Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/661

 Museums and Raree Skoivs in Antiquity. 351

Augustus was modern, too, in his interest in prehistoric remains, for we are told : "He adorned woods and shrub- beries with things noteworthy for their age and rarity, like those on the Island of Capri, immense limbs of wild beasts which are called bones of giants, and the arms of heroes." ^ Tiberius regarded such things from a more coldly scientific point of view ; for in Pontus a great jaw was found, and one of the teeth from it was sent to the Emperor with an enquiry if he would like the whole jaw of the hero. Tiberius made an artist reconstruct the entire head and body from the size of the tooth, but sent the tooth itself back to Pontus.^

Colossal bones were found in many places ; at Rhodes bones far larger than those of the present day were dis- covered,^ and whole skeletons in the so-called grottoes of Artemis in Dalmatia.^ In Crete human bodies thirty cubits in height were revealed by a river in fiood,^ and still others measuring forty-six cubits. ** Giants' dwellings were unearthed in Syria.'' Yet the ancients believed strongly in the personal touch. A colossal bone was only a bone, however gigantic it might be. But if it were identified as the superhuman remains of some hero or giant, then it took on quite a different aspect, and became an object worthy of reverent conservation. At Megalopolis in Arcadia were limbs of extraordinary size, said to be those of the Giant Hopoladamus.^ Sir James Frazer notes that to this day in Arcadia many mammoth bones are found, some of which are in the museum at Dimitsana. Both Lydia and Thebes claimed the bones of Geryon.'' At Phlegra in Thessaly there was a noise as of men fighting with giants, and the

1 Suetonius, ii. 72. 3.

^ Phlegon, Mir ah., 14. p. 137, ed. Westermann. 3 Phlegon, Mirab., 16. « Phlegon, Mirab., 12.

^ Solinus, i. 91.

^ Plin}', N.H., vii. 73 ; Serv. Virg. Aen., iii. 578. ' Pausanias Damasc, F.G.H. iv. 469. » Pausanias, viii. 32. 5.

z
 * Pausanias, i. 35. 7 ; Lucan, Adv. ind., 14.