EPI5IE'NIDES was born in the year n.o. 659 (Suidas), at Plarestus, in Crete, according to some accounts ; or at Cnossus, according to others; ho was certainly a citizen of the latter place, though his father appears to have been a Phxstia.u. (Diog. Laert., i. 109.) He passed his youth in solitary retirement, which is explained in the ancient account as a supernatural sleep into which he fell when a youth, and did not awake till more than fif?y years after, when he made his appearance among hie fellow-citizens with long hair and a flowing beard, and with know ledge of medicine and natural history, which than appeared more than human. The event of his life for which lie is best known, was his visit to Athens at the request of the inhabitants, in order to pave the way for the legislation of Sole]] by purifications and propitiatory eacrifices. These rites were calculated, according to the spirit of the age, to allay the feuds and party dissensions which prevailed there; and although what he enjoined was mostly of a religious nature (for instance, the sacrifice of a human victim, the consecration of a temple to the Eumenides, and of two altars to Hybris and Antedeia, the two evil powers which were exerting their Influence on the Athenians), there can ba little doubt but that his object was political, and that Solon's constitution would hardly have been accepted had it not been recommended and sanctioned by some person who, like Epimenides, claimed from men little less than the veneration due to a superior being. The Athenians wished to reward Epimonides with wealth and
public honours, but he refused to accept any remuneration, and only demanded a branch of the sacred olive-tree and a decree of perpetual friendship between Athens and his own country, Cnossus. Epimenides visited Athens about the year n.e. 596, and died soon after his return to Crete. He wrote a poem on the Argonautio expedition, and other works, which are entirely lost. For a more detailed account of this remarkable personage the reader Is referred to C. F. Heinrich's 'Epimeoides ass Kreta,' Leipzig, 1801.