Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/165

155 Memnon. 155 Memnon his sister Hem era goes in search of his body. At Paphus ^^ she meets with the Phoenicians whom Memnon had sent by sea, while he himself led the main body of his army over Mount Caucasus to Troy. From them she receives an urn containing his remains^ with which she sails to Phoenicia and there buries them in a region called Palliochis. Mr Jacobs places this story in a new light by comparing it with the legend of the search made by I sis after the body of Osiris, which she finds in Phoenicia (Plutarch De Is. et Os. c. 15). He proceeds to notice the various hypotheses that have been formed about these monuments. Are they the works of a conqueror who traversed Asia ? If so, how is it that we find so many sepulchres erected in honour of him ? Are we to suppose that one really contained his remains, and that the others were cenotaphs ? Or will the difficulty be solved if we separate the Trojan from the Egyptian Memnon, and each of these from the Assyrian. This method Mr J. justly pronounces an arbitrary expedient : and it may be added that it merely multiplies the questions instead of answering them. But on the other hand with equal judgement he rejects the vain attempt of Diodorus to connect the various legends by a historical thread. " This mode of interpretation,'*' he re- marks, " being that which is most agreeable to the most vulgar understanding, has for this very reason always found many partisans, and even now, though its defects have been long perceived, it has not yet lost all its influence. Ima- ginary personages in human form, and mostly decked with crowns and robes of state, still continue to play a usurped part on the theatre of ancient history.''"' It is indeed much easier and safer to laugVi at these phantoms than to attempt to dethrone them. Mr J. then addresses himself to a different class of critics, and asks whether there is any better reason for considering Memnon as a king and conqueror, than for viewing Thoth or Osymandyas or Dionysus in that light. ^^ There is a confusion in the narrative between Paphus and Rhodes, as the reader may see by looking back to iv. c. 4. And yet it must be owing to the author, not, as one of the commentators seems to have suspected, to the transcribers : for Hemera would naturally begin her search m Cyprus. Palliochis is probably connected either with Paltus or the Beleus.