The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Volume 2 of 3) — Part 97

By _Pigmies_ we understand a dwarfish race of people, or lowest diminution of mankind, comprehended in one cubit, or as some will have it, in two foot or three spans; not taking them single, but nationally considering them, and as they make up an aggregated habitation. Whereof although affirmations be many, and testimonies more frequent then in any other point which wise men have cast into the list of fables, yet that there is, or ever was such a race or Nation, upon exact and confirmed testimonies, our strictest enquiry receives no satisfaction.

I say, exact testimonies, first, In regard of the Authors, from whom we derive the account, for though we meet herewith in _Herodotus_, _Philostratus_, _Mela_, _Pliny_, _Solinus_, and many more; yet were they derivative Relators, and the primitive Author was _Homer_; who, using often similies, as well to delight the ear, as to illustrate his matter, in the third of his Iliads, compareth the _Trojans_ unto _Cranes_, when they descend against the _Pigmies_; which was more largely set out by _Oppian_, _Juvenal_, _Mantuan_, and many Poets since, and being only a pleasant figment in the fountain, became a solemn story in the stream, and current still among us.

Again, Many professed enquirers have rejected it; _Strabo_ an exact and judicious Geographer, hath largely condemned it as a fabulous story, _Julius Scaliger_ a diligent enquirer, accounts thereof, but as a Poetical fiction; _Ulysses Aldrovandus_ a most exact Zoographer in an express discourse hereon, concludes the story fabulous, and a Poetical account of _Homer_; and the same was formerly conceived by _Eustathius_, his excellent Commentator. _Albertus Magnus_ a man ofttimes too credulous, herein was more then dubious; for he affirmeth, if any such dwarfs were ever extant, they were surely some kind of _Apes_: which is a conceit allowed by _Cardan_, and not esteemed improbable by many others.

There are I confess two testimonies, which from their authority admit of consideration. The first of _Aristotle_[SN: _Hist. animal. lib. 3._], whose words are these, ἐστὶ dὲ ὁ τόπος, etc. That is, _Hic locus est quem incolunt Pygmæi, non enim id fabula est, sed pusillum genus ut aiunt._ Wherein indeed _Aristotle_ plaies the _Aristotle_, that is, the wary and evading assertor; For though with _non est fabula_, he seems at first to confirm it, yet at the last he claps in _Sciunt aiunt_, and shakes the belief he put before upon it. And therefore I observe _Scaliger_ hath not translated the first; perhaps supposing it surreptitious or unworthy so great an assertor. And truly for those books of animals, or work of eight hundred talents, as _Athenæus_ terms it, although ever to be admired, as containing most excellent truths; yet are many things therein delivered upon relation, and some repugnant unto the history of our senses; as we are able to make out in some, and _Scaliger_ hath observed in many more, as he hath freely declared in his Comment upon that piece.