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But I wonder that neither Casaubon nor Duvall in their Editions of Aristotle's Works, should have taken notice of these Mistakes of Gaza, and corrected them. And Gesner, and Aldrovandus, and several other Learned Men, in quoting this place of Aristotle, do make use of this faulty Translation, which must necessarily lead them into Mistakes. Sam. Bochartus[A] tho' he gives Aristotle's Text in Greek, and adds a new Translation of it, he leaves out indeed the Cranes fighting with the Pygmies, yet makes them Men, which Aristotle do's not; and by anti-placing, ut aiunt, he renders Aristotle's Assertion more dubious; Neque enim (saith he in the Translation) id est fabula, sed reverâ, ut aiunt, Genus ibi parvum est tam Hominum qu
Bochart. Geograph. I. cap. But this Fable of Men Pygmies has not only obtained amongst the Greeks and Indian Historians: the Arabians likewise tell much such Stories of them, as the same learned Bochartus informs us. Navigabam aliquando in mari Zingitano, & impulit me ventus in quandam Insulam. In cujus Oppidum cum devenissem, reperi Incolas Cubitalis esse staturæ, & plerosque Coclites.
The Learned Bochartus tho' he esteems the Geranomachia to be a Fable, and slights it, yet thinks that what might give the occasion to the Story of the Pygmies, might be the Nubæ or Nobæ; as Isaac Vossius conjectures that it was those Dwarfs beyond the Fountains of the Nile, that Dapper calls the Mimos, and tells us, they kill Elephants for to make a Traffick with their Teeth.
Neither he nor the Romans had ever read the Bible, by which only his false computation of times can be made out against him. This Segrais says in his defence, and proves it from his learned friend Bochartus, whose letter on this subject he has printed at the end of the fourth AEneid, to which I refer your lordship and the reader.
That it was the received opinion that the Romans were descended from the Trojans, and Julius Caesar from Iulus, the son of AEneas, was enough for Virgil, though perhaps he thought not so himself, or that AEneas ever was in Italy, which Bochartus manifestly proves. But that the Romans valued themselves on their Trojan ancestry is so undoubted a truth that I need not prove it.
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