All the ancients greatly differ in their opinions concerning this
celebrated god, but they all agree that, as king of Egypt, he took
particular care to civilize his subjects, to polish their morals,
to give them good and salutary laws, and to teach them agriculture.
After he had accomplished a reform at home, Osiris resolved to go
and spread cultivation in the other parts of the earth. He left his
kingdom to the care of his wife Isis, and of her faithful minister
Hermes or Mercury. The command of his troops at home was left to the
trust of Hercules, a warlike officer. In this expedition Osiris was
accompanied by his brother Apollo, and by Anubis, Macedo, and Pan.
His march was through Æthiopia, where his army was increased by the
addition of the Satyrs, a hairy race of monsters, who made dancing
and playing on musical instruments their chief study. He afterwards
passed through Arabia, and visited the greatest part of the kingdoms
of Asia and Europe, where he enlightened the minds of men by
introducing among them the worship of the gods, and a reverence for
the wisdom of a supreme being. At his return home Osiris found the
minds of his subjects roused and agitated. His brother Typhon had
raised seditions, and endeavoured to make himself popular. Osiris,
whose sentiments were always of the most pacific nature, endeavoured
to convince his brother of his ill conduct, but he fell a sacrifice
to the attempt. Typhon murdered him in a secret apartment and cut his
body to pieces, which were divided among the associates of his guilt.
Typhon, according to Plutarch, shut up his brother in a coffer and
threw him into the Nile. The inquiries of Isis discovered the body of
her husband on the coast of Phœnicia, where it had been conveyed by
the waves, but Typhon stole it as it was being carried into Memphis,
and he divided it amongst his companions, as was before observed.
This cruelty incensed Isis; she revenged her husband’s death, and,
with her son Orus, she defeated Typhon and the partisans of his
conspiracy. She recovered the mangled pieces of her husband’s body,
the genitals excepted, which the murderer had thrown into the sea;
and to render him all the honour which his humanity deserved, she
made as many statues of wax as there were mangled pieces of his body.
Each statue contained a piece of the flesh of the dead monarch; and
Isis, after she had summoned in her presence, one by one, the priests
of all the different deities in her dominions, gave them each a
statue, intimating that in doing that she had preferred them to all
the other communities of Egypt, and she bound them by a solemn oath
that they would keep secret that mark of her favour, and endeavour
to show their sense of it by establishing a form of worship and
paying divine honours to their prince. They were further directed
to choose whatever animals they pleased to represent the person and
the divinity of Osiris, and they were enjoined to pay the greatest
reverence to that representative of divinity, and to bury it when
dead with the greatest solemnity. To render their establishment
more popular, each sacerdotal body had a certain portion of land
allotted to them to maintain them, and to defray the expenses which
necessarily attended their sacrifices and ceremonial rites. That part
of the body of Osiris which had not been recovered was treated with
more particular attention by Isis, and she ordered that it should
receive honours more solemn, and at the same time more mysterious,
than the other members. _See:_ Phallica. As Osiris had particularly
instructed his subjects in cultivating the ground, the priests chose
the ox to represent him, and paid the most superstitious veneration
to that animal. _See:_ Apis. Osiris, according to the opinion of some
mythologists, is the same as the sun, and the adoration which is paid
by different nations to an Anubis, a Bacchus, a Dionysius, a Jupiter,
a Pan, &c., is the same as that which Osiris received in the Egyptian
temples. Isis also after death received divine honours as well as
her husband, and as the ox was the symbol of the sun, or Osiris,
so the cow was the emblem of the moon, or of Isis. Nothing can
give a clearer idea of the power and greatness of Osiris than this
inscription, which has been found on some ancient monuments: _Saturn,
the youngest of all the gods, was my father: I am Osiris, who
conducted a large and numerous army as far as the deserts of India,
and travelled over the greatest part of the world, and visited the
streams of the Ister, and the remote shores of the ocean, diffusing
benevolence to all the inhabitants of the earth_. Osiris was
generally represented with a cap on his head like a mitre, with two
horns; he held a stick in his left hand, and in his right a whip with
three thongs. Sometimes he appears with the head of a hawk, as that
bird, from its quick and piercing eyes, is a proper emblem of the
sun. _Plutarch_, _De Iside et Osiride_.――_Herodotus_, bk. 2, ch. 144.
――_Diodorus_, bk. 1.――_Homer_, _Odyssey_, bk. 12, li. 323.――_Ælian_,
_de Natura Animalium_, bk. 3.――_Lucian_, _de Syria Dea_.――_Pliny_,
bk. 8.――――A Persian general, who lived 450 B.C.――――A friend of Turnus,
killed in the Rutulian war. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 12, li. 458.
=Osismii=, a people of Gaul in Britany. _Mela_, bk. 3, ch. 2.――_Cæsar_,
_Gallic War_, bk. 2, ch. 34.
=Osphăgus=, a river of Macedonia. _Livy_, bk. 31, ch. 39.
=Osrhoēne=, a country of Mesopotamia, which received this name from one
of its kings called Osrhoes.
=Ossa=, a lofty mountain of Thessaly, once the residence of the
Centaurs. It was formerly joined to mount Olympus, but Hercules, as
some report, separated them, and made between them the celebrated
valley of Tempe. This separation of the two mountains was more
probably effected by an earthquake, which happened, as fabulous
accounts represent, about 1885 years before the christian era. Ossa
was one of those mountains which the giants, in their wars against
the gods, heaped up one on the other to scale the heavens with more
facility. _Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 1,
li. 155; bk. 2, li. 225; bk. 7, li. 224; _Fasti_, bk. 1, li. 307;
bk. 3, li. 441.――_Strabo_, bk. 2.――_Lucan_, bks. 1 & 6.――_Virgil_,
_Georgics_, bk. 1, li. 281.――――A town of Macedonia.
=Osteōdes=, an island near the Lipari isles.
=Ostia=, a town built on the mouth of the river Tiber by Ancus Martius
king of Rome, about 16 miles distant from Rome. It had a celebrated
harbour, and was so pleasantly situated, that the Romans generally
spent a part of the year there as in a country seat. There was a
small tower in the port like the Pharos of Alexandria, built upon the
wreck of a large ship which had been sunk there, and which contained
the obelisks of Egypt, with which the Roman emperors intended to
adorn the capital of Italy. In the age of Strabo the sand and mud
deposited by the Tiber had choked the harbour, and added much to the
size of the small islands, which sheltered the ships at the entrance
of the river. Ostia, and her harbour called _Portus_, became
gradually separated, and are now at a considerable distance from the
sea. _Florus_, bk. 1, ch. 4; bk. 3, ch. 21.――_Livy_, bk. 1, ch. 33.
――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 4.――_Suetonius._――_Pliny._
=Ostorius Scapŭla=, a man made governor of Britain. He died A.D. 55.
_Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 16, ch. 23.――――Another, who put himself
to death when accused before Nero, &c. _Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 14,
ch. 48.――――Sabinus, a man who accused Soranus, in Nero’s reign.
_Tacitus_, _Annals_, bk. 16, ch. 33.
=Ostracine=, a town of Egypt on the confines of Palestine. _Pliny_,
bk. 5, ch. 12.
=Osymandyas=, a magnificent king of Egypt in a remote period.
=Otacilius=, a Roman consul sent against the Carthaginians, &c.
=Otānes=, a noble Persian, one of the seven who conspired against the
usurper Smerdis. It was through him that the usurpation was first
discovered. He was afterwards appointed by Darius over the sea-coast
of Asia Minor, and took Byzantium. _Herodotus_, bk. 3, ch. 70, &c.
=Otho Marcus Salvius=, a Roman emperor descended from the ancient
kings of Etruria. He was one of Nero’s favourites, and as such he
was raised to the highest offices of the state, and made governor
of Pannonia by the interest of Seneca, who wished to remove him from
Rome, lest Nero’s love for Poppæa should prove his ruin. After Nero’s
death Otho conciliated the favour of Galba the new emperor; but when
he did not gain his point, and when Galba had refused to adopt him
as his successor, he resolved to make himself absolute, without any
regard to the age and dignity of his friend. The great debts which
he had contracted encouraged his avarice, and he caused Galba to be
assassinated, and he made himself emperor. He was acknowledged by
the senate and the Roman people, but the sudden revolt of Vitellius
in Germany rendered his situation precarious, and it was mutually
resolved that their respective right to the empire should be decided
by arms. Otho obtained three victories over his enemies, but in a
general engagement near Brixellum, his forces were defeated, and he
stabbed himself when all hopes of success were vanished, after a
reign of about three months, on the 20th of April, A.D. 69. It has
been justly observed that the last moments of Otho’s life were those
of a philosopher. He comforted his soldiers who lamented his fortunes,
and he expressed his concern for their safety, when they earnestly
solicited to pay him the last friendly offices before he stabbed
himself, and he observed that it was better that one man should
die, than that all should be involved in ruin for his obstinacy. His
nephew was pale and distressed, fearing the anger and haughtiness of
the conqueror; but Otho comforted him, and observed that Vitellius
would be kind and affectionate to the friends and relations of Otho,
since Otho was not ashamed to say, that in the time of their greatest
enmity the mother of Vitellius had received every friendly treatment
from his hand. He also burnt the letters which, by falling into the
hands of Vitellius, might provoke his resentment against those who
had favoured the cause of an unfortunate general. These noble and
humane sentiments of a man who was the associate of Nero’s shameful
pleasures, and who stained his hand in the blood of his master, have
appeared to some wonderful, and passed for the features of policy,
and not of a naturally virtuous and benevolent heart. _Plutarch_,
_Lives_.――_Suetonius._――_Tacitus_, _Histories_, bk. 2, ch. 50, &c.
――_Juvenal_, satire 2, li. 90.――――Roscius, a tribune of the people,
who, in Cicero’s consulship, made a regulation to permit the Roman
knights at public spectacles to have the 14 first rows after the
seats of the senators. This was opposed with virulence by some, but
Cicero ably defended it, &c. _Horace_, epode 4, li. 10.――――The father
of the Roman emperor Otho was the favourite of Claudius.
=Othryădes=, one of the 300 Spartans who fought against 300 Argives,
when those two nations disputed their respective right to Thyrea. Two
Argives, Alcinor and Cronius, and Othryades, survived the battle. The
Argives went home to carry the news of their victory, but Othryades,
who had been reckoned among the number of the slain, on account of
his wounds, recovered himself and carried some of the spoils, of
which he had stripped the Argives, into the camp of his countrymen;
and after he had raised a trophy, and had written with his own
blood, the word _vici_ on his shield, he killed himself, unwilling
to survive the death of his countrymen. _Valerius Maximus_, bk. 3,
ch. 2.――_Plutarch_, _Parallela Minora_.――――A patronymic given to
Pantheus the Trojan priest of Apollo, from his father Othryas.
_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 2, li. 319.
=Othryoneus=, a Thracian who came to the Trojan war in hopes of
marrying Cassandra. He was killed by Idomeneus. _Homer_, _Iliad_,
bk. 13.
=Othrys=, a mountain, or rather a chain of mountains, in Thessaly,
the residence of the Centaurs. _Strabo_, bk. 9.――_Herodotus_, bk. 7,
ch. 129.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 7, li. 675.
=Otreus=, a king of Phrygia, son of Cisseus and brother to Hecuba.
=Otrœda=, a small town on the confines of Bithynia.
=Otus= and =Ephialtes=, sons of Neptune. _See:_ Aloides.
=Otys=, a prince of Paphlagonia, who revolted from the Persians to
Agesilaus. _Xenophon._
=Ovia=, a Roman lady, wife of Cneaus Lollius. _Cicero_, _Letters to
Atticus_, bk. 12, ltr. 21.
=Publius Ovīdius Naso=, a celebrated Roman poet, born at Sulmo on the
20th of March, about 43 B.C. As he was intended for the bar, his
father sent him early to Rome, and removed him to Athens in the 16th
year of his age. The progress of Ovid in the study of eloquence was
great, but the father’s expectations were frustrated; his son was
born a poet, and nothing could deter him from pursuing his natural
inclination, though he was often reminded that Homer lived and
died in the greatest poverty. Everything he wrote was expressed in
poetical numbers, as he himself says, _et quod tentabam scribere
versus erat_. A lively genius and a fertile imagination soon gained
him admirers; the learned became his friends; Virgil, Propertius,
Tibullus, and Horace, honoured him with their correspondence, and
Augustus patronized him with the most unbounded liberality. These
favours, however, were but momentary, and the poet was soon after
banished to Tomos, on the Euxine sea, by the emperor. The true cause
of this sudden exile is unknown. Some attribute it to a shameful
amour with Livia the wife of Augustus, while others support that it
arose from the knowledge which Ovid had of the unpardonable incest
of the emperor with his daughter Julia. These reasons are, indeed,
merely conjectural; the cause was of a very private and very secret
nature, of which Ovid himself is afraid to speak, as it arose from
error and not from criminality. It was, however, something improper
in the family and court of Augustus, as these lines seem to indicate.
_Cur aliquid vidi? Cur noxia lumina feci?
Cur imprudenti cognita culpa mihi est?
Inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam;
Præda fuit canibus non minus ille suis._
Again,
_Inscia quod crimen viderunt lumina plector,
Peccatumque oculos est habuisse meum._
And in another place,
_Perdiderunt cum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est._
In his banishment, Ovid betrayed his pusillanimity, and however
afflicted and distressed his situation was, yet the flattery and
impatience which he showed in his writings are a disgrace to his pen,
and expose him more to ridicule than pity. Though he prostituted his
pen and his time to adulation, yet the emperor proved deaf to all
entreaties, and refused to listen to his most ardent friends at Rome
who wished for the return of the poet. Ovid, who undoubtedly wished
for a Brutus to deliver Rome of her tyrannical Augustus, continued
his flattery even to meanness; and, when the emperor died, he was
so mercenary as to consecrate a temple to the departed tyrant on the
shores of the Euxine, where he regularly offered frankincense every
morning. Tiberius proved as regardless as his predecessor to the
entreaties which were made for Ovid, and the poet died in the seventh
or eighth year of his banishment, in the 59th year of his age, A.D.
17, and was buried at Tomos. In the year 1508 of the christian era,
the following epitaph was found at Stain, in the modern kingdom of
Austria:
_Hic situs est vates quem Divi Cæsaris ira.
Augusti patriâ cedere jussit humo.
Sæpe miser voluit patriis occumbere terris,
Sed frustra! Hunc illi fata dedere locum._
This, however, is an imposition, to render celebrated an obscure
corner of the world, which never contained the bones of Ovid. The
greatest part of Ovid’s poems are remaining. His _Metamorphoses_,
in 15 books, are extremely curious, on account of the many different
mythological facts and traditions which they relate, but they can
have no claim to an epic poem. In composing this the poet was more
indebted to the then existing traditions, and to the theogony of
the ancients, than to the powers of his own imagination. His _Fasti_
were divided into 12 books, the same number as the constellations in
the zodiac; but of these, six have perished, and the learned world
have reason to lament the loss of a poem which must have thrown so
much light upon the religious rites and ceremonies, festivals and
sacrifices, of the ancient Romans, as we may judge from the six
that have survived the ravages of time and barbarity. His _Tristia_,
which are divided into five books, contain much elegance and
softness of expression, as also his _Elegies_ on different subjects.
The _Heroides_ are nervous, spirited, and diffuse, the poetry is
excellent, the language varied, but the expressions are often too
wanton and indelicate, a fault which is common in his compositions.
His three books of _Amorum_, and the same number _de Arte Amandi_,
with the other _de Remedio Amoris_, are written with great elegance,
and contain many flowery descriptions; but the doctrine which they
hold forth is dangerous, and they are to be read with caution,
as they seem to be calculated to corrupt the heart, and sap the
foundations of virtue and morality. His _Ibis_, which is written in
imitation of a poem of Callimachus, of the same name, is a satirical
performance. Besides these, there are extant some fragments of other
poems, and among these some of a tragedy called _Medea_. The talents
of Ovid as a dramatic writer have been disputed, and some have
observed that he, who is so often void of sentiment, was not born
to shine as a tragedian. Ovid has attempted perhaps too many sorts
of poetry at once. On whatever he has written, he has totally
exhausted the subject, and left nothing unsaid. He everywhere paints
nature with a masterly hand, and gives strength to the most vulgar
expressions. It has been judiciously observed, that his poetry, after
his banishment from Rome, was destitute of that spirit and vivacity
which we admire in his other compositions. His _Fasti_ are perhaps
the best written of all his poems, and after them we may fairly rank
his love verses, his _Heroides_, and, after all, his _Metamorphoses_,
which were not totally finished when Augustus sent him into
banishment. His _Epistles from Pontus_ are the language of an
abject and pusillanimous flatterer. However critics may censure the
indelicacy and the inaccuracies of Ovid, it is to be acknowledged
that his poetry contains great sweetness and elegance, and, like
that of Tibullus, charms the ear and captivates the mind. Ovid
married three wives, but of the last alone he speaks with fondness
and affection. He had only one daughter, but by which of his wives
is unknown; and she herself became mother of two children, by two
husbands. The best editions of Ovid’s works are those of Burman,
4 vols., 4to, Amsterdam, 1727; of Leiden, 1670, in 8vo, and of
Utrecht, in 12mo, 4 vols., 1713. _Ovid_, _Tristia_, bks. 3 & 4,
&c.――_Paterculus_, bk. 2.――_Martial_, bks. 3 & 8.――――A man who
accompanied his friend Cæsonius when banished from Rome by Nero.
_Martial_, bk. 7, ltr. 43.
=Ovinia lex= was enacted to permit the censors to elect and admit among
the number of the senators the best and the worthiest of the people.
=Ovinius=, a freedman of Vatinius, the friend of Cicero, &c.
_Quintilian_, bk. 3, ch. 4.――――Quintus, a Roman senator, punished
by Augustus for disgracing his rank in the court of Cleopatra.
_Eutropius_, bk. 1.
=Oxathres=, a brother of Darius, greatly honoured by Alexander, and
made one of his generals. _Curtius_, bk. 7, ch. 5.――――Another Persian,
who favoured the cause of Alexander. _Curtius._
=Oxidătes=, a Persian whom Darius condemned to death. Alexander took
him prisoner, and some time after made him governor of Media. He
became oppressive, and was removed. _Curtius_, bk. 8, ch. 3; bk. 9,
ch. 8.
=Oximes=, a people of European Sarmatia.
=Oxionæ=, a nation of Germans, whom superstitious traditions represented
as having the countenance human, and the rest of the body like that
of beasts. _Tacitus_, _Germania_, ch. 46.
=Oxus=, a large river of Bactriana, now _Gihon_, falling into the east
of the Caspian sea. _Pliny_, bk. 16, ch. 6.――――Another in Scythia.
=Oxyares=, a king of Bactriana, who surrendered to Alexander.
=Oxycānus=, an Indian prince in the age of Alexander, &c.
=Oxydrăcæ=, a nation of India. _Curtius_, bk. 9, ch. 4.
=Oxy̆lus=, a leader of the Heraclidæ, when they recovered the
Peloponnesus. He was rewarded with the kingdom of Elis. _Pausanias_,
bk. 5, ch. 4.――――A son of Mars and Protogenia. _Apollodorus_, bk. 1,
ch. 7.
=Oxynthes=, a king of Athens, B.C. 1149. He reigned 12 years.
=Oxypŏrus=, a son of Cinyras and Metharme. _Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 14.
=Oxyrynchus=, a town of Egypt on the Nile. _Strabo._
=Ozīnes=, a Persian imprisoned by Craterus, because he attempted to
revolt from Alexander. _Curtius_, bk. 9, ch. 10.
=Ozŏlæ=, or =Ozŏli=, a people who inhabited the eastern parts of Ætolia,
which were called _Ozolea_. This tract of territory lay at the north
of the bay of Corinth, and extended about 12 miles northward. They
received their name from the _bad stench_ (ὀζη) of their bodies and
of their clothing, which was the raw hides of wild beasts, or from
the offensive smell of the body of Nessus the Centaur, which after
death was left to putrefy in the country without the honours of a
burial. Some derive it with more propriety from the stench of the
stagnated waters in the neighbouring lakes and marshes. According to
a fabulous tradition, they received their name from a very different
circumstance. During the reign of a son of Deucalion, a bitch brought
into the world a stick instead of whelps. The stick was planted in
the ground by the king, and it grew up to a large vine and produced
grapes, from which the inhabitants of the country were called _Ozolæ_,
not from ὀζειν, _to smell bad_, but from ὀζος, _a branch or sprout_.
The name of Ozolæ, on account of its indelicate signification, highly
displeased the inhabitants, and they exchanged it soon for that of
Ætolians. _Pausanias_, bk. 10, ch. 38.――_Herodotus_, bk. 8, ch. 32.
P
=Pacatianus Titus Julius=, a general of the Roman armies, who proclaimed
himself emperor in Gaul, about the latter part of Philip’s reign. He
was soon after defeated, A.D. 249, and put to death, &c.
=Paccius=, an insignificant poet in the age of Domitian. _Juvenal_,
satire 7, li. 12.
=Paches=, an Athenian, who took Mitylene, &c. _Aristotle_, _Politics_,
bk. 4.
=Păchīnus=, or =Pachynus=, now _Passaro_, a promontory of Sicily,
projecting about two miles into the sea, in the form of a peninsula,
at the south-east corner of the island, with a small harbour of the
same name. _Strabo_, bk. 6.――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 7.――_Virgil_, _Æneid_,
bk. 3, li. 699.――_Pausanias_, bk. 5, ch. 25.
=Marcus Paconius=, a Roman put to death by Tiberius, &c. _Suetonius_,
_Tiberias_, ch. 61.――――A stoic philosopher, son of the preceding. He
was banished from Italy by Nero, and he retired from Rome with the
greatest composure and indifference. _Arrian_, bk. 1, ch. 1.
=Pacŏrus=, the eldest of the 30 sons of Orodes king of Parthia, sent
against Crassus, whose army he defeated, and whom he took prisoner.
He took Syria from the Romans and supported the republican party
of Pompey, and of the murderers of Julius Cæsar. He was killed in a
battle by Ventidius Bassus, B.C. 39, on the same day (9th of June)
that Crassus had been defeated. _Florus_, bk. 4, ch. 9.――_Horace_,
bk. 3, ode 6, li. 9.――――A king of Parthia, who made a treaty
of alliance with the Romans, &c.――――Another, intimate with king
Decebalus.
=Pactōlus=, a celebrated river of Lydia, rising in mount Tmolus, and
falling into the Hermus after it has watered the city of Sardes. It
was in this river that Midas washed himself when he turned into gold
whatever he touched, and from that circumstance it ever after rolled
golden sands, and received the name of _Chrysorrhoas_. It is called
Tmolus by Pliny. Strabo observes that it had no golden sands in his
age. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 10, li. 142.――_Strabo_, bk. 18.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 11, li. 86.――_Herodotus_, bk. 5, ch. 110.
――_Pliny_, bk. 33, ch. 8.
=Pactyas=, a Lydian entrusted with the care of the treasures of Crœsus
at Sardes. The immense riches which he could command, corrupted him,
and, to make himself independent, he gathered a large army. He laid
siege to the citadel of Sardes, but the arrival of one of the Persian
generals soon put him to flight. He retired to Cumæ and afterwards to
Lesbos, where he was delivered into the hands of Cyrus. _Herodotus_,
bk. 1, ch. 154, &c.――_Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 35.
=Pactye=, a town of the Thracian Chersonesus.
=Pactyes=, a mountain of Ionia, near Ephesus. _Strabo_, bk. 14.