Nothing so much distinguished him as the laws he enacted for the Cretans, which obtained him the name of one of the greatest legislators of antiquity. To confer the more authority on these laws, Minos retired to a cave of Mount Ida, where he feigned that Jupiter, his father, dictated them to him; and every time he returned thence a new injunction was promulgated by him. Homer calls him Jupiter's disciple; and Horace says he was admitted to the secrets of that god. Strabo and Ephŏrus contend, that Minos dwelt nine years in retirement in this cave, and that it was afterwards called the cave of Jupiter.
Antiquity entertained the highest esteem for the institutes of Minos: and the testimonies of ancient authors on this head are endless. It will, therefore, suffice to observe that Lycurgus travelled to Crete on purpose to collect the laws of Minos for the benefit of the Lacedemonians; and that Josephus, partial as he was to his own nation, has owned, that Minos was the only one among the ancients who deserved to be compared to Moses. He was reputed the judge of the supreme court of Pluto, Æăcus judged the Europeans; the Asiatics and Africans fell to the lot of Rhadamanthus; and Minos, as president of the infernal court, decided the differences which arose between these two judges. He sat on a throne by himself, and wielded a golden sceptre.
RHADAMANTHUS was the son of Jupiter and Eurōpa, and brother of Minos. He was one of the three judges of hell. It is said that Rhadamanthus, having killed his brother, fled to Œchalia in Bœotia, where he married Alcmēna, widow of Amphitryon. Some make Rhadamanthus a king of Lycia, who on account of his severity and strict regard to justice, was said to have been one of the three judges of hell, where his province was to judge such as died impenitent. It is agreed, that he was the most temperate man of his time, and was exalted amongst the law-givers of Crete, who were renowned as good and just men. The division assigned to Rhadamanthus in the infernal regions was Tartărus.
ÆACUS, son of Jupiter and Ægīna, was king of Œnopia, which, from his mother's name, he called Ægīna. The inhabitants of that country being destroyed by a plague, Æăcus prayed to his father that by some means he would repair the loss of his subjects, upon which Jupiter, in compassion changed all the ants within a hollow tree into men and women, who, from a Greek word signifying ants, were called Myrmidons, and actually were so industrious a people as to become famous for their ships and navigation.
The meaning of which fable is this: The pirates having destroyed the inhabitants of the island, excepting a few, who hid themselves in caves and holes for fear of a like fate, Æăcus drew them out of their retreats and encouraged them to build houses, and sow corn; taught them military discipline, and how to fit out and navigate fleets, and to appear not like ants in holes, but on the theatre of the world, like men. His character for justice was such, that in a time of universal drought he was nominated by the Delphic oracle to intercede for Greece, and his prayers were heard. The pagan world also believed that Æăcus, on account of his impartial justice, was chosen by Pluto, with Minos and Rhadamanthus, one of the three judges of the dead, and that it was his province to judge the Europeans, in which capacity he held a plain rod as a badge of his office.
CHAPTER IX.
The condemned in Hell.
TYPHŒUS, a giant of enormous size, was, according to Hesiod, son of Erĕbus, or Tartărus and Terra. His stature was prodigious. With one hand he touched the east, and with the other the west, while his head reached to the stars. Hesiod has given him an hundred heads of dragons, uttering dreadful sounds, and eyes which darted fire; flame proceeded from his mouths and nostrils, his body was encircled with serpents, and his thighs and legs were of a serpentine form. When he had almost discomfited the gods, who fled from him into Egypt, Jupiter alone stood his ground, and pursued the monster to Mount Caucăsus in Syria, where he wounded him with his thunder; But Typhœus, turning upon him, took the god prisoner, and after having cut, with his own sickle, the muscles of his hands and feet, threw him on his shoulders, carried him into Cilicia, and there imprisoned him in a cave, whence he was delivered by Mercury, who restored him to his former vigor. Typhœus afterwards fled into Sicily, where the god overwhelmed him with the enormous mass of mount Ætna.
Historians report, that Typhœus was brother of Osīris, king of Egypt, who in the absence of that monarch, formed a conspiracy to dethrone him; and that having accordingly put Osīris to death, Isis, in revenge of her husband, raised an army, the command of which she gave to Orus her son, who vanquished and slew the usurper: hence the Egyptians, in abhorrence of his memory, painted him under their hieroglyphic characters in so frightful a manner. The length of his arms signified his power, the serpents about him denoted his address and cunning, the scales which covered his body, expressed his cruelty and dissimulation, and the flight of the gods into Egypt showed the precautions taken by the great to screen themselves from his fury and resentment. Mythologists take Typhœus and the other giants, to have been the winds; especially the subterraneous, which cause earthquakes to break forth with fire, occasioned by the sulphur enkindled in the caverns under Campania, Sicily, and the Æolian islands.