Eridanus

“ Calling upon Apollo and all the other gods to witness him, he seized a lightning bolt, and for a moment the deathless Zeus and all the dwellers in Olympus looked on the fiery chariot in which stood the swaying, slight, lithe figure of a young lad, blinded with horror, shaken with agony. Then, from his hand, Zeus cast the bolt, and the chariot was dashed into fragments, and Phaeton, his golden hair ablaze, fell, like a bright shooting star, from the heavens above, into the river Eridanus. The steeds returned to their master, Apollo, and in rage and grief Apollo lashed them. ”

“ This ancient historian seems to have entertained nearly the same opinion in regard to the origin of the name, for he adds, “At any rate the name Eridanus is not foreign, but originally Greek521.” It is, however, very possible that every thing said of these islands, in the time of Herodotus, was merely a fabrication of the Greek merchants, none of whom had the least knowledge of the Phœnician trade to England522. In this case the bedil of the Hebrews might be only stannum, and thus would be removed the wonder of Michaelis, how the Midianites could have obtained tin so early523. ”

“ Epimetheus, son of Iapetus, husband of Pandora, with his brother Prometheus took part in creation of man
Epirus, country to the west of Thessaly, lying along the Adriatic Sea
Epopeus, a sailor
Erato, one of the Muses
Erbin of Cornwall, father of Geraint
Erebus, son of Chaos, region of darkness, entrance to Hades
Eridanus, river
Erinys, one of the Furies
Eriphyle, sister of Polynices, bribed to decide on war, in which her husband was slain
Eris (Discordia) , goddess of discord. ”

“ Alpes; and upon the banks of the Eridanus encounters a person of shepherd race; whom he kills, and seizes his [828] golden flocks. In his way homeward he visits Hetruria, and arrives at the mountain Palatinus upon the Tiber. From thence he goes to the maritime part of Campania, about Cuma, Heraclea, and the lake Aornon. Not far from hence was an adust and fiery region; supposed to have been the celebrated Phlegra, where the giants warred against heaven: in which war Hercules is said to have [829] assisted. Here was an antient oracular temple ”

“ Maritime trade brought the natives of Eridu into contact with the populations of other lands, and introduced new religious conceptions which intermingled with those of the Sumerians. Ea, the patron deity of Eridu, became the god of culture and light, who delighted in doing good to mankind and in bestowing upon them the gifts of civilization. In this he was aided by his son Asari, who was at once the interpreter of his will and [pg 237] the healer of men. His office was declared in the title that was given to him of the god “who benefits mankind.” ”

“ It is called by the Persians "rhadinace," is black, and has an unpleasant smell. Here then King Darius established the Eretrians; and here they continued to my time, and still spoke their old language. So thus it fared with the Eretrians.
After the full of the moon two thousand Lacedaemonians came to Athens. So eager had they been to arrive in time, that they took but three days to reach Attica from Sparta. They came, however, too late for the battle; yet, as they had a longing to behold the Medes, they continued their march to Marathon and there viewed the slain. ”

“ If he met Praxinoë, on her way to his wife’s apartments, he would say, “How is the good Hermotimus, to-day? Has he gone to talk with the gods, and thrown his body on the couch till he returns?” These sneers were not pleasant; and the habit of comparing her situation with that of Eucoline increased her discontent. The handsome and healthy Eratus was growing richer every day by his own energy and enterprise. “Such robes as he buys for his wife!” said she to herself, “I can make better wine than she can; I can weave handsomer cloth; and I think the gods have endowed me with more beauty ”

“ As the abyss is the place where the seeds of everything were supposed to fructify, so he appears to have fostered reproduction of every description. He was supposed to dwell beside Anu, who inhabited the pole of the ecliptic. The site of his chief temple was at Eridu, which at one time stood, before the waters receded, upon the shore of the Persian Gulf. We have seen already that Ea, under his Greek name of Oannes, was supposed to bring knowledge and culture to the people of Eridu. ”

“ Ah, if my good Hermotimus were only more alive!”
This involuntary comparison did no great harm, until her friend Eucoline chanced to die suddenly. Then the idea came into her head, “If I could marry Eratus, what a noble span we should make! We might ride in our own chariot, inlaid with ivory and gold. Perhaps it may happen some day, Who knows? Didn’t the Greeks get into Troy?” She tried to drive away the pleasing vision, but it would intrude itself; and worse still, the handsome Eratus often came in person to bring choice grapes and figs, in the prettiest of all imaginable vases and baskets. ”

“ He was girt by men who hated him; and he read in the dark fierce eyes of the Ionians—whose pride he had so often galled, whose revenge he had so carelessly provoked—the certainty of ruin. One hand hidden within the folds of his robe convulsively clinched the flesh, in the stern agony of his suspense. His calm and composed face nevertheless exhibited to the captains no trace of fear.
The draperies were again drawn aside, and Gongylus slowly entered.
Habituated to peril of every kind from his earliest youth, the Eretrian was quick to detect its presence. ”

“ Periplus was the name applied to a numerous class of writings in Roman times, which answered for sailing-chart and traveler's hand-book. The title might be rendered as "Guide-Book to the Erythraen Sea."
Title. Erythraean Sea was the term applied by Greek and Roman geographers to the Indian Ocean, including its adjuncts, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Erythra means Red, so that the modern name perpetuates the ancient; but we are assured by Agatharchides that it means, not Red Sea, but Sea of King Erythras, following a Persian legend. ”

“ Eriugena was in the first place a man of learning, widely read in the works of the Greek Fathers. From the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius and other sources, he had absorbed huge draughts of Neo-Platonism. One must not think of him always as an original thinker. A large part of his literary labours correspond with those of contemporaries. He was a translator of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius, for he knew Greek. Then he composed or compiled Commentaries upon those writings. He cared supremely for the fruits of those faculties with which he was pre-eminently endowed. ”

“ It is worth noting that though Poseidon claimed the well and the trident-mark he never gave his name to either, and though Athena boasted of the olive-tree and snake, neither was ever called after her.
The name of Erechtheus or Erechthonios marks a stage definitely later than that of Kekrops. In the reign of Kekrops we hear nothing of foreign policy. He is engaged in civilizing his people, in marrying them, in teaching them to offer bloodless sacrifice. But the reign of Erechtheus is marked by a great war. He fought with and conquered Eumolpos, king of the neighbouring burgh Eleusis. ”

“ And straightway an angel of God came down and released him from his fetters, and he took him into a high place, and he sat down with the wild beasts glorifying God. And straightway Andrianus ordered his soldiers to hunt down the wild beasts that were in the mountain in which they had found Eleutherus, and they took Eleutherus to Andrianus the emperor. When they had brought him to him the emperor commanded them to give him to the lions, and when the lions came they licked the moisture from his face and feet; and all the men of Rome wondered. Now the lions had slain fifty hundred pagans. ”

“ At day's end they passed a goatherd in a stinking wool tunic and knitted Phrygian cap. He gave them a sullen look and mumbled his own language, which they did not understand, through greasy whiskers. Eodan felt grimness. Bad enough to be entering wilds where few if any could speak with him; but this was also a land where the half-Persian warriors had made themselves hated. He thought, as darkly and coldly as the whistling twilight, that Flavius might well overhaul him tomorrow before he had any word of Phryne. He might be wholly doomed; the gods feared proud men. ”

“ After the death of Pandiôn, Erechtheus succeeded to the kingdom, and his brother, Butês, became priest of Poseidôn Erichthonius, a function which his descendants ever afterwards exercised, the Butadæ or Eteobutadæ. Erechtheus seems to appear in three characters in the fabulous history of Athens—as a god, [p. 198] Poseidôn Erechtheus [470] —as a hero, Erechtheus, son of the Earth—and now, as a king, son of Pandiôn: so much did the ideas of divine and human rule become confounded and blended together in the imagination of the Greeks in reviewing their early times. ”

“ Let them grow!”
The sudden and alarming illness of Hermotimus arrested the progress of affairs; for the kindness of Praxinoë overcame all other feelings, and she said she would not leave him to the care of hirelings. He recovered slowly, and again wandered forth into the groves, with feeble steps. Eratus watched him impatiently; and when at last he seemed sufficiently recovered to enter into conversation, he sought an interview. He found him lying on the ground, in one of his favourite groves, cold and rigid as a corpse. He called servants to convey him to the house. ”

“ Erebus, a region of utter darkness in the depths of Hades, into which no mortal ever penetrated, the proper abode of Pluto and his Queen with their train of attendants, such as the Erinnyes, through which the spirits of the dead must pass on their way to Hades; equivalent to the valley of the shadow of death.
Erectheus or Erichthonius, the mythical first king of Athens; favoured and protected from infancy by Athena, to whom accordingly he dedicated the city; he was buried in the temple of Athena, and worshipped afterwards as a god ”

“ She woke trembling and afraid, and with a strong impression that she had seen Hermotimus. This belief excited uneasy thoughts, which she dared not mention, for fear of slanderous tongues. But she secretly confessed to Eratus that she feared her husband was not dead when they burned his body. He replied, “It is foolish to trouble yourself about a dream, my lovely one. It is enough that all who saw him thought he was dead. You know it often puzzled wiser folks than you or I to tell whether he was alive or not. ”

“ Their companions, thinking they had been poisoned, killed Icarius and buried him under a tree on Mount Hymettus (or threw his body into a well) . Erigone, guided by her faithful dog Maera, found his grave, and hanged herself on the tree. Dionysus sent a plague on the land, and all the maidens of Athens, in a fit of madness, hanged themselves like Erigone. Icarius, Erigone and Maera were set among the stars as Boötes (or Arcturus) , Virgo and Procyon. The festival called Aeora (the “swing”) was subsequently instituted to propitiate Icarius and Erigone. ”

“ But while of the first importance in matters of religion, there is no evidence in Babylonian literature of any special political importance attaching to Eridu, and certainly at no time within our knowledge did it exercise hegemony in Babylonia. The site of Eridu was discovered by J. E. Taylor in 1854, in a ruin then called by the natives Abu-Shahrein, a few miles south-south-west of Moghair, ancient Ur, nearly in the centre of the dry bed of an inland sea, a deep valley, 15 m. ”

“ More swift than Mars, and more than Vulcan slow?
Yet Vulcan conquers, and the God of arms
Must pay the penalty for lawless charms. [1]
But no one ever calls the life of Aristides a life of pleasure (ἡδὺς) , but that is an epithet they apply to Smindyrides the Sybarite, and to Sardanapalus, though as far as glory went, as Theophrastus says in his book on Pleasure, it was a far more splendid one; but Aristides never devoted himself to luxury as those other men did. Nor would any one call the life of Agesilaus the king of the Lacedæmonians ἡδὺς ”

“ Learning that the Areians had again revolted, in consequence of Satibarzanes invading their land with 2,000 cavalry, which he had received from Bessus, he despatched against them Artabazus the Persian with Erigyius and Caranus two of the Companions, also ordering Phrataphernes, viceroy of the Parthians, to assist them in attacking the Areians. An obstinately contested battle then took place between the troops of Erigyius and Caranus and those of Satibarzanes; nor did the barbarians give way until Satibarzanes, encountering Erigyius, was struck in the face with a spear and killed. ”

“ These islands yielded a ready submission; and it was not till Datis and Artaphernes reached Euboea that they encountered any resistance. Eretria defended itself gallantly for six days, and repulsed the Persians with loss; but on the seventh the gates were opened to the besiegers by the treachery of two of its leading citizens. The city was razed to the ground, and the inhabitants were put in chains. From Eretria the Persians crossed over to Attica, and landed on the ever memorable plain of Marathon, a spot which had been pointed out to them by the despot Hippias, who accompanied the army. ”

“ With the same design they sailed from Eretria to Marathon, as to a ready prey, thinking to carry off the Athenians enyoked with the Eretrians in the same fated evils. These things then being in part accomplished, and the rest in progress, no Greek succoured the Eretrians, none but the Lacedæmonians marched to Athens, and they arrived not till the day after the battle. ”