Falkener, Edward: Ephesus and the temple of Diana (London, 1862)

THE CONTENTS OF THE TEAirtE. 301

reflecting the image or statue of the temple, or any
other they wished to represent, on the fumes and
vapours of the incense burnt on such occasions;
and by approaching the mirror nearer and nearer to
the statue, the larger, and therefore nearer, would
the representation appear to come to them. This
illusion on the optic faculties might be -increased by
the alternate glare and gloom of light and obscurity,
by affecting the nerves with narcotic drugs, and
indeed by every means which their knowledge of the
phenomena of nature Avould enable them to practise.
We might almost believe that the ancients Avere
acquainted with many properties of science which
are now lost to us. That they excelled in mechanism
appears from their contrivances for the theatre, from
their moving automata and weeping statues, and
many other jDarticulars which have come down to us.
Da3clalus, indeed, was fabulously believed to have
formed images of men with such internal mechanism,
that it was requisite to tie their legs together to
prevent their running away ! The perpetual lamps
of the ancientsl appear so well authenticated,
that did we not knoAV that many false miracles are
equally Avell attested, we might suppose that they
were constructed through some laAvs of chemistry
no longer knoAvn to us. The lamp of the Temple
of Minerva Polias, constructed by Callimachus, had

1 See an interesting account of them in vol. iii. p. 215, of Taylor's
Notes to Pausanias.