Paris, 1700.
=Optĭmus Maximus=, epithets given to Jupiter to denote his greatness,
omnipotence, and supreme goodness. _Cicero_, _de Natura Deorum_,
bk. 2, ch. 25.
=Opus= (_opuntis_), a city of Locris, on the Asopus, destroyed by an
earthquake. _Strabo_, bk. 9.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Livy_, bk. 28,
ch. 7.
=Ora=, a town in India, taken by Alexander.――――One of Jupiter’s
mistresses.
=Oracŭlum=, an answer of the gods to the questions of men, or the
place where those answers were given. Nothing is more famous than the
ancient oracles of Egypt, Greece, Rome, &c. They were supposed to be
the will of the gods themselves, and they were consulted, not only
upon every important matter, but even in the affairs of private life.
To make peace or war, to introduce a change of government, to plant a
colony, to enact laws, to raise an edifice, to marry, were sufficient
reasons to consult the will of the gods. Mankind, in consulting them,
showed that they wished to pay implicit obedience to the command
of the divinity, and, when they had been favoured with an answer,
they acted with more spirit and with more vigour, conscious that the
undertaking had met with the sanction and approbation of heaven. In
this, therefore, it will not appear wonderful that so many places
were sacred to oracular purposes. The small province of Bœotia could
once boast of her 25 oracles, and Peloponnesus of the same number.
Not only the chief of the gods gave oracles, but, in process of time,
heroes were admitted to enjoy the same privileges; and the oracles
of a Trophonius and an Antinous were soon able to rival the fame of
Apollo and of Jupiter. The most celebrated oracles of antiquity were
those of Dodona, Delphi, Jupiter Ammon, &c. _See:_ Dodona, Delphi,
Ammon. The temple of Delphi seemed to claim a superiority over the
other temples; its fame was once more extended, and its riches were
so great, that not only private persons, but even kings and numerous
armies, made it an object of plunder and of rapine. The manner
of delivering oracles was different. A priestess at Delphi [_See:_
Pythia] was permitted to pronounce the oracles of the god, and her
delivery of the answers was always attended with acts of apparent
madness and desperate fury. Not only women but even doves, were the
ministers of the temple of Dodona; and the suppliant votary was often
startled to hear his questions readily answered by the decayed trunk
or the spreading branches of a neighbouring oak. Ammon conveyed his
answers in a plain and open manner; but Amphiaraus required many
ablutions and preparatory ceremonies, and he generally communicated
his oracles to his suppliants in dreams and visions. Sometimes
the first words that were heard, after issuing from the temple,
were deemed the answers of the oracles, and sometimes the nodding
or shaking of the head of the statue, the motions of fishes in a
neighbouring lake, or their reluctance in accepting the food which
was offered to them, were as strong and valid as the most express and
the minutest explanations. The answers were also sometimes given in
verse, or written on tablets, but their meaning was always obscure,
and often the cause of disaster to such as consulted them. Crœsus,
when he consulted the oracle of Delphi, was told that, if he crossed
the Halys, he should destroy a great empire; he supposed that that
empire was the empire of his enemy, but unfortunately it was his own.
The words of _Credo te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse_, which Pyrrhus
received when he wished to assist the Tarentines against the Romans,
by a favourable interpretation for himself, proved his ruin. Nero
was ordered by the oracle of Delphi to beware of 73 years; but the
pleasing idea that he should live to that age, rendered him careless,
and he was soon convinced of his mistake, when Galba, in his 73rd
year, had the presumption to dethrone him. It is a question among
the learned whether the oracles were given by the inspiration of evil
spirits, or whether they proceeded from the imposture of the priests.
Imposture, however, and forgery cannot long flourish, and falsehood
becomes its own destroyer; and, on the contrary, it is well known
how much confidence an enlightened age, therefore, much more the
credulous and the superstitious, place upon dreams and romantic
stories. Some have strongly believed that all the oracles of the
earth ceased at the birth of Christ, but the supposition is false.
It was, indeed, the beginning of their decline; but they remained in
repute, and were consulted, though perhaps not so frequently, till
the fourth century, when christianity began to triumph over paganism.
The oracles often suffered themselves to be bribed. Alexander did it,
but it is well known that Lysander failed in the attempt. Herodotus,
who first mentioned the corruption which often prevailed in the
oracular temples of Greece and Egypt, has been severely treated for
his remarks by the historian Plutarch. Demosthenes is also a witness
of the corruption, and he observed that the oracles of Greece were
servilely subservient to the will and pleasure of Philip king of
Macedon, as he beautifully expresses it by the word φιλιππιζειν. If
some of the Greeks, and other European and Asiatic countries, paid
so much attention to oracles, and were so fully persuaded of their
veracity, and even divinity, many of their leading men and of their
philosophers were apprised of their deceit, and paid no regard to
the command of priests, whom money could corrupt, and interposition
silence. The Egyptians showed themselves the most superstitious
of mankind, by their blind acquiescence to the imposition of the
priests, who persuaded them that the safety and happiness of their
life depended upon the mere motions of an ox, or the tameness of
a crocodile. _Homer_, _Iliad_; _Odyssey_, bk. 10.――_Herodotus_,
bks. 1 & 2.――_Xenophon_, _Memorabilia_.――_Strabo_, bks. 5, 7, &c.
――_Pausanias_, bk. 1, &c.――_Plutarch_, _de Defectu Oraculorum_;
_Agesilaus_; _De Herodoti Malignitate_.――_Cicero_, _de Divinatione_
bk. 1, ch. 19.――_Justin_, bk. 24, ch. 6.――_Livy_, bk. 37.
――_Ælian_, _Varia Historia_, bk. 6.――_Cornelius Nepos_, _Lysander_.
――_Aristophanes_, _Knights_ & _Wealth_.――_Demosthenes_, _Philippics_.
――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1.
=Oræa=, a small country of Peloponnesus. _Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 30.
――――Certain solemn sacrifices of fruits offered in the four seasons
of the year, to obtain mild and temperate weather. They were offered
to the goddesses who presided over the seasons, who attended upon the
sun, and who received divine worship at Athens.
=Orasus=, a man who killed Ptolemy the son of Pyrrhus.
=Orates=, a river of European Scythia. _Ovid_, _ex Ponto_, bk. 4,
poem 10, li. 47. As this river is not now known, Vossius reads Cretes,
a river which is found in Scythia. _Valerius Flaccus_, bk. 4, li. 719.
――_Thucydides_, bk. 4.
=Orbelus=, a mountain of Thrace or Macedonia.
=Orbĭlius Pupillus=, a grammarian of Beneventum, who was the first
instructor of the poet Horace. He came to Rome in the consulship
of Cicero, and there, as a public teacher, acquired more fame than
money. He was naturally of a severe disposition, of which his pupils
often felt the effects. He lived almost to his 100th year, and lost
his memory some time before his death. _Suetonius_, _Lives of the
Grammarians_, ch. 9.――_Horace_, bk. 2, ltr. 1, li. 71.
=Orbitanium=, a town of the Samnites. _Livy_, bk. 24, ch. 20.
=Orbōna=, a mischievous goddess at Rome, who, as it was supposed, made
children die. Her temple at Rome was near that of the gods Lares.
_Cicero_, _de Natura Deorum_, bk. 3, ch. 25.――_Pliny_, bk. 2, ch. 7.
=Orcădes=, islands on the northern coasts of Britain, now called
the _Orkneys_. They were unknown till Britain was discovered to be
an island by Agricola, who presided there as governor. _Tacitus_,
_Agricola_.――_Juvenal_ satire 2, li. 161.
=Orchālis=, an eminence of Bœotia, near Haliartus, called also Alopecos.
_Plutarch_, _Lysander_.
=Orchămus=, a king of Assyria, father of Leucothoe by Eurynome.
He buried his daughter alive for her amours with Apollo. _Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 4, li. 212.
=Orchia lex=, by Orchius the tribune, A.U.C. 566. It was enacted
to limit the number of guests that were to be admitted at an
entertainment; and it also enforced that, during supper, which was
the chief meal among the Romans, the doors of every house should be
left open.
=Orchomĕnus=, or =Orchomĕnum=, a town of Bœotia, at the west of
the lake Copais. It was anciently called _Minyeia_, and from
that circumstance the inhabitants were often called _Minyans_ of
Orchomenos. There was at Orchomenos a celebrated temple, built by
Eteocles son of Cephisus, sacred to the Graces, who were from thence
called the Orchomenian goddesses. The inhabitants founded Teos in
conjunction with the Ionians, under the sons of Codrus. _Pliny_, bk.
4, ch. 8.――_Herodotus_, bk. 1, ch. 146.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 37.
――_Strabo_, bk. 9.――――A town of Arcadia, at the north of Mantinea.
_Homer_, _Iliad_, bk. 2.――――A town of Thessaly, with a river of the
same name. _Strabo._――――A son of Lycaon king of Arcadia, who gave his
name to a city of Arcadia, &c. _Pausanias_, bk. 8.――――A son of Minyas
king of Bœotia, who gave the name of Orchomenians to his subjects.
He died without issue, and the crown devolved to Clymenus the son of
Presbon, &c. _Pausanias_, bk. 9, ch. 36.
=Orcus=, one of the names of the god of hell, the same as Pluto, though
confounded by some with Charon. He had a temple at Rome. The word
_Orcus_ is generally used to signify the infernal regions. _Horace_,
bk. 1, ode 29, &c.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 4, li. 502, &c.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 14, li. 116.
=Orcynia=, a place of Cappadocia, where Eumenes was defeated by
Antigonus.
=Ordessus=, a river of Scythia, which falls into the Ister. _Herodotus._
=Ordovices=, the people of North Wales in Britain, mentioned by
_Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 12, ch. 53.
=Oreădes=, nymphs of the mountains (ὀρος, _mons_), daughters of
Phoroneus and Hecate. Some call them Orestiades, and give them
Jupiter for father. They generally attended upon Diana, and
accompanied her in hunting. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 1, li. 504.
――_Homer_, _Iliad_, bk. 6.――_Strabo_, bk. 10.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 8, li. 787.
=Oreas=, a son of Hercules and Chryseis.
=Orestæ=, a people of Epirus. They received their name from Orestes,
who fled to Epirus when cured of his insanity. _Lucan_, bk. 3,
li. 249.――――Of Macedonia. _Livy_, bk. 33, ch. 34.
=Orestes=, a son of ♦Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. When his father was
cruelly murdered by Clytemnestra and Ægisthus, young Orestes was
saved from his mother’s dagger by means of his sister Electra, called
Laodicea by Homer, and he was privately conveyed to the house of
Strophius, who was king of Phocis, and who had married a sister of
Agamemnon. He was tenderly treated by Strophius, who educated him
with his son Pylades. The two young princes soon became acquainted,
and, from their familiarity, arose the most inviolable attachment
and friendship. When Orestes was arrived to the years of manhood, he
visited Mycenæ, and avenged his father’s death by assassinating his
mother Clytemnestra, and her adulterer Ægisthus. The manner in which
he committed this murder is variously reported. According to Æschylus
he was commissioned by Apollo to avenge his father, and, therefore,
he introduced himself, with his friend Pylades, at the court of
Mycenæ, pretending to bring the news of the death of Orestes from
king Strophius. He was at first received with coldness, and when
he came into the presence of Ægisthus, who wished to inform himself
of the particulars, he murdered him, and soon after Clytemnestra
shared the adulterer’s fate. Euripides and Sophocles mention the same
circumstance. Ægisthus was assassinated after Clytemnestra, according
to Sophocles; and, in Euripides, Orestes is represented as murdering
the adulterer, while he offers a sacrifice to the nymphs. This
murder, as the poet mentions, irritates the guards, who were present,
but Orestes appeases their fury by telling them who he is, and
immediately he is acknowledged king of the country. Afterwards he
stabs his mother, at the instigation of his sister Electra, after he
has upbraided her for her infidelity and cruelty to her husband. Such
meditated murders receive the punishment which, among the ancients,
was always supposed to attend parricide. Orestes is tormented by the
Furies, and exiles himself to Argos, where he is still pursued by the
avengeful goddesses. Apollo himself purifies him, and he is acquitted
by the unanimous opinion of the Areopagites, whom Minerva herself
instituted on this occasion, according to the narration of the
poet Æschylus, who flatters the Athenians in his tragical story, by
representing them as passing judgment even upon the gods themselves.
According to Pausanias, Orestes was purified of the murder, not at
Delphi, but at Trœzene, where still was seen a large stone at the
entrance of Diana’s temple, upon which the ceremonies of purification
had been performed by nine of the principal citizens of the place.
There was also, at Megalopolis in Arcadia, a temple dedicated to the
Furies, near which Orestes cut off one of his fingers with his teeth
in a fit of insanity. These different traditions are confuted by
Euripides, who says that Orestes, after the murder of his mother,
consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, where he was informed that
nothing could deliver him from the persecutions of the Furies, if he
did not bring into Greece Diana’s statue, which was in the Taurica
Chersonesus, and which, as it is reported by some, had fallen
down from heaven. This was an arduous enterprise. The king of the
Chersonesus always sacrificed on the altars of the goddess all such
as entered the borders of his country. Orestes and his friend were
both carried before Thoas the king of the place, and they were doomed
to be sacrificed. Iphigenia was then priestess of Diana’s temple,
and it was her office to immolate these strangers. The intelligence
that they were Grecians delayed the preparations, and Iphigenia was
anxious to learn something about a country which had given her birth.
_See:_ Iphigenia. She even interested herself in their misfortunes,
and offered to spare the life of one of them provided he would convey
letters to Greece from her hand. This was a difficult trial; never
was friendship more truly displayed, according to the words of Ovid,
_ex Ponto_, bk. 3, poem 2:
_Ire jubet Pylades carum moriturus Orestem,
Hic negat; inque vicem pugnat uterque mori._
At last Pylades gave way to the pressing entreaties of his friend,
and consented to carry the letters of Iphigenia to Greece. These were
addressed to Orestes himself, and, therefore, these circumstances
soon led to a total discovery of the connections of the priestess
with the man whom she was going to immolate. Iphigenia was convinced
that he was her brother Orestes, and, when the causes of their
journey had been explained, she resolved, with the two friends, to
fly from Chersonesus, and to carry away the statue of Diana. Their
flight was discovered, and Thoas prepared to pursue them; but Minerva
interfered, and told him that all had been done by the will and
approbation of the gods. Some suppose that Orestes came to Cappadocia
from Chersonesus, and that there he left the statue of Diana at
Comana. Others contradict this tradition, and, according to Pausanias,
the statue of Diana Orthia was the same as that which had been
carried away from the Chersonesus. Some also suppose that Orestes
brought it to Aricia, in Italy, where Diana’s worship was established.
After these celebrated adventures, Orestes ascended the throne of
Argos, where he reigned in perfect security, and married Hermione
the daughter of Menelaus, and gave his sister to his friend Pylades.
The marriage of Orestes with Hermione is a matter of dispute among
the ancients. All are agreed that she had been promised to the son
of Agamemnon, but Menelaus had married her to Neoptolemus the son
of Achilles, who had shown himself so truly interested in his cause
during the Trojan war. The marriage of Hermione with Neoptolemus
displeased Orestes; he remembered that she had been early promised to
him, and therefore he resolved to recover her by force or artifice.
This he effected by causing Neoptolemus to be assassinated, or
assassinating him himself. According to Ovid’s epistle of Hermione
to Orestes, Hermione had always been faithful to her first lover,
and even it was by her persuasion that Orestes removed her from the
house of Neoptolemus. Hermione was dissatisfied with the partiality
of Neoptolemus for Andromache, and her attachment for Orestes was
increased. Euripides, however, and others, speak differently of
Hermione’s attachment to Neoptolemus: she loved him so tenderly, that
she resolved to murder Andromache, who seemed to share, in a small
degree, the affection of her husband. She was ready to perpetrate
the horrid deed when Orestes came into Epirus, and she was easily
persuaded by the foreign prince to withdraw herself, in her husband’s
absence, from a country which seemed to contribute so much to her
sorrows. Orestes, the better to secure the affections of Hermione,
assassinated Neoptolemus [_See:_ Neoptolemus], and retired to his
kingdom of Argos. His old age was crowned with peace and security,
and he died in the 90th year of his age, leaving his throne to his
son Tisamenes by Hermione. Three years after, the Heraclidæ recovered
the Peloponnesus, and banished the descendants of Menelaus from the
throne of Argos. Orestes died in Arcadia, as some suppose, by the
bite of a serpent; and the Lacedæmonians, who had become his subjects
at the death of Menelaus, were directed by an oracle to bring his
bones to Sparta. They were some time after discovered at Tegea, and
his stature appeared to be seven cubits, according to the traditions
mentioned by Herodotus and others. The friendship of Orestes
and of Pylades became proverbial, and the two friends received
divine honours among the Scythians, and were worshipped in temples.
_Pausanias_, bks. 1, 2, 4, &c.――_Paterculus_, bk. 1, chs. 1 & 3.
――_Apollodorus_, bk. 1, &c.――_Strabo_, bks. 9 & 13.――_Ovid_,
_Heroides_, poem 8; _Ex Ponto_, bk. 3, poem 2; _Metamorphoses_, bk.
15; _Ibis_.――_Euripides_; _Orestes_; _Andromache_, &c. _Iphigeneia_.
――_Sophocles_, _Electra_, &c.――_Aeschylus_, _Eumenides_; _Agamemnon_,
&c.――_Horodotus_, bk. 1, ch. 69.――_Hyginus_, fables 120 & 261.
――_Plutarch_, _Lycurgus_.――_Dictys Cretensis_, bk. 6, &c.――_Pindar_,
_Pythian_, bk. 2.――_Pliny_, bk. 33.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 3,
&c.――_Homer_, _Odyssey_, bk. 3, li. 304; bk. 4, li. 530.――_Tzetzes_,
_On Lycophron_, li. 1374.――――A son of Achelaus. _Apollodorus._――――A
man sent as ambassador, by Attila king of the Huns, to the emperor
Theodosius. He was highly honoured at the Roman court, and his
son Augustulus was the last emperor of the western empire.――――A
governor of Egypt under the Roman emperors.――――A robber of Athens who
pretended madness, &c. _Aristophanes_, _Acharnians_, li. 1166.――――A
general of Alexander. _Curtius_, bk. 4, ch. 108.
♦ ‘Agememnon’ replaced with ‘Agamemnon’
=Oresteum=, a town of Arcadia, about 18 miles from Sparta. It was
founded by Orestheus, a son of Lycaon, and originally called
_Oresthesium_, and afterwards _Oresteum_, from Orestes the son
of Agamemnon, who resided there for some time after the murder
of Clytemnestra. _Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 8.――_Euripides._
=Orestīdæ=, the descendants or subjects of Orestes the son of Agamemnon.
They were driven from the Peloponnesus by the Heraclidæ, and came
to settle in a country which, from them, was called _Orestida_,
at the south-west of Macedonia. Some suppose that that part of
Greece originally received its name from Orestes, who fled and built
there a city, which gave its founder’s name to the whole province.
_Thucydides_, bk. 2.――_Livy_, bk. 31.
=Aurelia Orestilla=, a mistress of Catiline. _Cicero_, ♦_Letters to his
Friends_, bk. 8, ch. 7.
♦ ‘ad. Div. 7,’ replaced with ‘Letters to his Friends, bk. 8’
=Orestis=, or =Orestida=, a part of Macedonia. _Cicero_, _On the
Responses of the Haruspices_, ch. 16.
=Orĕtæ=, a people of Asiatic Sarmatia, on the Euxine sea.
=Oretāni=, a people of Spain, whose capital was _Oretum_, now _Oreto_.
_Livy_, bk. 21, ch. 11; bk. 35, ch. 7.
=Oretillia=, a woman who married Caligula, by whom she was soon after
banished.
=Orēum=, one of the principal towns of Eubœa. _Livy_, bk. 28, ch. 6.
=Orga=, or =Orgas=, a river of Phrygia, falling into the Mæander.
_Strabo._――_Pliny._
=Orgessum=, a town of Macedonia. _Livy_, bk. 31, ch. 27.
=Orgetŏrix=, one of the chief men of the Helvetii, while Cæsar was in
Gaul. He formed a conspiracy against the Romans, and, when accused,
he destroyed himself. _Cæsar._
=Orgia=, festivals in honour of Bacchus. They are the same as the
_Bacchanalia_, _Dionysia_, &c., which were celebrated by the ancients
to commemorate the triumph of Bacchus in India. _See:_ Dionysia.
=Oribăsus=, a celebrated physician, greatly esteemed by the emperor
Julian, in whose reign he flourished. He abridged the works of
Galenus, and of all the most respectable writers on physic, at the
request of the emperor. He accompanied Julian into the east, but his
skill proved ineffectual in attempting to cure the fatal wound which
his benefactor had received. After Julian’s death, he fell into the
hands of the barbarians. The best edition of his works is that of
Dundas, 4to, Leiden, 1745.――――One of Actæon’s dogs, _ab_ ὀρος, _mons_,
and (βαινω, _scando_. _Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_.
=Orĭcum=, or =Orĭcus=, a town of Epirus, on the Ionian sea, founded by
a colony from Colchis, according to Pliny. It was called _Dardania_,
because Helenus and Andromache, natives of Troy or Dardania, reigned
over the country after the Trojan war. It had a celebrated harbour,
and was greatly esteemed by the Romans on account of its situation,
but it was not well defended. The tree which produces the turpentine
grew there in abundance. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 10, li. 136.――_Livy_,
bk. 24, ch. 40.――_Pliny_, bk. 2, ch. 89.――_Cæsar_, _Civil War_, bk. 3,
ch. 1, &c.――_Lucan_, bk. 3, li. 187.
=Oriens=, in ancient geography, is taken for all the most eastern parts
of the world, such as Parthia, India, Assyria, &c.
=Origen=, a Greek writer, as much celebrated for the easiness of his
manners, his humility, and modesty, as for his learning and the
sublimity of his genius. He was surnamed _Adamantus_, from his
assiduity; and became so rigid a christian that he made himself
a eunuch, by following the literal sense of a passage in the
Greek testament, which speaks of the voluntary eunuchs of Christ.
He suffered martyrdom in his 69th year, A.D. 254. His works
were excellent and numerous, and contained a number of homilies,
commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, and different treatises, besides
the _Hexapla_, so called from its being divided into six columns, the
first of which contained the Hebrew text, the second the same text
in Greek characters, the third the Greek version of the Septuagint,
the fourth that of Aquila, the fifth that of Symmachus, and the sixth
Theodotion’s Greek version. This famous work first gave the hint for
the compilation of our Polyglot Bibles. The works of Origen have been
learnedly edited by the Benedictine monks, though the whole is not
yet completed, in 4 vols., folio, Paris, 1733, 1740, and 1759. The
Hexapla was published in 8vo, at Lipscomb, 1769, by Carl Friedrich
Bahrdt.
=Orīgo=, a courtesan in the age of Horace. _Horace_, bk. 1, satire 2,
li. 55.
=Orinus=, a river of Sicily.
=Oriobătes=, a general of Darius at the battle of Arbela, &c. _Curtius_,
bk. 4.