Note 20 — PART FIRST.

Gibbon’s Hist. vol. iv. Procopius, in speaking of the numbers who died in this extraordinary plague, compares them to the sand of the sea; and afterwards expresses them by a phrase which has been translated two hundred millions. The phrase is myriadas myriadon myrias. Mr. Gibbon, by dropping the first word, restricts the sense to one hundred millions; which he thinks not wholly inadmissible; but the probability seems to be, that Procopius did not mean to specify the number, but to represent it as incalculable. This is done by putting a comma, or semicolon, after the first word; and we may then read, that there perished myriads; a myriad of myriads. The grammar is rectified by reading myriades instead of myriadae.