Note 317 — TIT and TITH.

I have taken notice that the word δρακων, draco, was a mistake for Tarchon, Ταρχων: which was sometimes expressed Τραχων; as is observable in the Trachones at Damascus. When the Greeks understood that in these temples people worshipped a serpent Deity, they concluded that Trachon was a serpent: and hence came the name of Draco to be appropriated to such an animal. For the Draco was an imaginary being, however afterwards accepted and understood. This is manifest from Servius, who distributes the serpentine species into three tribes; and confines the Draco solely to temples: [317]Angues aquarum sunt, serpentes terrarum, Dracones templorum. That the notion of such animals took its rise from the temples of the Syrians and Egyptians, and especially from the Trachones, Τραχωνες, at Damascus, seems highly probable from the accounts above: and it may be rendered still more apparent from Damasenus, a supposed hero, who took his name from the city Damasene, or Damascus. He is represented as an earthborn giant, who encountered two dragons: [318]Και χθονος απλετον ὑια, δρακοντοφονον Δαμασηνα. One of the monsters, with which he fought, is described of an enormous size, πεντηκονταπελεθρος Οφις, a serpent in extent of fifty acres: which certainly, as I have before insinuated, must have a reference to the grove and garden, wherein such Ophite temple stood at Damascus. For the general measurement of all these wonderful beings by [319]jugera or acres proves that such an estimate could not relate to any thing of solid contents; but to an inclosure of that superficies. Of the same nature as these was the gigantic personage, supposed, to have been seen at Gades by Cleon Magnesius. He made, it seems, no doubt of Tityus and other such monsters having existed. For being at Gades, he was ordered to go upon a certain expedition by Hercules: and upon his return to the island, he saw upon the shore a huge sea-man, who had been thunderstruck, and lay extended upon the ground: [320]τουτον πλεθρα μεν πεντε μαλιστα επεχειν; and his dimensions were not less than five acres. So Typhon, Caanthus, Orion, are said to have been killed by lightning. Orpheus too, who by some is said to have been torn to pieces by the Thracian women, by others is represented as slain by the bolt of Jupiter: and his epitaph imports as much.