LAB

91

LAB

a vase or basin placed in the caldarium of theti,„ lent bat hs, to contain hot water for persons who had usedtll| 2 vapour bath.

] a ^ ABLRNUM, a well-known tree : the wood of the tree-T IS muc ' 1 prized by cabinet-makers and turners,a]. ABY RINTH, (Greek, XafivpivOoc) among the ancients,runn^ 6 a '-^ ' n ’ T * ca te edifice cut into various isles and meanders,ln S 1[ ito each other, so as to render it difficult to get out.Ijy jS? 1, ce lebrated labyrinths were noted by the ancients, andq ln y ra nked amongst the wonders of the world : viz., the°f C an ’Egyptian, the Lemnian, and the Italian. ThatConi* 616 ' S tbe most famed; it was built, as Diodorus Siculus coin tUles ’ an ^ Pbny positively asserts, by Daedalus , byit a , king Minos, who kept the Minotaur shut up inho t ^ n “ le m °del of that of Egypt , but on a less scale ; butb een . ''m, that in their time it no longer existed, having■vy a f ler destroyed by time, or purposely demolished. Itesear/ 0 ! 11 tbls labyrinth that Theseus is i■y me ans of Ariadne ’s clue.

said to have made his

n 0r t , - - oj r~

„ r , 10 those of the Greeks ; or by the more ancienteece fl 6rS •’ or b y any of the writers of the ages in whichoap ® 0Ul "ished ? This work was attributed to Daedalus ,

h av .i I0 V rUS ®' cu l us an( l Bliny represent this labyrinth asa s m ® )een a large edifice ; while others have considered itp as e v a cavern hollowed in the rock, and full of windingtinder” 68 ",, “ R tbe labyrinth of Crete, ” says the Abbe Bar-°f jj. ’> “ bad been constructed by Daedalus under the orderby jjJ 108 ’ w bence is it that we find no mention of it, eitherCr ete mer ’ w bo more than once speaks of that prince, and ofhavj n ’„° r > Herodotus, who describes that of Egypt , after8up er ® Sai( l that the monuments of the Egyptians are muchgeo- ° r * nHr

tfadiH name >” says our author, “ is sufficient to discredit aresourj, 11 ' R * s name, like that of Hercules, had become theearjy Ignorance, whenever it turned its eyes on the

s lteno-t“ es j A H great labours, all works which required moretb °se°wl • an ingenuity, were attributed to Hercules ; and alldegr ee *L . bad relation to the arts, and required a certain^lalugn lntel Hgence in the execution, were ascribed tothe ] a ]j '. According to Diodorus and Pliny , no traces ofof it s ,y ri nth of Crete existed in their time, and the datebeen v - e8 i ruc tion had been forgotten. Yet it is said to have"'as cont 6< ^ b y tbe disciples of Apollonius of Tyana , whol be, 'efor e ?P orur y with those two authors. The Cretans ,Ruupi ia e ’ bebeve( l that they possessed the labyrinth. “ Atbe seen’ near tbe ancient Argos,” says Strabo , “ are still tob‘at are ^ a ®t caverns, in which are constructed labyrinths,'fig 0 c .. ev ed to be the work of the Cyclopsthe mean-a bou rs 0 p 1,c bi as Barthelemi understands him, is, that thea, 'd ret Ur 111611 b' a( ! opened in the rock passages which crossedIt t be idp 116 ^ u P on themselves, as in quarries. Such, he says,ben s ,,„. a We ought to form of the labyrinth of Crete . He

:»« su g „ a We ou gbt to form of the labyrinth of Crete . Hebfithg , < j sts an inquiry, whether there were several laby-' v bici l jjj ‘ at island ? Ancient authors speak only of one,{na. j. s . them place at Cnossus , and some few at Gor-be f«-. e 0n and Tournefort describe a cavern situated at

foot,

AUUI uciux t UCBUiUC (l UUVCI 11 OUUtUCU tib

' ** 8 tt>all ^?.° unt Wa, on the south side of the mountain,° lr fifir, xv „ o'fitance from Gortyna : which, according to the! 'byrinti 1 8 t> Quarry, and, according to the latter, the ancientfitted a| . Resides this, another is supposed to have beenat

biat al Hnossus, and, in proof of the fact, it is alleged,) v her e 6coin s of that city represent the plan of it. The placefbfii'tipf' 6 labyrinth of Crete was situated, according toffiota o 0rt > Was, as Barthelemi supposes, one league distantfV, *>a . and) according t0 Strabo , it was distant from'‘fitlior 8 Slx or seven leagues ; with respect to which ourtl, e ;?»ducles, that the territory of the latter city extended1(m "ty of the former. In reply to the inquiry, what

was the use of the caverns, denominated labyrinths, Barthe-lemi imagines, that they were first excavated in part bynature ; that in some places stones were extracted from themfor building cities, and that, in more ancient times, theyserved for an habitation or asylum to the inhabitants of adistrict exposed to frequent incursions. According to Dio-dorus Siculus , the most ancient Cretans dwelt in the caves ofmount Ida. The people, when inquiries were made on the |spot, said, that their labyrinth was originally a prison. It jmight indeed have been applied to this use ; but it is scarcely jcredible that, for preventing, the escape of a few unhappy !wretches, such immense labours would have been under-taken. !

In Walpole’s collection of Travels in various Countries ofthe East, there is an account by Mr. Cockerell of an excur- jsion from the town of Candia to a curious excavation in a jmountain about three miles from Agio Deka, a village near jthe site of Gortys, and 20 miles inland from Candia, which jthe inhabitants call by the name of the labyrinth. It is a veryintricate maze, cut through a freestone rock ; many of thepassages are very low and narrow, but the principal way isabout 8 feet wide, and as many in height. There are severalsquare chambers at the ends of some of the passages, andpiers have been left in the middle to support the superincum-bent rock. Mr. Cockerell has explored all the excavationthat was accessible, of which he gives a plan ; it is in itswhole length, including the windings, about three-quartersof a mile, but this is evidently only part of the whole, asmany of the passages are stopped up in consequence of tbefalling in of the rock. Some have supposed this to have beenthe labyrinth of Minos .

The labyrinth of Egypt, according to Pliny , was the oldestof all ; and was subsisting in his time, after having stood,according to tradition, as he says, 4,600 years. He says itwas built by king Petesucus, or Tithoes ; but Herodotus makesit the work of several kings : it stood on the southern bankof the lake Mccris, near the town of Crocodiles, or Arsinoe ,and consisted of twelve large contiguous palaces, in whichthe twelve kings of Egypt assembled to transact affairs ofstate and religion, containing 3,000 apartments, 1,500 ofwhich were under ground.

This structure seems to have been designed as a pantheon,or universal temple of all the Egyptian deities, which wereseparately worshipped in the provinces. It was also the placeof the general assembly of the magistracy of the wholenation ; for those of all tbe provinces or nomes met here to ]feast and sacrifice, and to judge causes of great consequence.

For this reason, every nome had a hall or palace appropriatedto it ; the whole edifice containing, according to Herodotus ,

12 ; Egypt being then divided into so many kingdoms.Pliny makes the number of these palaces 16, and Strabo makes them 27. All the halls were vaulted, and had anequal number of doors opposite to one another, six openingto the north, and six to the south, all encompassed by thesame wall. The exits, by various passages and innumerablereturns, afforded to Herodotus a thousand occasions of won-der. The roofs and walls within were encrusted with marble,and adorned with sculptured figures. The halls were sur-rounded with pillars of white stone finely polished ; and atthe angle, where the labyrinth ended, stood the pyramid,which Strabo asserts to be the sepulchre of tbe prince whobuilt the labyrinth. According to the description of Pliny and Strabo , this edifice stood in the midst of an immensesquare, surrounded with buildings at a great distance. Theporch was of Parian marble, and all the other pillars ofmarble of Syene ; within were the temples of their severaldeities, and galleries, to which was an ascent of 90 steps