The _Wisdom of the Ancients_, or rather, _De sapientia veterum_ (for
it was written in Latin), is a short treatise on the mythology of
the ancients, by which Bacon endeavors to discover and to show the
physical, moral, and political meanings it concealed. If the reader is
not convinced that the ancients understood by these fables all that
Bacon discovers in them, he must at least admit the probability of it,
and be impressed with the penetration of the author and the variety and
depth of his knowledge.