parts which were subject to their empire. It is mentioned at large by Orosius, from whom "In the consulship of

I will quote it. "Marcus Plautius Hypsæus, and Marcus Ful "vius Flaccus (about the year of Rome 628: "and 128 years before the Christian æra), "when Africa had scarcely recovered itself from the miseries of the last Punic war, "it underwent another desolation, terri

'Marco Plautio Hypsæo, et Marco Fulvio Flacco coss. vixdum Africam a bellorum excidiis quiscentem, horribilis et inusitata perditio consecuta est. Namque cum per totam Africam immense locustarum multitudines coaluissent, et non modo jam spem cunctam frugum abrasissent, herbasque omnes cum parte radicum et folia arborum cum teneritudine ramorum consumpsissent, verum etiam amaros cortices, atque arida ligna perrosissent, repentino arreptæ vento, atque in globos coactæ, portatæque diu per aerem, Africano pelago immersæ sunt. Harum cum immensos acervos longe undis urgentibus fluctus per extenta late littora propulissent; tetrum nimis atque ultra opinionem pestiferum odorem tabida et putrefacta congeries exhalavit: unde omnium pariter animantium tanta pestilentia consecuta est, ut avium pecudum et bestiarum, corruptione aeris dissolutarum, putrefacta passim cadavera, vitium corruptionis augerent. At vero quanta fuerit hominum lues, ego ipse, dum refero, perhorresco. Siquidem in Numidiâ, in quâ tum Micipsa rex erat, octingenta millia hominum: circa oram maritimam, quæ maxime Carthaginiensi atque Uticensi litori adjacet, plusquam ducenta millia, periisse traditur. Pauli Oro sii contra Paganos Hist. }. 3. c. xỉ.

"ble in its effects, and contrary to all experi66 ence. For after that immense numbers of "locusts had formed themselves in a huge "body all over the region, and had ruined all "hopes of any fruits of the earth; after they "had consumed all the herbage of the field, "without sparing the roots, and the leaves "of the trees with the tendrils upon which "they grew; and had gone so far as to pene"trate with their teeth through the bark, "however bitter, and into the dry and solid "timber: by a sudden blast of wind they were "wafted away in different portions; and hav"ing for a while been supported in the air, "they were ultimately all plunged in the sea. "After this, the surf threw up upon that long "extended coast such immense heaps of their "dead and corrupted bodies, that there ensu"ed from their putrefaction a most unsuport"able and poisonous stench. This soon "brought on a pestilence which affected every "species of animals; so that all birds, and

sheep, and cattle, also the wild beasts of "the field, died; and their carcasses being "soon rendered putrid by the foulness of the "air, added greatly to the general corruption. "In respect to men, it is impossible, without

"horror, to describe the shocking devastation. "In Numidia, where at that time Micipsa was "king, eighty thousand persons perished. "Upon that part of the sea-coast which bor"dered upon the region of Carthage and "Utica, the number of those who were car"ried off by this pestilence is said to have "been two hundred thousand.

The prophets, in describing cruel and destructive nations, often borrow their allusions. from locusts: so great was the terror of them. Hence Joel, when he mentions the inroad of the Assyrians, and their confederates, upon Israel, accompanies it with references to this purpose-Ch. i. ver. 6. A nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number

ed

V. 7. He hath laid my vine waste, and bark

my fig-tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away (i. e. made it quite useless): the branches thereof are made white.

Ver. 12. The vine is dried up, and the figtree languisheth, the pomegranate-tree, the palmtree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withaway from the sons of men.

ered

464.

See Bochart Hierozoic. pars posterior, 1. iv. c. 3. p. 463,

Ch. ii. Ver. 2. gloominess: a day

ness,

A day of darkness and of of clouds and thick dark

V. 3. A fire devoureth before them, and be hind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness,—————

V. 9.They shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter into the windows like a thief.

V. 10. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.- In the book of Nahum, ch. iii. ver. 15. the prophet, describing the ruin of the Assyrian monarch, and the various nations of his empire, makes use of the same allusions. There shall the fire devour thee: the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the canker-worm: make thyself many as the * canker-worm, make thyself many as the locusts.

V. 17. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and

The meaning is-though thou shouldst increase and multiply like these insects, yet thou shalt be soon annihilated; and thy place known no more.

t

The canker-worm (the Sexes of the LXX.) seems to be the locust (axgis) in its first stage upon the earth: before it can fly.

thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the

sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known, &c. The author of the book of Proverbs takes notice, that the locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands, ch. xxx. ver. 27. These bands are very formidable, while they survive; and even in their dissolution destructive '.

Of the Deities invoked in such Calamities.

The Egyptians had gods, in whom they trusted to free their country from these terrible invaders. This we may infer from the Grecians; whose theology, as I have before observed, was borrowed from the people of Egypt. Hercules was a deity of this department; by whose mediation the cicadæ, or locusts, were said to have

ultimately driven away.

been silenced, and Something of this

* See Isaiah, ch. xxxiii. ver. 4.-Your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar (or Egyxos): as the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them.

Νυν δε συναχθήσεται τα σκυλα ὑμων, μικρές και μεγαλο, όν TROTTO EXI τις συναγάγη ακρίδας· έτως εμπαίξεσιν ὑμῖν. Versio Græca Sept. The difference between the original and Greek version is very considerable; but the allusion to locusts is the same in both.