The story of Amphion is more perplexing than that of the living
Orpheus. Both of them turn in a great degree upon the miraculous
effects of music. Amphion was of the royal family of Thebes, and
ultimately became ruler of the territory. He is said, by the potency
of his lyre, or his skill in the magic art, to have caused the stones
to follow him, to arrange themselves in the way he proposed, and
without the intervention of a human hand to have raised a wall about
his metropolis. [32] It is certainly less difficult to conceive the
savage man to be rendered placable, and to conform to the dictates of
civilisation, or even wild beasts to be made tame, than to imagine
stones to obey the voice and the will of a human being. The example
however is not singular; and hereafter we shall find related that
Merlin, the British enchanter, by the power of magic caused the rocks
of Stonehenge, though of such vast dimensions, to be carried through
the air from Ireland to the place where we at present find them.--Homer
mentions that Amphion, and his brother Zethus built the walls of
Thebes, but does not describe it as having been done by miracle. [33]