[[74]]Ηθειαι, τις δευρο νοος, χρειω τε, κομιζει;
Menelaus says to his brother Agamemnon, [[75]]Τιφθ' ὁυτως, Ηθειε, κορυσσεαι; And [[76]]Τιπτε μοι, Ηθειε κεφαλη, δευρ' ειληλουθας, are the words of Achilles to the shade of his lost Patroclus. Ηθειος, in the original acceptation, as a title, signified Solaris, Divinus, Splendidus: but, in a secondary sense, it denoted any thing holy, good, and praiseworthy. [[77]]Αλλα μιν Ηθειον καλεω και νοσφιν εοντα, says Eumæus, of his long absent and much honoured master. I will call him good and noble, whether he be dead or alive. From this antient term were derived the ηθος and ηθικα of the Greeks.
I have mentioned that it is often compounded, as in Athyr: and that it was a name conferred on places where the Amonians settled. Some of this family came, in early times, to Rhodes and Lemnos: of which migrations I shall hereafter treat. Hence, one of the most antient names of [[78]]Rhodes was Aithraia, or the Island of Athyr; so called from the worship of the Sun: and Lemnos was denominated Aithalia, for the same reason, from Aith-El. It was particularly devoted to the God of fire; and is hence styled Vulcania by the Poet:
[[79]]Sumnmis Vulcania surgit
Lemnos aquis.
Ethiopia itself was named both [[80]]Aitheria, and Aeria, from Aur, and Athyr: and Lesbos, which had received a colony of Cuthites, was reciprocally styled [[81]]Æthiope. The people of Canaan and Syria paid a great reverence to the memory of Ham: hence, we read of many places in those parts named Hamath, Amathus, Amathusia. One of the sons of Canaan seems to have been thus called: for it is said, that Canaan was the father of the [[82]]Hamathite. A city of this name stood to the east of mount Libanus; whose natives were the Hamathites alluded to here. There was another Hamath, in Cyprus, by the Greeks expressed Αμαθους, of the same original as the former. We read of Eth-Baal, a king of [[83]]Sidon, who was the father of Jezebel; and of [[84]]Athaliah, who was her daughter. For Ath was an oriental term, which came from Babylonia and Chaldea to Egypt; and from thence to Syria and Canaan. Ovid, though his whole poem be a fable, yet copies the modes of those countries of which he treats. On this account, speaking of an Ethiopian, he introduces him by the name of Eth-Amon, but softened by him to Ethemon.
[[85]]Instabant parte sinistrâ
Chaonius Molpeus, dextrâ Nabathæus Ethemon.
Ath was sometimes joined to the antient title Herm; which the Grecians, with a termination, made Ἑρμης. From Ath-Herm came Θερμαι, Θερμος, Θερμαινω. These terms were sometimes reversed, and rendered Herm-athena.