LVI. The cruelty of Busiris, king of Egypt, who is said to have put to death all strangers that came, or rather were brought into his dominions, has been so trumpeted by the voice of fame, as to become a proverb. Apolodorus was the first broacher of the rumour of this barbarity; and the poets, whose votes in establishing the truth of events are of little weight, have concurred with him in propagating it. Diodorus Siculus condemns this story for fabulous, and declares the origin of it sprung from a barbarous custom which was practised in that country, of sacrificing to the manes of Osiris all the fair-haired people that came in their way; and, as almost all the Egyptians had black-hair, the lot most commonly fell upon strangers. He adds, that Busiris, in the Egyptian language, signifies the tomb of Osiris; and the name which was meant to express the place where the sacrifice was made, by equivocation, was brought to signify the author of the cruelty. Strabo, who cites Eratosthenes for his author, who was a person very famous for his knowledge of Egyptian antiquities, and who had the care of the great library at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes, asserts, that there never was in Egypt either king or tyrant of the name of Busiris, and, with regard to the origin of the fable, says just as Diodorus does. SECT. XXIII. _The Two Artemisias._ LVII. We find the fame of Artemisia, queen of Caria, greatly celebrated in many histories, for her tenderness, constancy, and the conjugal affection she bore to her husband Mausoleus, for whom she erected that magnificient sepulchre, which is esteemed one of the seven wonders of the world; and we find her equally applauded for her prudent conduct and martial spirit in the war which Xerxes waged against the Greeks, and for her behaviour upon many other occasions. But in their descriptions they blended two different Artemisias in one, who were both queens of Caria, and are distinguished by antient writers. She, who, in their accounts of them, they place second, was much more antient than the other; for she was daughter of the first Lygdamis, who was the daughter of the last Hecatombe. From hence it should be observed, that she, who gave her name to the herb Artemisa, was not the wife of Mausoleus, whom Pliny has mistaken her for, but the daughter of Lygdamis; because in Hippocrates, who was anterior to the wife of Mausoleus, we find the herb called by the name of Artemisa. SECT. XXIV. _Dionysius the Elder._