, sacred to Ham or Cham:
where people used to exercise. The fifty heads related to the number of the
priests, who there resided; and who were esteemed as so many wild beasts
for their cruelty. Nonnus makes Jupiter kill Campe: but Diodorus Siculus
gives the honour to Dionusus; who is supposed to have slain this monster at
Zaborna in Libya; and to have raised over her, [Greek: choma pammegethes],
a vast mound of earth. This heap of soil was in reality a high place or
altar; which in after times was taken for a place of burial. These
inclosures grew by degrees into disrepute; and the history of them
obsolete. In consequence of which the [Greek: taphoi], or mounds, were
supposed to be the tombs of heroes. The Grecians, who took every history to
themselves, imagined, that their Jupiter and Dionusus, and their Hercules
had slain them. But what they took for tombs of enemies were in reality
altars to these very Gods; who were not confined to Greece, nor of Grecian
original. The Campanians in Italy were an antient Amonian colony; and they
were denominated from Campe or Campus, which was probably the first temple,
they erected. Stephanus Byzantinus shews, that there was of old such a
place: [Greek: Kampos--ktisma Kampanou]: but would insinuate that it took
its name from a person the head of the colony. Eustathius more truly makes
it give name to the people: though he is not sufficiently determinate.
[775][Greek: Kampanoi apo ton hupokathemenon ekei Kampon onomasthesan, e
apo Kampou poleos.] There were many of these Campi in Greece, which are
styled by Pausanias [Greek: hupaithra], in contradistinction to the
temples, which were covered. They are to be found in many parts of the
world, where the Amonian religion obtained, which was propagated much
farther than we are aware. In our island the exhibition of those manly
sports in vogue among country people is called Camping: and the inclosures
for that purpose, where they wrestle and contend, are called Camping
closes. There are many of them in Cambridgeshire, as well as in other parts
of the kingdom. In Germany we meet with the name of Kaempenfelt; in which
word there is no part derived from the Latin language: for the terms would
then be synonymous, and one of them redundant. Kaempenfelt was, I imagine,
an antient name for a field of sports, and exercise, like the gymnasium of
the Greeks: and a Camping place in Britain is of the like purport.

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