er end of Spain, where he caused
the gold and silver mines of that region to be worked. The situation
of his kingdom, which lay very low, comparatively with Greece, and
which the ancients believed to be covered with eternal darkness, gave
rise to the fable, that Pluto had got Hell for his share; and this
notion was much encouraged by the subterranean nature of the mines
which he caused to be worked. He thinks that the river Tartarus, so
famed in the realms of Pluto, was no other than the Tartessa, or
Guadalquivir of the present day, which runs through the centre of
Spain. Lethe, too, he thinks to have been the Guadalaviar, in the same
country. Pluto, he suggests, had heard of the beauty of Proserpine,
the daughter of Ceres, queen of Sicily, and carried her thence, which
gave rise to the tradition that she had been carried to the Infernal
Regions.

Le Clerc, on the other hand, thinks that it was not Pluto that carried
away Proserpine, but Aidoneus, king of Epirus, or Orcus king of the
Molossians. Aidoneus is supposed to have wrought mines in his kingdom,
and, as the entrance into it was over a river called Acheron, that
prince has often been confounded with Pluto; Epirus too, which was
situate very low, may have been figuratively described as the Infernal
Regions; for which reason, the journeys of Theseus and Hercules into
Epirus may have been spoken of as descents into the Stygian abodes.
Le Clerc supposes that Ceres was reigning in Sicily at the time when
Aidoneus was king of Epirus, and that she took great care to instruct
her subjects in the art of tilling the ground and sowing corn, and
established laws for regulating civil government and the preservation
of private property; for which reasons she was afterward deemed to be
the Goddess of the Earth, and of Corn. Cicero and Diodorus Siculus
tell us that Ceres made her residence at Enna, or Henna, in Sicily,
which name, according to Bochart, signifies 'agreeable fountain.'
Cicero and Strabo agree with Ovid in telling us that Proserpine, the
only daughter of Ceres, whom other writers name Pherephata, was
walking in the adjacent meadows, and gathering flowers with her
companions; upon which, certain pirates seized her, and, placing her
in a chariot, carried her to the seaside, whence they embarked for
Epirus. As Pausanias tells us, it was immediately spread abroad, that
Aidoneus, or Pluto, as he was