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My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame:
O'er my dim eye a darkness hung,
My ears with hollow murmurs rung;

In dewy damps my limbs were chilled
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;

I fainted, sunk, and died away."

No less beautiful is the Hymn to Venus, of which the following is an extract:

"O Venus, beauty of the skies,

To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love perplexing wiles;
Oh, goddess! from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.

If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferred,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
Oh, gentle goddess! hear me now;
Descend, thou bright, immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confest.

Thou once didst leave almighty Jove,
And all the golden roofs above,
The car thy wanton sparrows drew,
Hovering in air they lightly flew;

As to my bower they winged their way,
I saw their quivering pinions play.

The birds dismist, while you remain,
Bore back their empty car again;
Then you with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smiled,

And asked what new complaints I made,
And why I called you to my aid."

Sappho formed an academy of females who excelled in music; and it was doubtless this academy which drew on her the hatred of the women of Mitylene. She is said to have been short in stature, and swarthy in her complexion. Ovid confirms this description in his Heroides, in the celebrated epistle from Sappho to Phaon:

To me what nature has in charms denied,
Is well by wit's more lasting flames supplied.
Though short my stature, yet my name extends
To heaven itself, and earth's remotest ends;
Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame
Inspired young Perseus with a generous flame."

Translated by Pope.

The Mitylenes esteemed her so highly, and were so sensible of the glory they received from her having been born among them, that they paid her sovereign honours after her death, and stamped their money with her image. The Romans also erected a noble monument to her memory. "It must be granted," says Rapin, "from what is left us of Sappho, that Longinus had great reason to extol the admirable genius of this woman; for there is in what remains of her something delicate, harmonious, and impassioned to the last.de

gree.

Catullus endeavoured to imitate Sappho, but fell infinitely short of her; and so have all others who have written upon love."

Besides the structure of verse called Sapphic, she invented the Æolic measure, composed elegies, epigrams, and nine books of lyric poetry, of which all that remain are, an ode to Venus, and an ode to one of her lovers, quoted above, and some small fragments.

SARAH, or SARAI,

WIFE of Abraham, was born in Uz of the Chaldees, (the region of fire, or where the people were fire-worshippers,) from which she came out with her husband. She was ten years younger than Abraham, and in some way connected with him by relationship, which permitted them to be called brother and sister. Some commentators suppose she was the daughter of Haran, Abraham's brother by a different mother, and consequently, the sister of Lot. But Abraham said of her to Abimilech, "She is indeed my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." Such intermarriages had not, in that age of the world, been prohibited by God or man. Her story is told at length in Genesis, chap. xii., xviii., xx., xxxiii. None of the women of the Bible are so prominently placed or so distinctly described as Sarah, whose name was changed by God so that its meaning (her title) might be "mother of nations." Her first name, Sarai, signifies "princess"—and her personal loveliness, and the excellences of her character, justify the appellation. But as the Bible is the word of divine truth, it describes no perfect men or women. Sarah's love and devotion to her husband are themes of the apostle's praise; and her maternal faithfulness is proven by the influence of her character on Isaac, and the sorrow with which he mourned her death. Yet Sarah has been accused of harshness towards the handmaid Hagar, and cruelty in causing her and her son Ishmael to be sent away. But the sacred narrative warrants no such inference. It should be borne in mind that in the first promise, when God said to Abram, "I will make of thee a great nation," &c., no mention is made of the mother of this favoured race. Abram undoubtedly told his beloved Sarai of God's promise; but when ten years passed, and she had no children, she might fear she was not included in the divine prediction. Regardless of self, where the glory and happiness of her adored husband were concerned, with a disinterestedness more than heroic, of which the most noble-minded woman only could have been capable, she voluntarily relinquished her hope of the honour of being the mother of the blessed race; and, moreover, withdrew her claim to his sole love, (a harder trial,) and gave him her favourite slave Hagar. It was Sarai who proposed this to Abram, and as there was then no law prohibiting such relations, it was not considered sin. But it was sin, as the event showed. God, from the first, ordained that the union of the sexes, to be blessed, cannot subsist but in a marriage made holy by uniting, indissolubly and faithfully, one man with one woman. This holy union between Abraham and Sarah, which had withstood all temptations and endured all trials, was now embittered to the wife by the insolence and ingratitude of the concubine.

That the subsequent conduct of Sarah was right. under the circumstances, the angel of the Lord bore witness, when he found Hagar in the wilderness, and said, "Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands."

So too, when Hagar and her son Ishmael were sent away-God distinctly testified to Abraham that it should be thus; that Sarah was right. There are but two blemishes on the bright perfection of Sarah's character-her impatience for the promised blessing, and her hasty falsehood, told from fear, when she denied she had laughed. From the first fault came the troubles of her life through the connection of her husband with Hagar. She died at the great age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her;" true testimonials of her worth and his love. He purchased for her a sepulchre, at a great price, "the field of Macpelah, before Mamre," which became afterwards the site of Hebron, an important city. Sarah's death occurred B. C. 1860.

SCRIBONIA,

THE daughter of Scribonius, was the second wife of Augustus, after he had divorced Claudia. As divorces were then, at Rome, common as marriages, almost, Augustus, in a few years, divorced Scribonia, to marry the only woman he ever probably loved the beautiful and magnificent Livia. Scribonia had been twice married prior to her union with Augustus, by whom she had a daughter, the infamous Julia, an offspring who seemed to inherit the vices of both her parents.

SELENA

WAS the wife of Antiochus X., king of Syria, who was put to death by Tigranes, king of Armenia. She was the daughter of Ptolemy Physcon, king of Egypt, and according to the custom of her country, married first her brother Lathyrus, and afterwards her other brother, Gryphus. At the death of Gryphus, she married Antiochus, by whom she had two sons. According to Appian, she first married the father, Antiochus Cyzenicus, and after his death the son, Eusebes. She lived in the century immediately preceding Christ.

SEMIRAMIS,

A CELEBRATED queen of Assyria, was the wife of Menones, governor of Nineveh, and accompanied him to the siege of Bactria, where by her advice and bravery she hastened the king's operations, and took the city. Her wisdom and beauty attracted the attention of Ninus, king of Assyria, who asked her of her husband, offering him his daughter Sozana in her stead; but Menones refused his consent; and when Ninus added threats to entreaties, he hung himself. Semiramis then married Ninus, about B. C. 2200, and became the mother of Ninyas. She acquired so great an influence over the king, that she is said to have persuaded him to resign the crown for one day, and command that she should be proclaimed queen and sole empress of Assyria for that time; when one of her first orders was that Ninus should be put to death, in order that she might retain possession of the sovereign authority.

She made Babylon the most magnificent city in the world; she visited every part of her dominions, and left everywhere monuments of her

greatness. She levelled mountains, filled up valleys, and had water conveyed by immense aqueducts to barren deserts and unfruitful plains. She was not less distinguished as a warrior. She conquered many of the neighbouring nations, Ethiopia among the rest; and she defeated the king of India, at the river Indus; but pursuing him into his own country, he drew her into an ambush, and put her to flight, with the loss of a great number of her troops. To prevent him from pursuing her still farther, she destroyed the bridge over the Indus, as soon as her troops had crossed it. After exchanging prisoners at Bactria, she returned home with hardly a third of her army, which, if we believe Ctesias, consisted of 300,000 foot-soldiers and 5000 horse, besides camels and armed chariots. At her return, finding her son engaged in a conspiracy against her, she resigned the government to him. Ninyas is said, notwithstanding, to have killed his mother himself, in the sixty-second year of her age, and the twenty-fifth of her reign.

SERVILIA,

A SISTER of the celebrated Cato, who was enamoured of Julius Cæsar, though he was one of her brother's most inveterate enemies. One day, she sent him a very affectionate letter, which was given to Cæsar in the senate-house, while the senate were debating about punishing Catiline's associates. Cato, supposing that the letter was from one of the conspirators, insisted on its being publicly read. Cæsar then gave it to Cato, who having read it, returned it, saying, "Take it, drunkard!" She flourished about B. C. 66.

SHELOMITH,

DAUGHTER of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan, was mother of that blasphemer who was stoned to death. The Scripture tells us that Shelomith had this blasphemer by an Egyptian; and the rabbins say that she was a handsome and virtuous woman, with whom this Egyptian, an overseer of the Hebrews, became enamoured; and that during her husband's unexpected absence, he stole by night into the house and bed of Shelomith. When

the woman discovered the injury, she complained king's curiosity was excited; he purchased the of it to her husband, and proving with child, he books, and the woman vanished. These three put her away, and assailed the Egyptian with were the Sibylline books which play such a promiblows, who retaliated. Moses passing by, took nent part in the history of Rome. They were the part of the Israelite, and killed the Egyptian. | written on palm-leaves, and in verse or symbolical The brothers of Shelomith called her husband to hieroglyphics. The Romans were in the constant account for putting her away; and coming to habit of consulting them, and abiding by their deblows, Moses again interfered; but the husband cisions. This Sibyl is supposed by some to have asking him whether he would kill him, as yester-been the Erythræn Sibyl; by others, the Sibyl from day he had killed the Egyptian, Moses fled to the Cumæ, in Ionia; and by others, that she was from land of Midian. B. C. 1570. the Italian Cumæ. A book of Sibylline verses is extant, but scholars deem it spurious and useless.

SHIPHRAH and PUAH,

Two midwives of Goshen, in Egypt, celebrated in sacred history, and rewarded by the Almighty himself, for their humanity in disobeying the mandate of the tyrant of Egypt to murder the Hebrew boys at their birth. They were undoubtedly Hebrew women. It is worthy of remembrance, that when the Hebrew nation was crushed by the power of Pharaoh, the men lost all courage, and yielded to their oppressor, however cruel might be his edicts; it was the Hebrew women who devised means of eluding those laws.

SIBYL, or SYBIL,

Is the name by which several prophetic women were designated, who all belonged to the mythical ages of ancient history. It was believed that the Sibyls were maidens who, by direct inspirations, possessed a knowledge of the future, and of the manner in which evils might be averted, and the gods appeased. Their number seems to have been very great. There were Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, Babylonian, and Italian Sibyls.

The most ancient Sibyl was Herophile, probably the one called Sibylla Lybica by Varro. The Erythræn Sibyl was supposed by some to be a native of Babylon, and by others, of Erythræ. She lived before the Trojan war, the cause and issue of which she is said to have predicted.

In the time of Pausanias, a hymn on Apollo, attributed to this Sibyl, was well known in Delos, in which she calls herself a daughter of one of the Idæn nymphs, and a mortal. The Samian Sibyl was supposed to have been a priestess in the temple of Apollo Smyntheus. She spent most of her life at Samos; but, like the other Sibyls, is described as travelling about, and communicating to men her inspired wisdom. Thus, we find her at Claros, Delos, and Delphi. She is said to have died at Troas, where a monument was erected to her in a grove, sacred to Apollo Smyntheus.

Cumæ, in Ionia, was also celebrated for its Sibyl; but the Sibyl of Cuma, in Campania, called Demo, has acquired more celebrity than any other. In the reign either of Tarquinius Priscus or Tarquinius Superbus, there appeared before the king a woman, either a Sibyl or sent by a Sibyl, who offered him nine books for sale, which he refused to purchase. The woman went away, and burning three of the books, returned and asked the same price for the remaining six as she had for the nine. The king again refused; and the woman burnt three more, and again returning, offered the three books at the same price as before. The

SISIGAMBIS, or SISYGAMBIS, WAS mother of Darius, the last king of Persia. She was taken prisoner by Alexander the Great, at the battle of Ipsus, with the rest of the royal family. The conqueror treated her with the greatest deference, saluted her as his own mother, and often granted to her what he had denied to the petitions of his other favourites and ministers. When the queen heard of Alexander's death, she committed suicide, B. C. 324, unwilling to survive so generous an enemy, though she had survived the loss of her son and of his kingdom. She had before lost in one day, her husband and eighty of his brothers, whom Ochus had assassinated.

SOPHONISBA,

DAUGHTER of Asdrubal, the celebrated Carthaginian general, a lady of uncommon beauty and accomplishments, married Syphax, a Numidian prince, who was totally defeated by the combined forces of his rival, Massinissa, and the Romans. On this occasion, Sophonisba fell into the hands of Massinissa, who, captivated by her beauty, married her, on the death of Syphax, which occurred soon after at Rome. But this act displeased the Romans, because Sophonisba was a Carthaginian princess; and Massinissa had not asked their consent. The elder Scipio Africanus ordered the timid Numidian monarch to dismiss Sophonisba ; and the cowardly king, instead of resenting the insult, and joining the Carthaginians against the Romans, sent his wife a cup of poison, advising her to die like the daughter of Asdrubal. She drank the poison with calmness and serenity, about B. C. 203.

STATIRA,

DAUGHTER of Darius, king of Persia, and wife of Alexander the Great. The conqueror had formerly refused her; but when she fell into his hands at the battle of Ipsus, the nuptials were celebrated with uncommon splendour. Nine thousand persons were present, to each of whom Alexander gave a golden cup to be offered to the gods. Statira had no children. She was put to death by Roxana, another daughter of Darius, and also the wife of Alexander, after the conqueror's death.

STRATONICE,

THE beautiful daughter of Demetrius Poliorcetes and his wife Philla, married Seleucus Nicator, king of Syria. His son and heir, Antiochus Soter, fell

ill, and was at the point of death, when Erasistratus, the physician, observing his pulse to beat high whenever his young step-mother entered the room, guessed the cause of his illness to be love for Stratonice, which Antiochus then confessed. Seleucus, to save his son, yielded up his wife, and they were married. Stratonice became the ancestress of that impious race of princes who so cruelly persecuted the Jews. Antiochus died B. C. 291.

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TAMAR, or THAMAR,

WAS daughter-in-law to the patriarch Judah, wife of Er and Onan. After Onan's death, Tamar lived with her father-in-law, expecting to marry his son Shelah, as had been promised her, and was the custom of the time. But the marriage not having taken place, some years after, when Judah went to a sheep-shearing feast, Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and sat in a place where Judah would pass-and this old man yielded at once to the temptation. When it was told Judah that his daughter-in-law had been guilty, he immediately condemned her to be brought forth and burned alive; never remembering his own sin. But when he found that he was the father of the child she would soon bear, his conscience was awakened, and he made that remarkable admission that "she was more just than he had been."

This history displays the gross manners of those old times, and how false are all representations of the purity of pastoral life. Tamar had twins, sons-and from one of these, Pharez, the line of Judah is descended. These events occurred about B. C. 1727.

TAMARIS

WAS a princess of Tarraco, the modern Tarragon, a province in Spain: she lived about the year 220 B. C. After her husband's death, she became anxious to free the province from the Roman yoke, and, in order to succeed in her wishes, she favoured secretly Hannibal, to whom she furnished men and provisions. When her treachery was discovered, she lost both her property and her life. After her death, the Romans made the city of Tarraco the chief depôt for their arms in Spain.

TAMYRIS, or TOMYRIS, QUEEN of the Scythians, was a contemporary of Cyrus, who made war against her. After Cyrus had advanced very rapidly, he pretended to fly, and left his camp with provisions and wine behind him. The Scythians, led by Spargopises, the son of Tamyris, pursued until they reached the camp, where they stopped to regale themselves. Cyrus, who was watching for this opportunity, rushed upon them unawares, and slew the greater part of the army with its young commander.

Tamyris, filled with rage and grief for the loss of her son and the defeat of her troops, now took the field herself, and succeeded, by her wily manœuvres, in drawing the army of Cyrus into an ambush, and then she fell upon them with such fury, that, though he had 200,000 men of battle,

scarce one escaped. She afterwards built the city of Tamyris not far from the Doran. Brave she was, and living in the era of bloody battles, her character was the reflex of her age; yet we think her agency in founding the city was more to her credit than gaining the victory in war.

TANAQUIL, or CARA CECILIA,

WIFE of Tarquin the Elder, the fifth king of Rome, was a native of Tarquinia, in Etruria. Her husband was originally a citizen of the same place, and called Lucomon Damaratus. But Tanaquil, who was skilled in augury, and foresaw the future eminence of her husband, persuaded him to go to Rome, where he changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius. Here he was chosen king, B. C. 616. He was assassinated B. C. 577; but Tanaquil, by keeping the event secret, adopted measures for securing the succession of her son-in-law, Servius Tullius. She was a woman of such liberality and powers of mind, that the Romans preserved her girdle with great veneration.

TARPEIA,

A VESTAL Virgin, daughter of Tarpeius, governor of Rome under Romulus. When the Sabines made war on the Romans, in consequence of the rape of the Sabine women by the latter, Tarpeia betrayed the citadel of Rome to the enemy, for which service she requested the ornaments the soldiers wore on their left arm, meaning their gold bracelets. Pretending to misunderstand her, they threw their shields at her as they passed, and she was crushed beneath their weight. From her the hill was called the Tarpeian rock, from whence traitors were precipitated by the Romans.

TARQUINIA,

A DAUGHTER of Tarquinius Priscus, who married Servius Tullius. When her husband was murdered by his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, she privately buried his body. This so preyed upon her mind that she died the following night. Some attribute her death, however, to Tullia, wife of young Tarquin.

TECHMESSA,

DAUGHTER of Teuthras, king of Phrygia, was taken captive by Ajax, the celebrated Greek hero, by whom she had a son, Erysaces. She prevented Ajax from killing himself.

TELESILLA,

A NOBLE poetess of Argos, who being advised by the oracle, which she had consulted respecting her health, to the study of the muses, soon attained such excellence, as to animate by her poetry the Argive women to repel, under her command, Cleomenes, the Spartan king, and afterwards king Demaratus, from the siege of Pamphiliacum, with great loss.

TERENTIA,

WIFE of Cicero. She became the mother of M. Cicero, and of Tullia. Cicero repudiated her, on account of her temper, he said, to marry his young, beautiful, and wealthy ward, Publilia. But the circumstance that Cicero was then deeply in debt, and wanted the fortune of his ward, explains his motives. He was in his sixty-first year, when he committed this great wrong, and as he had been married thirty years to Terentia, if her temper had been so very troublesome, he would, probably, have parted with her before. The transaction left a stain upon his private character which no apologist has been able to efface.

Terentia, after her divorce, married Sallust, Cicero's enemy, and he dying, she then married Messala Corvinus. She lived to her one hundred and third, or, according to Pliny, one hundred and seventeenth year. She seems to have been a woman of spirit and intelligence.

THAIS,

A CELEBRATED courtezan of Corinth, mistress of Alexander the Great, who persuaded him to set Persepolis on fire, in revenge for the injuries Xerxes had inflicted on her native city; and who incited the conqueror, when intoxicated, to throw the first torch himself. She afterwards became the mistress and finally the wife of Ptolemy, king of Egypt. Menander celebrated her charms, on which account she is called Menandrea.

THALESTRIS,

A QUEEN of the Amazons, who, accompanied by three hundred women, came thirty-five days' journey to meet Alexander in his Asiatic conquests, to raise children by a man whose fame was so great, and courage so uncommon. The story is, doubtless, as fabulous as that a nation of Amazons ever lived.

ΤΗΕΑΝΟ

WAS wife of Metapontus, king of Icaria. She was childless, and as her husband was very desirous of offspring, she obtained some children, which she made her husband believe were her own. She afterwards became a mother, and to prevent the suppositious children from inheriting the kingdom, she persuaded hers to kill them

while hunting. In the struggle her own children were slain, and Theano died of grief.

There were two other women of the same name; Theano Locrencis, a native of Locri, surnamed Melica, from the melody of her songs and lyric poems; the second was a poetess of Crete, said by some to have been the wife of Pythagoras.

THESSALONICE,

DAUGHTER of Philip II., king of Macedon, and sister of Alexander the Great; married Cassander, one of Alexander's generals, and bore him three sons, Philip IV., Antipater, and Alexander V. She was murdered by her son Antipater, because she favoured his brother Alexander's claim to the throne, although she entreated him by the memory of her maternal care of him to spare her, but in vain THIS BE,

A BEAUTIFUL Babylonian maiden, whose unhappy love for Pyramus has rendered her immortal. The parents of the lovers opposing their union, they were able to converse only through a hole in the wall which separated their parents' houses. They made an appointment to meet at the tomb of Ninus without the city. Thisbe came first, and frightened by the appearance of a lioness, she fled to a neighbouring thicket, dropping her mantle in her flight, which was torn to pieces by the animal. Pyramus coming just in time to see the torn mantle and the lioness in the distance, concluded that Thisbe had been devoured by the wild beast. In his despair he killed himself with his sword. When Thisbe emerged from her hidingplace, and found Pyramus lying dead, she stabbed herself with the same weapon. They were buried together.

THYMELE,

A MUSICAL Composer and poetess, mentioned by Martial, and reported to have been the first who introduced into the scene a kind of dance, called by the Greeks, from this circumstance, Themelinos. From Thymele also, an altar, used in the ancient theatres, is supposed to have taken its name.

TIMOCLEA,

A THEBAN lady, sister to Theagenes, who was killed at Cheronæa, B. C. 374. One of Alexander's soldiers offered her violence, after which she led him to a well, and pretending to show him immense treasures concealed there, she pushed him into it. Alexander commended her, and forbade his soldiers to hurt the Theban women.

TIMEA,

WIFE of Agis, king of Sparta, was seduced by Alcibiades. Her son Leotychides was consequently refused the throne, though Agis, on his death-bed, declared him legitimate.

TROSINE,

WIFE of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who, upon her husband's being conquered by Pompey, was compelled to grace his entrance into Rome, B. C. about 70.

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