[937]. Euripides, speaking of course as a poet, pronounces beauty to be worthy of supreme power. But many ancient nations were seriously of this mind, and chose the finest person among them to be their king: which was the practice of those Ethiopians called the Immortals.—Athen. xiii. 20. If by Ethiopians be meant the people now known under the name of Nubians, I am sure they had very good reason to encourage beauty, than which there is, at this day, nothing more rare in their country.
[938]. V. 47.
[939]. Opian. Cyneg. i. 357. sqq.
[940]. Deipnosoph. xiii. 90. Eustath. ad Il. τ. 282. relates briefly the same facts, concluding with the very words made use of by Athenæus. Palmerius, who, in his remarks on Diogenes Laertius quotes them, immediately adds: “quæ non dubito Eustathiun ab aliquo auctore antiquo accepisse.”—Exercit. in Auct. Græc. p. 448. In which conjecture he was right; and that ancient author was Nicias in his history of Arcadia.
[941]. Schol. ad Il. ι. 129. Cf. Meurs. Gr. Fer. p. 177. Hedyl. in Anth. Gr. vi. 292. Athen. xiii. 90.
[942]. Athen. xiii. 90.
[943]. Ap. Athen. xiii. 90.
[944]. Lutat. ad Stat. Theb. viii. 178. Cf. Barth. iii. 828. Hist. de l’Art, i. 319. Carlo Fea with a simplicity rare in an Italian, remarks upon this: “Il est question ici de baise-mains!” The Apollo intended is Apollo Philesias, whose statue was sculptured in Æginetic marble by Canachos.—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 19. 14.
[945]. Sch. in Theocrit. xii. 28.
[946]. Æschin. cont. Tim. § 31.