I cou'd easily fill many Volumes of Quotations out of the Antients and Moderns, in all the Kinds of Thinking; but as I am doubtful of the Success of my Attempt, so the Fewer I insert, the Less I shall offend.
As the middle Way is safest in all Things, so as to the Antients to run them down as Perrault has done, or cry them up as Boileau is perhaps equally dangerous, and out of the Medium.
The laws of the antients never authorised the making slaves, but of those nations whom they had conquered; yet they were heathens, and we are christians.
Slavery more tolerable amongst the antients than in our colonies.
The antients very gratefully gave the merit of every useful and salutary invention to the Gods.
The antients had a notion, that when Saturn devoured his own children, his wife Ops deceived him by substituting a large stone in lieu of one of his sons, which stone was called Abadir.
It may be asked, if there were no such man as Cadmus, what did the antients allude to under this character?
The antients had an opinion, that the Palm was immortal: at least, if it did die, it recovered again, and obtained a second life by renewal.
Their cruelty the antientsheld in detestation; yet always speak feelingly of their music.
In short Cadmus was the same as Hermes, Thoth, and Osiris: under which characters more than one person is alluded to, for all theology of the antients is of a mixed nature.
For all the ideas of the antients about the infernal regions, and the torments of hell, were taken from the temples in each country; and from the rites and inquisition practised in them.
In respect to the legends about dragons, I am persuaded that the antients sometimes did wilfully misrepresent things, in order to increase the wonder.
The antients divided the night into different watches; the last of which was called cockcrow: and in consequence of this they kept a cock in their Tirat, or Towers, to give notice of the dawn.
It is to be observed, that when the antientsspeak of the feats of Hercules, we are to understand the Herculeans; under the name of Cadmus is meant the Cadmians; under that of Atlas, the Atlantians.
If then the harmony of swans, when spoken of, not only related to something quite foreign, but in reality did not of itself exist, it may appear wonderful that the antients should so universally give into the notion.
From this circumstance we may presume, that the ideas of the antients concerning the Cyclopians, were taken from the buildings which they erected.
An inconsistence of which the antients had no idea; since, on that occasion, they almost constantly joined dancing to singing.
The antients have left us an unaccountable description of the Bacchanalians, whose deportment forms a striking contrast to the decent regularity observed in the worship of Diana.
It was in this light, that the antients required the union of the actor and of the dancer in the same person.
The antients represented the passions, by gests, colors and sounds.
I was shown, by an Italian painter, a curious picture in his possession, of the antientscelebrating one of this kind of festivals.
The antients may be considered as a rich common, where every person who hath the smallest tenement in Parnassus hath a free right to fatten his muse.
For which reason the antients used, on such occasions, to sacrifice to the goddess Nemesis, a deity who was thought by them to look with an invidious eye on human felicity, and to have a peculiar delight in overturning it.
Or, to place it in a clearer light, we moderns are to the antients what the poor are to the rich.
Some of the antientsthought that the soul of man was a divine emanation; a portion of light from the Sun.
It was no unusual thing among theantients to call the words of their prince the voice of God.
The antients seem to have taken advantage of this fancied similitude, which they improved by a little art; and their first effort towards imagery was from these rude and rotten materials.
The truth of this allegation may be proved both from the uncertainty, and inconsistency of the antients in the accounts of their Deities.
Nobody had examined the theology of the antients more deeply than Porphyry.
It was therefore idle in the antients to make a disquisition about the identity of any God, as compared with another; and to adjudge him to Jupiter rather than to Mars, to Venus rather than Diana.
The antients thought, that all mad persons were gifted with divination; and they were in consequence of it styled Lymphati.
The reason of the attendants being also called Camilli was in consequence of a custom among the antients of conferring generally upon the priests the title of the Deity whom they served.
But the antients went farther; and described the same Deity under the same name in various stages of life: and [937]Ulpian speaking of Dionusus, says that he was represented of all ages.
That the several theatrical dances of the antients were strictly conformable to the genius of the different species of composition, to which they were applied.
It is a bad plea to urge that theantients and we differ in the ideas of beauty.
It was a Roman colony, and a considerable city, which theantients spared no pains and expence to embellish.
By scooping the bases of the pilasters, of the second tire of arches, they had made a passage for foot-travellers: but though the antients far excelled us in beauty, they certainly fell short of the moderns in point of conveniency.
Upon better information I must retract this censure; in as much, as I find there was really a Musical Instrument among the antients of this Figure, as appears by a small statue in Bronze, to be still seen in the Florentine Collection.
All that the Antients knew of the Load-stone, was, that it attracts Iron.
The Antientsbelieved these to be Castor and Pollux.
Why the Antients did not think fit to call them so, and we must not deviate from their Ordinances, nor does it signify much as to what we are upon.
I think that according to the Custom of the Antients s is to be cut off, so that there be an Anapaestus in the second Place.
Footnote 33: The Original alludes to the Cretans, who were famous among the Antients for the Vice of lying.
The Remitting Autumnal Fever, called by the Antients [Greek: syneches], was also one of the most frequent Disorders during the Campaign.
The Antientsvenially delighted in flourishing Gardens; Many were Florists that knew not the true use of a Flower; And in Plinies dayes none had directly treated of that subject.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "antients" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
