of probability--there is no end. Although Latin legend
approaches nearer to fact than the Greek in some cases, in
others it shows a disregard for possibilities which renders it
of far less account. Thus Diodorus of Sicily relates that one
Abaris travelled round the world on an arrow of gold, and
Cassiodorus and Glycas and their like told of mechanical birds
that flew and sang and even laid eggs. More credible is the
story of Aulus Gellius, who in his Attic Nights tells how
Archytas, four centuries prior to the opening of the Christian
era, made a wooden pigeon that actually flew by means of a
mechanism of balancing weights and the breath of a mysterious
spirit hidden within it. There may yet arise one credulous
enough to state that the mysterious spirit was precursor of the
internal combustion engine, but, however that may be, the pigeon
of Archytas almost certainly existed, and perhaps it actually
glided or flew for short distances--or else Aulus Gellius was an
utter liar, like Cassiodorus and his fellows. In far later
times a certain John Muller, better known as Regiomontanus, is
stated to have made an artificial eagle which accompanied
Charles V. on his entry to and exit from Nuremberg, flying above
the royal procession. But, since Muller died in 1436 and
Charles was born in 1500, Muller may be ruled out from among the
pioneers of mechanical flight, and it may be concluded that the
historian of this event got slightly mixed in his dates.

Thus far, we have but indicated how one may draw from the
richest stores from which the Aryan mind draws inspiration, the
Greek and Latin mythologies and poetic adaptations of history.
The existing legends of flight, however, are not thus to be
localised, for with two possible exceptions they belong to all