man. He is often introduced either sitting on an ass, or reeling
along on foot, with a thyrsus to support him.

He was said to have tended the education of the infant Bacchus, and
indeed, according to the author whose works are quoted as those of
Orpheus, he was an especial favourite of the Gods; while some
writers represent him not as a drunken old man, but as a learned
philosopher and a skilful commander. Lucian combines the two
characters, and describes him as an aged man with large straight
ears and a huge belly, wearing yellow clothes, and generally mounted
on an ass, or supported by a staff, but, nevertheless, as being a
skilful general. Hyginus says, that the Phrygian peasants found
Midas near a fountain, into which, according to Xenophon, some one
had put wine, which had made him drunk. In his interview with Midas,
according to Theopompus, as quoted by AElian, they had a conversation
concerning that unknown region of the earth, to which Plato refers
under the name of the New Atlantis, and which, after long employing
the speculations of the ancient philosophers, was realized to the
moderns in the discovery of America. The passage is sufficiently
curious to deserve to be quoted. He says, "Asia, Europe, and Libya,
are but three islands, surrounded by the ocean; but beyond that
ocean there is a vast continent, whose bounds are entirely unknown
to us. The men and the animals of that country are much larger, and
live much longer than those of this part of the world. Their towns
are fine and magnificent; their customs are different from ours; and
they are governed by different laws. They have two cities, one of
which is called 'the Warlike,' and the other 'the Devout.' The
inhabitants of the first city are much given to warfare, and make
continual attacks upon their neighbours, whom they bring under their
subjection. Those who inhabit the other city are peaceable, and
blessed with plenty; the earth without toil or tillage furnishing
them with abundance of the necessaries of life. Except their sick,
they all live in the midst of riches and continual festivity and
pleasure; but they are so just and righteous that the Gods
themselves delight to go frequently and pass their time among them.

"The warlike people of the first city having extended their
conquests in their own vast continent, made an irruption into ours,
with a million of men, as far as t