[Footnote B:  Plinij Hist.  Nat. lib. 7. cap. 2. p.m. 14.]

Now how far Bartholine in his Treatise has made out that the Pygmies of the Ancients were real Men, either from the Authorities he has quoted, or his Reasonings upon them, I submit to the Reader.  I shall proceed now (as I promised) to consider the Proof they pretend from Holy Writ:  For Bartholine and others insist upon that Text in Ezekiel (Cap. 27.  Vers. 11) where the Vulgar Translation has it thus; Filij Arvad cum Exercitu tuo supra Muros tuos per circuitum, & Pygmaei in Turribus tuis fuerunt; Scuta sua suspenderunt supra Muros tuos per circuitum. Now Talentonius and Bartholine think that what Ctesias relates of the Pygmies, as their being good Archers, very well illustrates this Text of Ezekiel:  I shall here transcribe what Sir Thomas Brown[A] remarks upon it; and if any one requires further Satisfaction, they may consult Job Ludolphus’s Comment on his AEthiopic History.[B]

[Footnote A:  Sir Thomas Brown’s Enquiries into Vulgar Errors, lib. 4. cap. 11. p. 242.]

[Footnote B:  Comment. in Hist.  AEthiopic. p. 73.]

The second Testimony (saith Sir Thomas Brown) is deduced from Holy Scripture; thus rendered in the Vulgar Translation, Sed & Pygmaei qui erant in turribus tuis, pharetras suas suspenderunt in muris tuis per gyrum:  from whence notwithstanding we cannot infer this Assertion, for first the Translators accord not, and the Hebrew word Gammadim is very variously rendered.  Though Aquila, Vatablus and Lyra will have it Pygmaei, yet in the Septuagint, it is no more than Watchman; and so in the Arabick and High-Dutch. In the Chalde, Cappadocians, in Symmachus, Medes, and in the French, those of Gamed.  Theodotian of old, and Tremillius of late, have retained the Textuary word; and so have the Italian, Low Dutch, and English Translators, that is, the Men of Arvad were upon thy Walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy Towers.

Nor do Men only dissent in the Translation of the word, but in the Exposition of the Sense and Meaning thereof; for some by Gammadims understand a People of Syria, so called from the City of Gamala; some hereby understand the Cappadocians, many the Medes:  and hereof Forerius hath a singular Exposition, conceiving the Watchmen of Tyre, might well be called Pygmies, the Towers of that City being so high, that unto Men below, they appeared in a Cubital Stature.  Others expound it quite contrary to common Acception, that is not Men of the least, but of the largest size; so doth Cornelius construe Pygmaei, or Viri Cubitales, that is, not Men of a Cubit high,