an ancient poet and philosopher, was born at Gnothi in Crete. Contrary to the custom of his country, he always wore his hair long; which, according to some, was because he was ashamed of being thought a Cretan; and indeed he does not seem to have had a high opinion of his countrymen, if that verse cited by St Paul be, as it is generally believed to be, his: "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, false fellows." Many stories are related of him, too wonderful to merit attention; however, his reputation was so great over all Greece, that he was there esteemed a favourite of the gods. The Athenians being afflicted with the plague, and commanded by the oracle to make a solemn lustration of the city, sent Nicias, the son of Niceratus, with a ship to Crete, to desire Epimenides to come to them. He accepted their invitation, viation, accompanied the messengers to Athens, performed the lustration of the city, and the plague ceased. Here he contracted an acquaintance with Solon, whom he privately instructed in the proper methods for the regulation of the Athenian commonwealth. Having finished his business at Athens, the citizens offered him many valuable presents and high honours, and appointed a ship to carry him back to Crete; but he returned their presents, and would accept of nothing except a little branch of the sacred olive preserved in the citadel; and desired the Athenians to enter into an alliance with the Gnostics. Having obtained this, he returned to Crete; where he died soon after, aged 157 years; or as the Cretans, consistently with their character, pretended, 299. He was a great poet, and wrote 3000 verses on "the genealogy of the gods," 6500 "on the building of the ship Argos and Jason's expedition to Colchis," and 4000 "concerning Minos and Rhadamanthus." He wrote also in prose, "Concerning sacrifices and the commonwealth of Crete." St Jerome likewise mentions his "book of oracles and responses." The Lacedemonians procured his body, and preserved it among them by the advice of an oracle; and Plutarch tells us, that he was reckoned the seventh wise man by those who refused to admit Periander into the number.