And in general no company better agrees with the character of Hercules, even in his deified state, than that of satyrs and other followers of Bacchus, as might easily be proved by many works of Grecian art. It also seems that mirth and buffoonery were often combined with the festivals of Hercules: thus there was at Athens a society of sixty men, who, on the festival of the Diomean Hercules, attacked and amused themselves and others with sallies of wit.(1873) We shall hereafter show how these exhibitions originated in the propensity of the Doric race to the burlesque and comic.(1874) APPENDIX I. _On the settlements, origin, and early history of the Macedonian nation._ _General outline of the country._(1875) 1. In the Thermaic bay, the modern _gulf of Salonichi_, three rivers of considerable size fall into the sea at very short distances from one another, but which meet in this place in very different directions. The largest of the three comes from the north-west, and is now called (as indeed it was in the time of Tzetzes and Anna Comnena) the _Bardares_ (or _Vardar_), and was in ancient days celebrated under the name of Axius. Its stream is increased by large tributary branches on both sides, and chiefly by the Erigon, which flows from the mountains of Illyria.(1876) The river next in order runs from the west; it is now called in the interior of the country _Potova_, and on the coast _Carasmac_: its ancient name, as is evident from passages in Herodotus and Strabo, was Lydias, or Ludias.(1877) And, lastly, after many turnings and windings, the Haliacmon, now called _Bichlista_, flows from the south-west; in the time of Herodotus it fell into the sea through the same mouth as the Lydias, probably being widened by marshes; and in modern maps the interval between the two rivers is represented as very small.(1878) It may be easily conceived that this whole maritime district must have been low and marshy; and by this means Pella, as Livy remarks, was of all towns in the country best fitted for being the fortress of the Macedonian kings, and the place of deposit for their treasure, since it lay, like an island, in the morasses and swamps formed by the neighbouring lakes and rivers. These marshes were called by the expressive name of βόρβορος, or _mud_.(1879)