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We must equally reject the opinion of Suidas, that the Golden Fleece was a parchment book, made of sheep-skin, which contained the whole secret of transmuting all metals into gold; and the opinion of Varro, that the Argonauts went to obtain skins and other rich furs, which Colchis furnished in abundance.
The ancient Greek erotic writings, now all lost, in which the modes of coitus were described, were nearly all attributed to women. According to a legend recorded by Suidas, the earliest writer of this kind was Astyanassa, the maid of Helen of Troy. Elephantis, the poetess, is supposed to have enumerated nine different postures.
It appears that, despite her wisdom, this talented lady did not know who her father was; seventeen hundred years after her demise, one Suidas claimed to have discovered that there were seven of her father; but Herodotus gives the name of the gentleman most justly suspected as Scamandronymus.
The figure was a monkey, whose sitting attitude favoured the imposture: our antiquaries tell us the story after Suidas.
In private he made a mockery of his persecutors. One Saisi undertook to prove from Suidas that the Babylonians used to cook eggs by whirling them swiftly on a sling; to which he replied: "If Saisi insists on the authority of Suidas, that the Babylonians cooked eggs by whirling them on a sling, I will believe it.
In this second Suidas Emmanuel's hand is associated with another, equally easy to recognize that of Joannes Serbopoulos. Serbopoulos lived, I know not how long, in the abbey at Reading, and transcribed several Greek MSS. now in Oxford and Cambridge libraries; he was still at work in the first years of the sixteenth century.
For other instances in which the same word is employed by Homer, see Clinton's Fast Hell., vol. i., introduction, ix. Paus., l. i., c. 19; l. ii., c. 18. Paus., l. vii., c. 25. An oracle of Dodona had forewarned the Athenians of the necessity of sparing the suppliants. Herod. Suidas.
Suidas and Cedrenus give an account also of an ancient oracle delivered to Thules, a king of Egypt, which they say is well authenticated. This king having consulted the oracle of Seraphis, to know if there ever was, or would be, one so great as himself, received this answer: "First, God, next the word, and the spirit with them. They are equally eternal, and make but one whose power will never end.
The authorities in favour of the Egyptian origin of Cecrops are. Diod., lib. i.; Theopomp.; Schol. Aristoph.; Plot.; Suidas. Plato speaks of the ancient connexion between Sais and Athens. To enter into all the arguments that have been urged on either side relative to Cecrops would occupy about two hundred pages of this work, and still leave the question in dispute.
I was unfortunately unable to make further use of Karabacek's researches as to the Mukaukas. But the lexicographer Suidas enumerates the works of Horapollo, the philologer and commentator on Greek poetry, without naming the Hieroglyphica, which is the only treatise alluded to by Stephanus.
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