Epimenides, a Greek poet and priest, sometimes included among the 'seven sages,' was born in Crete in the 7th century B.C. According to one tradition, during a sleep of fifty-seven years he received the divine inspiration which determined his future career. (Goethe wrote a poem on the subject, Des Epimenides Erwachen.) He was reputed to have lived for 299 years. Epimenides went to Athens about 596 B.C., where, by the performance of various mystical rites and sacrifices, he stayed a plague with which the inhabitants were afflicted, and co-operated with Solon in reforming the Athenian constitution. He was the 'prophet' quoted by St Paul in Tit. i. 12. That he wrote the epic poems attributed to him, the longest of which was on the Argonautic expedition, is considered highly improbable. Compare Schultess, De Epimeneide Crete (Vienna, 1877).
Épinal, the capital of the French department of Vosges, delightfully situated at the western base of the Vosges Mountains, on the Moselle, 46 miles SSE. of Nancy by rail. It is a clean, well-built town, surmounted by the ruins of an old castle, whose gardens are much admired. Among its buildings are the church of St Maurice, founded about 960, the museum, and a library of 28,000 volumes. Épinal manufactures cotton, paper, &c. Pop. (1872) 10,938; (1891) 21,431, an increase largely due to the influx of Alsatians.
Épiay, LOUISE TARDIEU D'ESCLAVELLES, MADAME D' (1726-83), a French writer, born at Valenciennes, at nineteen married her cousin. The union proved an unhappy one, and she struck up liaisons with men of genius—first with Rousseau, for whom in 1756 she built a cottage (the now famous Hermitage) near the valley of Montmorency, and then with Grimm. She spent her last years in comparative solitude. Her Conversations d'Émilie (1774), a work on education, was crowned by the Academy. See ROUSSEAU; Perey's Jeunesse et dernières Années de Mme. d'Épiay (1882); and her Mémoire and Correspondence (trans. 3 vols. 1899).