their deceit, and paid no regard to the command of priests, whom money could corrupt, and interposition silence. The Egyptians showed themselves the most superstitious of mankind, by their blind acquiescence to the imposition of the priests, who persuaded them that the safety and happiness of their life depended upon the mere motions of an ox, or the tameness of a crocodile. Homer, Iliad; Odyssey, bk. 10.—Herodotus, bks. 1 & 2.—Xenophon, Memorabilia.—Strabo, bks. 5, 7, &c.—Pausanias, bk. 1, &c.—Plutarch, de Defectu Oraculorum; Agesilaus; De Herodoti Malignitate.—Cicero, de Divinatione bk. 1, ch. 19.—Justin, bk. 24, ch. 6.—Livy, bk. 37.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 6.—Cornelius Nepos, Lysander.—Aristophanes, Knights & Wealth.—Demosthenes, Philippics.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1.

Oræa, a small country of Peloponnesus. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 30.——Certain solemn sacrifices of fruits offered in the four seasons of the year, to obtain mild and temperate weather. They were offered to the goddesses who presided over the seasons, who attended upon the sun, and who received divine worship at Athens.

Orasus, a man who killed Ptolemy the son of Pyrrhus.

Orates, a river of European Scythia. Ovid, ex Ponto, bk. 4, poem 10, li. 47. As this river is not now known, Vossius reads Cretes, a river which is found in Scythia. Valerius Flaccus, bk. 4, li. 719.—Thucydides, bk. 4.

Orbelus, a mountain of Thrace or Macedonia.

Orbĭlius Pupillus, a grammarian of Beneventum, who was the first instructor of the poet Horace. He came to Rome in the consulship of Cicero, and there, as a public teacher, acquired more fame than money. He was naturally of a severe disposition, of which his pupils often felt the effects. He lived almost to his 100th year, and lost his memory some time before his death. Suetonius, Lives of the Grammarians, ch. 9.—Horace, bk. 2, ltr. 1, li. 71.

Orbitanium, a town of the Samnites. Livy, bk. 24, ch. 20.

Orbōna, a mischievous goddess at Rome, who, as it was supposed, made children die. Her temple at Rome was near that of the gods Lares. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 3, ch. 25.—Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 7.

Orcădes, islands on the northern coasts of Britain, now called the Orkneys. They were unknown till Britain was discovered to be an island by Agricola, who presided there as governor. Tacitus, Agricola.—Juvenal satire 2, li. 161.

Orchālis, an eminence of Bœotia, near Haliartus, called also Alopecos. Plutarch, Lysander.

Orchămus, a king of Assyria, father of Leucothoe by Eurynome. He buried his daughter alive for her amours with Apollo. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 212.

Orchia lex, by Orchius the tribune, A.U.C. 566. It was enacted to limit the number of guests that were to be admitted at an entertainment; and it also enforced that, during supper, which was the chief meal among the Romans, the doors of every house should be left open.

Orchomĕnus, or Orchomĕnum, a town of Bœotia, at the west of the lake Copais. It was anciently called Minyeia, and from that circumstance the inhabitants were often called Minyans of Orchomenos. There was at Orchomenos a celebrated temple, built by Eteocles son of Cephisus, sacred to the Graces, who were from thence called the Orchomenian goddesses. The inhabitants founded Teos in conjunction with the Ionians, under the sons of Codrus. Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 8.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 146.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 37.—Strabo, bk. 9.——A town of Arcadia, at the north of Mantinea. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2.——A town of Thessaly, with a river of the same name. Strabo.——A son of Lycaon king of Arcadia, who gave his name to a city of Arcadia, &c. Pausanias, bk. 8.——A son of Minyas king of Bœotia, who gave the name of Orchomenians to his subjects. He died without issue, and the crown devolved to Clymenus the son of Presbon, &c. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 36.

Orcus, one of the names of the god of hell, the same as Pluto, though confounded by some with Charon. He had a temple at Rome. The word Orcus is generally used to signify the infernal regions. Horace, bk. 1, ode 29, &c.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 502, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 116.

Orcynia, a place of Cappadocia, where Eumenes was defeated by Antigonus.

Ordessus, a river of Scythia, which falls into the Ister. Herodotus.

Ordovices, the people of North Wales in Britain, mentioned by Tacitus, Annals, bk. 12, ch. 53.

Oreădes, nymphs of the mountains (ὀρος, mons), daughters of Phoroneus and Hecate. Some call them Orestiades, and give them Jupiter for father. They generally attended upon Diana, and accompanied her in hunting. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 504.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 6.—Strabo, bk. 10.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 787.

Oreas, a son of Hercules and Chryseis.

Orestæ, a people of Epirus. They received their name from Orestes, who fled to Epirus when cured of his insanity. Lucan, bk. 3, li. 249.——Of Macedonia. Livy, bk. 33, ch. 34.

Orestes, a son of [♦]Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. When his father was cruelly murdered by Clytemnestra and Ægisthus, young Orestes was saved from his mother’s dagger by means of his sister Electra, called Laodicea by Homer, and he was privately conveyed to the house of Strophius, who was king of Phocis, and who had married a sister of Agamemnon. He was tenderly treated by Strophius, who educated him with his son Pylades. The two young princes soon became acquainted, and, from their familiarity, arose the most inviolable attachment and friendship. When Orestes was arrived to the years of manhood, he visited Mycenæ, and avenged his father’s death by assassinating his mother Clytemnestra, and her adulterer Ægisthus. The manner in which he committed this murder is variously reported. According to Æschylus he was commissioned by Apollo to avenge his father, and, therefore, he introduced himself, with his friend Pylades, at the court of Mycenæ, pretending to bring the news of the death of Orestes from king Strophius. He was at first received with coldness, and when he came into the presence of Ægisthus, who wished to inform himself of the particulars, he murdered him, and soon after Clytemnestra shared the adulterer’s fate. Euripides and Sophocles mention the same circumstance. Ægisthus was assassinated after Clytemnestra, according to Sophocles; and, in Euripides, Orestes is represented as murdering the adulterer, while he offers a sacrifice to the nymphs. This murder, as the poet mentions, irritates the guards, who were present, but Orestes appeases their fury by telling them who he is, and immediately he is acknowledged king of the country. Afterwards he stabs his mother, at the instigation of his sister Electra, after he has upbraided her for her infidelity and cruelty to her husband. Such meditated murders receive the punishment which, among the ancients, was always supposed to attend parricide. Orestes is tormented by the Furies, and exiles himself to Argos, where he is still pursued by the avengeful goddesses. Apollo himself purifies him, and he is acquitted by the unanimous opinion of the Areopagites, whom Minerva herself instituted on this occasion, according to the narration of the poet Æschylus, who flatters the Athenians in his tragical story, by representing them as passing judgment even upon the gods themselves. According to Pausanias, Orestes was purified of the murder, not at Delphi, but at Trœzene, where still was seen a large stone at the entrance of Diana’s temple, upon which the ceremonies of purification had been performed by nine of the principal citizens of the place. There was also, at Megalopolis in Arcadia, a temple dedicated to the Furies, near which Orestes cut off one of his fingers with his teeth in a fit of insanity. These different traditions are confuted by Euripides, who says that Orestes, after the murder of his mother, consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, where he was informed that nothing could deliver him from the persecutions of the Furies, if he did not bring into Greece Diana’s statue, which was in the Taurica Chersonesus, and which, as it is reported by some, had fallen down from heaven. This was an arduous enterprise. The king of the Chersonesus always sacrificed on the altars of the goddess all such as entered the borders of his country. Orestes and his friend were both carried before Thoas the king of the place, and they were doomed to be sacrificed. Iphigenia was then priestess of Diana’s temple, and it was her office to immolate these strangers. The intelligence that they were Grecians delayed the preparations, and Iphigenia was anxious to learn something about a country which had given her birth. See: [Iphigenia]. She even interested herself in their misfortunes, and offered to spare the life of one of them provided he would convey letters to Greece from her hand. This was a difficult trial; never was friendship more truly displayed, according to the words of Ovid, ex Ponto, bk. 3, poem 2:

Ire jubet Pylades carum moriturus Orestem,

Hic negat; inque vicem pugnat uterque mori.

At last Pylades gave way to the pressing entreaties of his friend, and consented to carry the letters of Iphigenia to Greece. These were addressed to Orestes himself, and, therefore, these circumstances soon led to a total discovery of the connections of the priestess with the man whom she was going to immolate. Iphigenia was convinced that he was her brother Orestes, and, when the causes of their journey had been explained, she resolved, with the two friends, to fly from Chersonesus, and to carry away the statue of Diana. Their flight was discovered, and Thoas prepared to pursue them; but Minerva interfered, and told him that all had been done by the will and approbation of the gods. Some suppose that Orestes came to Cappadocia from Chersonesus, and that there he left the statue of Diana at Comana. Others contradict this tradition, and, according to Pausanias, the statue of Diana Orthia was the same as that which had been carried away from the Chersonesus. Some also suppose that Orestes brought it to Aricia, in Italy, where Diana’s worship was established. After these celebrated adventures, Orestes ascended the throne of Argos, where he reigned in perfect security, and married Hermione the daughter of Menelaus, and gave his sister to his friend Pylades. The marriage of Orestes with Hermione is a matter of dispute among the ancients. All are agreed that she had been promised to the son of Agamemnon, but Menelaus had married her to Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, who had shown himself so truly interested in his cause during the Trojan war. The marriage of Hermione with Neoptolemus displeased Orestes; he remembered that she had been early promised to him, and therefore he resolved to recover her by force or artifice. This he effected by causing Neoptolemus to be assassinated, or assassinating him himself. According to Ovid’s epistle of Hermione to Orestes, Hermione had always been faithful to her first lover, and even it was by her persuasion that Orestes removed her from the house of Neoptolemus. Hermione was dissatisfied with the partiality of Neoptolemus for Andromache, and her attachment for Orestes was increased. Euripides, however, and others, speak differently of Hermione’s attachment to Neoptolemus: she loved him so tenderly, that she resolved to murder Andromache, who seemed to share, in a small degree, the affection of her husband. She was ready to perpetrate the horrid deed when Orestes came into Epirus, and she was easily persuaded by the foreign prince to withdraw herself, in her husband’s absence, from a country which seemed to contribute so much to her sorrows. Orestes, the better to secure the affections of Hermione, assassinated Neoptolemus [See: [Neoptolemus]], and retired to his kingdom of Argos. His old age was crowned with peace and security, and he died in the 90th year of his age, leaving his throne to his son Tisamenes by Hermione. Three years after, the Heraclidæ recovered the Peloponnesus, and banished the descendants of Menelaus from the throne of Argos. Orestes died in Arcadia, as some suppose, by the bite of a serpent; and the Lacedæmonians, who had become his subjects at the death of Menelaus, were directed by an oracle to bring his bones to Sparta. They were some time after discovered at Tegea, and his stature appeared to be seven cubits, according to the traditions mentioned by Herodotus and others. The friendship of Orestes and of Pylades became proverbial, and the two friends received divine honours among the Scythians, and were worshipped in temples. Pausanias, bks. 1, 2, 4, &c.—Paterculus, bk. 1, chs. 1 & 3.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Strabo, bks. 9 & 13.—Ovid, Heroides, poem 8; Ex Ponto, bk. 3, poem 2; Metamorphoses, bk. 15; Ibis.—Euripides; Orestes; Andromache, &c. Iphigeneia.—Sophocles, Electra, &c.—Aeschylus, Eumenides; Agamemnon, &c.—Horodotus, bk. 1, ch. 69.—Hyginus, fables 120 & 261.—Plutarch, Lycurgus.—Dictys Cretensis, bk. 6, &c.—Pindar, Pythian, bk. 2.—Pliny, bk. 33.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, &c.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 3, li. 304; bk. 4, li. 530.—Tzetzes, On Lycophron, li. 1374.——A son of Achelaus. Apollodorus.——A man sent as ambassador, by Attila king of the Huns, to the emperor Theodosius. He was highly honoured at the Roman court, and his son Augustulus was the last emperor of the western empire.——A governor of Egypt under the Roman emperors.——A robber of Athens who pretended madness, &c. Aristophanes, Acharnians, li. 1166.——A general of Alexander. Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 108.

[♦] ‘Agememnon’ replaced with ‘Agamemnon’

Oresteum, a town of Arcadia, about 18 miles from Sparta. It was founded by Orestheus, a son of Lycaon, and originally called Oresthesium, and afterwards Oresteum, from Orestes the son of Agamemnon, who resided there for some time after the murder of Clytemnestra. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 8.—Euripides.

Orestīdæ, the descendants or subjects of Orestes the son of Agamemnon. They were driven from the Peloponnesus by the Heraclidæ, and came to settle in a country which, from them, was called Orestida, at the south-west of Macedonia. Some suppose that that part of Greece originally received its name from Orestes, who fled and built there a city, which gave its founder’s name to the whole province. Thucydides, bk. 2.—Livy, bk. 31.

Aurelia Orestilla, a mistress of Catiline. Cicero, [♦]Letters to his Friends, bk. 8, ch. 7.

[♦] ‘ad. Div. 7,’ replaced with ‘Letters to his Friends, bk. 8’

Orestis, or Orestida, a part of Macedonia. Cicero, On the Responses of the Haruspices, ch. 16.

Orĕtæ, a people of Asiatic Sarmatia, on the Euxine sea.

Oretāni, a people of Spain, whose capital was Oretum, now Oreto. Livy, bk. 21, ch. 11; bk. 35, ch. 7.

Oretillia, a woman who married Caligula, by whom she was soon after banished.

Orēum, one of the principal towns of Eubœa. Livy, bk. 28, ch. 6.

Orga, or Orgas, a river of Phrygia, falling into the Mæander. Strabo.—Pliny.

Orgessum, a town of Macedonia. Livy, bk. 31, ch. 27.

Orgetŏrix, one of the chief men of the Helvetii, while Cæsar was in Gaul. He formed a conspiracy against the Romans, and, when accused, he destroyed himself. Cæsar.

Orgia, festivals in honour of Bacchus. They are the same as the Bacchanalia, Dionysia, &c., which were celebrated by the ancients to commemorate the triumph of Bacchus in India. See: [Dionysia].

Oribăsus, a celebrated physician, greatly esteemed by the emperor Julian, in whose reign he flourished. He abridged the works of Galenus, and of all the most respectable writers on physic, at the request of the emperor. He accompanied Julian into the east, but his skill proved ineffectual in attempting to cure the fatal wound which his benefactor had received. After Julian’s death, he fell into the hands of the barbarians. The best edition of his works is that of Dundas, 4to, Leiden, 1745.——One of Actæon’s dogs, ab ὀρος, mons, and (βαινω, scando. Ovid, Metamorphoses.

Orĭcum, or Orĭcus, a town of Epirus, on the Ionian sea, founded by a colony from Colchis, according to Pliny. It was called Dardania, because Helenus and Andromache, natives of Troy or Dardania, reigned over the country after the Trojan war. It had a celebrated harbour, and was greatly esteemed by the Romans on account of its situation, but it was not well defended. The tree which produces the turpentine grew there in abundance. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 136.—Livy, bk. 24, ch. 40.—Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 89.—Cæsar, Civil War, bk. 3, ch. 1, &c.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 187.

Oriens, in ancient geography, is taken for all the most eastern parts of the world, such as Parthia, India, Assyria, &c.

Origen, a Greek writer, as much celebrated for the easiness of his manners, his humility, and modesty, as for his learning and the sublimity of his genius. He was surnamed Adamantus, from his assiduity; and became so rigid a christian that he made himself a eunuch, by following the literal sense of a passage in the Greek testament, which speaks of the voluntary eunuchs of Christ. He suffered martyrdom in his 69th year, A.D. 254. His works were excellent and numerous, and contained a number of homilies, commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, and different treatises, besides the Hexapla, so called from its being divided into six columns, the first of which contained the Hebrew text, the second the same text in Greek characters, the third the Greek version of the Septuagint, the fourth that of Aquila, the fifth that of Symmachus, and the sixth Theodotion’s Greek version. This famous work first gave the hint for the compilation of our Polyglot Bibles. The works of Origen have been learnedly edited by the Benedictine monks, though the whole is not yet completed, in 4 vols., folio, Paris, 1733, 1740, and 1759. The Hexapla was published in 8vo, at Lipscomb, 1769, by Carl Friedrich Bahrdt.

Orīgo, a courtesan in the age of Horace. Horace, bk. 1, satire 2, li. 55.

Orinus, a river of Sicily.

Oriobătes, a general of Darius at the battle of Arbela, &c. Curtius, bk. 4.

Orīon, a celebrated giant sprung from the urine of Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury. These three gods, as they travelled over Bœotia, met with great hospitality from Hyrieus, a peasant of the country, who was ignorant of their dignity and character. They were entertained with whatever the cottage afforded, and, when Hyrieus had discovered that they were gods, because Neptune told him to fill up Jupiter’s cup with wine, after he had served it before the rest, the old man welcomed them by the voluntary sacrifice of an ox. Pleased with his piety, the gods promised to grant him whatever he required, and the old man, who had lately lost his wife, to whom he had promised never to marry again, desired them that, as he was childless, they would give him a son without another marriage. The gods consented, and they ordered him to bury in the ground the skin of the victim, into which they had all three made water. Hyrieus did as they commanded, and when, nine months after, he dug for the skin, he found in it a beautiful child, whom he called Urion, ab urinâ. The name was changed into Orion, by the corruption of one letter, as Ovid says, Perdidit antiquum littera prima sonum. Orion soon rendered himself celebrated, and Diana took him among her attendants, and even became deeply enamoured of him. His gigantic stature, however, displeased Œnopion king of Chios, whose daughter Hero or Merope he demanded in marriage. The king, not to deny him openly, promised to make him his son-in-law as soon as he delivered his island from wild beasts. This task, which Œnopion deemed impracticable, was soon performed by Orion, who eagerly demanded his reward. Œnopion, on pretence of complying, intoxicated his illustrious guest, and put out his eyes on the seashore, where he had laid himself down to sleep. Orion, finding himself blind when he awoke, was conducted by the sound to a neighbouring forge, where he placed one of the workmen on his back, and by his directions, went to a place where the rising sun was seen with the greatest advantage. Here he turned his face towards the luminary, and, as it is reported, he immediately recovered his eyesight, and hastened to punish the perfidious cruelty of Œnopion. It is said that Orion was an excellent workman in iron, and that he fabricated a subterraneous palace for Vulcan. Aurora, whom Venus had inspired with love, carried him away to the island of Delos, to enjoy his company with the greater security; but Diana, who was jealous of this, destroyed Orion with her arrows. Some say that Orion had provoked Diana’s resentment, by offering violence to Opis, one of her female attendants, or, according to others, because he had attempted the virtue of the goddess herself. According to Ovid, Orion died of the bite of a scorpion, which the earth produced, to punish his vanity in boasting that there was not on earth any animal which he could not conquer. Some say that Orion was the son of Neptune and Euryale, and that he had received from his father the privilege and power of walking over the sea without wetting his feet. Others made him son of Terra, like the rest of the giants. He had married a nymph called Sida before his connection with the family of Œnopion; but Sida was the cause of her own death, by boasting herself fairer than Juno. According to Diodorus, Orion was a celebrated hunter, superior to the rest of mankind by his strength and uncommon stature. He built the port of Zancle, and fortified the coast of Sicily against the frequent inundations of the sea, by heaping a mound of earth, called Pelorum, on which he built a temple to the gods of the sea. After death, Orion was placed in heaven, where one of the constellations still bears his name. The constellation of Orion, placed near the feet of the bull, is composed of 17 stars, in the form of a man holding a sword, which has given occasion to the poets often to speak of Orion’s sword. As the constellation of Orion, which rises about the 9th day of March, and sets about the 21st of June, is generally supposed to be accompanied, at its rising, with great rains and storms, it has acquired the epithet of aquosus, given it by Virgil. Orion was buried in the island of Delos, and the monument which the people of Tanagra in Bœotia showed, as containing the remains of this celebrated hero, was nothing but a cenotaph. The daughters of Orion distinguished themselves as much as their father; and when the oracle had declared that Bœotia should not be delivered from a dreadful pestilence before two of Jupiter’s children were immolated on the altars, they joyfully accepted the offer, and voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the good of their country. Their names were Menippe and Metioche. They had been carefully educated by Diana, and Venus and Minerva had made them very rich and valuable presents. The deities of hell were struck at the patriotism of the two females, and immediately two stars were seen to arise from the earth, which still smoked with the blood, and they were placed in the heavens in the form of a crown. According to Ovid, their bodies were burned by the Thebans, and from their ashes arose two persons whom the gods soon after changed into constellations. Diodorus, bk. 4.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 5, li. 121; bk. 11, li. 309.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 517.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 4.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bks. 8 & 13; Fasti, bk. 5, &c.—Hyginus, fable 125, & Poetica Astronomica, bk. 2, ch. 44, &c.—Propertius, bk. 2, poem 13.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, &c.—Horace, bk. 2, ode 13; bk. 3, odes 4 & 27; Epodes, poem 10, &c.—Lucan, bk. 1, &c.—Catullus, Carmina.—Palæphatus, bk. 1.—Parthenius, Narrationes Amatoriae, ch. 20.

Orissus, a prince of Spain, who put Hamilcar to flight, &c.

Orisulla Livia, a Roman matron, taken away from Piso, &c.

Orītæ, a people of India, who submitted to Alexander, &c. Strabo, bk. 15.

Orithyia, a daughter of Erechtheus king of Athens by Praxithea. She was courted and carried away by Boreas king of Thrace, as she crossed the Ilissus, and became mother of Cleopatra, Chione, Zetus, and Calais. Apollodorus, bk. 1.—Apollonius, bk. 3, ch. 15.—Orpheus.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, li. 706; Fasti, bk. 5, li. 204.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 19; bk. 5, ch. 19.——One of the Nereides.——A daughter of Cecrops, who bore Europus to Macedon.——One of the Amazons, famous for her warlike and intrepid spirit. Justin, bk. 2, ch. 4.

Orĭtias, one of the hunters of the Calydonian boar. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 8.

Oriundus, a river of Illyricum. Livy, bk. 44, ch. 31.

Ormĕnus, a king of Thessaly, son of Cercaphus. He built a town which was called Ormenium. He was father of Amyntor. Homer, Iliad, bk. 9, li. 448.——A man who settled at Rhodes.——A son of Eurypylus, &c.

Ornea, a town of Argolis, famous for a battle fought there between the Lacedæmonians and Argives. Diodorus.

Orneates, a surname of Priapus, at Ornea.

Orneus, a centaur, son of Ixion and the Cloud. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, li. 302.——A son of Erechtheus king of Athens, who built Ornea in Peloponnesus. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 25.

Ornithiæ, a wind blowing from the north in the spring, and so called from the appearance of birds (ὀρνιθες, aves). Columella, bk. 11, ch. 2.

Ornītron, a town of Phœnicia between Tyre and Sidon.

Ornitus, a friend of Æneas, killed by Camilla in the Rutulian wars. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 11, li. 677.

Ornospădes, a Parthian, driven from his country by Artabanus. He assisted Tiberius, and was made governor of Macedonia, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 6, ch. 37.

Ornytion, a son of Sisyphus king of Corinth, father of Phocus. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 17.

Ornytus, a man of Cyzicus, killed by the Argonauts, &c. Valerius Flaccus, bk. 3, li. 173.

Oroanda, a town of Pisidia, now Haviran. Livy, bk. 38, ch. 18.

Orobia, a town of Eubœa.

Orobii, a people of Italy, near Milan.

Orōdes, a prince of Parthia, who murdered his brother Mithridates, and ascended his throne. He defeated Crassus the Roman triumvir, and poured melted gold down the throat of his fallen enemy, to reproach him for his avarice and ambition. He followed the interest of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi. It is said that, when Orodes became old and infirm, his 30 children applied to him, and disputed in his presence their right to the succession. Phraates, the eldest of them, obtained the crown from his father, and to hasten him out of the world, he attempted to poison him. The poison had no effect; and Phraates, still determined on his father’s death, strangled him with his own hands, about 37 years before the christian era. Orodes had then reigned about 50 years. Justin, bk. 42, ch. 4.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 30.——Another king of Parthia, murdered for his cruelty. Josephus, bk. 18, Jewish Antiquities.——A son of Artabanus king of Armenia. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 6, ch. 33.——One of the friends of Æneas in Italy, killed by Mezentius. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 732, &c.

Orœtes, a Persian governor of Sardis, famous for his cruel murder of Polycrates. He died B.C. 521. Herodotus.

Oromĕdon, a lofty mountain in the island of Cos. Theocritus, poem 7.——A giant. Propertius, bk. 3, poem 7, li. 48.

Orontas, a relation of Artaxerxes, sent to Cyprus, where he made peace with Evagoras, &c. Polyænus, bk. 7.

[♦]Orontes, a satrap of Mysia, B.C. 385, who rebelled from Artaxerxes, &c. Polyænus.——A governor of Armenia. Polyænus.——A king of the Lycians during the Trojan war, who followed Æneas, and perished in a shipwreck. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 117; bk. 6, li. 34.——A river of Syria (now Asi), rising in Cœlosyria, and falling, after a rapid and troubled course, into the Mediterranean, below Antioch. According to Strabo, who mentions some fabulous accounts concerning it, the Orontes disappeared under ground for the space of five miles. The word Oronteus is often used as Syrius. Dionysius Periegetes.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 248.—Strabo, bk. 16.—Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 20.

[♦] ‘Orantes’ replaced with ‘Orontes’

Orophernes, a man who seized the kingdom of Cappadocia. He died B.C. 154.

Orōpus, a town of Bœotia, on the borders of Attica, near the Euripus, which received its name from Oropus, a son of Macedon. It was the frequent cause of quarrels between the Bœotians and the Athenians, whence some have called it one of the cities of Attica, and was at last confirmed in the possession of the Athenians by Philip king of Macedon. Amphiaraus had a temple there. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 34.—Strabo, bk. 9.——A small town of Eubœa.——Another in Macedonia.

Orosius, a Spanish writer, A.D. 416, who published a universal history, in seven books, from the creation to his own time, in which, though learned, diligent, and pious, he betrayed a great ignorance of the knowledge of historical facts, and of chronology. The best edition is that of Havercamp, 4to, Leiden, 1767.

Orospeda, a mountain of Spain. Strabo, bk. 3.

Orpheus, a son of Œager by the muse Calliope. Some suppose him to be the son of Apollo, to render his birth more illustrious. He received a lyre from Apollo, or, according to some, from Mercury, upon which he played with such a masterly hand, that even the most rapid rivers ceased to flow, the savage beasts of the forest forgot their wildness, and the mountains moved to listen to his song. All nature seemed charmed and animated, and the nymphs were his constant companions. Eurydice was the only one who made a deep impression on the melodious musician, and their nuptials were celebrated. Their happiness, however, was short; Aristaeus became enamoured of Eurydice, and, as she fled from her pursuer, a serpent, that was lurking in the grass, bit her foot, and she died of the poisonous wound. Her loss was severely felt by Orpheus, and he resolved to recover her, or perish in the attempt. With his lyre in his hand, he entered the infernal regions, and gained an easy admission to the palace of Pluto. The king of hell was charmed with the melody of his strains; and, according to the beautiful expressions of the poets, the wheel of Ixion stopped, the stone of Sisyphus stood still, Tantalus forgot his perpetual thirst, and even the Furies relented. Pluto and Proserpine were moved with his sorrow, and consented to restore him Eurydice, provided he forbore looking behind till he had come to the extremest borders of hell. The conditions were gladly accepted, and Orpheus was already in sight of the upper regions of the air, when he forgot his promises, and turned back to look at his long-lost Eurydice. He saw her, but she instantly vanished from his eyes. He attempted to follow her, but he was refused admission; and the only comfort he could find, was to soothe his grief at the sound of his musical instrument, in grottoes, or on the mountains. He totally separated himself from the society of mankind; and the Thracian women, whom he had offended by his coldness to their amorous passion, or, according to others, by his unnatural gratifications and impure indulgencies, attacked him while they celebrated the orgies of Bacchus, and after they had torn his body to pieces, they threw his head into the Hebrus, which still articulated the words “Eurydice! Eurydice” as it was carried down the stream into the Ægean sea. Orpheus was one of the Argonauts, of which celebrated expedition he wrote a poetical account, still extant. This is doubted by Aristotle, who says, according to Cicero, that there never existed an Orpheus, but that the poems which pass under his name are the compositions of a Pythagorean philosopher named Cecrops. According to some of the moderns, the Argonautica, and the other poems attributed to Orpheus, are the production of the pen of Onomacritus, a poet who lived in the age of Pisistratus tyrant of Athens. Pausanias, however, and Diodorus Siculus, speak of Orpheus as a great poet and musician, who rendered himself equally celebrated by his knowledge of the art of war, by the extent of his understanding, and by the laws which he enacted. Some maintain that he was killed by a thunderbolt. He was buried at Pieria in Macedonia, according to Apollodorus. The inhabitants of Dion boasted that his tomb was in their city, and the people of mount Libethrus, in Thrace, claimed the same honour, and further observed, that the nightingales, which built their nests near his tomb, sang with greater melody than all other birds. Orpheus, as some report, after death received divine honours, the muses gave an honourable burial to his remains, and his lyre became one of the constellations in the heavens. The best edition of Orpheus is that of Gesner, 8vo, Lipscomb, 1764. Diodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Pausanias, bk. 1, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 9, &c.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 1, ch. 38.—Apollonius, bk. 1.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 645; Georgics, bk. 4, li. 457, &c.—Hyginus, fable 14, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 10, fable 1, &c.; bk. 11, fable 1.—Plato, Republic, bk. 10.—Horace, bk. 1, odes 13 & 35.—Orpheus.

Orphĭca, a name by which the orgies of Bacchus were called, because they had been introduced in Europe from Egypt by Orpheus.

Orphne, a nymph of the infernal regions, mother of Ascalaphus by Acheron. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, li. 542.

Orsedĭce, a daughter of Cinyras and Metharme. Apollodorus.

Orseis, a nymph who married Hellen. Apollodorus.

Orsillus, a Persian who fled to Alexander, when Bessus murdered Darius. Curtius, bk. 5, ch. 31.

Orsilŏchus, a son of Idomeneus, killed by Ulysses in the Trojan war, &c. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 13, li. 260.——A son of the river Alpheus.——A Trojan killed by Camilla in the Rutulian wars, &c. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 11, lis. 636 & 690.

Orsīnes, one of the officers of Darius at the battle of Arbela. Curtius, bk. 10, ch. 1.

Orsippus, a man of Megara, who was prevented from obtaining a prize at the Olympic games, because his clothes were entangled as he ran. This circumstance was the cause that, for the future, all the combatants were obliged to appear naked. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 44.

Marcus Ortalus, a grandson of Hortensius, who was induced to marry by a present from Augustus, who wished that ancient family not to be extinguished. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 2, ch. 37.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 3, ch. 5.—Suetonius, Tiberius.

Orthagŏras, a man who wrote a treatise on India, &c. Ælian, de Natura Animalium.——A musician in the age of Epaminondas.——A tyrant of Sicyon, who mingled severity with justice in his government. The sovereign authority remained upwards of 100 years in his family.

Orthæa, a daughter of Hyacinthus. Apollodorus.

Orthe, a town of Magnesia. Pliny.

Orthia, a surname of Diana at Sparta. In her sacrifices it was usual for boys to be whipped. See: [Diamastigosis]. Plutarch, Theseus, &c.

Orthosia, a town of Caria. Livy, bk. 45, ch. 25.——Of Phœnicia. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 20.

Orthrus, or Orthos, a dog which belonged to Geryon, from which and the Chimæra sprung the Sphinx and the Nemæan lion. He had two heads, and was sprung from the union of Echidna and Typhon. He was destroyed by Hercules. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 310.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5.

Ortōna. See: [Artona].

Ortygia, a grove near Ephesus. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 3, ch. 16.——A small island of Sicily, within the bay of Syracuse, which formed once one of the four quarters of that great city. It was in this island that the celebrated fountain Arethusa arose. Ortygia is now the only part remaining of the once famed Syracuse, about two miles in circumference, and inhabited by 18,000 souls. It has suffered, like the towns on the eastern coast, by the eruptions of Ætna. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 694.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 15, li. 403.——An ancient name of the island of Delos. Some suppose that it received this name from Latona, who fled thither when changed into a quail (ὀρτυξ) by Jupiter, to avoid the pursuit of Juno. Diana was called Ortygia, as being born there; as also Apollo. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 651; Fasti, bk. 5, li. 692.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 124.

Ortygius, a Rutulian killed by Æneas. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 9, li. 573.

Orus, or Horus, one of the gods of the Egyptians, son of Osiris and Isis. He assisted his mother in avenging his father, who had been murdered by Typhon. Orus was skilled in medicine, he was acquainted with futurity, and he made the good and the happiness of his subjects the sole object of his government. He was the emblem of the sun among the Egyptians, and he was generally represented as an infant, swathed in variegated clothes. In one hand he held a staff, which terminated in the head of a hawk, in the other a whip with three thongs. Herodotus, bk. 2.—Plutarch, Iside et Osiride.—Diodorus, bk. 1.——The first king of Trœzene. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 30.

Oryander, a satrap of Persia, &c. Polyænus, bk. 7.

Oryx, a place of Arcadia on the Ladon. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 25.

Osaces, a Parthian general, who received a mortal wound from Cassius. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 5, ltr. 20.

Osca, a town of Spain, now Huesca, in Arragon. Livy, bk. 34, ch. 10.

Oschophŏria, a festival observed by the Athenians. It receives its name ἀπο του φερειν τας ὀσχας, from carrying boughs hung up with grapes, called ὀσχαι. Its original institution is thus mentioned by Plutarch, Theseus. Theseus, at his return from Crete, forgot to hang out the white sail by which his father was to be apprised of his success. This neglect was fatal to Ægeus, who threw himself into the sea and perished. Theseus no sooner reached the land, than he sent a herald to inform his father of his safe return, and in the mean time he began to make the sacrifices which he vowed when he first set sail from Crete. The herald, on his entrance into the city, found the people in great agitation. Some lamented the king’s death, while others, elated at the sudden news of the victory of Theseus, crowned the herald with garlands in demonstration of their joy. The herald carried back the garlands on his staff to the sea-shore, and after he had waited till Theseus had finished his sacrifice, he related the melancholy story of the king’s death. Upon this, the people ran in crowds to the city, showing their grief by cries and lamentations. From that circumstance, therefore, at the feast of the Oschophoria, not the herald but his staff is crowned with garlands, and all the people that are present always exclaim ἐλελευ, ιου, ιου, the first of which expresses haste, and the other a consternation or depression of spirits. The historian further mentions that Theseus, when he went to Crete, did not take with him the usual number of virgins, but that, instead of two of them, he filled up the number with two youths of his acquaintance, whom he made pass for women, by disguising their dress, and by using them to the ointment and perfumes of women, as well as by a long and successful imitation of their voice. The imposition succeeded; their sex was not discovered in Crete, and when Theseus had triumphed over the Minotaur, he, with these two youths, led a procession with branches in their hands, in the same habit which is still used at the celebration of the Oschophoria. The branches which were carried were in honour of Bacchus or of Ariadne, or because they returned in autumn when the grapes were ripe. Besides this procession, there was also a race exhibited, in which only young men whose parents were both alive were permitted to engage. It was usual for them to run from the temple of Bacchus to that of Minerva, which was on the sea-shore. The place where they stopped was called ὀσχοφοριον, because the boughs which they carried in their hands were deposited there. The reward of the conqueror was a cup called τεντα πλοα, five-fold, because it contained a mixture of five different things—wine, honey, cheese, meal, and oil. Plutarch, Theseus.

Osci, a people between Campania and the country of the Volsci, who assisted Turnus against Æneas. Some suppose that they are the same as the Opici, the word Osci being a diminutive or abbreviation of the other. The language, the plays, and ludicrous expressions of this nation, are often mentioned by the ancients, and from their indecent tendency some suppose the word obscænum (quasi oscenum) is derived. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 4, ch. 14.—Cicero, Letters to his Friends, bk. 7, ltr. 1.—Livy, bk. 10, ch. 20.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 5.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 730.

Oscius, a mountain, with a river of the same name, in Thrace. Thucydides.

Oscus, a general of the fleet of the emperor Otho. Tacitus, bk. 1, Histories, bk. 17.

Osi, a people of Germany. Tacitus, Germania, chs. 28 & 43.

Osinius, a king of Clusium, who assisted Æneas against Turnus. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 655.

Osīris, a great deity of the Egyptians, son of Jupiter and Niobe. All the ancients greatly differ in their opinions concerning this celebrated god, but they all agree that, as king of Egypt, he took particular care to civilize his subjects, to polish their morals, to give them good and salutary laws, and to teach them agriculture. After he had accomplished a reform at home, Osiris resolved to go and spread cultivation in the other parts of the earth. He left his kingdom to the care of his wife Isis, and of her faithful minister Hermes or Mercury. The command of his troops at home was left to the trust of Hercules, a warlike officer. In this expedition Osiris was accompanied by his brother Apollo, and by Anubis, Macedo, and Pan. His march was through Æthiopia, where his army was increased by the addition of the Satyrs, a hairy race of monsters, who made dancing and playing on musical instruments their chief study. He afterwards passed through Arabia, and visited the greatest part of the kingdoms of Asia and Europe, where he enlightened the minds of men by introducing among them the worship of the gods, and a reverence for the wisdom of a supreme being. At his return home Osiris found the minds of his subjects roused and agitated. His brother Typhon had raised seditions, and endeavoured to make himself popular. Osiris, whose sentiments were always of the most pacific nature, endeavoured to convince his brother of his ill conduct, but he fell a sacrifice to the attempt. Typhon murdered him in a secret apartment and cut his body to pieces, which were divided among the associates of his guilt. Typhon, according to Plutarch, shut up his brother in a coffer and threw him into the Nile. The inquiries of Isis discovered the body of her husband on the coast of Phœnicia, where it had been conveyed by the waves, but Typhon stole it as it was being carried into Memphis, and he divided it amongst his companions, as was before observed. This cruelty incensed Isis; she revenged her husband’s death, and, with her son Orus, she defeated Typhon and the partisans of his conspiracy. She recovered the mangled pieces of her husband’s body, the genitals excepted, which the murderer had thrown into the sea; and to render him all the honour which his humanity deserved, she made as many statues of wax as there were mangled pieces of his body. Each statue contained a piece of the flesh of the dead monarch; and Isis, after she had summoned in her presence, one by one, the priests of all the different deities in her dominions, gave them each a statue, intimating that in doing that she had preferred them to all the other communities of Egypt, and she bound them by a solemn oath that they would keep secret that mark of her favour, and endeavour to show their sense of it by establishing a form of worship and paying divine honours to their prince. They were further directed to choose whatever animals they pleased to represent the person and the divinity of Osiris, and they were enjoined to pay the greatest reverence to that representative of divinity, and to bury it when dead with the greatest solemnity. To render their establishment more popular, each sacerdotal body had a certain portion of land allotted to them to maintain them, and to defray the expenses which necessarily attended their sacrifices and ceremonial rites. That part of the body of Osiris which had not been recovered was treated with more particular attention by Isis, and she ordered that it should receive honours more solemn, and at the same time more mysterious, than the other members. See: [Phallica]. As Osiris had particularly instructed his subjects in cultivating the ground, the priests chose the ox to represent him, and paid the most superstitious veneration to that animal. See: [Apis]. Osiris, according to the opinion of some mythologists, is the same as the sun, and the adoration which is paid by different nations to an Anubis, a Bacchus, a Dionysius, a Jupiter, a Pan, &c., is the same as that which Osiris received in the Egyptian temples. Isis also after death received divine honours as well as her husband, and as the ox was the symbol of the sun, or Osiris, so the cow was the emblem of the moon, or of Isis. Nothing can give a clearer idea of the power and greatness of Osiris than this inscription, which has been found on some ancient monuments: Saturn, the youngest of all the gods, was my father: I am Osiris, who conducted a large and numerous army as far as the deserts of India, and travelled over the greatest part of the world, and visited the streams of the Ister, and the remote shores of the ocean, diffusing benevolence to all the inhabitants of the earth. Osiris was generally represented with a cap on his head like a mitre, with two horns; he held a stick in his left hand, and in his right a whip with three thongs. Sometimes he appears with the head of a hawk, as that bird, from its quick and piercing eyes, is a proper emblem of the sun. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride.—Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 144.—Diodorus, bk. 1.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 12, li. 323.—Ælian, de Natura Animalium, bk. 3.—Lucian, de Syria Dea.—Pliny, bk. 8.——A Persian general, who lived 450 B.C.——A friend of Turnus, killed in the Rutulian war. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 12, li. 458.

Osismii, a people of Gaul in Britany. Mela, bk. 3, ch. 2.—Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 2, ch. 34.

Osphăgus, a river of Macedonia. Livy, bk. 31, ch. 39.

Osrhoēne, a country of Mesopotamia, which received this name from one of its kings called Osrhoes.

Ossa, a lofty mountain of Thessaly, once the residence of the Centaurs. It was formerly joined to mount Olympus, but Hercules, as some report, separated them, and made between them the celebrated valley of Tempe. This separation of the two mountains was more probably effected by an earthquake, which happened, as fabulous accounts represent, about 1885 years before the christian era. Ossa was one of those mountains which the giants, in their wars against the gods, heaped up one on the other to scale the heavens with more facility. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 155; bk. 2, li. 225; bk. 7, li. 224; Fasti, bk. 1, li. 307; bk. 3, li. 441.—Strabo, bk. 2.—Lucan, bks. 1 & 6.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 1, li. 281.——A town of Macedonia.

Osteōdes, an island near the Lipari isles.

Ostia, a town built on the mouth of the river Tiber by Ancus Martius king of Rome, about 16 miles distant from Rome. It had a celebrated harbour, and was so pleasantly situated, that the Romans generally spent a part of the year there as in a country seat. There was a small tower in the port like the Pharos of Alexandria, built upon the wreck of a large ship which had been sunk there, and which contained the obelisks of Egypt, with which the Roman emperors intended to adorn the capital of Italy. In the age of Strabo the sand and mud deposited by the Tiber had choked the harbour, and added much to the size of the small islands, which sheltered the ships at the entrance of the river. Ostia, and her harbour called Portus, became gradually separated, and are now at a considerable distance from the sea. Florus, bk. 1, ch. 4; bk. 3, ch. 21.—Livy, bk. 1, ch. 33.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Suetonius.—Pliny.

Ostorius Scapŭla, a man made governor of Britain. He died A.D. 55. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 16, ch. 23.——Another, who put himself to death when accused before Nero, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, ch. 48.——Sabinus, a man who accused Soranus, in Nero’s reign. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 16, ch. 33.

Ostracine, a town of Egypt on the confines of Palestine. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 12.

Osymandyas, a magnificent king of Egypt in a remote period.

Otacilius, a Roman consul sent against the Carthaginians, &c.

Otānes, a noble Persian, one of the seven who conspired against the usurper Smerdis. It was through him that the usurpation was first discovered. He was afterwards appointed by Darius over the sea-coast of Asia Minor, and took Byzantium. Herodotus, bk. 3, ch. 70, &c.

Otho Marcus Salvius, a Roman emperor descended from the ancient kings of Etruria. He was one of Nero’s favourites, and as such he was raised to the highest offices of the state, and made governor of Pannonia by the interest of Seneca, who wished to remove him from Rome, lest Nero’s love for Poppæa should prove his ruin. After Nero’s death Otho conciliated the favour of Galba the new emperor; but when he did not gain his point, and when Galba had refused to adopt him as his successor, he resolved to make himself absolute, without any regard to the age and dignity of his friend. The great debts which he had contracted encouraged his avarice, and he caused Galba to be assassinated, and he made himself emperor. He was acknowledged by the senate and the Roman people, but the sudden revolt of Vitellius in Germany rendered his situation precarious, and it was mutually resolved that their respective right to the empire should be decided by arms. Otho obtained three victories over his enemies, but in a general engagement near Brixellum, his forces were defeated, and he stabbed himself when all hopes of success were vanished, after a reign of about three months, on the 20th of April, A.D. 69. It has been justly observed that the last moments of Otho’s life were those of a philosopher. He comforted his soldiers who lamented his fortunes, and he expressed his concern for their safety, when they earnestly solicited to pay him the last friendly offices before he stabbed himself, and he observed that it was better that one man should die, than that all should be involved in ruin for his obstinacy. His nephew was pale and distressed, fearing the anger and haughtiness of the conqueror; but Otho comforted him, and observed that Vitellius would be kind and affectionate to the friends and relations of Otho, since Otho was not ashamed to say, that in the time of their greatest enmity the mother of Vitellius had received every friendly treatment from his hand. He also burnt the letters which, by falling into the hands of Vitellius, might provoke his resentment against those who had favoured the cause of an unfortunate general. These noble and humane sentiments of a man who was the associate of Nero’s shameful pleasures, and who stained his hand in the blood of his master, have appeared to some wonderful, and passed for the features of policy, and not of a naturally virtuous and benevolent heart. Plutarch, Lives.—Suetonius.—Tacitus, Histories, bk. 2, ch. 50, &c.—Juvenal, satire 2, li. 90.——Roscius, a tribune of the people, who, in Cicero’s consulship, made a regulation to permit the Roman knights at public spectacles to have the 14 first rows after the seats of the senators. This was opposed with virulence by some, but Cicero ably defended it, &c. Horace, epode 4, li. 10.——The father of the Roman emperor Otho was the favourite of Claudius.

Othryădes, one of the 300 Spartans who fought against 300 Argives, when those two nations disputed their respective right to Thyrea. Two Argives, Alcinor and Cronius, and Othryades, survived the battle. The Argives went home to carry the news of their victory, but Othryades, who had been reckoned among the number of the slain, on account of his wounds, recovered himself and carried some of the spoils, of which he had stripped the Argives, into the camp of his countrymen; and after he had raised a trophy, and had written with his own blood, the word vici on his shield, he killed himself, unwilling to survive the death of his countrymen. Valerius Maximus, bk. 3, ch. 2.—Plutarch, Parallela Minora.——A patronymic given to Pantheus the Trojan priest of Apollo, from his father Othryas. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 2, li. 319.

Othryoneus, a Thracian who came to the Trojan war in hopes of marrying Cassandra. He was killed by Idomeneus. Homer, Iliad, bk. 13.

Othrys, a mountain, or rather a chain of mountains, in Thessaly, the residence of the Centaurs. Strabo, bk. 9.—Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 129.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 675.

Otreus, a king of Phrygia, son of Cisseus and brother to Hecuba.

Otrœda, a small town on the confines of Bithynia.

Otus and Ephialtes, sons of Neptune. See: [Aloides].

Otys, a prince of Paphlagonia, who revolted from the Persians to Agesilaus. Xenophon.

Ovia, a Roman lady, wife of Cneaus Lollius. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 12, ltr. 21.

Publius Ovīdius Naso, a celebrated Roman poet, born at Sulmo on the 20th of March, about 43 B.C. As he was intended for the bar, his father sent him early to Rome, and removed him to Athens in the 16th year of his age. The progress of Ovid in the study of eloquence was great, but the father’s expectations were frustrated; his son was born a poet, and nothing could deter him from pursuing his natural inclination, though he was often reminded that Homer lived and died in the greatest poverty. Everything he wrote was expressed in poetical numbers, as he himself says, et quod tentabam scribere versus erat. A lively genius and a fertile imagination soon gained him admirers; the learned became his friends; Virgil, Propertius, Tibullus, and Horace, honoured him with their correspondence, and Augustus patronized him with the most unbounded liberality. These favours, however, were but momentary, and the poet was soon after banished to Tomos, on the Euxine sea, by the emperor. The true cause of this sudden exile is unknown. Some attribute it to a shameful amour with Livia the wife of Augustus, while others support that it arose from the knowledge which Ovid had of the unpardonable incest of the emperor with his daughter Julia. These reasons are, indeed, merely conjectural; the cause was of a very private and very secret nature, of which Ovid himself is afraid to speak, as it arose from error and not from criminality. It was, however, something improper in the family and court of Augustus, as these lines seem to indicate.

Cur aliquid vidi? Cur noxia lumina feci?

Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?

Inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam;

Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis.

Again,

Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina plector,

Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum.

And in another place,

Perdiderunt cum me duo crimina, carmen et error,

Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est.

In his banishment, Ovid betrayed his pusillanimity, and however afflicted and distressed his situation was, yet the flattery and impatience which he showed in his writings are a disgrace to his pen, and expose him more to ridicule than pity. Though he prostituted his pen and his time to adulation, yet the emperor proved deaf to all entreaties, and refused to listen to his most ardent friends at Rome who wished for the return of the poet. Ovid, who undoubtedly wished for a Brutus to deliver Rome of her tyrannical Augustus, continued his flattery even to meanness; and, when the emperor died, he was so mercenary as to consecrate a temple to the departed tyrant on the shores of the Euxine, where he regularly offered frankincense every morning. Tiberius proved as regardless as his predecessor to the entreaties which were made for Ovid, and the poet died in the seventh or eighth year of his banishment, in the 59th year of his age, A.D. 17, and was buried at Tomos. In the year 1508 of the christian era, the following epitaph was found at Stain, in the modern kingdom of Austria:

Hic situs est vates quem Divi Cæsaris ira.

Augusti patriâ cedere jussit humo.

Sæpe miser voluit patriis occumbere terris,

Sed frustra! Hunc illi fata dedere locum.

This, however, is an imposition, to render celebrated an obscure corner of the world, which never contained the bones of Ovid. The greatest part of Ovid’s poems are remaining. His Metamorphoses, in 15 books, are extremely curious, on account of the many different mythological facts and traditions which they relate, but they can have no claim to an epic poem. In composing this the poet was more indebted to the then existing traditions, and to the theogony of the ancients, than to the powers of his own imagination. His Fasti were divided into 12 books, the same number as the constellations in the zodiac; but of these, six have perished, and the learned world have reason to lament the loss of a poem which must have thrown so much light upon the religious rites and ceremonies, festivals and sacrifices, of the ancient Romans, as we may judge from the six that have survived the ravages of time and barbarity. His Tristia, which are divided into five books, contain much elegance and softness of expression, as also his Elegies on different subjects. The Heroides are nervous, spirited, and diffuse, the poetry is excellent, the language varied, but the expressions are often too wanton and indelicate, a fault which is common in his compositions. His three books of Amorum, and the same number de Arte Amandi, with the other de Remedio Amoris, are written with great elegance, and contain many flowery descriptions; but the doctrine which they hold forth is dangerous, and they are to be read with caution, as they seem to be calculated to corrupt the heart, and sap the foundations of virtue and morality. His Ibis, which is written in imitation of a poem of Callimachus, of the same name, is a satirical performance. Besides these, there are extant some fragments of other poems, and among these some of a tragedy called Medea. The talents of Ovid as a dramatic writer have been disputed, and some have observed that he, who is so often void of sentiment, was not born to shine as a tragedian. Ovid has attempted perhaps too many sorts of poetry at once. On whatever he has written, he has totally exhausted the subject, and left nothing unsaid. He everywhere paints nature with a masterly hand, and gives strength to the most vulgar expressions. It has been judiciously observed, that his poetry, after his banishment from Rome, was destitute of that spirit and vivacity which we admire in his other compositions. His Fasti are perhaps the best written of all his poems, and after them we may fairly rank his love verses, his Heroides, and, after all, his Metamorphoses, which were not totally finished when Augustus sent him into banishment. His Epistles from Pontus are the language of an abject and pusillanimous flatterer. However critics may censure the indelicacy and the inaccuracies of Ovid, it is to be acknowledged that his poetry contains great sweetness and elegance, and, like that of Tibullus, charms the ear and captivates the mind. Ovid married three wives, but of the last alone he speaks with fondness and affection. He had only one daughter, but by which of his wives is unknown; and she herself became mother of two children, by two husbands. The best editions of Ovid’s works are those of Burman, 4 vols., 4to, Amsterdam, 1727; of Leiden, 1670, in 8vo, and of Utrecht, in 12mo, 4 vols., 1713. Ovid, Tristia, bks. 3 & 4, &c.—Paterculus, bk. 2.—Martial, bks. 3 & 8.——A man who accompanied his friend Cæsonius when banished from Rome by Nero. Martial, bk. 7, ltr. 43.

Ovinia lex was enacted to permit the censors to elect and admit among the number of the senators the best and the worthiest of the people.

Ovinius, a freedman of Vatinius, the friend of Cicero, &c. Quintilian, bk. 3, ch. 4.——Quintus, a Roman senator, punished by Augustus for disgracing his rank in the court of Cleopatra. Eutropius, bk. 1.

Oxathres, a brother of Darius, greatly honoured by Alexander, and made one of his generals. Curtius, bk. 7, ch. 5.——Another Persian, who favoured the cause of Alexander. Curtius.

Oxidătes, a Persian whom Darius condemned to death. Alexander took him prisoner, and some time after made him governor of Media. He became oppressive, and was removed. Curtius, bk. 8, ch. 3; bk. 9, ch. 8.

Oximes, a people of European Sarmatia.

Oxionæ, a nation of Germans, whom superstitious traditions represented as having the countenance human, and the rest of the body like that of beasts. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 46.

Oxus, a large river of Bactriana, now Gihon, falling into the east of the Caspian sea. Pliny, bk. 16, ch. 6.——Another in Scythia.

Oxyares, a king of Bactriana, who surrendered to Alexander.

Oxycānus, an Indian prince in the age of Alexander, &c.

Oxydrăcæ, a nation of India. Curtius, bk. 9, ch. 4.

Oxy̆lus, a leader of the Heraclidæ, when they recovered the Peloponnesus. He was rewarded with the kingdom of Elis. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 4.——A son of Mars and Protogenia. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 7.

Oxynthes, a king of Athens, B.C. 1149. He reigned 12 years.

Oxypŏrus, a son of Cinyras and Metharme. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 14.

Oxyrynchus, a town of Egypt on the Nile. Strabo.

Ozīnes, a Persian imprisoned by Craterus, because he attempted to revolt from Alexander. Curtius, bk. 9, ch. 10.

Ozŏlæ, or Ozŏli, a people who inhabited the eastern parts of Ætolia, which were called Ozolea. This tract of territory lay at the north of the bay of Corinth, and extended about 12 miles northward. They received their name from the bad stench (ὀζη) of their bodies and of their clothing, which was the raw hides of wild beasts, or from the offensive smell of the body of Nessus the Centaur, which after death was left to putrefy in the country without the honours of a burial. Some derive it with more propriety from the stench of the stagnated waters in the neighbouring lakes and marshes. According to a fabulous tradition, they received their name from a very different circumstance. During the reign of a son of Deucalion, a bitch brought into the world a stick instead of whelps. The stick was planted in the ground by the king, and it grew up to a large vine and produced grapes, from which the inhabitants of the country were called Ozolæ, not from ὀζειν, to smell bad, but from ὀζος, a branch or sprout. The name of Ozolæ, on account of its indelicate signification, highly displeased the inhabitants, and they exchanged it soon for that of Ætolians. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 38.—Herodotus, bk. 8, ch. 32.

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