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There is nothing therefore in St. Austin that justifies the being of Men Pygmies, or that the Pygmies were Men; he rather makes them Apes. And there is nothing in his Scholiast Ludovicus Vives that tends this way, he only quotes from other Authors, what might illustrate the Text he is commenting upon, and no way asserts their being Men. I shall therefore next enquire into Bochartus's Opinion, who would have them to be the Nubæ or Nobæ. Hos Nubas Troglodyticos (saith[A] he) ad Avalitem Sinum esse Pygmæos Veterum multa probant. He gives us five Reasons to prove this. As, 1. The Authority of Hesychius, who saith, [Greek: Noboi Pygmaioi]. 2. Because Homer places the Pygmies near the Ocean, where the Nubæ were. 3. Aristotle places them at the lakes of the Nile. Now by the Nile Bochartus tells us, we must understand the Astaborus, which the Ancients thought to be a Branch of the Nile, as he proves from Pliny, Solinus and Æthicus. And Ptolomy (he tells us) places the Nubæ hereabout. 4. Because Aristotle makes the Pygmies to be Troglodytes, and so were the Nubæ. 5. He urges that Story of Nonnosus which I have already mentioned, and thinks that those that Nonnosus met with, were a Colony of the Nubæ; but afterwards adds, Quos tamen absit ut putemus Staturâ fuisse Cubitali, prout Poetæ fingunt, qui omnia in majus augent. But this methinks spoils them from being Pygmies; several other Nations at this rate may be Pygmies as well as these Nubæ. Besides, he does not inform us, that these Nubæ used to fight the Cranes; and if they do not, and were not Cubitales, they can't be Homer's Pygmies, which we are enquiring after. But the Notion of their being Men, had so possessed him, that it put him upon fancying they must be the Nubæ; but 'tis plain that those in Nonnosus could not be a Colony of the Nubæ; for then the Nubæ must have understood their Language, which the Text saith, none of the Neighbourhood did. And because the Nubæ are Troglodytes, that therefore they must be Pygmies, is no Argument at all. For Troglodytes here is used as an Adjective; and there is a sort of Sparrow which is called Passer Troglodytes. Not but that in Africa there was a Nation of Men called Troglodytes, but quite different from our Pygmies. How far Bochartus may be in the right, in guessing the Lakes of the Nile (whereabout Aristotle places the Pygmies) to be the Fountains of the River Astaborus, which in his description, and likewise the Map, he places in the Country of the Avalitæ, near the Mossylon Emporium; I shall not enquire. This I am certain of, he misrepresents Aristotle where he tells us,[B] Quamvis in ea fabula hoc saltem verum esse asserat Philosophus, Pusillos Homines in iis locis degere: for as I have already observed; Aristotle in that Text saith nothing at all of their being Men: the contrary rather might be thence inferred, that they were Brutes. And Bochart's Translation, as well as Gaza's is faulty here, and by no means to be allowed, viz. Ut aiunt, genus ibi parvum est tam Hominum, qu

Edward Tyson - A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients