Note 262 — TAR, TOR, TARIT.

As I often quote from Palæphatus, it may be proper to say something concerning him. He wrote early: and seems to have been a serious and sensible person; one, who saw the absurdity of the fables, upon which the theology of his country was founded. In the purport of his name is signified an antiquarian; a person, who dealt in remote researches: and there is no impossibility, but that there might have casually arisen this correspondence between his name and writings. But, I think, it is hardly probable. As he wrote against the mythology of his country, I should imagine that Παλαιφατος, Palæphatus, was an assumed name, which he took for a blind, in order to screen himself from persecution: for the nature of his writings made him liable to much ill will. One little treatise of [262]Palæphatus about Orion is quoted verbatim by the Scholiast upon [263]Homer, who speaks of it as a quotation from Euphorion. I should therefore think, that Euphorion was the name of this writer: but as there were many learned men so called, it may be difficult to determine which was the author of this treatise.