Historical Dissertation on Abaris

continues from previous page: (χ) Advers. L. VI. 15. ed. Francof. 1648. f.

Footnotes omitted for brevity as they repeat source citations.

§. VI.

Among those, however, who affirm that the Hyperboreans existed, there is the greatest controversy as to in which part of Europe that nation chose its seat for itself. For some place it beyond the Alps, others beyond the North Wind Aquilo the North Wind, others in Sweden. Let us hear what Pliny the Elder (o) has regarding this matter:

"Beyond the North Wind," he says, "there lives a happy race (if we believe it), whom they called Hyperboreans, spending time in a long-lived age, celebrated by fabulous miracles. There, they believe, are the hinges of the world and the extreme circles of the stars. With six months of light and one day of the sun turned away, not, as the unskilled have said, from the vernal equinox to the autumn. Once in the year, at the solstice, the sun rises for them, and once at the winter solstice it sets. It is a sunny region, with a happy temperament, lacking every harmful breath. Their houses are groves and forests, and the worship of the Gods is done individually and in groups; discord and every sickness are unknown. Death comes only when, satiated with life and after feasts and anointings, the aged jump into the sea from a certain rock. This method of burial is most blessed."

Some placed them in the first part of the shores of Asia, not in Europe, because