ed
Parrhasians. Hence the antient Arcadians, those Selenitae, who were
undoubtedly an Amonian colony, had this appellation. A people in Elis had
the same. The Poets described the constellation of Helice, or the Bear, by
the title of Parrhasis, Arctos, and Parrhasis Ursa. This asterism was
confessedly first taken notice of by Perez or Perseus, by which is meant
the Persians.

[810] Versaque ab axe suo Parrhasis Arctos erat.

In the east, where the worship of Arez greatly prevailed, there were to be
found many nations called after this manner. Part of Media, according to
[811]Polybius, had the name of Parrhasia. There were also Parrhasii and
Parrhasini in [812]Sogdiana; and [813]the like near Caucasus: also a town
named [814]Parasinum in the Tauric Chersonesus. The people styled
[815]Parrhasians in Greece were the same as the Dorians and Heraclidae; all
alike Cuthites, as were the antient Persians. Hence it is truly said by
Plato, that the Heraclidae in Greece, and the Achaemenidae among the Persians
were of the same stock: [816][Greek: To de Herakleous te genos kai to
Achaimeneous eis Persea ton Dios anapheretai.] On this account
[817]Herodotus makes Xerxes claim kindred with the Argives of Greece, as
being equally of the posterity of Perses, the same as Perseus, the Sun:
under which character the Persians described the patriarch, from whom they
were descended. Perseus was the same as Mithras, whose sacred cavern was
styled Perseuem.

[818]Phoebe parens--seu te roseum Titana vocari
Gentis Achaemeniae ritu; seu praestat Osirin
Frugiferum; seu Persei sub rupibus antri
Indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mithram.

OF MYRINA,

AND THE

AMAZONIANS OF LIBYA.

From a notion that the Amazons were a community of women, historians have
represented the chief personage of their nation as a [819]female. She is
mentioned by some as having flourished long before the aera of [820]Troy:
and it is by others said more precisely, that she lived in the time of
Orus, the son of Isis and Osiris. This removes her history far back; so as
to make it coeval with the first annals of time. Her dominions lay in the
most western parts of [821]Africa, at the extremity of Atlas; where the
mountain terminated in the ocean, to which it gave name. This country was
called Mauritania; and was supposed to have been possessed by the Atlantes
and Gorgons. The Grecian writers, who did not know that the same family
went under different titles, h