a people of Ethiopia, celebrated for their justice, and the innocence of their manners: also a people in the island Meröe. The Hyperboreans were also called Macrobii: They generally lived to their 120th year; and from their longevity they obtained their name (μακρόβιοι, long life.)

AMBROSIUS AURELIUS THEODORIUS, an ancient Latin writer, who flourished towards the latter part of the fourth century.—Of what country he was, is not clear: Erafmus, in his Ciceronianus, seems to think he was a Greek; and he himself tells us, in the preface to his Saturnalia, that he was not a Roman, but laboured under the inconveniences of writing in a language which was not natural to him. Of what religion he was, Christian or Pagan, is uncertain. Barthius ranks him among the Christians; but Spanheim and Fabricius suppose him to have been a heathen. This, however, is certain, that he was a man of confular dignity, and one of the chamberlains or officers of the wardrobe to Theodosius; as appears from a rescript directed to Florentius, concerning those who were to obtain that office. He wrote a Commentary upon Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, and seven books of Saturnalia, which treat of various subjects, and are an agreeable mixture of criticism and antiquity. He was not an original writer, but made great use of other people's works, borrowing not only their materials, but even their language, and for this he has been satirically rallied by some modern authors, though rather unfairly, considering the express declaration and apology which he makes on this head, at the very entrance of his work. "Don't blame me," says he, "if what I have collected from multiform reading, I shall frequently express in the very words of the authors from whom I have taken it: for my view in this present work is, not to give proofs of my eloquence, but to collect and digest into some regularity and order such things as I thought might be useful to be known. I shall therefore here imitate the bees, who suck the best juices from all sorts of flowers, and afterwards work them up into various forms and orders with some mixture of their own proper spirit." The Somnium Scipionis and Saturnalia have been often printed; to which has been added, in the later editions, a piece entitled De Differentiis et Societatis Graecae Latinaeque Verbi.