PREFACE

things, are also counted by Phornutus (a) Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, also known as Phornutus, was a Stoic philosopher who wrote "On the Nature of the Gods." among the writers of mythological theology. Some Fables, he says, have come from the Magi Ancient Persian priests, some from the Egyptians, others from the Celts and Africans. Lucian (b) makes mention of fable-interpreters among the Assyrians and Arabs. Strabo (c) says of the Indian Brahmins that they forged some Fables, like Plato, about the immortality of the soul, and of the legal proceedings held by the judges of the underworld. Even among the Northern peoples, who, according to the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian (d), used to have a great deal of contact with the Greeks, this style of writing was in vogue, as appears from a book written in the year 1250 by one Snorri Sturluson, and named Edda Islandorum, that is, the Philosophy of the Icelanders (e).

But to make no further mention of other nations, it is well known how fond the Greeks were of this mythological way of writing, and how they were the principal ones who adorned their theological, philosophical, and historical works with such ornaments. Indeed, we are primarily indebted to their writers for what is known of the Fables today. Orpheus (for I believe it can be clearly demonstrated that such a man existed (f)) is the oldest writer of whom we have knowledge among that people. Lactantius calls him a contemporary of the Gods themselves (g), as if wishing to mock their recent origin. He lived in the time of Gideon (h) A judge of Israel in the Old Testament, a generation before the Trojan War (i), and accompanied the Argonauts on that famous expedition to Colchis. He had adopted his mythological teachings from the Egyptians: for he traveled to that region (k) which was the nursery where most ancient poets and philosophers learned their wisdom, and he brought from there into Greece, as a rich prize of learning, all that we find related in the Fables of the Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, and of their various deeds. By blending those Fables in a charming manner into his poems, and reciting them with a smooth-flowing tone, he knew how to captivate the common people, who were exceedingly savage, and by that means civilized their customs; which gave rise to the fiction that he drew the trees and wild beasts to him and made them listen to his songs. Indeed, the Venusine Referring to the Roman poet Horace, who was born in the town of Venusia.

(a) Phornutus, On the Nature of the Gods, among the Mythological Works, page 171. Amsterdam, 1688.
(b) In The Long-Livers, Volume II, page 466. Amsterdam Edition.
(c) Book XV, page 713.
(d) Book II, chapter 11.
(e) See Morhof’s Polyhistor, Book I, chapter 11, at the end.
(f) See Halle Observations, Volume V, Observation 29, where those scholars have clearly proven that point against Vossius.
(g) On False Religion, chapter 8.
(h) See Timothy the Chronographer in Eusebius's Chronicle, page 88.
(i) Theodoret, Remedy for Greek Maladies, Sermon 2, page 28; cited in Simpson's Chronicle, for the year 2748.
(k) See Diodorus Siculus, Book I, chapter 6. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, pages 48 and 480.