a84
MUSEUMS.
was the case of Berenice, the beautiful wife of Ptolemy ,previously mentioned ; vide article Astronomy. That thosecollections tended much to increase the knowledge ofnatural history, cannot be questioned. Natural objects ofuncommon size and beauty, having been from the mostancient of periods consecrated to the gods, no place be-came so proper for their preservation as their respectivetemples, the sanctity of which places much increased thevalue of the articles ; hence also they continued to awakencuriosity from their antiquity. When Hanno, the Cartha-genian, returned from his distant voyages, he brought withhim two skins of hairy women, found on the islands of theGorgades, and deposited them in the temple of Juno, wherethey continued till the destruction of that city, as Pliny informs us, in lib. vi. c. 31. The horns of a Scythian animal, in which the Stygian water could be contained,which destroyed every other vessel, were sent by Alexanderas a curiosity to the Delphian temple. Alliani Hist. Ani-maliutn, lib. x. c. 40. Those monstrous horns of the w'ildbulls called Erythraean, which committed such destructionin Macedonia, were, by order of King Philip, hung up inthe temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed shoulder-bones of Pelops were deposited in the temple at Elis. Thefeelers, called horns, of the Indian ants, were deposited inthe temple of the Erythraean Hercules. A crocodile, foundin the attempt to discover the source of the As7e, was pre-served in the temple of Isis, at Caesarea. 1 A large piece ofthe root of a cinnamon tree, as the same author informs us,was kept in a golden vase in Rome , which he examined. 2.The skin of that monster which Regulus, with his army, metw r ith in Africa , was deposited in a Roman temple. In thetemple of Melitaean Juno, were an immense pair of elephant’steeth, w'hich were carried away by Masinissas admiral,and transmitted to that prince ; who, though he set a highvalue on them, restored them when he understood they weretaken from a temple. 3 The head of a basilisk was exhibitedin some temple of Diana, as Scaliger informs us. The bonesof that sea monster to which Andromeda had been exposed,were preserved at Joppa, and afterwards brought to Rome . 4The monstrous tusks of the celebrated Calydonian boar werebrought to Rome, after the defeat of Anthony by Augustus ,and deposited in the temple of Bacchus. 5