the Cretan poet and prophet, was born at Phaestus, or according to others at Gossus, about 660 B.C. His early life is enveloped in fable. When keeping his father's sheep one day, he is said to have retired into a cave where he fell into a profound sleep which lasted fifty-seven years. Returning home to the altered abodes of his family, he was hailed as the especial favourite of the gods, and venerated as the possessor of superhuman wisdom. He was invited by Solon to Athens, (about B.C. 596), in order to give the sanction of his sacred presence to the purification of the city previous to the promulgation of the political code of the great lawgiver. Having accomplished the desired lustration by the performance of certain religious rites, Epimenides was loaded by the Athenians with wealth and honours. He refused, however, to accept their gifts, contenting himself with a branch of the sacred olive, and the exaction of a promise of perpetual friendship between Athens and Gossus. The death of Epimenides is said to have taken place in Crete, although Sparta boasted of possessing his tomb, and doubtless he may have travelled into many different countries, if (as one tradition runs) he attained the age of nearly 300 years. He wrote a poem on the Argonautic expedition, and several other works; but these, with a variety of spurious treatises attributed to him in ancient times, are now entirely lost. Epimenides is supposed to be the Cretan prophet to whom St Paul alludes in his Epistle to Titus (i. 12).