Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/120

72, cap. A. does not mention this. Chiron, whom the poets represent as a Hippo-Centaur, has the form of a man in an engraving of him in Gronov. Thes. Gr. Ant. 1. y.y.y.y. from an ancient MS. of Dioscorides. Some, from a passage in Lucian, thought his feet only were like those of a horse. Centaurs were consecrated to Apollo, as may be seen in many medals, especially those of Gallienus. Pliny, N. H, vii. c. 3, asserts that he saw a centaur preserved in honey, brought from Egypt to Rome, for Claudius Caesar. Some beautiful engravings of male and female centaurs may be seen in the Antiquities of Herculaneum.

Page xv. Loud conchs.] Though Homer does not mention the trumpet in the heroic ages, yet other authors have supposed the invention of it to have been as early, or earlier than the Trojan war. Virgil gives Misenus to Æneas as a trumpeter, v. Æn. vi. 164. quo non præstantior alter Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu. Lycophron (v. 991.) calls Minerva, "the Trumpet," as she invented it. άλγυνούσα λάφριαν κόρην Σαλπιγγα. Euripides (v. Phœn. v. 1392.) mentions the trumpet as used at the siege of Thebes. Έπἑι δ᾽ άφέιθη, πύρσος ὣς, τυρσενικής Σαλπιγγος ήχή, σήμα φοίνου μάχης. Where Prof. Porson says,"Sed Tyrrhenicam Tubam Heroicis temporibus usitatam fingunt Tragici; and he refers to Æsch. Eum. v. 570, Eurip. Rhes. 991, Soph. Aj. v. 17, to which references may be added Eurip. Heracl. v. 880, Troad. 1267. The use of conchs, or sea-shells, probably preceded that of the metallic trump. In the Iph. Taur. v. 303, Euripides gives this instrument to the shepherds:

See Theocr. Idyll, κβ. 75, Virg. Æn. xi. 171, Trumpets, however, were not very necessary, when the voices of men were so much more powerful than at present. Agamemnon (Il. θ. 220.) standing on the ships of Ulysses, called to Ajax and Achilles, whose tents formed the opposite boundary of the Grecian camp, and are supposed to have stretched from the Rhœtean to the Sigœan promontory, a distance of about twelve miles.