The symbolical language of Ancient art &amp; mythology - 1892

Athanassios Nick. Christopoulos

This is a compilation of the seven-part series on Orphism by F.S. Darrow, A.M., Ph. D. (Harv.), that originally was published in the Theosophical Path from April, 1912 to March, 1913 (see tuponline.org). The work of G.R.S. Mead may also interest you: https://www.academia.edu/112722856/ORPHEUS_GRS_Mead_electronic_text_edition_jan_1_2024 (See link in dropdown menu)

The Macedonic cult of Dionis (Paionian Dyalos; lat. Dionysus), Sabazius, Bachus, Nimrod, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Zagreus, Osiris-Serapis, etc. is one of the oldest mythological appearances known to humanity. His name is founded in immemorial timeworn forgotten past. According to his astrological and animalistic attributes, the time frame of his conception coincides with the Zodiacal Era of Bull, which spans from 4th to 2nd millennium BCE. The Macedonic Paionians gave the origin of the name Dyaus, from a root-word which means ‘to shine’: Dya/Da - ‘to’, and Us - ‘rising, up’ (like the sun) and/or Usvity - ‘incandescent’. Same meaning is to be found in the Sanskrit ‘Vas-anta’ - spring, from the word root ‘vas’ - shine, heat. Russian prominent linguist Vadim Tsymbursky proposed interpretation of the name Dionis on the basis of Macedonic onomastics: "Our God” – ‘Douh-naš’ in plain Macedonian. When these first Pre-Indo-Europeans fashioned the other gods out of the forces and forms in nature, this root-name was implied for Dionis as well. His primordial cult is strongly associated with the archaic mythological creatures as kentaurs, maenads, satyrs, sileni, etc. Dionis was originally a god of the fertility and nature, associated with wild and ecstatic religious rites; in later traditions he was also the god of wine, of ritual madness and ecstatic behavior, who loosens inhibition and inspires creativity in music and poetry. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionisiac Mysteries, which were comparable to and intricately linked with the Eleusian and Orpheic Mysteries, which are again one and the same with the manifestations of most primordial mysteries of Cabiri , mentioned already by Herodotus as thought by Pelasgians to the men from the isle of Samothrace.

The large 3rd book of the Masonic guidebook is great, teaching superb Scottish Freemason doctrines, mainly of world history and religions and Masonic principles, with a grand total of 485 sub-divisions and 15,155 verses, carefully arranged by the 1870 authors. Turned out real nice. Should be nearly the exact numbering plan! This is an historic document of grand proportions. If you have never looked into it, you might want to! It is one of the only books around that talks about the ancient mysteries religions of ancient Egypt and Greece. Will be published on Amazon, sooner than later.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of Herbert Fisk Johnson '22 BL313 .kVTJ'892''^""*' '-*'"^*' Symbolical lang olin in ^ ^924 032 329 207 DATE DUE Sim.j^-^ iM-^^STTli Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032329207 25outon'3S 3Ilrcljatc VOL. Itibrarp II. SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT ART AND MYTHOLOGY Soor^'a. THE SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT ART AND MYTHOLOGY AN INQUIRY ]'.Y Richard Payne Knight, Esq. AUTHOR OF 'THE WORSHIP OF PRIAPUS," ETC. A NEW EDITION WITH INTRODUCTION, ADDITIONS, NOTES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH AND A NEW AND COMPLETE INDEX By ALEXANDER WILDER, W7//; 34s Illustrations by M.D. A. L. Rawson NEW YORK J. W. BOUTON, 8 WEST i8q2 IT 28TH STREET K7I i] Copyright, Ev J. 1891 W. BOUTON 46e Cavfon 171. 173 Macdougal (JJtciiC Street, New V'>r)< Groups 01 Gods and Goddesses before Proserpine. PREFACIv The original edition of this worlc was privately printed by It had not been the author at London, in the year 1818. designed by him for a treatise by itself, as appears from the following notice on the title-page, namely : Intended to be prefixed to the Second Volume of the published by the Select Specimens of Ancient Sculpture^ Society of Dilettanti but the necessarily slow progress ot that work, in the exhausted state of the funds to be applied to it, affording the author little probability of seeing its completion, he has been induced to print a few copies of this proposed Part of it, that any information which he may have been " ' ; able to collect upon a subject so interesting to all lovers of Elegant Art, may not be lost to his successors in such pursuits, but receive any additions and corrections which may render it more worthy to appear in the splendid form, and with the beautiful Illustrations of the preceding volume." Afterward, with Mr. Knight's consent, the " Inquiry " reprinted, in continuous portions, in the Classical Journal. was It was published a third time, in 1836, by a London House, having been edited for the purpose, by E. H. Barker, Esq., a gentleman of superior literary endowments. The demand for it among scholars and persons of culture, has exhausted the edition which was necessarily limited and copies are now ; difficult to procure. Richard Payne Knight was one of the most thorough His works display profound judgment, discrimination, taste, acuteness and erudition, united with extraordinary candor and impartiality; and they constitute an invaluable collection ot ancient and curious learning, from which the students of such literature can draw abundant supplies. In these respects, they stand side by side with the writings of the late Godfrey scholars of the earlier period of the present century. 5 Preface. iv Higgins ; while they conciseness, excel respect to in and the arrangement of scope, subjects. accuracy, They are of untold value for the unfolding of correcter views of Ancient Later Mythology than have been commonly entertained. research has enlarged the province of these investigations, and occasionally modified the conclusions which they had seemed to indicate; but it has not superseded them in any important respect. Mr. Knight suffered, as men all must, for cultivating knowledge and promulgating sentiments at variance with the popular idea. Indeed, while he lived, freedom of thought and speech were restrained in the British Dominions, to an extent which now appears almost incredible. The prosecution of John Wilkes afforded a glaring demonstration of the disposition of those in power and station to circumscribe and violate In religious matters, personal rights of individuals. while open impurity of life incurred little disapproval, there existed an extraordinary sensitiveness in regard to every possible encroachment upon the domain fenced off and consethe crated to technical orthodoxy. There was a taboo as strict, if not as mysterious as was ever imposed and enforced by the sacerdotal caste of the become impossible Kanaka up a to offer Islands. To be sure, it had dissentient or an innovator as a sacrifice, or to imprison and burn him as a heretic. But it was possible to inflict social proscription, and to stigmatise unpopular sentiments. The late Dr. Joseph Priestley was one of these offenders, and found it expedient, after great persecution and annoyance, to emigrate to the United States of America, where his property was not liable to be destroyed by mobs, and he could end his days in peace. An exemplary life, embellished with every public and private virtue, seemed to constitute an aggravation rather than to extenuate the If he had " spoken blasphemy," it was, as in the offense. case of Jesus Christ, a crime for which no punishment known It is easy to perceive that in law or custom was too extreme. Mr. Knight, although an exemplary citizen of unexceptionable character, '^ would not escape. In 1786, he published a limited edition of a treatise, entitled, An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Friapus, lately existing at Isernia, in the added a Discourse on the Kingdom of Naples, etc. Worship of Priapus, and 6 ; its to which is Connection v Preface. Mystic Theology of the Ancients." Although the subwas extraordinary and prohibited from common conversation as indelicate, Mr. Knight had discussed it with moderation and remarkable caution, giving little occasion to ivith the ject prudishness or pruriency, or even to " prurient prudes " to He added resort to his pages for their accustomed aliment. engravings, however, from coins, medals, and other remains all of which were of ancient art, which he had collected genuine and authenticated, but were made a handle by which Having been elected to Parto misrepresent and vilify him. ; liament, a member who was opposed to him in politics, took the occasion in debate to assert that he had written an im- proper book. Mr. Knight, long before, in consequence of the clamor and of the calumny to which he was subjected, had suppressed a portion of the edition, and destroyed whatever copies came in his way. But indecency did not constitute the offense cf the book. Facts were disclosed in regard to the arcana of religion, which the initiated had before seduMr. Knight had lously kept vailed from popular knowledge. only endeavored to present to scholars a comprehensive view of the origin and nature of a worship once general in the Eastern world but it was easy to perceive that many of the elements of that worship had been adopted and perpetuated in the modern faith by which it had been superseded. A philosophical reasoner can not perceive why it should be Opinions and institutions are not revolutionised otherwise. ;n a day, but are slowly modified by reflection and experience. Religion, like the present living race of men, descended lineally from the worships of former time with like elements and operation. Names have often been changed where the ideas and customs remained. But men often fail to think deeply, and are impatient of any newly-presented fact which renders them conscious of having cherished an error. Instead ; of examining the matter, they often seek to divert attention from it, by vilifying the persons making the unwelcome disclosure. But the works of Mr. Knight, though covertly and ungenerously assailed, have remained, and are still eagerly sought and read by scholarly and intelligent men. The present treatise, though including the principal facts set forth in the older work, has been carefully divested by the author of the details and examples, which, however valuable 7 Preface. \i expose it to popular clamor, embraces a larger field of investiThe endeavor has been made to give an accurate gation. outline of the ancient religion of the countries from which to the student, were liable to while at the same time it and thus to afford of their worship. signification and correct ideas of the nature often contradicand puerile seemed which have The fables tory, are shown to have relation to a profounder system than had been suspected. We learn the frivolousness of those ideas derived from superficial reading, which regarded Bacchus as merely the god of wine, Apollo of art and music, iEsculapius of medicine, Mercury of oratory and commercial transactions, Neptune of the sea, etc., and associate the goddesses Ceres, Diana, Minerva, Venus and Vesta, with the tutelar patronage It is to be of agriculture, celibacy, learning, love and fire. regretted that Mr. Knight had not anticipated Messrs. Grote, Gladstone, and other later writers, and forborne the old practice of rendering in Latin the names of the principal Hellenic divinities. However identical Zeus may be with Jupiter, there are as great differences in character between Poseidon and Neptune, Hephaistos and Vulcan, Demeter and Ceres, Artemis and Diana, Athene and Minerva, as between the deities of the Grecian and Assyrian or Indian pantheons. we have derived our classical literature ; Classical usage has authorised the old custom, but at the expense of truth. It is time now to adopt a more correct practice, as essential to a right understanding. Let our versions of Homer, Plato, Thucydides, and other Hellenic writers, give the names in a dress compatible with the language in which they were written. It is almost impossible without this, to obtain accurate perceptions of Grecian ideas and literature. Not only do these explanations afford a key to the religion and mythology of the ancients, but they also enable a more thorough understanding of the canons and principles of art. It is well known that the latter was closely allied to the other so that the symbolism of which the religious emblems and furniture consisted likewise constituted the essentials of ; architectural style, and decoration, textile embellishments, as well as of the arts of sculpture, painting and engraving. Mr. Knight has treated the subject with rare erudition and ingenu- ity and with such success that the labors of those who came Preface. after him, rather VII add to the results of his investigations than labors of Cham- Bonomi, the Rawlinsons and others, replace them in important particulars. pollion, Bunsen, Layard, The comprise his deductions so remarkably, as to dissipate whatever of his assertions appeared fanciful. Not only are the writings of Greek and Roman authors now more easy to comprehend, but additional light has been afforded for a correct understanding of the canon of the Holy Scriptures. The editor and publisher of the American Edition have endeavored, in their respective spheres, to reproduce the work in a form which shall be convenient and attractive, and with notes and additional matter to bring it down to the present state of our knowledge upon the subjects treated. Voung Bakchos. 9 Seilenos. Silenus. CONTENTS. Preface. Introduction., Principles of Ancient Mythology, i.-v I The 3 Mysteries, vi.-xii Ancient Coins, xiii.-xvii 7 Bacchus or Dionysus, xviii.-xx Origin of the Mystical Rites, Phallic 9 II xxi., xxii and Priapic Symbolism, 12 xxiii The Mystic Egg, xxiv "^ The Serpent-Symbol, xxv.-xxvii 13 13 The Sacred Bull and Goat, xxviii.-xxxiii *The Source of All Things, xxxiv "^he Mother-Goddess, xxxv.-xxxvii iS 21 22 The Generations of the Deities, xxxviii.-xl ftFire and Water as Symbols, xli.-xlii Venus-Urania, the Mother-Goddess, The " The The — The — Cross and Rosary, 25 28 xliii.-xlv 30 xlvi., xlvii Myrtle and other Emblems, Amazons 24 xlviii., xlix 31 or Votaries of the Double-Sexed Deity, 32 1., li Cow-Symbol, lii.-liv Sun- Worship, and the Doctrine of Emanation, Iv.-lvii Liberality and Sameness of the World-Religions, Iviii.-lxii Why Divine Honors were Paid to Plants, Ixiii., Ixiv Improbability of the Neo-Platonic Interpretations, Augury and Vaticination, Ixvii.—Ixix 35 37 39 41 Ixv., Ixvi 43 Prophetic Ecstasy, Ixx.-lxxiii 44 46 Enthusiastic Frenzy at the Religious Orgies, Ixxv., Ixxvi 49 , Judicial Astrology, Ixxvii.-lxxxi Sexual Rites at the The Night-Goddess, 51 Temples, Ixxxii.-lxxxv Ixxxvi., Ixxxvii 56 Horus and Typhon, Ixxxviii The Solar System Anciently Known, Ixxxix., xc The Ancient Temple-Circles, and Fire-Worship, xci.-xciv Square Temple-Enclosures, and Worship of the Female xcv. , xcvi The BuU-Symbol, 54 58 59 5o Principle, 63 xcvii., xcviii 65 Bacchus and Ariadne, xcix.-ci 66 II Contents. PAGE Pyramids, Obelisks, and Churcli-Spires, as Sun-Symbols, cii.-civ The Good and Evil Principles, -Animal Symbols, cviii.-cx ? Symbol of the Horse, cxi 69 cv.-cvii 71 74 76 Likeness of the Centaurs and Satyrs, Hippa, the Ancient Goddess, cxiii cxii 77 7g 81 Meaning of Various Symbolical Representations, cxiv Symbolism and Allegories, cxv., cxvi " The Mother and Daughter " Isis and Proserpina, cxvii.-cxix 81 — Isis-Worship the The Swine Same as the Asiatic Religions, 82 cxx 84 86 a Sacrificial Animal, cxxi.-cxxiii Prometheus and the Vulture, cxxiv Putrefaction Abhorred, cxxv 63 Bacchus and the Leopards, cxxvi go The ChimEera, 91 8q cxxvii Apollo and Python, cxxviii., cxxix Hercules Identical with Apollo and Mars, cxxx The Pillars 91 92 Ascribed to Sesostris, cxxxi 93 Apollo and Dionysus, the Day-Sun and the Night Sun, cxxxii.-cxxxvii.. Heat and Moisture as Sexual , Symbols, cxxxviii 98 Diana, the Moon-Goddess and Great Mother, cxxxix.-cxli Diana and Isa, cxIii The Bloody Rites of Brimo, cxliii., Pluto and Serapis Identical, cxiv The Lotus-Symbol, 99 loi 102 cxliv [03 cxlvi , ^Egyptian Sculptures, Their Perfection and Prodigious Antiquity, 104 cxlvii., cxlviii 105 Certain Antiquity of ^gypt, cxlix.-cli. 106 Ancient ^Egyptians Obtaining Their Symbols from India, clii Architectural Pillars Devised from the Lotus, cliii.-clv New Order of Architecture, clvi., clvii ^rhe Fish-Symbol and the Pomegranate, clviii The Dog-Symbol of Diana, Thoth, and other Deities, cliv.-clxi Burning and Embalming of the Dead, clxii The Diviner Human Soul, or Nous, clxiii.-clxv ^Sacred Purification by Water and by Fire, clxvi., clxvii Human Sacrifices and the Mystic Baptism of Blood, clxviii The Two Human Souls one /Ethereal, or Noetic, the other Terrestial Impossible to Invent a — or Sublunary, clxix.-clxxi Hermes 94 109 109 no in 113 116 iiS 121 123 123 or Mercury, and Vulcan the Fire-God, clxxii.-clxxiv 126 Athena, or Minerva, the Divine Wisdom, and her Symbols, clxxv.-clxxviii, 127 The 13a ^I'-gis, or Goat-Skin Symbol, clxxix., clxxx Bells in Religious Worship, clxxxi The Boat and the Chariot, 131 Symbols of the Female Principle of Nature, clxxxii Lightning 133 and Sulphur, Denoting the Ixxxiii., clxxxiv. Masculine Divine Principle, 134 12 . Contents. ^^ PAGE The Ram Representing Wisdom, clxxxv Amun, Zeus or Jupiter and " Great Pan," Identical, clxxxvi The Mystic Dance, clxxxvii Pan, the Nymphs, and their Relations to the Sexual Symbolism, clxxxviii.- 137 13S 140 cxc The Goat and 136 Priapic Orgies, cxci Composite Symbols, 142 cxcii 143 Cybele Combined with Deities of Other Worships, Days of the Week Named cxciii 145 after Astral Divinities, cxciv 145 Disa, the Isis of Northern Europe, cxcv., cxcvi 146 The 147 Pillar-Stones, cxcvii Cairns or Hillocks at Cross-Roads to Consecrate those Spots, cxcviii 148 Venus-Architis, the Ashtoreth of the Old Testament, cxcix 149 150 Allegorical Symbols and The Palm-Tree Symbol, Stories Explained in the Mysteries, cc 151 cci Boxing a Feature of the Mystic Worship, ccii Noble Qualities Considered as the Product of Divine Emanation, cciii. Names of Gods Conferred upon Distinguished Men, cciv., ccv Confusion of Personages and of the Allegories, ccvi Men Begotten by Divine without Human Agency, ccvii Assuming Foreign Deities Identical with those Worshipped at Home, . ccviii 152 154 155 157 15S 159 Old Practice of Naming Places Newly-Discovered, and the Confusion Resulting, ccix., ccx 1 60 161 Jacob Bryant Criticised, ccxi Euhemerus, Sanchoniathon, and Eusebius Accused of Fraudulently Solv- ing Myths as Historical Events, ccxiii The Spurious 162 Letter of Alexander the Great to his Mother, ccxv 1&4 Disgraceful Apotheoses of Ancient Emperors, ccxvi The Elementary System" found in Homer and Other Poets, ccxvii. The " Syrian Goddess," and her Peculiar Worship, ccxviii., ccxix The Mysterious Third One, ccxx.-ccxxii J The Mystic Dove and the Italian Woodpecker, ccxxiii 164 '' Other Delineations . . . at Hierapolis, ccxxiv The Deified Personages, ccxxv Emasculates and Virgins in the Sacerdotal Office, ccxxvi iThe Fish-Symbol, ccxxvii The Allegories Eased on the Doctrine of Emanation, ccxxviii The Triune Idea Universal, ccxxix The Similarity of Symbols net Conclusive Proof of a Single Origin, ccxxx. Apparent Identity of the Hindu and Egyptian Symbols, ccxxxi., ccxxxii. Hindu Poetry and Mythology, ccxxxiii Ancient Religion and its Relation to Art, ccxxxiv 13 165 166 167 170 172 1 73 174 176 177 17S 178 179 l8i 182 ^ >— Perseus and Persephone. INTRODUCTION. Till a comparatively recent period, it lias been usual to de- and other cotemporary nations as a gross polytheism. The multitude of deities, the sanguinary customs, the mad enthusiasm of the sacred orgies, the lascivious rites of the Mother-Goddess, were cited as unequivocal evidence. Every city and community had a tutelar divinity; human victims were oifered as well as animals, at the several shrines; at special festivals, men and scribe the ancient religion of Babylonia, Assyria, women, in the wild intoxication of religious excitement, abandoned their houses and vocations to celebrate secret ceremonies, and to wander at considerable distances over the fields and mountains and although in many places ascetic practices were regarded as conducive to a divine life, in others, more noted, there was permitted an almost general license, at the public festivals, and especially at the temples. From ; these scenes of debasement, the popular idea of the character of the ancient worship has been derived. But explorations have greatly modified the impressions heretofore entertained, and afforded the " poor heathen " a stronger hold upon our candor and favorable regard. The which we have considered absurd and immoral, were which sustained their life; and could not be dislodged without peril to those who had beliefs to countless millions as the breath cherished them. his ideal of the the Deity religion rior to is The religion of every person the reflection of his is included in Every man's conception Absolute Right. own interior character. of His is an integral part of himself, true in essence, supethe forms of worship, but necessarily contaminated with the defects of the age and country in which he of the race to which he belongs. 15 lives, and All are not called to the xiv Iiitrodjidioii. same formulas of doctrine; every man has a divine right to The heavenly principle and revere and copy his own ideal. Supreme Order have been the constant faith of mankind but ; the forms are apparently as diverse as the mental structures of races and individuals. There is always a dissension be- tween persons of sentiment and the scientific, between those of speculative and investigating mind, and the merely practical. But neither could be very useful without the existence of the other and true wisdom shows that it is best in all matters of relia;ious faith to accord the widest latitude and the most perfect liberty, not by enforced toleration as of an evil that must be borne, but generously, that every one may spontaneously follow the path which appears to him the way ; of Truth. The same rule should apply, perhaps even in a larger de- cree, to the reliffions of archaic time. It has been too com- a practice to misunderstand them. The classical authors themselves were sometimes too frivolous or superficial to de- mon scribe them trutlifully. The teachers of the faith which super- seded them, have been too zealous to expose their deformities, without giving due credit and consideration to their essential merits. It has nevertheless been a matter of astonishment for us that men of superior mind should adore deities that are represented as drunken and adulterous, and admit ex- travagant stories and scandalous adventures among their re- be always remembered that the human mind is never absurd on purpose, and that whenever its creations appear to us senseless, it is because we do not understand them. Religions were born from the human soul, and not fabriIn process of time they evolved a twofold character, cated. ligious dogmas. the external handmaid Yet, let and the it Then symbolism became spiritual. the worship; and the Deity in all his attributes was represented by every form that was conceived to possess sigThe sun and moon, the circle of the horizon, and nificance. to fire upon the altar and the sacred enclosure which from temenos became temple, the serpent most spirit-like and like fire of all animals, the ego- which signs of the Zodiac, the typified all germinal existence, the exterior all emblems of sex propagating and therebv perpetuati noliving beings, clearly indicated tlie demiurgic potency which as the agents for i6 ' Introduction. XV — which actuated the work and function of the Creator, these, and a host of other objects naturally and not inappropriately became symbols to denote characteristics of Divinity. In process of time the personifications were regarded as distinct deities and the One, or Double Unity, or the Quaternion including the Triad and Mother-Goddess, became amplified The tutelar divinities of tribes were transinto a pantheon. formed into the associate gods of nations and the conquest of a people was followed by the transferring of its deities to a subordinate place in the retinue of the gods of the conquerors. Sometimes there were haughty innovators like the Assyrians, ; ; or iconoclasts like the Persians, who refused such concessions and destroyed the symbols of religion among the nations that had been vanquished. Again, the genius of a people changed with years, and new deities and representations crowded out the old. In Aryan countries, this was more commonly the case and hence the change of doctrines as the centuries passed has rendered the entire subject complex and more or Such complications and a forced literal conless confused. struction of the mythological fables, were adroitly but most ungenerously seized upon by the adversaries of the popular worship to show the debasing influence of the ancient religions. Candid criticism, if there is any such thing, can not The attacks of accept their condemnation unqualifiedly. Hermias, Tatian, and Athenagoras, resemble very closely those ; of Voltaire against Christianity. Ridicule is always hard to The interpreEuhemerus which transformed the gods into men, that of Tertullian which gave them substantial existence as evil demons, and the gross sentiment of Epicurus and Lucre., tius, which made of the myths only frivolous fables invented to amuse, having no specific aim or meaning, were so many forms of calumny and misrepresentation. Ancient paganism refute ; but it is not the weapon of noble men. tation of ' We It has degenerated into slang, and is use this term with hesitation. more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The cor- generally employed with recter expression would have been "the ancient ethnical worships," but it would hardly be understood in its true sense, and we accordingly have adopted the term in popular use, but not disrespectfully. A religion which can develop a Plato, an Epictetus, and an Anaxagoras, is not gross, superficial, or totally un- worthy of candid attention. Besides, many systems. of the rites and doctrines included Jewish Institute, appeared first in the other Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been imagined. The- in the Christian, as well as in the 17 Introdziction. XVI described by writers like Ovid and Juvenal, by what it had become in its decline, is like any individual or system in The loftiest ideas are sure to degenerate hands of sensual persons, into a gross sensualism and It was an innocence born of primitive Nature, superstition. which had become as strange to the Romans of the Empire as to the various peoples of modern time, that admitted into the religions those sacred legends which we consider scandalous, The Herand the emblems which are accused of obscenity. maic or Baalic statue that constituted the landmark which might not be removed without profanation,' and that consecrated every cross-way and intersection of highways, which more modern superstition has perverted to desecration, was but one simple expression of that childlike faith which recognises and adores God in every natural form, function, and attribute. " Let us not smile," says that incomparable woman and moralist, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, " let us not smile at their mode of tracing the Infinite and Incomprehensible Cause throughout all the mysteries of Nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity."" To this pagan symbolism is art indebted for its glories, its the period of decay. in the master-pieces, as well as the evolution of all principles. The Canon its laws and of Proportion which Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, Greece, and Ionia, employed in all their great works, was deduced from the human form as the ideal of Divinity, and the harmonious combination of the circle, square and triangle, in artistic representation. Nature, as an ingenand colored all her productions, animal and vegetable, as well as earthy and crystalline, according to laws which may be accurately ascertained by mathematical demonstration and which successful art has only pursued and imitated. The peculiar symbolism of the ethnical religions, being in a manner transcripts and ious writer has plainly shown, has shaped ; and symbols, the sacraments, the sabbath, the festivals anterior to the Christian era by thousands of years. The ancient worship, after it had been excluded from its former shrines, and from the metropolitan towns, was maintained for a long time by the inhabitants To this fact it owes its later designation. From bein" of humble localities. kept up in the/aj-;, or rural districts, its votaries were denominated pagans, oi Cross, the priestly robes and anniversaries, are provincials. ' ' all —A. W. Deuterono7ny, xix. 14 and xxvii. 17. Progress of Religious Ideas, Hindostan or India, vol. 18 i. pp. 16, 17. Introduction. xvii copies from nature, must necessarily, as indeed it does, con- source from which every true artist derives the Even the objects and best lessons of his sublime vocation. representations which modern fastidiousness requires to be hidden from view and excluded from familiar speech, are important constituents of modern architecture, both in church and mosque, as they were formerly in temples and emblems associated with the worship of the Deity. A thorough knowledge of ancient mythology and symbolism is therefore indispensable to a correct understanding of the details and intrica cies of artistic production. Religion antedated and developed stitute the human The skill and ideality. and perpet- Mysteries, which appear to have evolved uated the esoteric principles of the ancient worships, were doubtless instituted when those worships had reached a comparative maturity. Earlier than that, they could have been hardly possible. Like a child having the intellectual and spiritual elements chiefly enveloped in the physical, as the flower and fruit are included in the bud, so mankind at comprehended religious ideas as a unity, not distinguishing the envelope from what it enclosed, the symbol from the idea which it typified. Afterward, they began to perceive that there was a kernel inside the shell, and even further that there was a germ or rudiment of a future plant included in both — that the rugged forms of worship comprised ideas and leaf, first principles ramifying into the profoundest details of science, Then immortality was born of the and philosophy. art, of veneration for he ; power of perceiving of perceive God is ; and that the kernel in the nut, the life in the germ. which germ divine is is life immortal. in the kernel, the entity Hence, in the fullness of time, were established the Mysteries, which evolved from the of faculty in the universe recognise himself as divine from the existence of that will It who can the conception of its phenomena actual essences, and taught how and wisdom led to the supreme good. " Happy," cries Pindar, " happy is he, who hath beheld those things common to the region beyond this earth he knows the end of life, he knows its divine origin " The great Author of the Christian religion did not hesitate purity, virtue — ' ! ' Clement : Stromata, vxoxBovioc, oiSsv jiisy iii. fiiov " OXfiioZ odrii idaov sxeiva noiya. sii tEXEvrar, oiSsv Se Jio% Sorov apxav" — ' Introduction. xviii include esoteric learning in his teachings. chose his confidential disciples he propounded his doctrines alike to them and the multitude that thronged wherever he was. But presently he observed that many, the 01 TtoXXoi, sought him, because they " did eat of the loaves disdain or When he to first He thenceforth divided his instruction into and were filled." the esoteric and " from that time many of his and the moral He disciples went back, and walked no more with him." ' ; explained the reason to those who continued with him " It is given to you to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, therefore, I speak to them in but to them it is not given allegories, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear " not, neither do they understand." name The Apostle whose is associated above all others with the early establishment of Christianity, likewise divided the Church into the natural or psychical, and the spiritual, and addressed his instructions to them accordingly. "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect " or initiated, he wrote to the Corinthian believers; "we speak wisdom of God in a Mystery, secret, which God established in advance of the present period for our glory, which none of the archons of this period knew." It is not practicable to ascertain with certainty when or by whom the ancient Mysteries were instituted. Their form appears to have been as diversified as the genius of the worshippers that celebrated them, while the esoteric idea was so : ; universally similar as to indicate identity of origin. In Rome were performed the rites of the Bona Dea, the Saturnalia and Liberalia, which seem to have been perpetuated in our festivals of Christmas, the Blessed Virgin and St. Patrick in Greece were the Eleusinia, or rites of the Coming One, which were probably derived from the Phrygian and Chaldean rites, also the Dionysia, which Herodotus asserts were introduced ; ' Gospel according to ' Gospel according to John, vi. 26. Matthew, xiii. II, 13. The archons of Athens always exercised the superintendency of the Eleusinia, Thesmophoria, and Bacchic festivals and Paul who was contrasting the " Mystery of Godliness " with the other orgies, ingenIn the same connection, he also deiously adopted their modes of expression. nominates their initiates Jiatural or psychical, thus signifying that they had not that they were still in the realm of " o-eneration " attained the diviner state ' I Corinthians, ii. 6-8. ; — not having passed beyond the sphere of the tained the noetic or spiritual life. Moon, and therefore had not at- ; Introduction. xix by Melampus, a mantis or prophet, who got his knowledge way of the Tyrians from Egypt. The great historian, treating of the Orphic and Bacchic rites, declares that The Mys-they " are in reality Egyptian and Pythagorean." teries of Isis in Egypt and of the Cabeirian divinities in Asia and Samothrace, are probably anterior and the origin of the others. The Thesmophoria, or assemblages of the women in honor of the Great Mother, as the institutor of the social state, were celebrated in Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Sicily and we notice expressions in the Books oi Exodus, Samuel and Ezekiel which indicate that they were observed by the Israelites in Arabia and Palestine.^ The rites of Serapis were introduced into Egypt by Ptolemy, the Savior, and superseded the worship of Osiris and after the conquest of Pontus, where the Persian religion prevailed, the Mysteries of Mithras were carried thence into the countries of the West, and existed among the Gnostic there ' of them by the ' ; ; sects many centuries after the general dissemination of Chris- The Albigenses, tianity. it is supposed, were Manicheans or The Mithraic doctrines appear to have comprised all the prominent features of the Magian or Chaldsean system and we need not be surprised, therefore, that they are represented as embracing magical, occult, and thaumaturgical science. The Alexandrian Platonists evidently regarded them favorably as being older than the western systems, and probably more genuine. The Mysteries, whatever may have been asserted in their Mithracising Christians. ; derogation, nevertheless preserved the interior sense of the A distinguished writer' has employed his ancient worship. Egypt and but for the labor of travellers and antiquaries, we would imagine that he had woven an ingenious tale of romance. He, however, has omitted the famous Judgment-Scene of Amenti, the sublime period of the disembodied soul, though indicating much that relieves the Egyptian worship from the imputation of fetishism. Indeed, the Book of Job, which appears on superficial examination to be an Idumean or Arabian production, actually seems to have been a religious allegory or poetic talent to depict the scenes of an initiation in drama This illustrating this very subject. ' Herodotus * £xodiis xxxviii. 8 • Moore : : ii. is not improbable; 49, 81. i Samuel ii. 22 The Epicurean, ; ; and Ezekiel viii. 14, : Introduction. XX Paul himself does not hesitate to assert the the Old Testament, which are not for the Apostle thino- of narratives in same easy to verify as authentic history.' The " Mystic Drama of Eleusis," as Clement so aptly denominates the sacred rites or orgies of the Great Mother, Demeter, was doubtless taken from the same source as the Mysteries of Isis." It extended from the institution by the mythical Eumolpus till the ancient worship was forcibly suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius, about the year 380, a In it appears to have per.iod of more than eighteen centuries. been expressed of Greece. one voice. all Of its Renan that was vital and essential in the religion sacredness and majesty, Antiquity has but gives us the following outline of the holy orgies "Setting aside the immense superiority of the Christian setting aside the lofty moral spirit which pervades its legend [the story of Jesus and his Passion], and to which nothing in antiquity can be compared perhaps, if we could be permitted to assist at an ancient Mystery, we would witness similar things there symbolical spectacles in which the mystagogue was actor and spectator at once, a group of representations traced in a pious fable, and almost always relating to the sojourn of a deity on the earth, to bis passion, his descent into Sometimes it was the death of Adonis, hell, his return to life. sometimes the mutilation of Atys, sometimes the murder of Zagreus or of Sabazius. " One legend, in particular, contributed wonderfully to the commemorative representations; it was that of Ceres and Proserpina [or Demeter and Persephoneia]. All the circumstances of this myth, all the incidents of the search after Proserpina by her mother, gave room for a picturesque symbolism dogma, — ; ' In the Epistle to the Galatians, the circumstances relative to the wife, con- and two elder sons of Abraham are denominated aXysYOf>ovi.iEva (allegoroumend) or allegorising and to the Corinthians he declares that the exodus from Egypt and adventures in the wilderness were rvitoi {iupoi), types or cubine, ; S3mibols, ' which were written for instruction. worship of this Great Mother is not more wonderful "The in time than for its prevalence as regards space. To the for its antiquity Hindu she was the She was the Ceres of Roman mythology, the Cybele (Kubele) of Phrygia and Lydia, and the Disa of the North. According to Tacitus (Genua, nia, ix.) she was worshipped by the ancient Suevi. She was worsliipped by the Muscovite, and representations of her are found upon the sacred drums of the She swayed the ancient world, from its south-east corner in Laplanders. India to Scandinavia in the North-west and everywhere she is the Mater And who is it, reader, that in tlie Christian world struggles for life Dolorosa.' and power under the name of the Holy Virgin, and through the sad features of the Madonna? " (Atlantic Monthly, vol. iv. p. 297, The Eleusinia, note.) Lady Isani. ' ; — Introduction. XXI which powerfully captivated the imagination. They imitated the actions of the goddess, and revived the sentiments of joy and grief, which must successively have animated her. There was first, a long procession mingled with burlesque scenes, purifications, watchings, fasts followed by feastings, night-marches with torches to represent the mother's search, — then, all at once, splendid illuminations. The gates of the temple opened ; the actors were received into the realms of delight, where they heard voices. Changes of scene, produced by theatrical machinery, added to the illusion; recitations of which we have a sample in the Homeric Hymn to Ceres, broke the monotony of the representation. Each day had its name, its exercises, its games, its stations, which the actors went through in company. One day it was a mimic battle in which they attacked each other with stones. Another day they paid homage to the Mater Dolorosa probably a statue of Ceres as an addolorata, a veritable Pietd.. Another day they drank the cyceon (kukeon, or mixed draught), and imitated the jests by which the old lambe succeeded in amusing the goddess; they made processions to the spots in the neighborhood of Eleusis, to the sacred fig-tree, and to the seaside; they ate the prescribed meats, and performed mystic rites, the significance of which was almost always lost on those who celebrated them. Mixed with these were Bacchanalian ceremonies, dances, nocturnal feasts with symbolical instruments.' On their return they gave the reins the burlesque resumed its place in the gephyrtsmes, or to joy farces of the bridge. As soon as the initiated had reached the bridge over the Cephissus, the inliabitants of the neighboring places, running from all quarters to see the procession, launched out into sarcasms on the holy troop, and lascivious jokes, to which they with equal wantonness replied. To this, no doubt, were added scenes of grotesque comicality, a species of masquerade, the influence of which on the first sketches of the dramatic art is very perceptible. Ceremonies which involved a symbolism so vague under a realism so gross, had a great charm for the ancients and left a profound impression; they combined what man loves most in works of imagination, a very definite form and a very free sense." " It is certain that the Mysteries of Eleusis, in particular, exerted a moral and religious influence that they consoled the present life, taught in their way the life to come, promised rewards to the initiated, on certain conditions, not of purity circuits in the dark, terrors, anxieties — ; ; " It was the time when the Sithonian women are wont to celebrate The Triennial Mysteries of Bacchus Night a witness to the rites. Rhodope sounds with the clashings of acute brass by night." Ovid Metamorphoses, vi. ' : : ** Women girded phalli to their breasts, solemnising Mysteries." NoNNUs, 23 xlvii. ; Introductiofi. xxii and piety only, but also of justice; and if they did not like wise teach monotheism, which would have been a negation of paganism, they at least approached it as nearly as paganism was permitted to do. They sustained and cherished in the soul, by their very mystery, and by the purified worship of Nature, that sentiment of the Infinite of God, in short which lay at the bottom of the popular credence, but which the anthromorphism of mythology tended incessantly to efface."' The Dionysia or Mysteries of Bacchus are generally ascribed to Orpheus,' who is said to have introduced them into — — Religions of Antiquity. M. Renan asserts further that " deep researches would show that nearly everything in Christianity that does not depend on the Gospel is mere baggage brought from the pagan Mysteries into the hostile camp. The primitive Christian worship was nothing but a mystery. The whole in' terior police of the Cliurch, the degrees of initiation, tlie command of silence, and a crowd of phrases in the ecclesiastical language have no other origin. The Revolution which overthrew Paganism seems, at first glance, a sharp, trenchant, and absolute rupture with the Past and such, in fact, it was, if we consider only the dogmatic rigidity and the austere moral tone which characterised the new religion. But in respect of worship and^outward observances^ the change was effected by an insensible transition, and the popular faith saved its ; most familiar symbols from shipwreck. Christianity introduced, at first, so little change into the habits of private and social life, that with great numbers in the fourth and fifth centuries it remains uncertain whether they were Pagans or Christians many seem even to have pursued an irresolute course between the two worships. On its side, Art, which formed an essential part of the ancient religion, had to bnak with scarce one of its traditions. Primitive Christian Art is really nothing but Pagan Art in its decay, or in its lower departments. The Good Shepherd of the Catacombs in Rome is a copy from the Aristeus, or from the Apollo Nomius, which figure in the same posture on the pagan sarcophagi and still carries the flute of Pan, in the midst of the four half-naked Seasons. On the Christian tombs of the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, Orpheus charms the ; animals. Elsewhere, the Christ as Jupiter-Pluto, and Mary as Proserpina, receive the souls that Mercury, wearing the broad-brimmed hat, and carrying in his hand the rod of the soul-guide (psychopompos), brings to them, in presence of the three Fates. Pegasus, the symbol of the apotheosis, Psychd, the symbol of the immortal soul, Heaven personified by an old man, the river Jordan, and Victory, figure on a host of Christian monuments." » Aristotle declared that no such person as Orpheus ever existed ; and I entertain no doubt of the correctness of his judgment. The name is evidently the Chaldaic Urfihi, the designation of a celebrated oracle at Edessa, which was much consulted by the Babylonians and Persians. Pausanias asserts that Orpheus was a Magian. The legends of his descent into Hell in quest of his wife Eurydice, and his safe return to the upperwovld, however, resemble closely the other myths of the decease and subsequent resuscitation of the Myster)'gods, and conclusively establish his affiliations with Osiris, Adonis, Atys, Dionysus-Zagreus, and the other Slain Ones, Protogoni or Only-Begotten 'sons. The Cabeirian as well as the Sabazian Mysteries are assigned to him, indicating that the entire legend came by way of the Phoenicians. This people had aUo a 24 Introduction. Thrace the a very ancient period, eleven generations before at Troy of of Greece. destruction parts xxiii He ; is also into affirmed Thebes to have and other preceded all and his disciples were distinguished for their knowledge of medicine, astronomy, and music, also for the employment of symbols and their devotion other religious teachers ; The legend of to a life of celibacy. the Dionysiac or Bacchic Mysteries recites that Dionysus-Zagreus was a son of Zeus or Jupiter whom he had begotten in the form of a dragon upon the Virgin Kore-Persephoneia, whom older myths have made Demeter or Ceres, reputed to be her mother in It was the purpose of Zeus to place But the the son thus obtained upon the throne of Olympus. seven Titans surprised the young child and tore him in pieces. His heart was rescued by Athene and swallowed by Zeus, by whom he was again begotten, and again made the heir of the universe.' All these scenes were commemorated, each mysta and at the end, the Hierophant being sworn to secresy the same as the Eleusinian story. ; chanted: " I have escaped calamity ; I have found the better lot." famous mythical personage or divinity, styled Rapha, whose sons or worshippers, the Rephaim, or Orpheans, occupied districts in Palestine and east of the Jordan. They were famed, like their Thracian namesakes, for strength of body, disposition for ascetic life, and proficiency in knowledge and the liberal arts. ^ That ingenious but somewhat fanciful writer, E. Pococke, fondly traces in this legend the evidence of an ancient Lama Hierarchy in Northern Greece " The Lamaic system," similar in constitution to that still existing in Thibet. says he, " was, at the earliest periods of Greece, undoubtedly administered with Its contests, however, for supremacy, were many, and vigorously conducted and but for that Tartar population, which in common with the people of Lebanon, formed so powerful an element in the colonisation of primeval Phoenician Egypt, it would have been impossible to assure its dominant influence over nearly the whole of Hellas. This system of religion will be found to have been so far modified and so far compromised, as to be compelled to take great vigor. ; its place in the asyla of the Mysteries of Greece, in lieu of the open, and as it were state-position, it once occupied. That Lamaic sovereignity which was once wielded with the vigor of the triple crown in its most palmy days, had lost its imperial, and still more its despotic character and an oligarchy of the Hellenic Buddhistic priesthood had taken the place of the absolutism of one. Their faith, and the faith of those Athenians who were initiated at the Eleusinian Mysteries, will in the sequel be shown to be identical with that of Pythag; oras." " The great head of system of hierarchic domination which in those uniformity and vigor unparalleled but by the same system of Buddhistic Rome, during the Middle Ages was tenned Jeenos by the Greeks, written ' Zeenos,' and appellation this vast ancient days extended over the ' known world with an ' 25 Introduction. xxiv same proclamation as was made by the bride at ceremony and indeed the idea of a sacred marriage " Those who are initiated is conveyed by the rites of initiation. sing: 'I have eaten from the drum I have drank from the basin [cymbal] bearing the earthen cup, I have gone to the This the is the nuptial ; ; ; nuptial chamber.' " ' In his relation to the sun, as lord of Heaven, demiurge and Father of Creation, Bacchus was denominated Uvpntaii, Puripats, or Son of Fire, and was represented with the phallic symbolism as was Zeus by that of a serpent, denoting the essenHence, in the mystic cista tial spirit that preceded all things. ; or ark which was opened to the view of the epopta or seer, were exhibited the egg, the phallus and the serpent, typifying the primal essence, the demiurgic power and the organic substance which is rendered operative —thus constituting a symbolism as lofty in sentiment or as gross in sense as is the mind of the person witnessing the spectacle. After Pontus in Asia Minor, previously held by Persia, had been conquered by Pompey, the worship of Mithras superseded the Dionysia, and extended over the Roman Empire. The Emperor Commodus was initiated into these Mysteries; and they have been maintained by a constant tradition, with their penances and tests of the courage of the candidate for Buddha pontiffs of antiquity, as well in Phoenicia as in Greece. The Greek term Zeus is simply the form 'Jeyus' inflected, and is the term given to the ' ' Ruling Saintly Pontiff of his day. Such was the Gods and men,* that is of the devas (priests) and people in Greece, long before the Homeric days." "The succession of the Lamaic rulers in Greece appears, judging by the accounts left us by Hesiod, to have been settled by the pure decision of the ruling Pontiff, in lieu of the method at present adopted in Tartary. There is one new personage begotten by Zeus (the Pontiff) who stands pre-eminently marked in the Orphic Theogony, and whose ad- employed Jeenos, ' to the express King the of ' ventures constitute one of a continent], 'the its horned peculiar features. child,' is Zagreus [Chakras or ruler of own daughter (or the Son of Zeus by his Kor^ or Gouree). He is a child of magnificent promise, and predestined to grow up to succeed to supreme dominion.' This intended successor to the votary) Persephone (Parisoopani or Durga, called also the favorite of his father ; Pontificate appears to have been murdered by the Tithyas [Titans] or Heretics. With the usual Buddhistic belief, however, of transmigration, the young Lama described as born again from the consort of the Jaina Pontiff, the Soo-Lamee [Semele] or Great Lama Queen. Other accounts represent this new incarna- is who had the name of Dio-Nausus,' as being born upon the holy mountain Meroo,' a history converted by the Greeks to the ' meros' or thigh of Zeus " tion, of ' ' ! —{India in ' Greece, chap, xvii.) PsELLUS: Maniiscripis. 2(' — Introduction. xxv admission, through the Secret Societies of the Middle Ages and down to the modern faint reflex of the latter, the Freemasons.' The Mithraic rites supplied the model of the the Rosicrucians, and are deby Justin Martyr and TertuUian as resembling the Christian Sacraments. The believers were admitted by the rite of baptism they had a species of Eucharist while the courage and endurance of the neophyte were tested by twelve consecutive trials denominated Tortures, undergone within a cave constructed for the purpose, and lasted forty days before he was admitted to a participation in the Mysteries.' The peculiar symbol of these rites have been found all over Europe and the burialplace of the Three Kings of Cologne, Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, were shown as the tombs of the Magians that visited Bethlehem. The Gnostics borrowed largely from them and in time their very festival became the Christmas of the Church. The Jews, too, derived from them the Pharisean doctrines of future rewards and punishments, a hierarchy of angels as well as of evil demons, the immortality of the soul, and future judgment. All these were features of the Zoroastrian system but were rej ected by the Sadducees or sacerdotal party who adhered to the Mosaic polity and rejected all foreign doctrines. initiatory ceremonies observed in those societies, scribed ; ; ; ; ; The Cabeirian Mysteries appear to have been the least un- Indeed, they were probably different in different derstood. Creuzer traces them to the Phoenicians, and assoworship with that of the Moon-god. Herodotus identifies the deities with the sons of Phtha or Hephaistos in Egypt; and Damascius with the seven sons of Sadyk, the countries. ciates the Phoenician deity, of whom Esmun or Asclepius was the eighth. They are probably identical with the Patseci ox fetishes of the Phoenicians. Most authors agree that they varied in number, and that their worship, which was very ancient in Samothrace and in Phrygia, was carried to Greece by the Pelasgians. Some The Gnostics and their Remains, p. 47. The late Godfrey C. W. King Higgins relates {Anacalypsis, vol, i.) that a Mr. Ellis was enabled, by aid of the Masonic symbols, to enter the adytum of a Brahmanical temple in Madras. ' " He baptises his believers and followers he promises the remission of sins ' : ; and thus them into the religion of Mithras he he celebrates the oblation of bread in the symbol of the resurrection, and wins the crown with the sword— in order that he may confound and judge us by the faith of his own followers." Teetullian, Prasctipt. at the sacred fount, marks on the forehead (with water) he brings his initiates own soldiers ; 27 ; ; Inirodjictton. XXVI believe them to have been Demeter, Persephone, and Pluto, and others add a fourth, Cadmus or Kadmiel, the same as Hermes and ^sculapius. They were also worshipped at Lemnos. The goddess Astarte was likewise celebrated with Pothos and Phaethon "in most holy ceremonies " of the same nature. The peculiar form of the Hermaic statues, called Baalim" in the Old Testament, was adopted from the Cabeirian Mysteries. According to Herodotus, " the Samothracians received these Mysteries from the Pelasgians, who before they went to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their religious ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who were the first of all the Greeks to make their statues of Hermes and by in this way, learnt the practice from the Pelasgians this people a religious account of the matter is given, which is '^ ; ' explained in the Samothracian Mysteries." It is apparent that the idolatry ascribed to the Israelites of Palestine was borrowed from Plutarch supposed the Feast of Tabernacles to have been Bacchanalian, and notices the carrying of the thyrsus The Mysteries of the Greeks were at the feast of trumpets. connected solely with the worship of the divinities in the and other these inhabitants rites. Underworld; and such appears the orgies of Baal-Peor." " to The have constituted a part of children of Israel walked in the statutes of the heathen, did secretly (in Lord up Hermaic things that were not right against the the Mysteries) their God, built high places in all their cities, set statues and the emblems of Venus-Astarte in every high hill and under every green tree, worshipped all the host of heaven, and served BaalHercules, the god of Tyre." ' So closely did the practices as described by the prophets Hosea, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, resemble those connected with the Phoenician worship, including the mystic orgies, the sacred dances and processions, that the description of the one is equivalent to that Prior to the Babylonish captivity, the religion of Tyre, Sidon, and Palestine appears to have been general among the Israelitish tribes but after that event, the Persian influence evidently predominated. But the Macedonians introduced the of the other. ; ' Herodotus, ' Psalms, ii. 51. cvi. 28. " They joined tLemselves the sacrifices of the dead." » 2 Kings, xvii. 7-17, abridged. 2S also unto Baal-Peor, and ate Introduction. xxvu rites of Bacchus, at a later period; and among them also we have the testimony of St. Jerome, a. d. 400, that in the place where the Redeemer cried in the manger, the lament of women for Adonis has been heard even in recent times. The Roman senate, in the reign of Theodosius the Great, prohib' ited the further exercise of the old religious rites they fell into general disrepute. served in all But they were ; after which secretly ob- parts of the empire for a long period. To the fanatical hordes of Islam, proclaiming with the edge of the cimiter that God was One and Mohammed was his Apostle, Mystic Orgies in the East, as well as the desecration of shrines and the almost total destruction of libraries and the works of ancient art. Singular are the compensations of history the Arabian race planted their colonies with the Mosaic worship in Palestine, and the Mysteries in Phoenicia, and after chiliads of years, commissioned the destroyers to go over those lands like locusts toconsume and eradicate the product of their own planting. is to be accredited the extinction of the ; ' Epistle 49, to Paulinus. Aphrodite and Eros. 29 ; -^ THE SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE — OF ANCIENT ART AND MYTHOLOGY. PRINCIPLES OF ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. 1. As all the most interesting and important subjects of ancient art are taken from the religious or poetical mythology of the times, a general analysis of the principles and progress of that mythology will afford a more complete, as well as more concise, explanation of particular monuments than can be conveyed in separate dissertations annexed to each. 2. The primitive religion of the Greeks, like that of all other nations not enlightened by Revelation, appears to have been elementary, and to have consisted in an indistinct worship of the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and the waters,' or rather to the spirits supposed to preside over those bodies, and to direct their motions, and regulate their modes of existence. Every river, spring, or mountain had its local genius or peculiar deity and as men naturally endeavor to obtain the favor of their gods by such means as they feel best adapted to win their own, the first worship consisted in offering to them certain portions of whatever they held to be most valuable. At the same time that the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, the stated returns of summer and winter, of day and night, with all the admirable order of the universe, taught them to believe in the existence and agency of such superior powers, the irregular and destructive efforts of nature, such as lightning and tempests, inundations and earthquakes, persuaded them that these mighty beings had passions and affections similar to their own, and only differed in possessing greater strength, power, and intelligence. ; ' to many Plato: me Cratylus, 31. "It appears (said Socrates) that the first men of those connected with Greece considered those only as gods, whom \ of the Barbarians now do namely, the Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, and Sky." 31 ;; The Symbolical Language of 2 3. In every stage of society, men naturally love the marvellous but in the early stages, a certain portion of it is absolutely necessary to make any narration sufficiently interesting to attract attention, or obtain an audience whence the actions of eods are intermixed with those of men in the earliest traditions or histories of all nations and poetical fable occupied the place of historical truth in their accounts of the transactions of war and policy, as well as in those of the revolutions ; : ; of nature and origin of things. Each had produced some renowned warriors, whose mighty achievements had been assisted by the favor, or obstructed by the anger, of the gods and each had some popular tales concerning the means by which those gods had constructed the universe, and the principles upon which they continued to govern it whence the Greeks and Romans found a Hercules in every country which they visited, as well as in their own ^ and the adventures of some such hero supply the first materials for history, as a cos: ; mogojiy or theogony exhibits the first system of philosophy, in every nation. As the maintenance of order and subordination among required the authority of a supreme magistrate, the continuation and general predominance of order and regularity in the universe would naturally suggest the idea of a supreme God, to whose sovereign control all the rest were subject; and this ineffable personage the primitive Greeks appear to have called by a name expressive of the sentiment which the contemplation of his great characteristic attribute naturally inspired, TjtVi^jDseus, or Deus' (^2^ diphthong), signifying, accord4. men ' This statement seems to require qualification. Hercules was giarised by tlie Greeks, and travestied after their peculiar manner. A. W. ' Phurnutus Concerning the A'ature of the Gods, ii.: " By certain ones he (Zeus) is also called Z'^aj." The letter {zetd) was, as is well known, no other than /i'2 or (ds or sd) expressed by one character and in the refinement of language and the varying of the dialects, the — some originally the tutelar deity of Tyre, the same as Baal or Moloch, the Firegod of the Hebrew Scriptures; and hence, by a figure of speech, he is described as having visited every country to which the Tyrian commercial and exploring expeditions resorted, Some have derived the name from ^13-~l1N, aur-chol, the light of the univeise; but the Sanscrit Heri-Ctilyus, or Lord of the Noble, is almost equally plausible. An inscription in Malta has been deciphered as follows: NnV 7y3 mx : Z ^A sigma was frequently dropped, as appears from the very ancient medals of Zankle in Sicily, inscribed DANKLE. In the genuine parts of the Iliad and Odyssey, there is no instance of a vowel continuing short before AKO'2, DIPPD, Melkarth Ado- JEIN02, AEIAD,, inn Baal Tzwra, Melkarth, our Lord, the Baal, or tutelar deity of Tyre. He was represented by the Sun, whose annual progress through the Signs of the Zodiac was typified and commemorated by the twelve Orgies, or Works This legend was plaof Hercules. the initial was etc.; so that originally a double A'S ; which at and afterwards A, consonant, probably first became /I A, though the metre of the old bards has preserved the double time in the utterance. 32 Ancient Art and Mythology. 3 ing to the most probable etymology, reverential fear or awe. Their poets, however, soon debased his dignity, and made him the subject of as many wild and extravagant fables as any of his subject-progeny; which fables became a part of their religion, though never seriously believed by any but the lowesi of the vulgar. 5. Such appear to be the general principles and outlines of the popular faith, not only among the Greeks, but among all other primitive nations not favored by the lights of Revelation for though the superiority and subsequent universality of the Greek language, and the more exalted genius and refined taste of the early Greek poets, have preserved the knowledge of their sacred mythology more entire, we find traces of the same simple principles and fanciful superstructures, from the shores of the Baltic to the banks of the Ganges and there can be little doubt, that the voluminous poetical cosmogonies still extant among the Hindus, and the fragments preserved of those of the Scandinavians, may afford us very competent ideas of the style and subjects of those ponderous compilations in verse, which constituted the mystic lore of the ancient priests of Persia,* Germany," Spain, Gaul, and Britain and which in the two latter countries were so extensive, that the education of a Druid sometimes required twenty years." From the specimens above mentioned, we may, nevertheless, easily console ourselves for the loss of all of them as poetical compositions, whatever might have been their value in other res; : ; pects. THB MYSTERIES. 6. But besides this vulgar religion, or popular mythology, there existed, in the more civilised countries of Greece, Asia, and Egypt, a secret or mystic system, preserved, generally, by an' hereditary priesthood, in temples of long-established sanc; and only revealed, under the most solemn vows of secresy, persons who had previously proved themselves to be worthy of the important trust. Such were the Mysteries of Eleusis, in Attica, which being so near to the most polished, powerful, and learned city of Greece, became more celebrated and more known than any others; and are, therefore, the most proper tity to * I. editum, et filium Mannum originem gentis conditoresque. ' Cmsks.: de Bello GallUa,-n, Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur ; itaque nonnuUi annos vicenos in disciplina permanent ; neque fas esse existimant ea litteris mandare. Hermippus: afud Plin. lib. xxx. c. Vicies centum millia versuum a Zoroastre condita. ' Tacitus Celebrant Germany. (Germani) carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memorise et anna: Hum genus, Tuistonem deum terra 35 : ; The Symbolical Language of a particular investigation, which may lead to a general knowledge of all.' the guardianship of Ceres 7. These mysteries were under and Proserpina, and were called teletai, endings, on finishes, because no person could be perfect that had not been initiated They were divided into two either into them or some others. stages or degrees, the first or lesser of which was a kind of holy purification, to prepare the mind for the divine truths which were to be revealed to it in the second or greater. From one to five years of probation were required between them and at the end of it, the initiate, on being found worthy, was admitted into the inmost recesses of the temple, and for ; made acquainted with the first knowledge of the God of nature ; principles of religion the first, the supreme, the the * ; intel- which men had been reclaimed from rudeness and barbarism to elegance and refinement, and been taught not only to live with more comfort, but to die with better hopes}" 8. When Greece lost her liberty, the periods of probation ;" were dispensed with in favor of her acknowledged sovereigns lectuals'' by ' The secret or Mystical system appears to have been the basis of the ancient worship ; the difference between the sacred rites and legends of the several countries being more in form than in substance. The designation of mystery or z'aj'A'w^ Is applied to it as having been vailed from all except the initiated. The doctrines thus concealed were denominated gnosis, or knowledge, and SOPHIA, or wisdom; and were accounted too sacred for profane or vulgar inspection. They were regarded as including all science of a higher character, the moral and The intheurgical by preference. vailed, while those that had passed all the trials successfully were denominated epopta, or seers, as having learned the wisdom of the gods. A. W. Salmasius: not. in ^1. Spartan. Hist. p. 116. Meursius: Eleusinia, c. 8 viii. etc. • Plutarch Concerning Isis and " The end of which is the : Osiris. knowledge of the First, the Lord, and the noetic." Cicero: DeLeg. i. c. 24. Mihi cum multa eximia divinaque videntur Athe"> tuae peperisse — turn nihil melius mystcriis, quibus ex agresti immanique vita exculti, ad humanitatem mitigati sumus : initiaque, ut appellan- na: illis doctrines, supposed to have been treated of by the Alexandrian were called the Apocrypha, or Jews, hidden things wjiile the disclosures by the early Christian teachers were termed the Apocalypse, or unvailing. The memorable words of Socrates were plain in meaning to the initiated " We owe the cock to .iEsculapius pay it, and do not neglect it." It was the last offering made by candidates who had been inducted into the Greater Mysteries and the dying philosopher thus avowed his consciousness that he also was undergoing the last test or discipline, and was about to witness the revelation. While on their probation, the candidates were called neophytes, or new-born, and mysta, or terior tur, ita revera principia vitas mus neque solum cum ; : cognovivivendi Isetitia rationem accepimus, sed etiam spe meliori moriendi. Plutarch: "As for Consolatory what you hear others who persuade cum Letter, x. say, the vulgar that the soul, whenever freed from the body, suffers no inconvenience or evil, nor is sensible at all, I know that you are better grounded in the doctrines delivered to us from our ancestors, as also in the ; Orgies of Dionysus, for the mystic symbols are well known to us, who are of the brotherhood." " Plutarch: Demetrius. 36 ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 5 but, nevertheless, so sacred and awful was this subject, that even in the lowest stage of her servitude and depression, the Emperor Nero did not dare to compel the priests to initiate him, on account of the murder of his mother.'" To divulge anything thus learned was everywhere considered as the extreme of wickedness and impiety, and at Athens was punished with death;" on which account Alcibiades was condemned, together with many other illustrious citizens, whose loss contributed greatly to the ruin of that republic, and the subversion of its empire." 9. Hence it is extremely difficult to obtain any accurate information concerning any of the mystic doctrines all the early writers turning away from the mention of them with a sort of religious horror," and those of later times, who have pretended to explain them, being to be read with much caution, as their assertions are generally founded in conjecture, and oftentimes warped by prejudices in favor of their own particular systems and opinions in religion and philosophy. Little more direct information is, indeed, to be obtained from ancient writers than that contained in the above-cited passages, from which we only learn that more pure, exalted, and philosophical doctrines concerning the nature of the Deity and the future state of man were taught than those which were derived from the popular religion. 10. From other passages, however, we learn that these doctrines were conveyed under allegories and symbols," and that the completely initiated were called inspectors (seers):" whence we may reasonably infer that the last stage of initiation consisted in an explanation and exposition of those allegorical tales and symbolical forms, under which they were " All that can be said concerning the gods," says vailed. Strabo, " must be by the exposition of old opinions and fables it being the custom of the ancients to wrap up in enigma and ; " Suetonius: Nero, " Andocides: xxxiv. Oration " concerning divine things by symbols, the Pythagoreans by similitudes." Demetrius: Phaler. De Eloc, 100. " Wherefore also the Mysteries are expressed in allegories, for the purpose of inciting confusion of mind and terror, as in darkness and night." " Epoptai or Ephori. All that is left in ancient authors concerning the ceremonies of initiation, etc., has been diligently collected and arranged by Meursius, in his Eleusinia, tAe Mysteries. " Thucydides: iv. " Proclus: Theology of Plato, i. 4. The Orpheans endeavored to express 45. " Plutarch: Symposiacs, ii. 3. " Other matters, according to Herodotus, it is proper to be silent about, being a mystical subject." According to Clement of Alexandria, the tragedian ^schylus narrowly escaped being murdered on the stage of the theatre for using an expression which was supposed to have been taken from the Mystic Orgies, and only escaped by shovring the people that he had never been initiated. 39 The Symbolical Language of 6 which fable their thoughts and discourses concerning nature ; " and " initiations In all explained." are not therefore easily under mysteries," says Proclus, " the gods exhibit themselves many forms, and with a frequent change of shape; sometimes in a human as light, defined to no particular figure; sometimes The creature."" other some of that in sometimes and form; wars of the Giants and Titans, the battle of the Python against Apollo, the flight of Bacchus, and wandering of Ceres, are ranked by Plutarch with the Egyptian tales concerning Osiris and Typhon, as having the same meaning as the other modes of concealment employed in the mystic religion." 11. The remote antiquity of this mode of conveying knowledge by symbols, and its long-established appropriation to religious subjects, had given it a character of sanctity unknown to any other mode of writing and it seems to have been a very generally received opinion, among the more discreet ; Heathens, that divine truth was better adapted to the weakness of human intellect, when vailed under symbols, and wrapped in fable and enigma, than when exhibited in the undisguised simplicity of genuine wisdom or pure philosophy."' 12. The art of conveying ideas to the sight has passed through four different stages in its progress to perfection. In the first, the objects and events meant to be signified, were simply represented in the second, some particular characteristic quality of the individual was employed to express a general quality or abstract idea as a horse for swiftness, a dog for vigilance, or a hare for fecundity in the third, signs of convention were contrived to represent ideas, as is now practiced by the Chinese and, in the fourth, similar signs of convention were adopted to represent the different modifications of tonfe in the voice; and its various divisions, by articulation, into distinct portions or syllables. This is what we call alphabetic writing which is much more clear and simple than any other the modifications of tone by the organs of the mouth, being much less various, and more distinct, than the modifications of ideas by the operations of the mind. The second, however, " Strabo: lib. x. p. 474. Osiris and Tvphon, and others, which : ; ; : ; ; '^^ 20 Vkoclvs: The Jiefublic. of Plato. Plutarch: IHs and Osiris, 25. may lawfully and freely hear, as they are told in the mythological story. The like may also be said of those things which, being vailed over in the mystic rites and everybody What they sing about among the concerning the Giants and Titans, and certain horrid acts of " Greeks Kronos (Saturn), as also of sacred ceremonies of initiation, are therefore kept private from the sight and hearing of the common people." the combats of Python with Apollo, the flights of Dionysus (Bacchus), and the wanderings of Demeter (Ceres) come nothing short of the relations about " Maximus Tyrius: x. 4. 40 Dissertation, Coins of Syracuse, ttc. ; Art and Mythology. Ancient 7 which, from its use among the Egyptians, has been denominated the hieroglyphical mode of writing, was everywhere employed to convey or conceal the dogmas of religion and we shall find that the same symbols were employed to express the same ideas in almost every country of the northern hemisphere. ; ANCIENT COINS. In examining these symbols in the remains of ancient which have escaped the barbarism and bigotry of the Middle Ages, we may sometimes find it diflBcult to distinguish between those compositions which are mere efforts of taste and fancy, and those which were emblems of what were thought divine truths but, nevertheless, this difficulty is not so great, as it at first view appears to be for there is such an obvious analogy and connection between the different emblematical monuments, not only of the same, but of difierent and remote countries, that, when properly arranged and brought under one point of view, they, in a great degree, explain themselves by mutually explaining each other. There is one class, too, the most numerous and important of all, which must have been designed and executed under the sanction of public authority, and therefore, whatever meaning they contain, must have been the meaning of nations, and not the caprice of indi13. art, : ; viduals. 14. This is the class of coins, the devices upon which were always held so strictly sacred, that the most proud and powerful monarchs never ventured to put their portraits upon them, until the practice of deifying sovereigns had enrolled them among the gods. Neither the kings of Persia, Macedonia, or Epirus, nor even the tyrants of Sicily, ever took this liberty the first portraits that we find upon money being those of the Egyptian and Syrian dynasties of Macedonian princes, whom the flattery of their subjects had raised to divine honors. The artists had indeed before found a way of gratifying the vanity of their patrons without oflending their piety, which was by mixing their features with those of the deity whose image was to be impressed an artifice which seems to have been practiced in the coins of several of the Macedonian kings, previous ; to the custom of putting 15. It is, their portraits in a great degree, " See those of Archelaus, Amyntas, Alexander II., Perdiccas, Philip, Alexander the Great, Philip Aridseus, and Seleucus I., in all which the different characters and features, respectively given to the different heads of Her- owing upon them." to the sanctity of the cules, seem meant to express those of For the frethe respective princes. quency of this practice in private families among the Romans, see Statu Sylv. 1. 1, 231-4. 43 The Symbolical Language of 8 devices, that such numbers of very ancient coins have been preserved fresh and entire; for it was owing to this that they were put into tombs, with vases and other sacred symbols, and not as Lucian has ludicrously supposed, that the dead might have the means of paying for their passage over the Styx the whole fiction of Charon and his boat being of late date, and posterior to many tombs in which coins have been found." 16. The first species of money that was circulated by tale, and not by weight, of which we have any account, consisted of spikes or small obelisks of brass or iron, which were, as we shall show, symbols of great sanctity, and high antiquity. Six of them being as many as the hand could conveniently grasp, the words obolus and drachma, signifying spike and handful, continued, after the invention of coining, to be employed in expressing the respective value of two pieces of money, the one of which was worth six of the other. In Greece and Macedonia, and probably wherever the Macedonians extended their conquests, the numerary division seems to have regulated the scale of coinage but, in Sicily and Italy, the mode of reckoning by weight, or according to the lesser talent, and its subdivisions,''' universally prevailed. Which mode was in use among the Asiatic colonies, prior to their subjection to the Athenians or Macedonians, or which is the most ancient, we have not been able to discover. Probably, however, it was that by weight, the only one which appears to have been known to the Homeric Greeks the other may have been introduced : ; ; by the Dorians."' 17. By opening the tombs, which the ancients held sacred, and exploring the foundations of ruined cities, where money was concealed, modern cabinets have been enriched with more complete series of coins than could have been collected in any period of antiquity. We can thus bring under one point of view the whole progress of the art from its infancy to its decline, and compare the various religious symbols which have been employed in ages and countries remote from each other. The whole legend of Charon and boat to conduct passengers or spirits from the living world to the region of the dead, was taken from the Egyptian Judgment of Amenti. After the inquest upon the deceased person had been satisfactorily concluded at the Kiroim, or sacred tower, an offering was made to the divinities of the Underworld, and the body ferried over the Acheron to the CataThe Orphic Mysteries of combs. '" made them a part of the rites. A. W. " Bentley: Onthe EpistUsofPha- Thrace — mystic his laris, &c. Pausan. 1. i. " Rawlinson: c. 39. Herodotus, Km. to gold coinage existed among the Asiatic Greeks, as at Phocasa, Cyzicus, Lampsacus, Abydos, &c. It was copied from the Lydian, to which it conformed in weight and general character." As far as has been ascertained, the Lydian coinage is of the highest antiquity. A. \V. Book, i. "A — 44 Bakchos or Dionysos. Ancient Art and Mythology. 9 These symbols have the great advantage over those preserved in other branches of sculpture, that they have never been mutilated or restored and also that they exhibit two compositions together, one on each side of the coin, which mutually serve to explain each other, and thus enable us to read the symbolical or mystical writing with more certainty than we are enabled to do in any other monuments. It is principally, therefore, under their guidance that we shall endeavor to explore the vast and confused labyrinths of poetical and allegorical fable and to separate as accurately as we can, the theology from the mythology of the ancients by which means alone we can obtain a competent knowledge of the Mystic, or, as it was otherwise called, the Orphic faith, and explain the general style and language of symbolical art in which it was conveyed. ; ; : BACCHUS OR DIONYSUS. 1 8. Ceres and Bacchus (or Demeter and Dionysus or lac- and Osiris, and in Syria, Venus and Adonis (Astarte and Adoni), were the deities in whose names, and under whose protection persons were most commonly instructed in this faith."" The word Bacchus or lacchus is a title derived from the exclamations uttered in the festivals of this god,"' whose other Latin name, Liber, is also a title signifying the same attribute as the Greek epithet, Lusios, or Luson, which will be hereafter explained. But, from whence the more common Greek name, Dionusos, is derived, or what it signifies, is not so easy to determine, or even to conjecture with any reasonable probability. The first part of it appears to be from Deus, Dios, or Dis, the ancient name of the supreme universal god but whether the remainder is significant of the place from which this deity came into Greece, or of some attribute belonging to him, we cannot pretend to say, and the conjectures of etymologists, both ancient and modern, concerning it are not worthy of notice."' An ingenious writer in the Asiatic Researches derives the whole name from a Sanscrit title of an Oriental demi-god,"° and as Ausonius says it was chus), called iniEgyptlsis ; Egyptians) declare Osiris to be identical with Dionysus," or Bacchus. *' They are in fact the same name in different dialects, the ancient verb PAXil, in Laconian BAXil, having Bacchm, 73. "Oh he that vifitnesseth the initiation of the deities, for he VWAlCil, v. laxon" See Macrobius: •' Herodotus: ii. 42. " They (the become by the accession of the augment EURlPmES: happy, blessed is i. c. & Bry- 18, venerateth the source of life ; not only does he divine the Orgies of Cybele, the Great Mother, but waving the ANT Ancient Mythology thyrsus, and crowned with ivy, he is also a votary of Dionysus." have overcome the adversaries of the Brahmans in all countries, and after- : ''' Nahushaor Deo-nus. 47 , iii. 103. Asiatic li£searches,\A.-f.'iOd,.Y)if^s. He is said to ; ; ; The Symbolical Language of 10 Indian.'" this derivation appears more probable than most others of the kind. 19. At Sicyon, in the Peloponnesus, he was worshipped under another title, which we shall not venture to explain anyfurther than that it implies his having the peculiar superintendence and direction of the characteristics of the female At Lampascus, too, on the Hellespont, he was venerated under a symbolical form adapted to a similar oflBce, though with a title of a different signification, Friapus, which sex." will be hereafter explained.'" the name Dionysus, or 20. According to Herodotus, Bacchus, with the various obscene and extravagant rites that distinguished his worship, was communicated to the Greeks by Melampus," who appears to have flourished about four generations before the Trojan war," and who is said to have received his knowledge of the subject from Cadmus and the Phcenicians, who and we shall The whole settled in Bceotia. ever, of this Phoenician show colony is history, how- extremely questionable in the sequel that the name Cadmus was probably a corruption of a mystic title of the Deity." The Cadmii, a people occupying Thebes, are mentioned in the ward to form. I therefore maintain that Melampus, who was a wise man, having the art of vaticination, became acquainted with the Dionysian worship derived from through knowledge Egypt, and that he introduced it into Greece, with a few slight changes, together with certain other customs. I can not allow that the Dionysiac ceremonies in Greece are so nearly the same as the Egyptian, merely from coincidence: they would have been more Greek in their character and of less recent origin. Nor can I admit that the Egyptians borrowed these customs, or any other whatever from the Greeks.— My opinion is that Melampus got his knowledge of them from Cadmus, the Tynan, and the companions who accompanied him into the country called have become a serpent. What- ever the plausibility of the legend, Bacchus or Dionysus was identified with the serpent-worship wherever found. A. W. '" AusoNlus . Epigram, xxv. — Ogygia me Bacchum vocat, Osirin .lEygyptus putat Mysii Phanacem nominant Dionysum Indi existimant, &c. " Clement, of Alexandria, declares that he was denominated Choiropsale by the Sicyonians, a low term expressing immodest practices with women. ^* Athen^us : Dipnosophista, i. 23. " Priapus was honored by the people of Lampsacus ; Dionysus or Bacchus bearing that designation, as he is also called Thriambus and Dithyrambus." '* Herodotus; ii. " Melampus 49. Bceotia." introduced into Greece the name of Dionysus, his worship and the procession of the phallus. He did not so completely apprehend the whole doc- hardly necessary to remark that a deity, identical with Hermes, Thoth and jEsculapius ; also that Melampus or black-foot is but an epithet for an Egyptian. He was doubtless a fictitious character. A. W, It is Cadmus was be able to communicate it but various sages since his time have carried out his teachings to trine as to — entirely, *• Odyssey, xv. 226, et seqq. Kasiuillus ox Kadmiel is the name of one of the gods of the Samothjacian " greater perfection ; still it is certain that Melampus introduced the phallus, and that the Greeks learnt from him the ceremonies which they now per- Mysteries.— A. 48 W. 1; Ancient Art and Mythology. 1 Iliad ;" and Ino, or Leucothoe, a daughter of Cadmus, is But no notice mentioned as a sea-goddess in the Odyssey" is taken in either poem of his being a Phoenician nor is it distinctly explained whether the poet understood him to have been a man or a god, though the former is more probable, as his daughter is said to have been born mortal. ; ORIGIN OF THE MYSTICAL RITES. 21. General tradition has attributed the introduction of " the mystic religion into Greece, to Orpheus, a Thracian who, if he ever lived at all, lived probably about the same time with Melampus, or a little earlier." The traditions con; cerning him are, however, extremely vague and uncertain and the most learned and sagacious of the Greeks is said to have denied that such a person had ever existed " but, never; we learn from the very high authority of Strabo that Greek music was all Thracian or Asiatic," and, from the un- theless, the questionable testimony of the Iliad, that the very ancient poet Thamyris was of that country," to which tradition has also attributed the other old sacerdotal bards, Musseus and Eu- molpus." As there is no mention, however, of any of the mystic nor of any of the rites with which they were worshipped, in any of the genuine parts, either of the Iliad or Odyssey, nor any trace of the symbolical style in any of the works of art described in them, nor of allegory or enigma ir the fables which adorn them, we may fairly presume that both the rites of initiation and the worship of Bacchus are of a later period, and were not generally known to the Greeks till after the composition of those poems." The Orphic Hymns, too, which appear to have been invocations or litanies used in 22. deities, '* Iliad, V. 807. ^' Odyssey, v. 539. ^ EusEBius " According to the Parian or Arundelian Marbles, the Eleusinian mysteries were introduced 175 years before the Trojan war but Plutarch Praparatio Evangeli. " They say that Orpheus, the CEagreus brought the Mysteries son of from the Egyptians and communicated i. : ch. 6. ; Cicero Nature of the Gods, i. c. Orpheum poetam docet Aristote- *> 28. : : nunquam fuisse. The passage is not in the works of Aristotle now exles — TeUtai. : Eu- molpus, de Exit. them to the Greeks." Tht Frogs, 1032. Aristophanes " Orpheus showed us the initiations." PrOCLUS Theology of Plato, i. "All theology among the Greeks introduction to attributes their 5.» tant. ^' is " theoutbirth of the Orphic Mystagogy." Pausanias : Corinth, xxx. 2. " The jEginetans have the initiation of Hekate every year, saying that Orpheus the Thracian instituted the rites." ''^ Strabo; Iliad, x. p. On Banishment. suppose them to have been : more ancient worship, thus vailed for preservation. SI 471. 595. Plutarch " Some the iii. —A. W. 12 The Symbolical La7iguage of the Mysteries" are proved, both by the language and the mat to be of a date long subsequent to the Homeric times, there being in all of them abbreviations and modes of speech not then known, and the form of worshipping or glorifying ter, the deity by repeating adulatory though afterward common." titles, not being then in use, PHALLIC AND PRIAPIC SYMBOLISM. 23. In^gypt, nevertheless, and all over Asia, the mystic and symbolical worship appears to have been of immemorial antiquity. The women of the former country carried images of Osiris in their sacred processions, with a movable phallus of disproportionate magnitude, the reason for which Herodotus does not think proper to relate, because it belonged to the mystic religion." Diodorus Siculus, however, who lived in a more communicative age, informs us that it signified the generative attribute," and Plutarch, that the ^Egyptian statues of Osiris had the phallus to signify his procreative and prolific power," the extension of which through the three elements of air, earth, and water, they expressed by another kind of statue, which was occasionally carried in procession, having a triple symbol of the same attribute." The Greeks usually repre- sented the phallus alone, as a distinct symbol, the meaning of to have been among the last discoveries revealed to the initiated." It was the same, in emblematical writing, which seems as the Orphic epithet, Pan-genetor, universal generator, in sense it is still employed by the Hindus." It which has also been observed among the idols of the native Americans " and ancient Scandinavians"; nor do we think the conjecture of an ingenious writer improbable who supposes that the maypole was a symbol of the same meaning, and the first of May a great phallic festival both among the ancient Britons and Hindus, it being still celebrated with nearly the same rites in both countries." The Greeks changed, as usual, the personiPausakias: ^«jV(J, ^i' c. xxxvii. "Whoever has witnessed an at Eleusis, or those " Tertullian: s. 3. called Orphic, knows what I say." " Arrian, lib. V. " Herodotus: ii. 48. ^ Diodorus Siculus: i. 88. ^' Isis and Osiris. " They exhibit the statue in human semblance, hold- tlit : ingthe sexual part prominent as fecundating and nourishing." p. ii. c. 5. " Maurice and Osiris. " They display emblem and carry it around, hav- '» Concerning Valeniinians, (a sect of Ophites or of Gnostics.) "After many sighings of the seers (epoptm), the entire sealing of the tongue, (from divulging it) an image of the virile organ is revealed." " Sonnerat Voyage aux Indes. '* Lafitau, Mtxurs des Sauvages, i. v. 150. " Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica, initiation Isis the ing the sexual parts threefold." pp. 87-94. 52 : Indian Antiquities, vi. : Ancient Art and Mythology. fied attribute into 13 a distinct deity called Priapus, whose uniacknowledged to the latest periods of versality was, however, heathenism." THE MYSTIC EGG. is celebrated by the of Eros, Love or Attraction, the first principle of animation, the father of gods and men, and the regulator and disposer of all things." He is said to pervade the universe with the motion of his wings, bringingpure light 24. Greek and In this universal character he poets, under the title thence to be called the splendid, the self-illumined, the ruling — light being considered in this primitive philosophy as the great nutritive principle of all things." Wings are attributed to him as the emblems of spontaneous motion ; and he is said to have sprung from the q^% of night, because the Egg was the ancient symbol of organic matter in its inert Priapus''' Plutarch calls it, the material of generation, containing the seeds and germs of life and motion without being actually possessed of either. It was, therefore, carried in procession at the celebration of the Mysteries for which reason Plutarch, in the passage above cited, declines entering into a more particular disquisition concerning its nature, the Platonic interlocutor in the Dialogue observing, that, though a small question, it comprehended a very great one, concerning the generation of the world itself known to those who understood the Orphic and sacred language, the egg being consecrated, in the Bacchic mysteries, as the image of that which generated and contained all state, or, as ; , things in itself^" THE SERPENT-SYMBOL. 25. symbol *' I. As organic substance was represented by the of the Egg, so the principle of life, by which Titul antiq. in Gruter, i. 195, No. was the " Sophocles: HeHymn, an engine, was involved the great and weighty one concerning the genesis of the world, declared his dislike of such problems. * * I speak to those who understand the sacred legend of Orpheus, which shows not only that the egg is before the bird, but makes it before all things. The other matter we will not speak about, being as Herodotus says, of a mystic character, * * * Therefore, in the Orgies of Dionysus it is usual to consecrate an egg as representing that which 5!>(/j,6q3. SIOD: Theogony, 116. Orphic V. 29 and 57. " Orph. Hymn, V. v. 5. CEdipus Tyrannus, 1437. " ™ Plutarch: They suspected Symposiacs, ii. My first. friend Sylla saying that with this little question, as with PRIEPO PANTHEO. " Aristophanes: 3. that I held the Or- phic and Pythagorean dogmas, and refused to eat the egg (as some do the heart and brain), because it is sacred imagining it to be the first principles of generated existence. * * Soon after Alexander proposed the problem conceming the egg and the bird, which ; generates and contains all things in itself" 55 ; The Symbolical Language of 14 it was called into action, was represented by that which having the property of castof the Serpent ing its skin, and apparently renewing its youth, was natsometimes find it coiled urally adopted for that purpose. round the e^g^, to express the incubation of the vital spirit and it is not only the constant attendant upon the guardian deities of Health," but occasionally employed as an accessory symbol to almost every other god," to signify the general attribute of immortality. For this reason it served as a general sign of consecration " and not only the deified heroes of the Greeks, such as Cecrops and Erichthonius, but the virgin mother of the Scythians (Echidna), and the consecrated founder of the Japanese, were represented terminating in serpents." Both the Scythians and Parthians, too, carried the image of a serpent or dragon, upon the point of a spear, for their military standard," as the Tartar princes of China still continue to do whence we find this figure perpetually represented on their stuffs and porcelain, as well as upon those of the Japanese. The inhabitants of Norway and Sweden continued to pay divine honors to serpents down to the sixteenth century °° and almost all the Runic inscriptions, found upon tombs, are engraved upon the sculptured forms of them °' the emblems of that immortality to which the deceased were thus consecrated. Macha Alia, the god of life and death among the Tartars, has serpents entwined round his limbs and body to express the first attribute, and human skulls and scalps on his head and at his girdle, to express the second." The jugglers and diviners also, of North America, make ; We ; ; ; ; themselves girdles and chaplets of serpents, which they have »' Phurnutus: Concerning the noturea/tht Gods.iaami. "They have set apart the serpent to him (yEsculapius), because those who are engaged in this healing art make use of it as a symbol for becoming young as it were after sickness, and putting off old age." «2 Justin Martyr: Apology, ii. By all among you who worship the neathen gods, the serpent is depicted as their great symbol and mystery." eapERSius: Satires, l "Paint two snakes, my boys, and the place then is Herodotus mentions makes Hercules this legend, but the lover of the ser- pent-queen (iv. 8-10. See also Kaempfer's History 0/ Japan, ii. p. 145). « Arrian: in Prccf., p. 80. LuciAN, De Hist, conscrib., p. 39. " Ol MAGi^.de Gent. Sefitent. Hist Epit.l. in. Serpentes ut sacros colebant ;— asdium servatores atque penates existiman es :— reliquise tamen hujus superstitione culturae— in nonnuUis secretis solitudinum sedibusque perseverant sicuti in septentrionalibus regnis Norvegije ac Vermelandi^. " Ol. Vareui: Hunagr. Olans ; ^°\T' •"DioDORUS ^SlcuLUS:ii.43."The Scythians related the fable of a giant (earth-bom) maiden among tliem that she had the womanly organs of the bodyabove, but those of a viper below, (echidna) s.nA that by intercourse with Zeus she had the child Scythes." RuDBECK:^//a»^. No. iii. c. i 6" Voyageen SibMe par F Abb'i Chappe cT Cuteroche, pi. xviii. The figure in brass is in the collection of Mr. ; Knight. 56 Ancient Art and Mythology. 15 the art to tame and familiarise °° and, in the great Temple of Mexico, the captives taken in war, and sacrificed to the Sun, had each a wooden collar in the shape of a serpent put round In the his neck while the priests performed the horrid rites." ; kingdom of luida, about the fourth degree of latitude, on the western coast of Africa, one of these reptiles was lately, and perhaps is still, worshipped as the symbol of the Deity " and when Alexander entered India, Taxilus (Takshasila) a powerful prince of the country, showed him a serpent of enormous size, which he nourished with great care, and revered as the image of the god, whom the Greek writers, from the similitude of his attributes, call Dionysus or Bacchus." The Epidaurians kept one in the same manner to represent ^sculapius " as did likewise the Athenians, in their celebrated temple of Minerva, to signify the guardian or preserving deity of the Acropolis." The Hindu women still carry the lingam, or consecrated symbol of the generative attribute of the Deity, in solemn procession between two serpents;" and, in the sacred casket, which held the egg and phallus in the mystic processions of the Greeks, was also a serpent." Over the porticoes of all the ancient Egyptian temples, the winged disk of the pun is placed between two hooded snakes (or asps), signifying that luminary placed between its two great attributes of motion and life. The same combination of symbols, to express the same attributes, is observable upon the coins of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians " and appears to have been anciently employed by the Druids of Britain and Gaul, as it still is by the idolaters of China." The Scandinavian goddess Isa or Disa was sometimes represented between two serpents " and a similar mode of canonisation is employed in the apotheosis of Cleopatra, as expressed on her coins." Water-snakes, too, are held sacred among the inhabitants of ; ; ; ; " Lafitau: Mcaurs i. des Sauvages, '* t. inal p. 253. ™ AcoSTA: History of the Indies, p. serves, it is " Hist. Gen. des Voyages, t. iv.p.305. " Maximus Tyr: Dissert., viii. c. 6. .ffij/., xi. Pausanias .Soj^rfa, xix. 2. "The Thebans call a certain little spot of ground surrounded by stones selected for the purpose, the Serpent's Head." " Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica, part iii. i. 25, and part ii. p. 343, plate epitom. Herodotus: viii. 41. " SoNNERAT Voyage aux : '* : i. was the Snake's Head: and remarkable the remains of a similar circle of stones in Bceotiahad the same name in the time of Pausanias. 382. '^Livy: See Stukeley's Abury; the origname of which temple, he ob- Indes, t. p. 253. " See the mystic cistae on the nummi cistophori of the Greek cities of Asia, which are extremely common, and to be found in all cabinets and A, i. 510. The report that Cleopatra came her end from the bite of the asp or umus, is due to the wearing of an ** books of ancient coins. " Medailles de Dutens, p. i. Mus. Hunter., tab. 15, fig. v. and viii. to effigy of the 57 reptile upon the regal — — The Symbolical Language of i6 the Friendly Islands "' and, in the mysteries of Jupiter Sabazius, the initiated were consecrated by having a snake put down their bosoms.'^ 26. The sort of serpent most commonly employed, both by the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Hindus, is the cobra de capellay naga, or hooded snake; but the Greeks frequently use a composite or ideal figure sometimes with a radiated head, and sometimes with the crest or comb of a cock '' accessory ; ; ; The myssymbols, which will be hereafter further noticed. tical serpent of the Hindus, too, is generally represented with five heads, to signify, perhaps, the five senses, but still it is the hooded snake, which we believe to be a native of India, and consequently to have been originally employed as a religious symbol in that country from whence the Egyptians and Phcenicians probably borrowed it, and transmitted it to the Greeks and Romans upon whose bracelets, and other ; ; symbolical ornaments, we frequently find She had arrayed herself in diadem. the paraphernalia of royalty, and placed on her head the crown of Egypt, surmounted by the Thermutis as a token that she had not compromised her rank, but died a queen. ^A. W. *' Missonaries' first Voyage, p. 238. '*Arnobius: v. p. Clement 171, Exhortation to the Gentiles. Julius Firmicius, c. 27. Jupiter Sabazius or lacchus Sabazius of Alexandria : the serpent-deity of the mysteries, identical with Kronos or Hercules and the drama or allegory there represented is thus set forth by Nonnus is ; ; " Kore-Persephoneia, you 'scaped not marriage. But were wived in a dragon's nuptial bonds, When Zeus changed form and aspect. And as a serpent coiled in love-inspiring wreaths, Came to Waving tlie his chamber of rough beard dusky Kore, '*' * overriding the Old Testament, the Ophites constructed a doctrine of emanation after the model of the Zo- and Jewish Kaby which they explained the evolution of all forms production and The Supreme Being of existence. roastrians, Buddhists balists, generated from himself a second, Sige or Silence, and by her Sophia or Pneu ma, the divine Wisdom, and then by the perfect being, Christ, and the imperfect one, Achamoth. These four produced the Holy Church according Meanwhile, to the heavenly ideal. Achamoth, the imperfect wisdom, descended into Chaos, imparting life to the elements ; and finally by conjunction with matter produced the Creator, Ilda-Baoth, or " Son of Darkness." He generated an emanation ; then a second, till six were brought fourth, lao, Sabaoth, Adoni, Eloi, Urseus, and As- lier taphaeus. These, with himself, became the seven spirits of the planets he also generated archangels, angels. Energies, Potencies, to preside over The seven the details of the creation. then created man, a crawling monster, and by communicating to him the ray of divine light rendered him the image of the Supreme Being. The Demiurge, enraged that his production .should be superior to himself, animated Thus by the Dragon of the ^ther, Persephone brought forth offspring, Even Zagreus, the bull-horned child." "^ ; La Chausse: Rovian Museum, vol. i., tables 13-14. The radiated serpent or agatlwdcsmon, is common on gems. See C. W. KiNG : Gnostics and it." their Remains, ^ The serpent appears also to have sectaries as a part of the Christian mysteries, and been adopted by certain some remnants of the worship still exist. Adopting the book of Enoch, and the image of himself formed by reflection in the abyss as in a mirror. This was Satan Ophiomorphus, called by the Ophites Michael and Samael preference to the kindred New Testament, and almost entirely treatises in 58 " Ancient : Art and Mythology. 17 27. Not only the property of casting the skin, and acquiring a periodical renovation of youth, but also that of pertinaciously retaining life even in amputated parts, may have recommended animals of the serpent kind as symbols of health and immortality, though noxious and deadly in themselves. Among plants, the olive seems to have been thought to possess the same property in a similar degree " and therefore was probably adopted to express the same attribute. At Athens it was particularly consecrated to Pallas-Athene but the statue of Jupiter at Olympia was crowned with it '° and it is also observable on the heads of Apollo, Hercules, Cybele, ; ; ; one being the reputed tutelar angel oEthe Jews, and the other the prince of devils. Ilda-Baoth now forbade the man to eat of the tree of knowledge, which could enable him to understand the mysteries and receive the graces from above. But Achamoth, to defeat this project, sent her own genius Ophis or the serpent to instruct man to transgress the command so unjustly imposed upon him. He thus became illuminated from heaven. Ilda.Baoth then made the material body for a prison in which man was enthralled. Achamoth, however, continued his protector, and supplied him witli divine light as. he needed in his trials. Of the seed of Adam only Seth kept alive the seed of Light. His children in the wilderness received the law from Ilda-Baoth, but through the teachings of the prophets, Achamoth caused them to receive some idea of the higher life, and afterward induced her own mother, Sophia, to move the Supreme Being to send down Christ She also to aid the children of Seth. persuaded Ilda-Baoth to prepare for his advent by his own agent John the Baptist, and also to cause the birth of the man Jesus, this being a demiurgic rather than a divine work. At the baptism in the Jordan, Christ entered into the man Jesus, who immediately comprehended his divine mission and living serpent which coils around the bread and thus makes it holy. This serpent is the representative of Ophis, who instructed the first man to eat of the tree of knowledge, and so deliver himself from nakedness and the law of jealousy. Ophis is identical with Kneph or Agathodasmon, the Serpent of the Mysteries. Mani the heresiarch taught that he crawled over the bed and overshadowed the Virgin Mary. The serpent-club of .(Esculapius was a badge of the Ophites, who indeed are supposed to have existed long before They abounded in the Christian era. Asia, Egypt, Spain, and all parts of Christian world. the The Ophites and Gnostics employed Epiphansecret signs of recognition. " On the ius thus describes them arrival of any stranger belonging to the same belief, they have a sign given by the man to the woman, and vice versa. In holding out the hand under pretense of saluting each other, they feel and tickle it in a peculiar manner underneath the palm, and so discover that the new-comer belongs to : the same sect. Thereupon, however poor they may be, they serve up to him a sumptuous feast, with abun- After of meats and wine. they are well filled the entertainer rises and withdraws, leaving his wife behind, with the command ' show thy charity to this man, our dance Ilda-Baoth stirring began his work. up the Jews against him, he was put Immediately Sophia and to death. Christ invested him with a body of Eether and placed him at the right hand of Ilda-Baoth by whom he is unperHere he collects the purified ceived. souls and when all these are restored, the world will end, and all the re- brother.' The Albigenses, Cathari and Paulicians are reckoned among the worshipers of the agathodasmon. A. W. *' Virgil: Georgics, ii. v. 30, and 181. Theophrastus : Hist. Plant, lib. v. — ; deemed will enter into the pleroma. In their eucharist the Ophites have a '^ s. S9 I. Pausanias : EHac. i. The Symbolical Language of iS " the preserving power, or attribute of immortality, being, in some mode or other, common to every and other deities ; of the divine nature. personification Olympic Games were The victors in the crowned with branches of the oleaster or wild olive " the trunk of which, hung round with the arms of the vanquished in war, was the trophy of victory consecrated to the immortal glory of the conquerors; " for as it was a religious as well as military symbol, ic was contrary to the laws of war, acknowledged among the Greeks, to take it down, when it had been once duly erected. also ; THE SACRED BULL AND GOAT. 28. Among the sacred animals of the Egyptians, the bull, worshipped under the titles of Mnevis and Apis, is one of the The Greeks called him Epaphus," and most distinguished. we find his image, in various actions and attitudes, upon an immense number of their coins, as well as upon some of those of the Phoenicians, and also upon other religious monuments of almost all nations. The species of bull most commonly employed is the urus, auroch, or wild bull, the strongest animal known in those climates which are too cold for the propagation of the elephant " which was not known in Europe, nor ; even in the northern or western parts of Asia, till Alexander's expedition into India, though ivory was familiarly known even in the Homeric times." To express the attribute strength, in symbolical writing, the figure of the strongest animal would naturally be adopted wherefore this emblem, generally considered, explains itself, though, like all others of the kind, it was modified and applied in various ways. The mystic Bacchus, or generative power, was represented under this form, not only upon the coins, but in the temples of the Greeks " sometimes simply as a bull at others, with ; ; : " See coins of Rhegium, Macedonia, Aradus, Tyre. etc. ** Aristophanes: Plut. 586. '' Plutarch Ids and : Ibid. 943. ™ Herodotus; ii. 153. " The Greek name for Apis is Epaphus." EiiRlproES: /'/za;»w«,688. " Epaphus, child of lo, whom she brought forth to Zeus." " C.«sar: War in Gaul,'h<:>oW\. »' Pausanias i. c. 12. This proves : that the coins with an elephant's skin on the head, are of Alexander II., (taurus) i. e., 2og. Many Athen^us Dipnosophistts, b. xi. " In Cyzicus, he (Bacchus) is 476. represented as bull- formed." It is probable that the bull-symbol : astrological, The Sun formerly entered the sign of Taurus at the vernal equinox, thus beginning a new was king of Epirus, son of Pyrrhus. »»Lycophron: Osiris. " of the Greeks make bull-shaped symbols of Dionysus ; and the women of the Eleans praying, invoke the clovenfooted divinity to come to them. The Argives call Dionysus the Bull-begotten" {Bougenes), or "a bee" as it is sometimes rendered, from the fable of bees hatched in a putrefying carcass. "The Bull" Dionysus. 60 Ancient Art and Mythology. 19 a human face and, at others, entirely human except the horns or ears." The age, too, is varied the bull being in some in; ; and in others quite young; and the humanised head being sometimes bearded, and sometimes not.°° 29. The Mnevis of the Egyptians was held by some to be the mystic father of Apis °° and as the one has the disk upon his head, and was kept in the City of the Sun, while the other is distinguished by the crescent," it is probable that the one was the emblem of the divine power acting through the sun and the other, of it acting through the moon, or (what was the Apis, however, held the same) through the sun by night. highest rank, he being exalted by the superstition of that superstitious people into something more than a mere symbol, and supposed to be a sort of incarnation of the Deity in a particular animal, revealed to them at his birth by certain external marks, which announced his having been miraculously conceived by means of a ray from Heaven." Hence, when found, he was received by the whole nation with every possible testimony of joy and gratulation, and treated in a manner worthy of the exalted character bestowed on him " which was that of the terrestrial image or representative of Osiris in whose statutes the remains of the animal symbol may be stances, quite old, ; ; ; '"'' ; traced.'"' Their neighbors the Arabs appear to have worshipped god under the same image, though their religion was more simple and pure than that of any Heathen nation of antiquity, except the Persians, and perhaps the Scythians. They acknowledged only the male and female, or active and passive powers of creation the former of whom they called Urotalt '°° a name which evidently alludes to the Urus. He30. their ; ; season and resuscitating tlie year, the bull became the emblem or representative of the Supreme Being, and of course a sacred or sacerdotal animal.- A. W. From this, — '' Bronzi Hercolano, t. i. tav. I. Coins of Camarina. Plate ii. of the last volume of " the Select Specimens." —-" " Coins of Lampsacus, Naxus. ^^ VlJJTAS.cn: Isis and Osiris. "The bull maintained at Heliopolis, called Mnevis (some regarded him as sacred to Osiris, and others iii. "Now PLUTARCH: Ids and Osiris. "Apis, in Memphis, was regarded as the eidolon or visible representation of the soul of Osiris." "" Strabq: xvii. " Of Apis, who is Osiris himself." See plate 2 of vol. i. of Select Specimens, where the horns of the bull are indicated in the disposing of the hair." as the father of 28. appearance the whole of Egypt and kept jubilee." '™ '"i* ^ Herodotus: his feasted Apis) is black, and has the sacred honors of the Apis." " See the /«a<r 7ato/x, etc. *' ray of fire comes from heaven upon the cow, and she immediately becomes pregnant with Apis." " Herodotus-, iii. 27. " Always on Herodotus: iii. 8. "They have but the tutelar gods, Dionysus and Urania. They call Dionysus, this Apis or Epaphus is the calf of a cow, which is never aftei-ward able to bear young. The ./Egyptians say that a . . Urotalt." Wilkinson suggests that Urotal 63 is — The Symbolical Language of -O rodotus calls him Bacchus, as he does the female deity, Celestial Venus; by which he means no more than that they were personifications of the attributes which the Greeks worshipped under those titles. 31. The Chinese have still a temple called the Palace of the horned Bull '" and the same symbol is venerated in In the extremity of the Japan, and all over Hindustan.'" West it was also once treated with equal honor the Cimbrians having carried a brazen bull with them, as the image of their god, when they overran Spain and Gaul '" and the name of the god Thor, the Jupiter of the ancient Scandinavians, signifying in their language a bull as it does likewise in the Phoenician and Chaldee."" In the great metropolitan temple of the ancient Northern Hierarchy at Upsal, in Sweden, this god was represented with the head of a bull upon his breast '" and on an ancient Phoenician coin, we find a figure exactly resembling the Jupiter of the Greeks, with the same head on his chair, and the words Baal Thurz, in Phoenician characters, on the exergue.'"* In many Greek, and in some .Egyptian monuments, the bull is represented in an attitude of attack, as if striking at something with his horns '°° and at Miako in Japan, the creation of the world, or organisation of matter, is represented by the Deity under the image or symbol of a bull breaking the shell of an egg, with his horns, and animating the contents of it with his breath "° which probably explains the meaning of this attribute in the Greek and Egyptian monuments; the practice of pittting part of a com; ; ; ; ; ; ; for position 32. we that common the -whole being and playing upon the sound of words, which the ancients were famous. for ; The Hebrew — Hist. Gen. des Voyages, i, vi. Recherches sur les Arts de la Greci, Plutarch: In Mario. Plutarch :/« .Sy/Za, c. 17. " The A. See coins of Thurium, Syracuse, Tauromenium, Attabyrium. "» Memorable Embassy to the Emperor of Japan, p. 283. '" See coins of Acanthus, Maronea, 321, 338, 339. Medailles de Dut^)Ls, p. I. The Mr. Knight's collection. I think this an example of punning is W, i"" ; coin, better preserved, Thus lin ; Phoenicians call the bull Thur." "' Olaus Rudbeckius: Ailantica, part ii. c. v. p. 300, fig. 28 also pp. ^"^ designation Goddess. &c. 109 Old Testa- of the Motheror Tlt^ Tur ox Sttr, signifies an ox and IV Tzttr, or rock, the name of Tyre, has nearly the same sound, and so makes a very good phonetic for symbolical writing. Syrian p. 452. >»5 text of the ment abounds with examples. The bee was sacred to Venus, because its name melitta was like Mylitta the As- Mr. Knight's probable etymology. hypothesis is not plausible. A. W. ""^ }^^ Roman statues of the bull, have seen, whether in the character of Mnevis or Apis, the same as allah-taal, or God the exalted also that it may come from AUR, light. If Alilat (or Lilith) is the Night-Goddess, the latter is the more ">' in symbolical writings In most of the Greek and also in Eretria, Sic. 64 , Zeus. Jupiter. id i:i:ii;ill!!i!!iiiii:l Ancient Art and Mythology. 21 of both which many are extant of a small size in bronze, there is a hole upon the top of the head between the horns where the disk or crescent, probably of some other material,'" was iixed: for as the mystical or symbolical was engrafted upon the old elementary worship, there is always a link of connection remaining between them. The Bacchus of the Greeks, as well as the Osiris of the .Egyptians, comprehended the whole creative or generative power, and is therefore represented in a great variety of forms, and under a great vari-ety of symbols, sign ifying his subordinate attributes. 33. Of these the goat is one that most frequently occurs; and as this animal has always been distinguished for its lubricity, it probably represents the attribute directed to the propagation of organised being in general.'" The choral odes sung in honor of Bacchus were called tragodiai, or goat-songs and a goat was the symbolical prize given on the occasion it being one of the forms under which the god himThe fauns and satyrs, the attendants self had appeared.'". and ministers of Bacchus, were the same symbol more or less humanised and appear to have been peculiar to the Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans for though the goat was among the sacred animals of the Egyptians, and honored with singular rites of worship at Mendes, we do not find any traces of these mixed beings in the remains of their art, nor in those of any other ancient nations of the East though the Mendesian rites were admirably adapted to produce them in nature, had "^ and the god Pan was it been possible for them to exist under such a form."" there represented ; ; ; : ; ; THE SOURCE OF ALL THINGS. But notwithstanding that the " first- begotten Love " or mystic Bacchus, was called the Father of gods and men, and the Creator of all things, he was not the primary personifica34. "' Five of these are in Mr. Knight's on one of which the disk is remaining. Herodotus ii. 132. " As for the cow, the greater part of it is hidden by a scarlet coverture, and between the horns there is a representation in The figgold of the orb of the sun. ure is not erect, but lying down, with the limbs under the body the dimensions being fully those of a large aniraal of the kind. Every year it is taken from the apartment in which it is kept and exposed to the light of day. This is done at the season when the .(Egyptians beat themselves in honor collection, of Osiris." '" Diodorus Siculus : "'' : i. 88. K'SOl.'L.OViO^Xii: Bibliotheca, iii. c. iv. s. 3. "' Herodotus : ii. 46. " A goat was exhibited copulating with a woman." "« Herodotus: ii. 46. " The artists in .(Egypt delineate and sculpture the symbols of Pan, like the Greeks, as having the countenance and limbs of ; a goat." 67 ; The Symbolical Language of 22 of the divine nature Kronos or Zeus, the unknown Father, being everywhere reverenced as the supreme and almighty. In the poetical mythology, these titles are applied to distinct personages, the one called the Father, and the other but in the mystic theology, they seem to have the Son tion ; ; signified one only infinity.'" being — the Being that fills eternity and theologists appear to have known distinct or positive idea of Infinity, The ancient we can form no whether of power, space, or time it being fleeting and fugitive, and eluding the understanding by a continued and boundless progression. The only notion that we have of it, arises from the multiplication or division of finite things which suggest the vague abstract notion, expressed by the word infinity, merely from a power which we feel in ourseh^es, of still multiplying and dividing without end. Hence they adored the Infinite Being through personified attributes, signifying the various modes of exerting his almighty power the most general, beneficial, and energetic of which being that universal principle of desire, or mutual attraction, which leads to universal harmony, and mutual co-operation, it naturally held the first rank among them. " The self-generated mind of the eternal Father," says the Orphic poet, " spread the heavy bond of Love through all things, that they might endure forever " "° which heavy bond of love is no other than the Eros Protogonos (Love Only-Begotten) or mystic Bac that ; ; ; chus; to whom the celebration of the Mysteries was there- fore dedicated. THE MOTHER-GODDESS. 35. But the Mysteries were also dedicated to the female or passive powers of production supposed to be inherent in Matter.'" Those of Eleusis were under the protection of Ceres, called by the Greeks Demeter ; that is, ISJ other Earth; "" and '" Euripides Hiridida. " Seest thou the immense Kther on high, and the earth around held in its moist Revere Zeus and obey embrace ? God." "8 Orphic Fragments, xxxviii. A passage from Empedocles, preserved by Athenagoras, thus describes the elements that compose the world containeth the elements from which everything is produced." : '^" like trifling air : i, earth." above, as Plato says, of a word, the " Great mother of the deities of 24. Olympus, the most excellent black '" Plutarch: Symposiacs, ii. qu. 3. "For matter hath the function of mother and nurse, transposition name being Ge-meter." Solon In Brunch's Analectica, ancient : " Firewater, earth, and the soft And vrith them, Love." DiODORUS SicuLUS; ii. 12. "In manner to call her Demeter, by a and 6S y^ns Kennedy more plausibly forms Demeter ixoxa. the Sanskrit Deva-matri, or Mother-Goddess; and Cerei Uom Shri. Both are names of Laksh. l!!iiiiig|iil'lii!ii!iiiii^ Ceres. Demeter. ; Art and Mythology. A7icient 23 though the meaning of her Latin name be not quite so obthe Roman c being originally it is in reality the same the same letter, both in figure and power, as the Greek gamma,"" which was often employed as a mere guttural aspirate, especially in the old iEolic dialect, from which the Latin is vious, ; principally derived. belonged to the same The hissing termination, too, in the ^ wherefore the word, which the Attics and lonians wrote £R4, EPS, or 'BPR, (era, ere, or here,) would naturally be written FEPES (geres) by the old ^olians the Greeks always accommodating their orthography and not, like the English and French to their pronunciation encumbering their words with a number of useless letters. 36. Ceres, however, was not a personification of the brute matter which composed the earth, but of the passive productive principle supposed to pervade it,'" which, joined to the active, was held to be the cause of the organization and animation of its substance; from whence arose her other Greek name /JHiO (Deo) the Inventress. She is mentioned by Virgil, as the Wife of the omnipotent Father, iEther or Jupiter;'" and therefore the same with Juno; who is usually honored with that title and whose Greek name TIPH (here) signifies, as before observed, precisely the same.'" The Latin name lUNO is derived from the Greek name Dione, the female Zeus or Dis the Etruscan, through which the Latin received much of its orthography, having no d or o in its alphabet. '"' The ancient Germans worshipped the same goddess under the name of Hertha "" the form and meaning of which still remain in our words, earth and hearth. Her fecundation by the descent of the active spirit, as described in the passage of Virgil before cited, is most distinctly represented in an ancient bronze at Strawberry Hill. As the personified principle of the productive power of the Earth, she naturally became the patroness of agriculture and thus the inventress and tutelar deity of legislation and social order which first arose out of the division, appropriation, and cultivation of the soil. : ; ; ; ; ; See Hindu mi, consort of Vishnu. Mythology, pp. 394-395. '" See Senatus Consultum Marcianum also coins of Gela, Agrigen- in love with her great body, nourishes all her offspring." "'Plutarch. and Rhegium. Ovid; Fasti, i. 673. " Officium commune Ceres et Terra turn ''^' tur tuen- ; Hfficprjebetcausamfrugibus, Ilia SeeEosEBlus./'ne- poratio Evangelica, iii. i. " Ge (earth) is Hera," (Juno, or Lady.) '" Moor, the author of the Hindu Pantheon, Godfrey Higgins and others derive the name Juno from the San^^^.jj y^^^-^ ^^ ^^^ Hebrew and Chal. daic njV Juneh, a dove, representaThe tive of the Mother Goddess. Hebrew and Sanscrit have no J. ; locum." "^ Virgil: 0<^!yz«, ii. 324. "Then the Omnipotent Father, great Rxhcx, with fecund showers, descends into the bosom of his rejoicing wife, and united '^' Tacitus Germany. ; 71 The Symbolical Language of 24 37. The Greek title seems originally to have had a more general signification for without the aspirate (which was anciently added and omitted almost arbitrarily), it becomes -EPJ? (ere), and by an abbreviation very common in the Greek tongue, P-E or FEE (Re, Ree, Rea) which pronounced with the broad termination of some dialects, become PKA and with the hissing one of others, RES a word retained in the Latin, signifying properly matter, and figuratively every quality and modification that can belong to it. The Greek has no word of such comprehensive meaning the old general term being, in the refinement of their language, rendered more specific, and appropriated to that principal mass of matter which forms the terraqueous globe; and which the Latins also expressed by the same word united to the Greek article r^ spa terra. ; : ; ; ; — THE GENERATIONS OF THE DEITIES. 38. The ancient word, with its original meaning, was however retained by the Greeks in the personification of it Rhea, the first of the goddesses, signifying universal matter, and being thence said, in the figurative language of the poets, to be the mother of Jupiter, who was begotten upon her by Time. In the same figurative language, Time is said to be the son of Ovpavoi, {Ouranos) or Heaven that is, of the supreme termination and boundary, which appears to have been originally called noikovj (koiloii) the hollow or vault, which the Latins retained in their word C(elu7n, sometimes employed : ; to signify the pervading spirit, that fills and animates it. that Coelum and Terra, that is universal mind and productive body, were the Great Gods of the Samothracian Mysteries and the same as the Serapis and Isis of the later Egyptians: the Taautos and Astarte of the Phoenicians, and the Saturn and Ops of the Latins.'" The licentious imaginations of the poets gave a progenitor even to the person- Hence Varro says ; ification of the supreme boundary Ouranos, which progenitor they called Akmon the indefatigable '"' a title which they seem to have meant perpetual motion, the primary attribute of the primary being."" ; 39. The allegory of Kronos or Saturn devouring his own children, seems to allude to the rapid succession of creation and destruction before the world had acquired a permanent constitution, after which Time only swallowed the stone that : is, exerted its destroying influence upon brute matter "'' Z)e Lingtta Latina, iw. 10. "' Akamatos, akamon, akmon, "' rum, etc. 72 ; the gen. Phurnutus: De Natura Deoi. Rhea. Kybele. : Ancient Art and Mythology. 25 and renovation, being In conjunction with the earth, he is said '" to have cut off the genitals of his father, Uranus or Heaven an allegory, which evidently signifies that Time, in operating upon matter, exhausted the generative powers of Heaven so that no new beings were created. 40. The notion of the Supreme Being having parents, though employed by the poets to embellish their wild theogonies, seems to have arisen from the excessive refinement of metaphysical theology a Being purely mental and absolutel)' immaterial, having no sensible quality, such as form, consistence, or extension, can only exist, according to our limited notions of existence, in the modes of his own action, or as a mere abThese modes of action, being stract principle of motion. turned into eternal attributes, and personified into distinct personages. Time and Matter, the means of their existing might, upon the same principle of personification, be turned into the parents of the being to which they belong. Such refinement may, perhaps, seem inconsistent with the simplicity of the early ages but we shall find by tracing them to their source, that many of the gross fictions which exercised the credulity of the vulgar heathens, sprang from abstruse philosophy conveyed in figurative and mysterious expreserative spirit, or vital principle of order beyond its reach.'" ; ; : ; sions. FIRE AND WATER AS SYMBOLS. 41. The elements Fireand Water were supposed to be those which the active and passive productive powers of the universe respectively existed '" since nothing appeared to be in ; ''" It is by no means certain that Kronos, or Saturn, is identical with Chronos, or Time; and hence Mr. Knight's solution of the allegory, though ingenious, can hardly be enterWe notice again an example tained. Kronos, enof playing upon words. deavoring to devour his own sons, or benim, is deceived with stones, or revolution in government —A. W. '*' '^^ ham " Concipiunt: duobus. iii. 8). /^^o. et ab his oriuntur cuncta Hippocrates Diceta, i. 4. " All living creatures, not only the animals, but likewise man, originate from the Two Principles, differing in potency : The same {Matthew, \. g^jpp^ ^^5 temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque, play is perceived in the words of John the Baptist ,' God is able of these stones (abenini) to raise up children {benim) to Abra- abenim. and worship. Hesiod: Thcog. i5o. Ovid: Metamorphoses, but agreeing in purpose I mean Fire and Water." " Fire is able to give life to all things, but water can nourish them." : The whole The tinstoiy has an Indian aspect. gam represented the divine energy, which, being removed, was equivalent to the dethroning of the divinity. Thus, Cronos succeeded to Uranus, the meaning of the allegory being a " The soul moveth lb. 8. man, being the commixture of water, necessary to the et passim. — 75 itself in fire human and body." The 26 Syjnboltcal Lang7tage of produced without them and wherever they were joined there was production of some sort, eitlier vegetable or animal. Hence they were employed as the primary symbols of these powers on numberless occasions. Among the Romans, a part of the ceremony of marriage consisted in the bride's touching them as a form of consecration to the duties of that state of Their sentence of banishlife upon which she was entering."'' ment, too, was an interdiction from fire and water, which implied an exclusion from any participation in those elements, to which all organised and animated beings owed their existence. Numa is said to have consecrated the Perpetual Fire, as the First of all things, and the Soul of Matter, which, without it, is motionless and dead.'" Fires of the same kind were, for the same reasons, preserved in most of the principal temples both Greek and Barbarian there being scarcely a country in the world, where some traces of the adoration paid to it are not to be found. "^ The Prytania of the Greek cities, in which the Supreme Councils were usually held, and the public treasures kept, were so called from the sacred fires always preserved in them. Even common fires were reputed holy by them and therefore carefully preserved from all contagion of impiety. After the battle of Platsea, they extinguished all that remained in the countries which had been occupied by the Persians, and ; ; ; rekindled them, according to the direction of the Oracle, with •consecrated fire from the altar at Delphi."" dice still prevails among the native Irish, A similar preju- who annually extin- guish their fires, and rekindle them from a sacred bonfire.'" Perpetual lamps are kept burning in the inmost recesses of all the great pagodas in India; the Hindus holding fire to be the essence of all active power in nature. At Sais in Egypt, there was an annual religious festival called the Burning of Lamps '" ; and lamps were frequently employed as symbols upon coins by the Greeks,"" who also kept them burning in the tombs, and sometimes swore by them, as by known emblems of the Deity.'" The torch held erect, as it was by the statue of Bacchus at Eleusis,'" and as it is by other figures of him still extant, means life while being reversed, as it frequently is ; "^'Plutarch: Roman "Why touch do they direct the fire and water? Is cause, as among the principles, the one is Questions. bride to it not be- Arlstides. "' Collect. Hibern. v. 64. "' HERODOTUS ii. 62. : other female the one constitutes the principle of motion, and the other the '^' See coins of Amphipolis, Alexander tlie Great, c&c. '*» Asclepiades Epigram, xxv. from Brunck. Analect. \ ?i6. : '"^ dcs Sauvages, 153. '^'Plutarch: elements and male and the potency existing in Matter '" Plutarch: Numa. Lafitau: Mo:urs iv. 5. i. " ? : "' HUET.: Dcmonstr. Evang. Prop., 76 PauSANIAS : 1. c. Ancient Art and Mythology. upon sepulchral urns and other monuments 27 of the kind, inva- riably signifies death or extinction.'" Though water was thought be the principle of the yet, both being esteemed unproductive when separate,"' both were occasionally considered as united in each. Hence Vesta, whose symbol was fire, was held to be equally with Ceres a personification of the Earth,'" or rather of the genial heat which pervades it, to whichits productive powers were supposed to be owing wherefore her temple at Rome was of a circular form, having the sacred fire in the centre, but no statue.'" She was celebrated by the poets, as the daughter of Rhea, the sister of Jupiter and Juno, and the first of the goddesses."" As the principle of Universal Order, she presided over the Prytania or magisterial seats, and was therefore the same as Themis, the direct personification of that attribute, and the guardian of all assemblies, both public and private, both of men and gods '*' whence, all legislation was derived from Ceres, a more general perThe universal mother sonification including the same powers. of the Phrygians and Syrians, called by the Greeks Kubele or Cybele, because represented under a globular or square form"'" was the same more general personification worshipped with different rites, and exhibited under different symbols, according to the different dispositions and ideas of different nations. She was afterward represented under the form of a large handsome woman, with her head crowned with turrets and very generally adopted as the local tutelar deity of particular cities but we have never seen any figure of this kind, which was not proved, by the style of composition and workman42. was passive, as fire of the active to power ; ; ; ; ; "' See Portland Vase, &c. nices infers his Poly- own approaching from seeing in a vision {Stat. /^^ y_ 201. death Theb. """"^ '''''™ '""''' ^fiVe^flamma.m""''" 142). xi. „ r^Sm '"" ^^"^ , "" The temple is still .^cjA'. converted into a church, and the ruins of another more elegant one, '•*= , "" Effigiem. Fire without moisture IS unnourisned »! 41. J J k t dry, and water without warmth is " i-i J i-r unprohiic and liieless. ,4, J and • Now Gaia, under signed. VVKS^VKIVZ: Nature of the Gods, "But xxviii. Demeter or from distinct neither of is Hestia, the other, two, properly upon the the Grainm. Ovid Fast. lib. vi. v. 267. VeSa eadem est qua Terra, subest vigil : ' 1 various names de- Lexicon, Antiq. Frag, de Herm. " Demeter, as the earth, is the tutelary of the state, whence she is described as the beaver of the tower. pybele is said to represent the earth, from the cubic figure in geometry. ''"' earth." ' 17 _„,„„„. n ,1. u j Prometheus /ESCHYLUS: Bound, » „ r. it ^r 200, ' Potters translation, 1 '^^ Ovid: '='''^"'.. utrique. 77 The Symbolical Language of 28 ship, to be either posterior, or very cedonian conquest.'" little anterior to the Ma- VENUS-URANIA, THE MOTHER-GODDESS. 43. The characteristic attribute of the passive generative power was expressed in symbolical writing, by different enigmatical representations of the most distinctive characteristic of the female sex ; such as the shell, or Concha Fig-leaf,"" Barley Corn,"' or the letter Delta ; Veneris,^'"'' '^ all cur very frequently upon coins, and other ancient The same in this sense. the which oc- monuments attribute personified as the goddess Love or desire, is usually represented under the voluptuous form of a beautiful woman, frequently distinguished by one of these symbols, and called Venus, Kypris, or Aphrodite, names of rather uncertain etymology.'" She is said to be the daughter of Jupiter and Dione that is, of the male and female personifications of the All-pervading Spirit of the Universe Dione being, as before explained, the female Dis or Zeus, and therefore associated with him in the most ancient oracular temple of Greece at Dodona. '" No other genealogy appears to have been known in the Homeric times though a different one is employed to account for the name of Aphrodite in the Theogof ; ; ; ony attributed to Hesiod. 44. The GenetuUides or Genaidai were the original and ap- "' It is most frequent on rbve ooias of the Asiatic ooJonias ; hai afl that we have seen with, srt are of late with the moon, and hence they were similarly employed as symbols, '" SuiDAS " Delta, the fourth let- date, ter >'» : '" Augustin: Clement tations. " Ths vi.g. in mystic language, the female sexual paits." " Isis Osiris, of a The second may be from Kuo^ropiS, -id- e. Hveir 7topiiSKOv(Sa, though the theogonists derive it from the island of Cyprus. Sc/ioi. Ven. on the Iliad, v. 458. Hesiod : Theogony. The third is commonly derived from a^/iro.?, the foam of the sea, from which she is fabled to have sprung but the name is older than the fable, and doubtless received from some other language. It is perhaps from the Sanskrit, faradesa, a garden or beautiful woman or from Dis, the masculine of Dione. "'Strabo: viii. 506. "In the same temple with Zeus, or Jupiter, was also the simulacrum of Dione." fig-leaf, i. both foi the king and southern climate, which fig-leaf is interpreted to mean the generating and fecundating of the universe, for it seems to have some resemblance to the sexual parts of a '™^'*' ; "^ EUSTATHIUS; On Homer. " The barley-corn, denoting the vulva among the writers upon the Bacchic ko'"^^^^- Clement: Exhortations, iii. " A species of oysters in sympathy with the moon." There was a notion entertained in ancient times that shell-fish had some secret The lect. and figure also signifies the vulva." beindn, Kteis gtmakeios (woman's comb), which is, to speak with a '"Plutarch: They make a it first may be from the vevb Suidas explaining Bsivoi or BiroS to be the name of a goddess; and the name Venus only differs from it in a well-known variation of dia- 'Ikt City oj God, of Aiexandria: .£.j:/;i;>?-- euphemism, and - sympathy ; or relation 7S .'?^^ Venus. Aphrodite. Ancient Art and Mythology. 29 propriate ministers and companions of Venus,"'' who was, however, afterward attended by the Graces, the proper and original attendants of Juno '" but as both these goddesses were occasionally united and represented in one image, "" the personifications of their respective subordinate attributes might naturally be changed. Other attributes were ou other occasions added, whence the symbolical statue of Venus at Paphos had a beard, and other appearances of virility,'*" which seems to have been the most ancient mode of representing the celestial as distinguished from the popular goddess of that name; the one being a personification of a general procreative power, and the other only of animal desire or concupiscence. The refinement of Grecian art, however, when advanced to maturity, contrived more elegant modes of distinguishing them and, in a celebrated work of Pheidias, we find the former represented with her foot upon a tortoise, and in a no less celebrated one of Scopas, the latter sitting upon a goat.'™ The tortoise, being an androgynous animal, was aptly chosen as a symbol of the double power, and the goat was equally appropriate to what was meant to be expressed in the other. 45. The same attribute was on other occasions signified by the dove or pigeon,'" by the sparrow,"' and perhaps by the polypus, which often appears upon coins with the head of the goddess, and which was accounted an aphrodisiac,'"' though it is likewise of the androgynous class. The fig was a still more common symbol, the statues of Priapus being made of the tree,'"' and the fruit being carried with the phallus in the ; ; '=' Pausanias. ii. in womanly robes, with the sceptre and height of a man." '" "^^ Cesnola Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this city, is a bust, life-size, of this charac'"> liolding ^patera on one hand, and the mystic dove on the other. A. W. 160 Pausanias Eliac. ii. c. 25, s. 2. but clothed 4. '" Iliad, xiv. Bryant's Translation. " Do what I ask thou shall have from me a wedded spouse; And , ?hinef Pasithea, long." whom , — thou hast desired so : Pausanias: ^^^//7/a of ,, ^°""'^" C;r/«//2. xvii. 6, "The "'Plutarch: Isis Greeks made "The Hera (Juno) was seated on a : ; "' Macrobius: iii, 34. Venus of Cyprus The " is Osiris. dove the sacred animal of Aphrodite, the serpent of Athena, the raven of Apollo, and the dog of Artemis, or Diana." "* Eustathius On Homer. " The throne of prodigious size, made of gold and ivory, the work of Polykleitus. Upon it was a crown, having the Graces and the Hours wrought on it and in her hands she bore a pomegranate and a sceptre." 158 Pausanias: Laconia^ xiii. 6. " They called the ancient xoanon^ "stock," or wooden representation of Aphrodite, Hera." of the and the apart to Aphroits fecundity, and its burning salacity, the same reason for which the dove is assigned to the Aphrodite of mythology." "^ Athen^us : Deipnosophista, ii. sparrow dite, figure is set by reason of 23. "• bearded, 81 Horace: Satires, i. viii. 30 The Symbolical Language of ancient processions in honor of Bacchus,"' and still continuing, among the common people of Italy, to be an emblem of what it ancientl}' meant whence we often see portraits of persons of that country painted with it in one hand, to signify Hence, also, arose their orthodox devotion to the fair sex. the Italian expression, /ar la fica, which was done by putting the thumb between the middle and fore fingers, as it appears or by putting the in many Priapic ornaments now extant linger or the thumb into the corner of the mouth, and drawing it down, of which there is a representation in a small Priapic figure of exquisite sculpture engraved, among the Antiquities : ; of fferculaneum}"' THE CROSS AND ROSARY. 46. The key, which is still worn, with the Priapic hand, as an amulet, by the women of Italy, appears to have been an emblem of similar meaning, as the equivocal use of the name of it, in the language of that country, implies. Of the same kind, too, appears to have been the cross in the form of the letter tau, attached to a circle, 7-, which many of the figures of .(Egyptian deities, both male and female, carry in the left-hand and by which the Syrians, Phoenicians, and other inhabitants of Asia, represented the planet Venus, worshipped by them as the emblem or image of that goddess.'" The cross in this form is sometimes observable on coins, and several of them were found in a temple of Serapis, demolished at the general destruction of those edifices by the emperor Theodosius, and were said by the Christian antiquaries of that time to signify the future life.'" In solemn sacrifices, all the Lapland idols were marked with it from the blood of the victims "" and it occurs on many Runic monuments found in Sweden and Denmark, which are of an age long anterior to the approach ; of Christianity to those countries, and, probably, to " "' Plutarch: Love of Wealth, vii. The country-feast of the Dionysia was anciently celebrated popularly and with merry-malcing. One carried an amphora of wine and clematis; then one led a goat another followed carrying a basket of dried figs, on which was a phallus." ; "" Bronzi, tab. xciv. It is to these obscene gestures that the expressions oi figging and biting the thumb, which Shakespeare probably took from translations of Italian novels, seem to allude see i Henry ; IV, act act v. sc. 3, 3.ndJ!omeo i. sc. i. Another old its ap- and fuliet, who wriier, probably understood Italian, calls the \tM.t\ giving the fico ; and, according toils ancient meaning, it might very naturally be employed as a silent re proach of effeminacy, "^ ii. Proclus: Pamphr. Ptokm, lib, p. 97. See also MiCHAEL Angelo: la Chausse, part ii. no. xxxvi. fol. De 62, and Jablonski: Panth. ALgypt. lib. ii. c. vii. s. 6. "' SuiDAS in v. Taurus. "' Sheffer: Lapponic. c. x. p. 112. Ancient Art and Mythology. 31 On some of the early coins of the Phoenicians, we find it attached to a chaplet of beads placed in a circle, so as to form a complete rosary, such as the Lamas of Thibet and China, the Hindus, and the Roman Catholics, now tell over while they pray.'" and a 47. Beads were anciently used to reckon time circle, being a line without termination, was the natural emblem of its perpetual continuity whence we often find circles of beads upon the heads of deities, and enclosing the sacred Perforated symbols upon coins and other monuments.'" beads are also frequently found in tombs, both in the northern and southern parts of Europe and Asia, which are fragments of the chaplets of consecration buried with the deceased. The simple diadem, or fillet, worn round the head as a mark of sovereignty, had a similar meaning, and was originally confined to the statues of deities and deified personages, as we Chryses, the priest of find it upon the most ancient coins. Apollo, in the Iliad, brings tlie diadem, or sacred fillet, of the god, upon his sceptre, as the most imposing and inviolable emblem of sanctity but no mention is made of its being worn by kings in either of the Homeric poems, nor of any other ensign of temporal power and command, except the royal staff or sceptre. ^ pearance in the world."" ; : ; THE MYRTLE AND OTHER EMBLEMS. 48. The myrtle was a symbol both of Venus and Neptune, the male and female personifications of the productive powers of the waters, which appears to have been occasionally employed in the same sense as the fig and fig-leaf,"° but upon what account, it is not easy to guess. Grains of barley may have been adopted from the stimulating and intoxicating quality of the liquor extracted from them,"* or, more prob- from a fancied resemblance to the object, which is much heightened in the representations of them upon some coins, where they are employed as accessory symbols in the same manner as fig-leaves are upon others.'" Barley was also ably, '™ Ans. Rudbeckius: Atlant. p. ii. 662, and p. Ill, c. i. s. iii. Ol. Varellh: Scandagr. HuniCf'SiOKl.ASE: Hist. of Cornwall, p. io6. '" Pellerin: Villes. T. iii. pi. cxxii. Plutakch : Ids and Osiiis. " The denote drink- c. xi. p. fig-leaf is interpreted to fig. ing and motion (generation or gestaticn), and is supposed to resemble the male sexual organ." "* Herodotus: ii. 77 :" The drink Archaol. vol. 4. choff. s. ix. 2. NiIndian An- xvi. p. Maurice : of the Egyptians is a wine which they obtain from barley, as they have no vines in their country." "' EUSTATHIUS: also Coins of Gela, tiguiiies, vol. v. '^^ See Coins of Syracuse, lydia.. "" See Coins of Syracuse, Marseilles, etc. Leontium, and Selinus. Schol. in Aristoph. lysistr. 646. 83 The Symbolical Language of 32 thrown upon the altar, with salt, the symbol of the preserving at the beginning of every sacrifice, and thence denominated oulochutai."° The thighs of the victim, too, were sacrificed in preference to every other part, on account of the generative attribute, of which they were supposed to be the seat,"' whence, probably, arose the fable of Bacchus being nourished and matured in the thigh of Jupiter. power, 49. Instead of beads, wreaths of laurel, olive, myrtle, ivy, or oak, appear foliage, generally upon coins, of sometimes encircling the symbolical figures, and sometimes as chaplets All these were sacred to some particular pertheir heads. sonifications of the deity, and significant of some particular attributes, and, in general, all evergreens were Dionysiac plants ;"' that is, symbols of the generative power, signifying perpetuity of youth and vigor, as the circles of beads and diadems signified perpetuity of existence. Hence the crowns of on olive, etc., with which the victors in the Roman triumphs and Grecian games were honored, may properly be laurel, considered as emblems of consecration to immortalitj^, and not as mere transitory marks of occasional distinction. In the same sense, they were worn in all sacrifices and feasts in honor of the gods whence we find it observed by one of the guests at an entertainment of this kind, that the host, by giving crowns of flowers instead of laurel, not only introduced an innovation, but made the wearing of them a matter of luxury instead of devotion.'" It was also customary, when any poems sacred to the deity, such as those of a dramatic kind, were recited at private tables, for the person reciting to hold a branch of laurel in his hand,"" to signify that he was performing an act of devotion as well as of amusement. : THE AMAZONS, OR VOTARIES OF THE DOUBLE-SEXED DEITY. 50. The Scandinavian goddess Freya had, like the Paphian Venus, the characteristics of both sexes; "' and it seems prob1" '" EUSTATHIUS EUSTATHIUS On : " neys, and the fat that is upon them by the flanks and the caul above the the Iliad. They made a holocaust of the thighs, as being the : — A. W. "* Straeo:xv. " Megasthenes says that the worshippers of Dionysus displayed for emblems the wild figs and ivy, laurel, myrtle, the box, and other evergreens." "' Plutarcpi Symposiacs.: " Maklivei." honorable part, having taken them from the other parts of the animals, because they serve the animals in walking and in generation in emitting the semen." In the same manner the book of Leviticits prescribes the burning of " the fat and the whole rump by the backbone, and the fat that covereth : : ing the crown of pleasure, not of devotion." the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards and the two kid- ""• Aristophanes: '" Mallet Introduction .S4 : Clouds, 1364. History of Denmark. to, vii. Coins. Cyrene, Perinthos, etc. : Ancient Art and Mythology 33 Amazons arose from some symbolcomposition upon which the Greek poets engrafted, as they usually did, a variety of amusing fictions. The two passages in the Iliad, in which they are slightly mentioned, appear to us to be interpolations '" and of the tales which have been circulated in later times concerning them, there is no trace in either of the Homeric poems, though so intimately connected with the subjects of both. There were five figures of Amazons in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the rival works of five of the most eminent Greek sculptors "'' and notwithstanding the contradictory stories of their having placed the ancient statue of the goddess, and been suppliants at her altar,'" we suspect that they were among her symbolical attendants, or personifications of her subordinate attributes. In the great sculptured caverns of the island of Elephanta near Bombay, there is a figure, evidently symbolical, with a large prominent female breast on the left side, and none on the right a peculiarity which is said to have distinguished the Amazons, and given them their Greek name the growth of the right breast having been artificially prevented, that they might have the free use of that arm in war. This figure has four arms and of those on the right side, one holds up a serpent, and the other rests upon the head of a bull while of those on the left, one holds up a small buckler, and the It is probother, something which cannot be ascertained.'" able that, by giving the full prominent form of the female breast on one side, and the flat form of the male on the other, the artist meant to express the union of the two sexes in this emblematical composition which seems to have represented some great deity of the people, who wrought these stupendous caverns; and which, probably, furnished the Greeks with Hippocrates, however, their first notion of an Amazon. states that the right breast of the Sarmatian women was deable that the fable of the ical ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; stroyed in their infancy, to qualify them for war, in which they served on horseback and none was qualified to be a wife, till she had slain three enemies. This might have been the foundation of some of the fables concerning a nati'on of female warriors. The fine figure, nevertheless, of an Amazon in Lansdowne House, probably an ancient copy of one of those above mentioned, shows that the deformity of the one ; "' Homer: Iliad, iii. and Tii. Bryan t's Translation " When came the unsexed Amazons to war." " And then he slew— His third exploit— the man-like Ann- ^°°^-" Pliny ,\xxiv. 8. Pausanias: v. 30, and vu. : i85 87 NiEBUHR : Voyages, vol. I. ii. t.-ib. vi, The Symbolical Language of 34 breast was avoided by their great artists, though the bisexual character is strongly marked throughout, in the countenance, limbs, and body. On gems, figures of Amazons are frequent, wliom Hercules, Theseus, or Achilles, had overcome; but we have never observed any such compositions upon coins."" This character of the double sex, or active and passive to have been sometimes signified by 51. powers combined, seems the large aquatic snail or buccinum an androgynous insect, which we often find on the mystic monuments of the Greeks,"' and of which the shell is represented radiated in the hands of several Hindu idols,"" to signify fire and water, the princiThe ples from which this double power in nature sprang. tortoise is, however, a more frequent symbol of this attribute ; ; though it might also have signified another : for, like the ser- extremely tenacious of life every limb and muscle its sensibility long after its separation from the body."" It might, therefore, have meant immortality, as well as the double sex and we accordingly find it placed under the feet of many deities, such as Apollo, Mercury, and Venus "" and also serving as a foundation or support to tripent, it is ; retaining ; ; the term U/nathe Sanscrit or BhaSoona, the children of vani. This would imply their relation to the Thugs, which their title Oiorpata or man-slayers, would seem to corroborate. The Amazons are mentioned as occupying Northern Africa, to the extreme west, as overrunning Libya and One legend represents Cadmus as having married an Amazon, named Asia Minor, invading Thrace and several countries of Greece, and as constituting the Sauromatse on the river Tanais. Their country in Asia Minor was often called Assyria and they are reputed to have founded Ephesus, Smyrna, Cyma, Murina, Paphos, and other noted cities. Plato related that Eumolpus led them against Athens. Clement mentions this leader as one of the Shepherds and he is credited by Herakleitus with having instituted the Eleusinian Mysteries. Plato also mentions the Statue of the Amazon It Athens. The grouping and arranging of these legends affords opportu- probably Phcenician from Am, is mother, and Axon, or Adon, lord and tlieir occupation of various Moorish and Hamitic countries doubtless has '" E. Pococke derives Amazon from Uma ; reference to ; rites dess. nity for the solution. the institution of the and worship of the Mother godThey were called man-slayers, because they offered human victims to Diana.— A. W. '*' See silver Colne of Panormus and Segesta, and brass of Agrigentura in ; at The probabilities are, therethe Amazons were priestIndeed, Calli esses of the goddess. machus states that the queen of the Amazons had daughters, known as the Peleiades, who were the first to institute the circular dance and tV& pannyThe designation chis or watch-night. Sphinx. fore, that Sicily. "' See Sonnerat's, and other collections of '*" Hindu jElian Idols. De : Animal., lib. iv. c. xxviii. The Amazon 190 Athens was the Goddess Artemis or 138. "Diana Plutarch: Conjugal Precepts, "Pheidias made the Aphrodite of the Elians standing on a tortoise, as a symbol to women keeping at of the Ephesians," identical with the Mother Goddess Anaitis, Astarte and Isis, whose worship was brought into Greece by the Shepherds. home and silence." Pausanias 88 : v. 25. " The agalma of Ancient pods, pateras, ligious rites. Art and Mythology. and other symbolical 35 employed utensils in re- Hence, in the figurative language of the poets and theologists, it might have been properly called the support of the Deity ; a mode of expression, which probably gave rise to the absurd fable of the world being supported on the back of a tortoise which is still current among the Chinese and Hindus, and to be traced even among the savages of North America.'" The Chinese have, indeed, combined and thus the tortoise with a sort of flying serpent or dragon made a composite symbol expressive of many attributes.'" ; ; THE COW-SYMBOL. At Momemphis cow was the symMnevis and Apis were of The the male personifications at Heliopolis and Memphis.'" Phoenicians employed the same emblem '" whence the Cadmeians are said to have been conducted to the place of their settlement in Boeotia by a cow, which pointed out the spot for building the Cadmeion or citadel of Thebes, by lying down to This cow was probably no other than the rest upon it.'"" symbolical image of their deity, which was borne before them, till fixed in the place chosen for their residence to which it gave the name of Thebes Theba in the Syrian language 52. Venus bol of in ./Egypt, a sacred [or Isis], as the bulls ; ; ; signifying a cow.'"" Hence we may perceive the origin of the Bacchus being born at Thebes for that city, being called by the same name as the symbol of nature, was easily confounded with it by the poets and mythologists by which fable of ; ; Urania (the celestial Venus) is made of ivory and gold, and was the work of Pheidias. This statue stands with one foot on a tortoise. . . Another statue stands on a brazen goat, the But as to what work of Scopas. . is signified by the tortoise and the goat, I leave to such as desire to guess." . movement into and out of the cararepresented the acting Unga, whilst a front view indicated the same idea as the Hindu and Egyptian 'eye,' viz.; the Arba-Il, or four-fold pace creator." ^'^'^'L.kyyykv "' KiRCHER Inman: Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, i\. -p. iZl. 187, col. " Where we notice its appearance and remark the frequency with which it protrudes its head from the shell, thus changing its look of repose with the utmost rapidity to one of energy and also action, we shall readily see why the Mo;ursdes Sauvages,\. : 90. ''' "'' ii. eund. ; lib. p. xvii. 536, lib. xi. c. p. See 552. and .(Elian: Z>e 27. Porphyry : On Abstinence, lib. p. 158. '•* Pausanias ; ix. p. in Aristoph. Frogs, \2%b. animal was said to be sacred to Venus, and why it is symbolic of regenera- morph. the like. The tion, tortoise, from the configuration of its head and neck, as well as their rapid "Theba among immortality, and Illustrata, p. 2. Strabo Anim. China : ''* 773. Schol. OYlv.Meta- Scholia in Lycophror, v. 1206. the Syrians signifies a cow." See also Etymologicum Magnum. The Symbolical Language of 35 means the generator Bacchus, the first-begotten Love, and primary emanation of the all-pervading Spirit, became a deified mortal, the son of a Cadmsean damsel. 53. The cow is still revered as a sacred symbol of the '"' and deity, by the inhabitants of the Gold coast of Africa whom there among is more particularly by the Hindus scarcely a temple without the image of one and where the attribute expressed by it so far corresponds with that of the Grecian goddess Venus, as to be reputed the mother of the God of Love. It is also frequently found upon ancient Greek coins "' though we do not find that any public worship was ever paid it by that people but it appears to have been held sacred by all the African tribes adjoining Egypt, as far as the ; ; ; ; : Tritonian Lake;'"" and Gyrene were among whom settled at the Greek colonies of B area an early period. In the Scandi- navian mythology, the sun was fabled to recruit his strength during winter by sucking the white cow Adumbla, the symbol of the productive power of the earth, said to have been the primary result of warmth operating upon ice, which the ancient nations of the north held to be the source of all organised being.''"" On the Greek coins, the cow is most commonly represented suckling a calf or young bull ""' who is the mystic god Epaphus, the Apis of the .^Egyptians, fabled by the Greeks to have been the son of Jupiter and lo."" ; 54. As men improved in the practice of the imitative arts, they gradually changed the animal for the human form preserving still the characteristic features, which marked its symbolical meaning. Of this, the most ancient specimens now extant are the heads of Venus or Isis (for they were in many respects the same personification),"" upon the capitals of one of the temples of Philse, an island in the Nile between ^gypt and .(Ethiopia and in these we find the horns and ears of the cow joined to the beautiful features of a woman in the prime ; ; '" Hist. G^n. des Voyages, T. iii. whom they worship both with fasts The Barcsean women abstain not from cow's flesh only, but also from the flesh of swine." p. and 392. "" See those of Dyrrachium, Cor- cyra, etc. '»» Herodotus: iv. 186. "Thus Olaus Rudbeckius n, v. p. 235, and vi. p. »»» from Egypt as far as Lake Tritonis, Libya is inhabited by wandering tribes (nomades) whose drink is milk, and their food the flesh of animals. festivals. p. : Atlantis, 455. See Coins of Dyrrachium and Parium. '"'' Euripides Phomicians, 688. *"' Cow's : however, none of these tribes ever taste, but abstain from it for the same reason as the Egyptians, neither do any of them breed swine. Even at Cyrene the women think it wrong to eat the flesh of the cow, honoring in this Isis, the ^Egyptian goddess, '"^ flesh, Plutarch : Isis and Osiris. 53. " For Isis is the Female and receptive principle of generation, as by Plato and many others she is called nurse and niyrionumos, from having, in a word, innumerable forms and semblances." 90 lo at Canopus. Discord on Olympos. Art and Mythology. Ancient 37 In the same manner the Greek sculptors of the ages of the art represented lo,'" who was the same goddess confounded with an historical or poetical personage by the extravagant imaginations of the Greek mythologists as of life.''" finest ; Her name seems have there being no obvious etymology for but, in the ancient Gothic and Scanit in the Greek tongue dinavian, lo and Gio signified the earth as Isi and Isa signified ice, or water in its primordial state; and both were we shall further show come from the north in the sequel. to ; ; ; equally titles of the goddess, that represented the productive and nutritive power of the earth and, therefore, may afford a more probable etymology for the name Isis, than any that has hitherto been given.""" The god or goddess of Nature is however called Isa in the Sanskrit,"" and many of the Egyptian symbols appear to be Indian but, on the contrary, it seems equally probable that much of the Hindu mythology, and, as we suspect, all their knowledge of alphabetic writing, as well as the use of money, came from the Greeks through the Bactrian and Parthian empires the sovereigns of both which appear to have employed the Grecian letters and language in ; ; ; all their public acts.''"" SUN-WORSHIP AND THE DOCTRINE OF EMANATION. The .Egyptians, 55. god and as the being in their who dwelt hymns to Osiris, invoked that °°'' concealed in the embraces of the sun ,• Greek writers speak of the great and nourisher of all things, the rider of the world, the first of the deities, and the supreme Lord of all mutable or perishable beings."" Not that they, any more than the .Egyptians, deified the Sun considered merely as a mass of luminous or fervid matter but as the centre or body, from which the pervading Spirit, the original producer of order, fertility, and organisation, amidst the inert confusion of space and matter, still continued to emanate through the system, to several of the ancient luminary itself as the generator' ; 20^ "" NoRDEN ^gypt. Herodotus ii. 41. are : " : The em- Isis is that of a woman having cow's horns as the Greeks make blem of lo." or enclosures of Isis ; of : ™* Ol. xviii. fanes which they call one Pelasgian and one Egj'ptian, and two of Serapis, as he is called in Canopus." ™* Pausanias Laconia, c. xii. s. 3. & Rudeeck: Atlaniica, p. XX. p. 854, p. II, 214, 340, & 451. Edda c. V. p. Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 52. "In the sacred hymns of Osiris, they called upon the One hidden in the *»' i, c. 208- Snorron. Myth. : iv. embrace of the sun." Sakoontala. There were two goddesses of the name of Isis worshipped in Greece, the one Pelasgian and the other .(^igyptian, before the Pantheic Isis of the latter ages. Pausanias Corinth, iv. 7. " There -"' Orphic Fragments. " Sun, the Father of all." Sophocles CEdiptis Tyrannus, 660 ^'" : " The god Hallos, chief of all the gods," "the royal sun which feedeth all." and 1424. : 93 " The Symbolical Language of 38 preserve the mighty structure which it had formed.^" This primitive pervading Spirit is said to have made the sun to guard and govern all things,"' it being thought the instrumental cause, through which the powers of reproduction, implanted in matter, continued to exist for without a continued emanation from the active or male principle of generation, the passive or female principle, which was derived from it, would of itself become exhausted. 56. This continued emanation, the Greeks personified into two distinct personages, the one representing Celestial Love, or attraction, and the other, animal love or desire, to which the ^Egyptians added a third, by personifjang separately the great fountain of attraction, from which both were derived. All the three were, however, but one, the distinctions arising merely out of the metaphysical subtilty of the theologists, and the extravagant allegories of the poets, which have a nearer resemblance to each other than is generally imagined. 57. This productive asthereal spirit being expanded through the whole universe, every part was in some degree impregnated with it, and therefore every part was, in some measure, the seat of the deity, whence local gods and goddesses were everywhere worshipped, and consequently multiplied without end. " Thousands of the immortal progeny of Jupiter," says Hesiod, " inhabit the fertile earth, as guardians to mortal men." "'' An adequate knowledge, either of the number or attributes of these, the Greeks never presumed to think attainable, but modestly contented themselves with revering and invoking them whenever they felt or wanted their assistance."' If a shipwrecked mariner were cast upon an unknown shore, he immediately offered up his prayers to the gods of the country, whoever they were,"' and joined the inhabitants in ; Plutarch '^'i Roman : Questions: and Orphic Fragments. ^'* Orphic Fragments, xxv. '"'Hesiod: Weeks and Days, \22. 2" Philemon Fragments. " Revere and worship God seeli not to know more ^thou needest seek nothing : ; ; further." Menander GodJ /-, . IS, desire known '" "Who Fragments. : Homer: .. .1 , 1, ; 445. "Hear me, oh king, whoever thou art." particular merit pertained to the use of foreign and antique titles of the deities. The Samothracians used a Oi/wj-fi', v. A sacred language. Egyptian and Assyrian dialects, as being ancient and cognate languages of their own." The Oracle of Zoroaster a.\%o commanded as follows: " Never change barbarous names ; For there are names in every nation given ,, J * desire not to learn they who to know what may not be are impious. . that " the gods are well pleased with invocations addressed to them in the lamblichus declared from God, Having unspeakable erncacv " ^he Orphic worshipper: „^,^ ^h^^e ,.-, . . the ,, Mys- fllme'; hymn also instructs the ,, .u u ,.,., "' ° Address each godhead by his mystic name: Full well the Immortals all are pleased to ThekTecret names prayer." 94 m teries rise in the muttered Ajicient Art and Mythology. 39 whatever modes of worship they employed to propitiate them,"" concluding that all expressions of gratitude and submission must be pleasing to the Deity; and as for other expressions, he was not acquainted with them, cursing, or invoking the divine wrath to avenge the quarrels of men, being unknown to the public worship of the ancients. The Athenians, indeed, in the fury of their resentment for the insult offered to the mysteries, Alcibiades was ; commanded but she had the the priestess the priestess to curse spirit to refuse, saying, of prayers, and not of that she airses."'' LIBERALITY AND SAMENESS OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS. liberal and humane spirit still prevails those nations whose religion is founded in the same principles. " The Siamese," says a traveller of the seventeenth century, " shun disputes, and believe that almost all religions When the ambassador of Louis XIV. asked are sood.""' their king, in his master's name, to embrace Christianity, he replied, " that it was strange that the king of France should interest himself so much in an affair which concerned only God, whilst He, whom it did concern, seemed to leave it Had it been agreeable to the Creawholly to our discretion. tor that all nations should have had the same form of worship, would it not have been as easy to his Omnipotence to have created all men with the same sentiments and dispositions, and to have inspired them with the same notions of the True Religion, as to endow them with such different tempers and inclinations Ought they not rather to believe that the true God has as much pleasure in being honored by a variety of forms and ceremonies, as in being praised and glorified by a number of different creatures } Or why should that beauty and variety, so admirable in the natural order of things, be less admirable, or less worthy of the wisdom of God in the supernatural ? " "' "They 59. The Hindus profess exactly the same opinion. would readily admit the truth of the Gospel," says a very learned writer, long resident among them, "but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Shastras. The Deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times in many parts of this 58. The same among .'' ^'^ Homer "' Plutarch : Odyssey, : iii. Roman Questions, " An execration is a fearful and grievous thing. Wherefore, the priest44. ess at Athens was commended fusing to curse Alkibiades '"' Journal du Voyage de Siam. '" Voyage de Siam, for re- when people required her to do it : for she said that she was a priestess for prayer and not for cursing." the 95 lib. v. ; The Symbolical Language of 40 world, and of all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures and though we adore him in one appearance, and they in others, yet we adore, they say, the same God to whom our several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable, if ; ; they be sincere in substance." ''^° The Chinese sacrifice to the spirits of the air, the mounand the rivers while the Emperor himself, sacrifices to the sovereign Lord of Heaven, to whom these spirits are subThe sectaries of ordinate, and from whom they are derived."' Fohi have, indeed, surcharged this primitive elementary worship with some of the allegorical fables of their neighbors but still as their creed, like that of the Greeks and Romans, remains undefined, it admits of no dogmatical theology, and, of course, of no persecution for opinion. Obscene and sanguinary rites have, indeed, been wisely proscribed on many occasions but still as actions and not as opinions™ Atheism is said to have been punished with death at Athens; but nevertheless, it may be reasonably doubted, whether the atheism, against which the citizens of that republic expressed such fury, consisted in a denial of the existence of the gods for Diagoras, who was obliged to fly for this crime, was accused of revealing and calumniating the doctrines taught in the Myste""' ries and, from the opinions ascribed to Socrates, there is reason to believe that his offense was of the same kind, though he had not been initiated. 61. These two were the only martyrs to religion among the ancient Greeks, except such as were punished for actively vio60. tains ; ; ; ; lating or insulting the Mysteries, the only part of their worship which seems to have possessed any vitality; for as to the popular deities, they were publicly ridiculed and censured with impunity, by those who dared not utter a word against the very populace that worshipped them "* and, as to forms and ceremonies of devotion, they were held to be no otherwise important, than as they constituted a part of the civil government of the state the Pythian priestess having pronounced from the tripod; that whoever performed the rites of his religion according to tlie laws of his country, performed them in a manner : ; pleasing to the Hence the Romans made no alterations any of the conquered countries Deity.'''''' in the religious institutions of -"Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 274. --' Du Halde: •'- lAV^: Histoiy,xxyiix.<). vol. i. p. 32. Seethe and wor- proceedings against the rites shippers of Bacchus at Rome. 2'^ Tatian : ; See the /';ww//;tv« of jEschylus, -'' and the Plains and Frogs of Aristophanes, which are full of blasphemies the former serious, and the latter comic or rather farcical, ; '" AdGrcEc. Xenophon: iii. s. 06 i. Memorabilia,X\\> i.e. Ancient Art and Mythology. 41 but allowed the inhabitants to be as absurd and extravagant and even to enforce their absurdities and extravagances, wherever they had any pre-existing laws in their favor. An Egyptian magistrate would put one of his fellowsubjects to death for killing a cat or a monkey ^'^' and though the religious fanaticism of the Jews was too sanguinary and violent to be left entirely free from restraint, a chief of the synagogue could order any one of his congregation to be whipped for neglecting or violating any part of the Mosaic as they pleased, Ritual.'" The principle underlying the system of Emanations things were of one substance from which they were fasiiioned, and into which they were again dissolved, by the operation of one plastic spirit universally diffused and expanded.'"" The polytheist of ancient Greece and Rome candidly thought, like the modern Hindu, that all rites of worship and forms of devotion were directed to the same end, though in different modes and through different channels. ''Even they who worship other gods," says Krishna, the incarnate Deity, in an ancient Indian poem, " worship me, although they know it not." "' 62. was, that WHY all ; DIVINE HONORS WERE PAID TO ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 63. By this universal expansion of the creative Spirit, every production of earth, water, and air, participated in its essence which was continually emanating from, and reverting back to its source in various modes and degrees of progression and regression, like water to and from the ocean. Hence not only men, but all animals, and even vegetables, were supposed to be impregnated with some particles of the Divine nature from ; ; which their various qualities and dispositions, as well as their powers of propagation were thought to be derived. These appeared to be so many different emanations of the Divine power operating in different modes and degrees, according to '^« Tertullian: Apol. c. Ocean breeds beneath its marble surThey all possess a fiery potency, and in their seed is a celestial piin- xxiv. '" See Acts of the Apostles, v. 40. '-8 Aristotle Metaphys. i. 3, c. iii. Virgil: Aineid, vi. 724-734. " First face. : ciple, of the Inmost Spirit sustains the heaven and Earth and Ocean, the illuminated orb of the Moon, and the Titanical Stars [planets] and the Mind, diffused through all the members, gives emergy to the whole frame and mingles ; itself — so far as they are not clogged by noxious bodies, their limbs impeded by earthy substance, and all their members moribund. Hence they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice nor do they, thus enclosed in darkness and a gloomy prison, behold the heavenly all, ; intimately with the great body, air." Thence proceed the race of men and beasts, and the living souls of birds, and the monstrous brutes which the See also Plutarch, in Rom. et Cicero: ^^' De Divinit. lib. Bhagavat -Gita ix. , 97 ii. c. p. 76 4g. : The Symbolical Language of 42 the nature of the substances with which they were combined whence the characteristic properties of particular animals and plants were regarded, not only as symbolical representations, but as actual emanations of the Supreme Being, consubstantial with his essence, and participating in his attributes.^" For this reason, the symbols were treated with greater respect and veneration, than if they had been merely signs and characters of convention and, in some countries, were even substituted as objects of adoration, instead of the Deity whose attributes ; they were meant to signify. where va64. Such seems to have been the case in ^Egypt rious kinds of animals, and even plants, received divine honors concerning which much has been written, both in ancient and modern times, but very little ascertained. The Egyptians themselves would never reveal anything concerning them, as long as they had anything to reveal, unless under the usual ties of secresy wherefore Herodotus, who was initiated, and consequently understood them, declines entering into the subject, and apologises for the little which the general plan of his work has obliged him to say.^" In the time of Diodorus Siculus the priests pretended to have some secret concerning them but they probably pretended to more science than they really possessed, in this, as well as in other instances for Strabo, who was contemporary with Diodorus, and much superior to him in learning, judgment, and sagacity, says that they were mere sacrificers without any knowledge of their ancient philosophy and religion.^^^ The symbolical characters called hieroglyphics, continued to be esteemed more holy and venerable than the conventional signs for sounds but though they pretended to read, and even to write them,"" the different explanations which they gave to different travellers, induce us to suspect that it was all imposture and that the knowledge of the ancient hieroglyphics, and consequently of the symbolical meaning of the sacred animals, perished with their Hierarchy under the Persian and Macedonian kings. "° We may indeed ; ; ; •^'''^ ; : ; '™ Proclus : ''^ Theology of Plato, pp. 65 : " The animals which exist in Egypt, whether domesticated or otherwise, are all regarded as sacred. If I was to explain why they are consecrated to the several gods, I would be led to speak of sacred matters, which I particularly shrink from mentioning the points on **' Herodotus: Diodorus have a secret them." 56, 57. ii. ^^' Strabo: : i. 96 : " Their priests doctrine concerning xvii. p. 806. °^'^ See the curious inscription in honor of Ptolemy V. published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1803. '^^' The discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and the researches of Champollion, Bunsen, and other able savaas ; which I have touched slightly hitherto have all been introduced from sheer have disproved necessity." that 9S the this, and demonstrated concealing of the sacied ; Ancient safely conclude that all quests and Art and Mythology. 43 which they told of the extensive con- immense empire of Sesostris, etc., was entirely fic- Palestine must from its situation have been among the first of those acquisitions and yet it is evident from the sacred writings, that at no time, from their emigration to their captivity, were the ancient Hebrews subject to the kings of iEgypt whose vast resources were not derived from foreign conquests, but from a river, soil, and climate, which enabled the labor of few to find food for many, and which consequently left an immense surplus of productive labor at the disposal of the state or of its master."" tion since ; ; ; IMPROBABIUTY OF THE NED-PLATONIC INTERPRETATIONS. early as the second century of Christianity, we find new system had been adopted by the iEgyptian priesthood, partly drawn from the writings of Plato and 65. As that an entirely other Greek and Oriental sages, and partly invented among themselves. This they contrived to impose, in many instances, upon Plutarch, Apuleius, and Macrobius, as their ancient creed and to this lamblichus attempted to adapt their ancient allegories, and Hermapion and HorapoUo, their symbolical sculptures; all which they very readily explain, though their explanations are wholly inconsistent with those given to Herodotus, Diodorus, and Germanicus which are also equally inconsistent with each other. That the ancient system should ; ; have been lost, is not to be wondered at, when we consider Deuteronomy meaning of the hieroglyphics was but a part of the obligation of those understanding them. A. W. ''^^ Herodotus ii. 14. The conclusion of Mr. Knight is hardly tenable. The Egyptian sculptures and papyri contain numerous memorials of the conquest of Northern Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Hamath, Carchemish, and Naharayn, or Mesopotamia, and even Ninevah and Media. Six thousand years ago naval battles occurred between the Egyptians and the nations beyond the Mediterranean and thirty-six centuries ago an invasion of Egypt by the confederated armies of Libya and Europe was repulsed. The recentne.ss of the Hebrew manuscripts must weaken their None of them are a thouevidence. sand years old; and their compilation hardly antedates the period of the Maccabees, or the Persian conquests, Yet they mention {Exodus xxiii. 28, vii. 20, and Joshica xxiv. 12) the ^y^V tzirah, hornet or plague, that overcame the Amorites, Hittites, and other populations of Palestine; and the Egyptian records term the Hyk-sos or Shepherds " the scourge" or "plague" who were driv. en by Aah-mosis and Thoth-mosis into Syria. (See The Nation, York, for May 13, i86g.) Josephus, in his first treatise against Apion, distinctly asserts that the ancestors of the Israelites (meaning the Hyk-sos) once had dominion over the Egyptians; and Professor J. P. Lesley, declaring the earlier Jewish legends unhistorical, adds that " nothing prevents us from 11, — : New Hebrews of the Monarchy as descendants of the Hyk-sos race," Certainly "unhistorical" legends should not be employed, as Mr. Knight has employed them, against monumental records. A. W. identifying the — 99 The Symbolical Language of 44 the many revolutions and calamities, which the country suffered during the long period that elapsed from the conquest of it by Cambyses to that by Augustus. Two mighty mon- archs of Persia employed the power of that vast empire to destroy their temples and extinguish their religion and though the mild and stately government of the first Ptolemies afforded them some relief, yet, by introducing a new language, with new principles of science and new modes of worship, it tended perhaps to obliterate the ancient learning of .^gypt, as much as either the bigotry of their predecessors, or the tyranny of ; their successors. dd. It is probable that in .^Egypt, as in other countries, zeal and knowledge subsisted in inverse proportions to each other hence those animals and plants, which the learned respected as symbols of Divine Providence acting in particular directions, because they appeared to be impregnated with particular emanations, or endowed with particular properties, might be worshipped with blind adoration by the vulgar, as the real images of the gods. The cruel persecutions of Cambyses and ; Ochusmust necessarily have swept off a large proportion of the former class whence this blind adoration probably became general different cities and districts adopting different animals ; ; same manner as those of modern Europe put themselves under the protection of different saints, or those of China under that of particular subordinate spirits, supposed to act as mediators and advocates with the for their tutelar deities, in the supreme God."' AUGURY AND VATICINATION. 67. From the system of emanations came the opinion so prevalent among the ancients, that future events might be predicted by observing the instinctive motions of animals, and more especially those of birds which, being often inexplicable from any known principles of mental operation, were supposed to proceed from the immediate impulse of the Deity. The skill, foresight, and contrivance, which many of them display in placing and constructing their nests, is wholly unaccountable; and others seem to possess a really prophetic spirit, owing to the extreme sensibility of their organs, which enables them to perceive variations of the state of the atmosphere, preceding a change of weather, long before they are perceptible to us."' The art of interpreting their various ; "' Du Halde: ii. ''^s p. 49. Virgil : Georgics, MIAN. Marcellin. 100 i. lib. vxi. Am- 415. c. I. ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 45 and actions seems to have been in repute during the Homeric times, but to have given way, by degrees, to the flights oracular temples which naturally acquired pre-eminence by affording a permanent establishment, and a more lucrative trade, to the interpreters and deliverers of predictions. 68. The same ancient system that produced augury, produced Oracles for the human soul, as an emanation of the Divine Mind, was thought by many to be in its nature prophetic, but to be blunted and obscured by the opaque incumbrance of the body through which it, however, pierced in fits of ecstasy and enthusiasm, such as were felt by tlhe Pythian priestesses and inspired votaries of Bacchus."^" Hence proceeded the affected madness and assumed extravagance of those votaries, and also the sanctity attributed to wine which, being the means of their inspiration, was supposed to be the medium of their communion with the Deity to whom it was accordingly poured out upon all solemn occasions, as the pledge of union and bond of faith whence treaties of alliance and other public covenants were anciently called Spondaiox libations. Even drinking it to intoxication was in some cases an act of devotion "" and the vine was a favorite symbol of the deity, which seems to have been generally employed to signify the generative or preserving attribute °" intoxicating liquors being stimulative, and therefore held to be aphrodisiac. The vase is often employed in its stead, to express the same idea, and is usually accompanied by the same accessory symbols."^ 61). It was for the same reason, probably, that the poppy was consecrated to Ceres, and her statues crowned with it "" and that Venus was represented holding the cone of it in one hand, while the other held an apple, and the nokoi or modius decorated her head;"" for the juice of the poppy is stimulative and intoxicating to a certain degree, though narcotic when taken to excess. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; •m Plutarch • The Failure of the drunkenness, except at festivals and of wine set apart to the deity." "' See Coins of Maronea, Soli Nax- Oracles. Bacchcs. " The Bacchic impulse, and the manias contain much of the prophetic power. When the God entereth the body, he causeth the raving ones to speak." Plato : Phccdrus, 43. " The soul is in some measure prophetic." '^^'' Seleucus from the Deipnosophisice: ii. 3 ; also Diogenes LaerTius:iii. 39: " He (Plato) said that it was becoming for no one to drink to Euripides : : us, etc. ''^^ See Coins of Thebes, Haliartus, Hipponium, etc. ^''^ " Cereale Virgil : papaver." See Coins of Seleucus IV. °-^ made Pausanias : Corinth, x. 4. " He the bust of Aphrodite, sitting * * having on the head the polos of gold and ivory, and in one hand a poppy-head, and in the other an apple." T03 The Symbolical Langtiage of 46 PROPHETIC ECSTASY. 70. By yielding themselves to the guidance of wild imag- and wholly renouncing common sense, which evidently acted by means of corporeal organs, men hoped to give the celestial faculties of the soul entire liberty, and thus to penetrate the darkness of futurity in which they often believed themselves successful, by mistaking the disordered wanderings of a distempered mind for the ecstatic effusions of ination, ; supernatural perception. This sort of prophetic enthusiasm was sometimes produced, or at least supposed to be produced, by certain intoxicating exhalations from the earth as was the case at Delphi where the design of setting up an oracle was first suggested by the goats being observed to skip about and perform various extravagant gesticulations, as often as they approached a certain fissure in the rock.°" It is said ; ; by some Hyperboreans, and principall)"° but priest and prophet of Apollo there as far back as any certain tradi- to have been founded by the bard Olen, a women ofiiciated tions could be traced : ; they having, probably, been preferred on account of the natural weakness of the sex, which rendered them more susceptible of enthusiastic delirium, to promote which, all the rites practiced before the responses were given, particularly tended."' Figures holding the poppy in one hand and the patera in the other, are upon the medals of Tarentum and Locri, in Italy. The laurel was also supposed to have a stimulative and intoxicating quality, and therefore to be the proper symbol for the god of poetry and prophecy. "' Plutarch : The Failure of the Oracles. •i46 Pausanias: x. 5. "' The oracles doubtless originated from the belief that as the human soul was the emanation or offspring of the deity, it possessed a faculty of communication with the higher powers, capable of being cultivated or developed, The to the function of seership. JMysteries seem to have been con- ducted on this hypothesis countries, there have and in all been persons be capable of comprehend; reputed to ing the purposes of the Deity. Among the Israelites the prayer of Abraham was supposed to heal the household of Abimelech ; and a succession of prophets to preserve the nation was believed to have continued from Moses till the later periods, and rules were given for knowing their genuineness {Deuteronomy,ii.\\\\. 15-22 and xiii. 1-5, also Hosea, xii. 13). When Balak the king of Moab brought Balaam to the hill of Peor and high-places of Baal to curse Israel, the changing of the purpose of the prophet by the Lord, appears to have been regarded as necessaiy to prevent possible calamity. It is very singular, however, that after Samuel had been the judge or chief magistrate till he was old, and might be supposed to have acquired a wide reputation in that capacity, Saul and his servants should seek from him in his character of seer or man of God, with a fee, to learn whether to go in quest of fugitive animals. The designation amphi or om-phe was applied to the oracles, whence the onipha-el of the temple at Delphi was termed by the Greeks who interpreted by sound rather than sense the omphalos or navel-stone of the world, 104 Rhea. Ceres. AphroditCj Hermes, Herakles, Athena, and Apollo. Ancient Art and Mythology. The 71. inspiring exhalation was 47 at first attributed to the Earth only; then to the Earth in conjunction with Neptune These were, or the Sea; and lastly to Apollo or the Sun.'" however, only diflferent modifications of one cause, always held to be unalterably the same, though supposed to act, at difierent times, in different ways, and by different means. This cause was Jupiter, the all-pervading spirit of the universe, who had the title of All-prophetic,'" because the other deities presiding over oracular temples were merely personifications of his particular modes of action.^'" The Pelasgian, or rather Druidical oracle of Dodona, the most ancient known, immediately belonged to him ; the responses having been originally delivered by certain priests, who pretended that they received them from the oaks of the sacred grove ;"' which, being the largest and strongest vegetable productions of the North, were employed by the Celtic nations as symbols of the supreme God;''" whose primary emanation, or operative the symbol of the Mother Goddess. The priestess or alma at Delphi was sometimes called Pythoness, from the serpent Python, the representative of Apollo he in turn was called Amphianax or king of the oracle. The Supreme Council or Parliament of the twelve nations of the Greeks was called Amphictyonic, either because its decrees were regarded as sacred or from being held at the place of the oracle. Hermes was styled Pompseus, as the messenger of God of the oracle and the city of Campania now celebrated for its magnificent ruins, was evidently so designated as a holy city, or place of oracles. The Pompeian pillars and columns of Hercules are therefore identical. The use of the term nymp/ie, or its derivations to designate young women, brides, the marriage chamber, the lotus flower {Nymphcea Nelumbo) the nymphaa or oracular temples (firemountains) and the labics minores of the human female, illustrates the fact that to femininity there was supposed to pertain a peculiar divine virtue. Women were supposed to be more receptive of the divine afflatus and the symbols of their sex participated in the veneration and sanctity. Oracles existed where the Mother Goddess ; ; ; was worshipped, who indeed was named Nympha. The name of the place of the oracle of Python-Apollo was called Delphi from delphus^ the womb, which fact is ; — meaning. A. W. "* Pausanias: lib. x. ''*' Panomphaios. ''° See Pindar Olymp. : Lucan has expressed 107 viii. 58, ancient mystic dogma in the language of the Stoics and modified it to their system, according to the usual practice of the Syncretic sects. Pharsalia, v. 93 Forsan terris inserta regendis Acre libratum vacuo quse sustinet orbem, Totius pars magna Jovis Cirrh^a per this ; : antra Exit, et aetherio trahitur connexa Tonanti. Hoc ubi virgineo conceptum est pectore numen, Humanam animam feriens sonat, oraque vatis. Solvit. See also Ammian. Marcellin : xxi. c. I. '" Homer Iliad, xvi. Bryant's Translation " Dodonian Jove, Pelasgian, sovereign : : king. Whose dwelling is afar, and who dost rule Dodona winter-bound, where dwell thy priests. The Selh, with unwashen Upon the ground " feet, who sleep ! ^'^ further illustrated spirit, by the circumstance that the pythoness was supposed to derive her mystical gift by the inhaling of an exhilarating gas, or vapor from a cleft or fissure in the ground, a cunnus diaholi. The Egyptians denominated the interpreter of oracles, Peter and the names Orpheus, Pompeius, Ampelus, and perhaps Patrick, may have a similar Maximus Tyrius : Dissertation, The Symbolical Laiigziage of 48 seems to have been signified by the mistletoe which grew from its bark, and, as it were, emanated from its substance whence probably came the sanctity attributed to the plant. 72. Such symbols seem once to have been in general use; for among theA^ulgar, the great preservers of ancient customs, they continued to be so down to the latest periods of Heathen" The shepherd," says Maximus Tyrius, " honors Pan ism by consecrating to him the high fir and deep cavern, as the husbandman does Bacchus by sticking up the rude trunk of Art and refinement gradually humanised these a tree.""" primitive emblems, as well as others; but their original meaning was still preserved in the crowns of oak and fir, which distinguished the statues of Jupiter and Pan, in the same manner as those of other symbolical plants did those or other personi: fications."" 73. The sanctity, so generally attributed to groves by the barbarians of the North, seems to have been imperfectly transmitted from them to the Greeks for the poets, as Strabo observes, call any sacred place a grove, though entirely destitute of trees;"" so that they must have alluded to these obsolete symbols and modes of worship. The Selloi, the priests of Dodona, mentioned in the Iliad, had disappeared, and been replaced by women long time before Herodotus, who relates some absurd tales, which he heard in .^Egypt, concerning their having come from that country.'" The more prompt sensibil: 8. The rude trunk was the "stock" so often denounced in the Old Testament. A. W. *'^ See ibid. also Pliny; ii. p. 79 Germany. Even I., and Tacitus viii. — ; : as late as the eighth century of Christianity, it was enacted by Luitprand, king of the Lombards, that whoever paid any adoration or performed any incantation to a tree, should be punished by fine. Paul, DiACON.: De Leg. Longohard. *'* See heads of Jupiter of Dodona on the coins of Pyrrhus. '^''Strabo: iv. "The poets dig- nify them, calling all the s.icred enclosures groves, even though bare of trees." "'Herodotus: ii. 54, 55. "The following tale is told in Egypt concevning the oracle of Dodona in Greece, and that of Amun in Libya, My informants on the points were priests of Zeus (Amun) in Thebes. They said that two of the sacred * women were Thebes by once carried the Phoenicians , oft' and from that the story went that one of them was sold into Libya, and the other into Greece, and these women were the first founders of the oracles in the two countries.' . At Dodona the women who deliver the oracles relate the matter as follows Two black doves flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and while one directed its flight to Libya, the other came to them. She alighted on an oak, and sitting there began to speak with a human voice, and told them that on the spot where she was, there should thenceforth be an oracle of Zeus. . . The dove which went to Libya bade the Libyans to estab" lish there the oracle of Amun.' The oak of Dodona indicates the kinship of Druidism with the ancient Pelasgian worship. R. Payne Knight suggests that the story of the doves probably arose from the mystic dove on the head of Dione, as Juno or Aphrodite was anciently denominated . : ' Dodona. Sir G. Wilkinson remarks that " the two doves appear to connect this tradition with the Phoenician at 108 Ancient Art and Mythology. 49 was more susceptible of enthusiastic emoand consequently better adapted to the prophetic office, which was to express inspiration rather than convey meanity of the female sex tions, ing. ENTHUSIASTIC FRENZY AT THE RELIGIOtrS ORGIES. 74. Considering the general state of reserve and restraint lived, it is astonishing to what an excess of extravagance their religious enthusiasm was carried on certain occasions particularly in celebrating the Orgies of Bacchus. The gravest matrons and proudest princesses suddenly laid aside their decency and their dignit)^, and ran screaming among the woods and mountains, fantastically dressed or half-naked, with their hair dishevelled and interwoven with ivy or vine, and sometimes with living serpents."' In this manner they frequently worked themselves up to such a pitch of savage ferocity, as not only to feed upon raw flesh,'"' but even to tear living animals with their teeth, and eat them warm and palpitating."''" in which the Grecian women ; Astarte, who appears to be the Baaltis or Dione of Byblus." He thinks that the origin of the oracle would not have been attributed to a foreigner unless there had been some foundation for the story and says that " it may refer to the sending out and establishing an oracle in the newly-discovered West (Europe), through the Phoenicians, the merchants and explorers of those days, who were in alliance with Egypt, supplied it with many of the productions it required from other countries, and enabled it to export .ts manufactures in their ships."— A. W. ; "' Plutarch Alexander. '" Scholiast upon ApoUonius Kho: dius, i. 636. Julius Iiikmucius c. 14. Clement of Alexandria: Exhortatioin. Arnobius: v. '''' : The intelligent reader perceives the superficiality of the popular notion that Bacchus or Dionysus was but the god of wine and drunkenness, and that the Orgies or secret religious rites, were all occasions of revelling and debauchery. His worshippers in Thrace, the Orpheans, were ascetics and devotees, like the Gymnosophists of India. The Bacchus of ancient worship was an Asiatic divinity, identical with Atys, Adonis, Osiris, and probably with Maha Deva of India and in the Grecian pantheon he appears to be a foreigner, like Hercules. As Zagreus, the son of Zeus by the Virgin Kore-Persephoneia or Demeter, afterward born anew as the son of Semele, he seems to illustrate the metempsychosis. He was probably identical with Baal-Peor, the Moabite divinity, and the deity commemorated by the Israelites in the " Baalim " or priapic statues, often of wood, which were set up with the " groves " or symbols of Venus-Astarte, " on every high hill and under every green tree." Maachah, the queen-mother, who presided over the orgies, was deposed from regal rank by King Asa for making a mephallitzcth, or phallic manikin, for an ashera, or oviphale (i Kings, ; XV. 13, and Herodotus, ii. 48). The nocturnal rites, consisted of dances, mystical processions, and searches after the mutilated body of the divine youth. orgies, works, or See NoNNUs: iv. 273. He brought to light the Evian rites Of the Egyptian Bacchus, the orgies of '^ Osiris. He taught the iuitiations at the Mysteries at night and witli voice disguised, chanted to the Bacchante a Magian Held He ; hymn, Making a loud wail." 109 TIte Symbolical 50 Language of 75. The enthusiasm of the Greeks was, however, generally of the gay and festive kind; which almost all their religious rites tended to promote.'"" Music and wine always accompanied devotion, as tending to exhilarate men's minds, and assimilate them with the Deity to imitate whom was to feast and rejoice: to cultivate the elegant and useful arts; and thereby to give and receive happiness.^" Such were most of the religions of antiquity, which were not, like the ^Egyptian and Druidical, darkened by the gloom of a jealous hierarchy, which was to be supported by inspiring terror rather than by conciliating affection. Hence it was of old observed, that " the Egyptian temples were filled with lamentations, and those of the Greeks u,ith dances ; " '" the sacrifices of the former being chiefly expiatory, as appears from the imprecations on the head of the victim ^" and those of the latter almost always propitiatory or gratulatory.^" Wine, which was so much employed in the sacred rites of the Greeks, was held in abomination by the .(Egyptians, who gave way to none of those ecstatic raptures of devotion which produced Bacchanalian frenzy and oracular prophecy '°^ but which also produced Greek poetry, the parent of all that is sublime and elegant in the works of man. The poetry of Delphi and Dodona does not seem, indeed, to have merited this character but the sacerdotal bards of the first ages appear to have been the polishers and methodisers ot that language, whose copiousness, harmony, and flexibility afforded an adequate vehicle for the unpaiallelled effusions of taste and genius, which followed. 76. Oracles had great influence over the public counsels of the different states of Greece and Asia during a long time; and as they were rarely consulted without a present, the most celebrated of them acquired immense wealth. That of Delphi was so rich, when plundered by the Phocians. that it snablea ; ; ; : These rites are mentioned in the Bible under the designation of " The Mourning for the Only-Begotten.'* They were celebrated in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece. Olympias, the mother of Alexander, like Maachah, was a priestess, or " sacred woman," and used to boast that the god was the father of her son. The funeral of Abel-mizraim (Cf/zfj-w 1. appears to have been taken for Jacob at observance. —A. W. 11), this Euripides: Electra, 193. Strabo X. "'* Apuleius Genius of Socrates, ^gyptiaca numiiium fana plena plangoribus, GrjEca plerumque choreis. ^"* '*' : : ''" Herodotus : ii. 3g. *" Expiatory sacrifices were occasionally performed by individuals, but seem not to have formed any part of the establislied worship among the Greeks hence we usually find them mentioned with contempt, PLATO T/ie Republic, ii. 7. " Ped; : ler-priests (agurlai), also prophets, fre- quent the houses of the rich, professing that they have a power from the gods of expiating, by sacrifices and chantings, in the midst of hilarity and feasting, whatever injustice has been committed by any one or his ancestors." '''" PLUTARCH : Isis and Osiris, 6. Ancient Art and Mythology. 51 them to support an army of twenty thousand mercenaries upon double pay during nine years, besides supplying the great sums employed in bribing the principal states of Greece to support or permit their sacrilege.^"' Too great eagerness to amass wealth was, however, the cause of their falling into discredit it having been discovered that, on many occasions, those were most favored who paid best "" and, in the time of Philip, the Pythian priestess being observed to be as much under the influence of Macedonian gold as any of his pensioned ; ; JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY. 77. The Romans, whose religion, as well as language, was a corruption of the Greek, though immediately derived from the Etruscans, revived the ancient mode of divination by the flights of birds, and the motions and appearances of animals offered in sacrifice but though supported by a College of Augurs, chosen from the most eminent and experienced men in the Republic, it fell into disregard, as the steady light of human Another mode, however, of science arose to show its fallacy. exploring future events arose at the same time and, as it was founded upon extreme refinement of false philosophy, it for a long time triumphed over the common sense of mankind, even during the most enlightened ages. This was judicial astrology ^ a most abject species of practical superstition, arising out of something extremely like theoretical atheism. ; ; The great active principle of the universe, though perby the poets, and dressed out with all the variable attributes of human nature, was supposed by the mystic theologists to act by the permanent laws of pre-established rule, and not by the fluctuating impulses of anything analogous to the human will the very exertion of which appeared to them to imply a sort of mutability of intention, that could only arise from new ideas or new sentiments, both equally incompatible with a mind infinite in its powers of action and perception for, to such a mind, those events which happened yesterday, and those which are to happen during the immeasurable flux of time, are equally present, and its will is necessarily that which is, because all that is arose from its will. The act that gave existence, gave all the consequences and effects of existence; 78. sonified ; ; '" DiODORUS SicuLus; loving race." xvi. 37. Antigoni, Sophocles io6. " The mantian office is of a money'*' See also Herodotus: vi. : °" Ill Demosthenes : Philippics. ; The Symbolical Langttage of 52 which are therefore equally dependent upon the First Cause, and, how remote soever from it, still connected with it by a regular and indissoluble chain of gradation so that the movements of the great luminaries ot heaven, and those of the smallest reptiles that elude the sight, have some mutual relation to each other, as being alike integral parts of one Great Whole. 79. As the general movement of this Great Whole was supposed to be derived from the first Divine Impulse, which it re: ceived when constructed, so the particular movements of each subordinate part were supposed to be derived from the first impulse, which that particular part received, when put into motion by some more principal one. Of course the actions and fortunes of individual men were thought to depend upon the first impulse, which each received upon entering the every subsequent event was produced by some The moall were really produced by the first. ment therefore of every man's birth being supposed to determine every circumstance of his life, it was only necessary to find out in what mode the celestial bodies, supposed to be the primary wheels of the universal machine, operated at that moment, in order to discover all that would happen to him afterward. 80. The regularity of the risings and settings of the fixed stars, though it announced the changes of the seasons and the orderly variations of nature, could not be adapted to the capricious mutability of human actions, fortunes, and adventures wherefore the astrologers had recourse to the planets whose more complicated revolutions offered more varied and more extended combinations. Their different returns to certain points of the Zodiac; their relative positions, and conjunctions with each other; and the particular character and "* aspect of each, were supposed to influence the affairs of rren whence daring impostors presumed to foretell, not only the destinies of individuals, but also the rise and fall of empires, and the fate of the world itself."" 81. This mode of prediction seems to have been originally world ; for, as preceding one, : ; '*' The poet Dryden believed in JuAstrology and it is said computed the horoscope of his son in infancy,which was actually accomplished, iSIr. William L. Stone, in tire Atlantic Monthly for February, 1871, gives " a Chapter of Modern Astrology," in which are recorded several remarkable dicial ; instances of successful divining, late Doctor Noah Stone of Guilford, Connecticut, who had learned the art from books written by Albubater, JaWhy son Pratensis, and Paracelsus. not accept the declaration of Hamlet A. W. to Horatio ? ^"^ Baillie Discours sur PAsirol- — : ogie. by the 112 Ancient Art and Mythology. 55 Chaldsean, and to have been brought from Babylon by the Greeks together with the little astronomy that they knew,"' but the Chaldaeans continued to be the great practitioners of it and by exciting the hopes of aspiring individuals, or the fears of jealous tyrants, contrived to make themselves of mischievous importance in the Roman Empire;"" the principles of their pretended science being sufficiently specious to obtain credit, when every other of the kind had been exploded. The Greeks do not seem ever to have paid much attention to it, nor, indeed, to any mode of prediction after the decline of their oracles:"' neither is it ever mentioned amongst the superstitions of the ancient Egyptians, though their creed certainly admitted the principle upon which it is founded."* It is said to have been believed by only a certain sect among the Chaldaeans "° the general system of whose religion seems to have been the same as that of most other nations of the Northern Hemisphere; and to have taught the existence of an universal pervading Spirit, whose subordinate emanations diffused themselves through the world,"' and presented themselves in different places, ranks, and oflSces, to the adoration of men who, by their mediation, were enabled to approach the otherwise inaccessible light of the Supreme and Ineffable First Cause."' ; ; ; ^"Herodotus: ii. log: "The sunhowever, and the gnomon with the division of the day into twelve parts, were received by the Greeks from the Babylonians." The Chaldaeans, or Magians, first a conquering and civilising nation, appear to have constituted the learned and probably the sacerdotal caste of Babylonia and the neighboring coun- dial, The name Zoroaster, Zerdusht, or Zerathustra, which is applied to tries. appears to have been a designation of the sacred their traditional leader, college, or of its president, as by Pompey, extended over the enempire. The Mithraic rites superseded the Mysteries of Bacchus, and became the foundation of the Gnostic system, which for many centuries prevailed in Asia, Egypt, and even the remote West. Julius Caesar was assisted by a " Chaldaean " in reforming the Calendar. A. W. '"'' See TACITUS : Ann. ii. c. 32, xii. c. 52, and Hist. i. c. 22 Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax ; also Plin. lib. xxx. c. I. tire it Roman — : "' Pindar: Olymp. '"' Zadok, or Zedek^ was of the head of the sacerdotal family in Judea, and Rabbi, or Rab Mag, of the chief of the college at Babylon. The Jewish Kabala, or traditions, appear to have been derived from their religious opinions and legends, and were revived in Judea by the Casideans, or Asideans, better known afterward as Pharsi (PerThe peculiar sians or Pharisees). form of this religion, known as Mithraism, was introduced into Pontus by Artabazes, the satrap, from which country, after its conquest "3 Herodotus : ii. xii. 10. 82. ^^ Strabo lib. xvi. "' Brucker: Hist. ; c. 2. Crit. Philos.'i. Fons omnium spirituum, cujus essentiam per universum mundum tanquam animam diffusam esse, etc. non Chaldaea tantum et iEgyptus sed universus fere gentilismus vetustissimus — credidit. Evang. ^" See also EusEB. : Prcep, iv. c. 5. Brucker: Ibid. regem Summum uni- in luce inaccessibile habitare, nee adiri posse nisi mediantibus spiritibus mediatoribus, universi fere versi Orientis dogma fuit. ; The Symbolical Langviage of 54 SEXUAL RITES AT THE TEMPLES. 82. Like the Greeks, they honored these subordinate emanations, and gave them names expressing their different offices and attributes; such as Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel, etc.; which the Jews having adopted during the captivity, and afterward engrafted upon the Mosaic system, they have still retained their primitive sanctity. The generative or creative attribute seems to have held the highest rank but it was not adopted with the others by the Jews: for as the true Creator had condescended to become their national and peculiar God, they naturally abhorred all pretenders to his high ; office. 83. At Babylon, as in other countries, the attribute was divided into two distinct personifications, the one male, and the other female, called Bel and Mylitta by the Assyrians and Zeus and Aphrodite by the Greeks but as the latter people subdivided their personified attributes and emanations much more than any other, the titles of their deities cannot be supposed Bel, or, to express the precise meaning of those of Assyria. as the Greek write it, Belos, was certainly the same title, differently pronounced, as the Baal of the Phoenicians, which signified lord or master; and Mylitta seems to have been in all respects the same as the Aphrodite or Venus of the Greeks she having been honored with rites equally characteristic and appropriate. The Babylonian women of every rank and condition held it to be an indispensable duty of religion to prostitute themselves, once in their lives, in her temple, to any stranger who came and offered money which, whether little or much, was accepted, and applied to sacred purposes. Numbers of these devout ladies were always in waiting, and the stranger had the liberty of choosing whichever he liked, as they stood in rows in the temple no refusal being allowed."" similar custom prevailed in Cyprus, Armenia, and 84. : ; ; A Herodotus: 199. The same custom existed '"' i. in Arin Palestine, as menia, Phiygia, and well as in Carthage and Italy. It prevailed also among the Israelites during the monarchy, and was probably a feature of the worship of Peor and the Golden Calf of the Exodus. The Hebrew prophets describe the idolworship by all the characteristics of prostitution and the kadesliim and kadeshuth, or men (semi-males) and women devoted to temple-service, and ; especially to minister to the pleasures of the worshippers, were as common in the Holy Land as among the nations around. For such a character a " sacred woman," or priestess, Judah mistook his daughter-in-law, Tamar (Genesis, xxxviii. 15) ; and in the reign King Rehoboam and his queen Maachah, a priestess of the orgies, they abounded in all parts of the country. Josiah found them at the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, as and well as at the " high places " of 114 ; Ganymedes and Eagle. .^•r-'^-''?-lr>'' Angel Raphael. Ancie7it probably in many Art and 55 it being, as Herodotus obmankind, except the Greeks and other countries serves, the practice of all Mythology. ; ^Egyptians, to take such liberties with their temples, which, they concluded, must be pleasing to the Deity, as birds and animals, acting under the guidance of instinct, or by the immediate impulse of Heaven, did the same.^°° The exceptions he might safely have omitted, at least as far as relates to the Greeks for there were a thousand sacred prostitutes kept in each of the celebrated temples of Venus, at Eryx and Corinth who, according to all accounts, were extremely expert and assiduous in attending to the duties of their profession '"' and it is not likely that the temple, which they served, should be the only place Dionysius of exempted from being the scene of them. Halicarnassus claims the same exception in favor of the Romans, but, as we suspect, equally without reason for Juvenal, who lived only a century later, when the same religion and nearly the same manners prevailed, seems to consider every temple in Rome as a kind of licensed brothel."" 85. The temples of the Hindus in the Dekkan possessed their establishments they had bands of consecrated dancing-girls, called the Women of ihe Idol, selected in their infancy by the priests for the beauty of their persons, and trained up with every elegant accomplishment that could render them attractive, and assure success in the profession which they exercised at once for the pleasure and profit of the priesthood. They were never allowed to desert the temple and the offspring of their promiscuous embraces were, if males, consecrated to the service of the Deity in the ceremonies of his worship; and, if females, educated in the profession of their mothers."'' : ; ; : ; ; ; Hosea, referring to Nuper enim, ut of °'= p,,,, '^f , Pacis, 'ir,Tf et advectK secreta palatia mains, Et Cererem (nam quo non prostat femina this peculiar form Mylitta-worship, declared that ^ 1 J Samaria loved a rewardJ at^ every The prophets Jeremiah, corn-floor. Ezekiel, Hosea, and Micah are specific and unequivocal in asserting that the lewd rites in Palestine were precisely like those of the nations around them. A. W. -™ Herodotus: ii. 64. • — repeto, fanum w Isidis et templo ?), Notior Aufidio mcechus celebrare solebaa. ''^^ MAURICE ; Antiq. Ind. vol. i. pt. i, p. 341. See Asiatic Researches, vol. I. 166, Diodorus Sicu- and Inman's Ancient Faiths Embraced in Ancient Names, vol. ii. p. 168. An Arabian who travelled in pe- Thiswas the Phoenician Astarte, that as Venus Erycina was especially worshipped by the Roman women, who ninsular India, in the ninth century, women as follows: " There are in India (in the Dekkan) public women called Devadasi, or vo- '"' LUS: StrABO: viii. iv. every first of April made a phallephoric procession to her temple. (See Ancient Symbol -Worship, p. 26.) *32 JuvEN.tL r Satire, 22. "9 mentions these of the deity. When a woman has made a vow for the purpose of having offspring, if she brings into the world a pretty daughter, she carries the child to Bod {moie properly Maha taries The Symbolical Language of 56 THE NIGHT-GODDESS. 86. Night being the appropriate season for these observances, and being also supposed to have some genial and nutritive influence in itself,^" was personified, as the source of all things, the female productive principle of the universe,'"' which the jSlgyptians called by a name that signified Night. '°° Hesiod nights belong to the blessed gods, as it is then dreams descend from Heaven to forewarn and instruct men."' Hence night is called eiiphrone {good, or benevolent) hy the ancient poets and to perform any unseemly act or gesture in the face of night, as well as in the face of the sun, was says, that the that ; accounted a heinous offense.'" This may seem, indeed, a contradiction to their practice but it must be remembered that a free communication between the sexes was never reckoned criminal by the ancients, unless when injurious to the peace or pride of families and as to the foul and unnatural debaucheries imputed to the Bacchanalian societies suppressed by the Romans, they were either mere calumnies, or abuses introduced by private persons, and never countenanced by public : ; authority in any part of the world. Had the Christian socities sunk under the first storms of persecution, posterity might have believed them guilty of similar crimes of which they were equally accused by witnesses as numerous.""' We do, indeed, sometimes find indications of unnatural lusts in ancient sculptures but they were undoubtedly the works of private caprice or similar compositions would have been found upon coins which they never are, except upon the Spintrise of Tiberius, which were merel)' tickets of admission to the scenes of his private amusement.'''" Such preposterous appetites, ; : ; ; Devd), as they call the divinity whom they adore, and leaves her with him." This divinity is not now worshipped but the custom was rein that region ; tained by the Brahman conquerors. are called in the Tamul The women language Devadasi, which means women given lo God. The custom existed with the Dravidians of India, but with no other race. It is precisely the same as that of maintaining almas in the temples of Isis and A'rti/i'j'/iipM at the shrines of Astarte or Venus Erycina. The vow of Hannah, who dedicated her son, afterward the prophet Samuel, to the service of the Temple, in pursuance of a vow, will be remembered. He became a Nazir. The law prohibited the setting apart of men and women to the libidinous rites as was done elsewhere but the practice existed in that country, Israelitish ; See Deuterojwmy, xxiii. and 17, I /ww^j-j, xiv. 24. '** Diodorus Siculus: "* Orphic Hymn, ii. genesis of all things, call Cypris " (Venus), *"* Jablonski i.chap.i.87. : 2 : i. 7. " Night, the whom we also Egyptian Pantheon, Ather, ov Athor ; Coptic, Athorb. Works and Days, 730. Works and Days, li"]. '"' LiVY Histoiy of Rome, xxxix. Mosheim. 9. "° A writer in Old and New (Bos- Hesiod : '" Hesiod : '^'' : ton), for September, 1S74, endeavors Bakchik Ecstasy. ^^. ; Ancient Art ajtd Mythology. 57 though but too observable in all the later ages of Greece, appear to have been wholly unknown to the simplicity of the early times; they never being once noticed either in the Iliad, the: Odyssey, or th? genuine poem of Hesiod; for as to the lines in the former poem alluding to the rape of Ganymede, they are manifestly spurious. °°' 87. The Greeks personified Night under the title oi Leto, or Latona, and Baubb the one signifying oblivion and the other sleep, or quietude ^°" both of which were meant to express the unmoved tranquillity prevailing through the infinite variety of unknown darkness, that preceded the Creation, or first emanation of light. Hence she was said to have been the first wife of Jupiter,"" the mother of Apollo and Diana, or the Sun and Moon, and the nurse of the Earth and the stars."* The.ZEgyptians differed a little from the Greeks, and supposed her to be the nurse ; ; and grandmother of Horus and Bubastis, their Apollo and Diana;"" in which they agreed more exactly with the ancient naturalists, who held that heat was nourished by the humidity of night."" Her symbol was the Mygali or Mus Araneus, anciently supposed to be blind "" but she is usually represented, upon the monuments of ancient art, under the form of a large and comely ; woman, v/ith a vail upon her head.'" This vail, in painting, was aiwaj 3 black and in gems, the artists generally avail ; themselves cf a dark-colored vein in the stone to express it it being the same as that which was usually thrown over the symbol of the generative attribute, to signify the nutritive power of Night, fostering the productive power of the pervading Spirit; whence Priapus is called, by the poets, hlack"° cloakedj"^ The vail is often stellated, or marked with asterisks, "* with great ingenuity to vindicate Tiberius from these imputations, and to show that he was remarkable for his gentle and austere virtues. A. W. =*' HoiiER : Iliad, V. 265, and xx. " 230. TON. — ^'^ Plutarch: from PrcEparatio Evangelic, iii. Eusebius: " Night I. was Leto, from letho, to be oblivious, as those in a dream." Hesychius " Baubai, sleep bau: ; It is the same as to sleep." Iatiei7t in a different dialect. *" Homer Odyssey, xi. 579, " Leto, the illustrious spouse of Zeus." *'^ Hesychijs. The Jews have also ban, : a tradition of Lilith, the firct wife of Ad-im, by whom genii are produced and children bewitched. " Baubo, nurse of Demeter," Euripides: Electra. "Oh! sable Night, nurse of the golden stars." HERODOTUS, Macrobius ^^^ ; ii. 156. Saturnalia^ i. 23. Omnium autem physicorum assertione constat calorem humore nutriri." '" '^'s Plutarch : Symposiacs, iv. An- Liberal. Fab. xxviii. See medals of the Bretii, Sicilotas, : King Pyrrhus, etc. The animal symbol rarely occurs but upon a beautifully engraved gem, ; belonging to R. P. Knight, is the head of a Boar, the symbol of Mars the destroyer, joined to the head of a Ram, the symbol of Bacchus or Amun the generator upon which reposes a Dog, the symbol of Mercury, or presiding Mind and upon the back of the dog is the Mygale, the symbol of Latona, ; ; or Night. ''' MoscHUS Epitaph. Bion. yiEXay xI^<^t-v 01 rs TLpir^icoi. : ^"^ See medals of Syracuse. 27 — — The Symbolical Language of 58 is occasionally given to all tlie personiiications of the generative attribute, whetiier male or female °°' and likewise to portraits of persons consecrated, or represented in a sacred or sacerdotal character, which, in such cases, it invariably s:g- and ; nifies.=" HORUS AND TYPHON. 88. The ^Egyptian Horus is said to have been the son of Osiris and Isis, and to have been born while both his parents were in the womb of their mother Rhea "' a fable which means no more than that the active and passive powers of production joined in the general concretion of substance, and caused the separation or delivery of the elements from each other for the name Apollo is evidently a title derived from a ; : Greek verb, signifying that Horus, (or whatever deity) from ;^'"' and to deliver it is probable was the Egyptian name of had a similar meaning, it this being manifestly intended to of action of Osiris ^°' in the same title in the Latin tongue, signified a personified mode of action of the generator Bacchus.'" His statue at Coptos had the symbol of the generative attribute in his hand, said to be taken from Typhon, the destroying power "" and there are small statues of him now extant, holding the circle and cross, which seems to have been the symbol meant. Typhon is said to have struck out and swalsignify a personified mode ; manner as Liber, the corresponding ; from the New-Platonic and not from Ancient Egypt, ^o' See heads of Venus on the gold coins of Tarentum, silver of Corinth of Bacchus on those of Lampsacus.etc. ^"^ See medals of Julius Caesar, LiEgypt, via, the Queens of Syria and bust of Marcus Aurelius in the Townley collection, etc. 303 Plutarch : Isis and are school, '"* Apoltto, anciently written with the digamraa / or v, Apolufo. The endeavor to form an etymology for the deity-names Osiris, ^4. is not often satisfactory, especially in the Greek language. Plato attempted it with remarkably ill suc- " Nature produces the universe [cosmos] by becoming herself of like form and temper with the mental or interior property. The generating of Apollo [Horus] by Isis and Osiris, while those gods were yet in the womb of Rhea cess. Apollo, the sun-god, is the same as Abel or Bel the younger, the Assyrian and Phoenician divinity and doubtless, may be identified both with Horus of Egypt and Chri^na of India. hints to us that before this universe ; A. became visible {Hebrews xi. 3] and was completed by the higher Reason, matter being convinced by Nature that she by herself was incomplete, brought W 3°' " Plutarch : Isis and Osiris. He (Horus) is the terrcstr'al universe, was not the cosmos, but a kind of phantom or picture of the cosmos or neither altogether delivering from corruption nor generation." 306 'j-j,g adjective liber is from the Greek luvo; the upsilon being changed to i and the digamma to b. universe to be afterward." Plutarch's facts are well enough but his explanations and etymologies " In Coptos the statue of Horus has in the left hand the aidoia of Typhon." forth the first production. This divin- ity ""Plutarch: ; 124 Isis and Osiris, ^S. Art and Mythology. Ancient 59 "* whence the itinerant priests and Egyptian religion, under the Roman emperors, always appeared with this deformity "° but the meaning of this fable can not now be ascertained any more than that of the single lock of hair, worn on the right side of the head, both by Horus and his priests. lowed one of his eyes ; priestesses of the ; THE SOLAR SYSTEM ANCIENTLY KNOWN. 89. According to Manetho, the ^Egyptians called the load- stone, the bone of Osiris : "" by which it would seem that he represented the attractive principle which is by no means in; compatible with his character of separator and deliverer of the elements; for this separation was supposed to be produced by attraction. The Sun, according to the ancient system learnt by Pythagoras from the Orphic and other mystic traditions, being placed in the centre of the universe, with the planets moving round,^" was by its attractive force, the cause of all union and harmony in the whole, and by the emanation of its beams, the cause of all motion and activity in its parts. This system, so remote from all that is taught by common sense and ODservation, but now so fully proved to be true, was taught secretly by Pythagoras who was rather the founder of a religious order for the purposes of ambition, than of a philosophAfter a premature disical sect for the extension of science. covery had caused the ruin of him and his society, Philolaus, one of his disciples, published this part of his doctrines, and Aristarchus of Samos, openly attempted to prove the truth of ^'^ it for which he was censured by Cleanthes, as being guilty ; ; ™' Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 55. They relate that Typhon one while : " smote the eye of Horus, and at another while plucked it out and swallowed it, and afterward gave it back denoting by the blow to the sun the monthly diminution of the moon, and by the blinding of him its eclipse which the sun cures again by shininj presently upon it as soon as it hath escaped from the shadow of the earth." 309 Juvenal " Lusca sacerdos " In Mr. Knight's tht one-eyed priest. Collection was a bronze head of an Agyrtes having this deformity. ; : — Plutarch: /sis and Osiris, 62. They call the siderite-stone the bone of Horus, as Manetho asserts." '^"* " ^" Aristotle: Concerning Heaven, " The Italian savans, called 13. the Pythagoreans, declare the contra- ii. nwise ; they affirm that Fire is at the and that the earth and stars move round that centre in a circle, thus making Day and Night." The author of the trifling book on the Tenets of the Philosophers, falsely centre, attributed to Plutarch, understands the central fire, round which the Earth and planets were supposed to move, not to be the Sun in which he has ; been followed by Adam Smith and others but Aristotle clearly understands it to be the Sun, or he could not suppose it to be the cause of day and night neither could the Pythagoreans have been so ignorant as to attribute that cause to any other fire. This system is alluded to in an Orphic Fragment, and by Galen: Hist. Phil. ; ; xiii. "''Dutens: Dilcouvertes Attributes 125 The Symbolical Language of 6o of impiet}' "° but speculative theories were never thought impious by the Greeks, unless they tended to reveal the mystic doctrines, or disprove the existence of a Deity. That of Aristarchus could not have been of the latter class, and therefore must have been of the former though his accuser could not specify it without participating in the imputed criminality. The crimes of Socrates and Diagoras appear to have been, as before observed, of the same kind whence Aristophanes represents them attributing the order and variety of the universe to circular motion called Z^Z/z^^y and then humorously introduces Strepsiades mistaking this Dinos for a new god, who had expelled Jupiter."* Among the symbols carried in the mystic processions was a wheel "' which is also represented on coins; ''" probably to signify the same meaning as was expressed by this word. 90. The great system to which it alluded was, however, rather believed than known it having been derived from ancient tradition, and not discovered by study and observation. It was therefore supported by no proof; nor had it any other credit than what it derived from the mystic veneration paid to a vague notion, in some degree connected with religion, but still not sufficiently so to become an article of faith, even in the lax and comprehensive creed of Polytheism. Common observation might have produced the idea of a central cause of motion in the universe, and of a circular distribution of its parts which might have led some more acute and discerning minds to imagine a solar system, without their having been led to it by any accurate or regular progress of discovery and this we conceive to be a more easy and natural way of accounting for it, than supposing it to be a wreck or fragment of more universal science that had once existed among some lost and unknown people."' ; ; ; ; ; ; ; THE ANCIENT TEMPLE-CIRCLES, AND FIRE-WORSHIP. 91. Of this central cause, and circular distribution, the primitive temples, of which we almost everywhere find vestiges, appear to have been emblems for they universally con: aux Modemes and \ authorities there '" Plutarch : — Egyptians and Chaldeans possessed the knowledge of Concerning the Face in the Orb of the Moon, *'* ^" Ste'BKiiAAY.: Ifisluire de TAstroWilkinson is very nomie Ancienne. cited. explicit vi. that the the heliocentric system, and that they taught it to the savans of Greece. See Herodotus ii. chap. 7 of Appendix. Clouds, 826. '" Epiphanius. *" See medals of Phliasus, Cyrene, : A. Luceria, Vetulonia, etc. 126 W. Coins. Thunderboltj etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 6i of circles of rude stones in the centre of which seems to have been the symbol of the Deity. Such were the Pyraethea of the Persians,"' the Celtic temples of the North, and the most, ancient recorded of the Greeks; one of which, built by Adrastus, a generation before the Trojan war, remained at Sicyon in the time of Pausanias. It seems that most of the places of worship known in the Homeric times were of this kind; for though temples and even statues are mentioned in Troy, the places of worship of the Greeks consisted generally of an area and altar only."° 92. The Persians, who were the primitists, or Puritans of Heathenism, thought it impious or foolish to employ any more complicated structures in the service of the Deity "° whence they destroyed, with unrelenting bigotry, the magnificent temples of .iEgypt and Greece.'" Their places of worship were circles of stones, in the centre of which they kindled the sacred fire, the only symbol of their god for they abhorred statues, as well as temples and altars;"" thinking it unworthy of the majesty of the Deity to be represented by any definite form, or to be circumscribed in any determinate space. The universe was his temple, and the all-pervading element of fire his only representative whence their most solemn act of devotion was, kindling an immense fire on the top of a high mountain, and offering up in it quantities of wine, honey, oil, and all kinds of perfumes as Mithradates did with great expense and magnificence, according to the rites of his Persian ancestors, when about to engage in his second war with the Romans the event of which was to make him lord of all, or of nothing."' 93. These offerings were made to the all-pervading Spirit 01 the Universe (which Herodotus calls by the name of Zeus or Jupiter), and to his subordinate emanations, diffused through Sun and Moon, and the terrestrial elements, fire, air, earth, and water. They afterwards learned of the Syrians to worship sist : ; : ; ; ; '"« Pausanias vii. 22 and iv. Xsixevoi xat liooixoi." : 319 32" .. Herodotus : i.131. "They (the Persians) have no images of the gods, no temples or altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly. Their wont, however, is to ascend the summits of the loftiest mountains, and there to offer sacrifice to Zeus, which is the name they give to the whole circuit of the firmamen t. They likewise offer to the Sun and Moon, to the Earth, to Fire, to Water, and the Winds. These are the only gods whose worship has come down to them from ancient times. At a later period they began the worship of Urania which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess, whom the Arabians call Alitta (or Elissa), and the Persians, Mitra." In this account is no mention of the Ormazdean system, which all modem scholars consider as the ancient religion of Persia. A. \V. '" HERODOTUS. — **' '-' tes. 120 Strabo Appian : : xv. The War of Mithrada- — The Symbolical Language of 62 Venus; and by degrees adopted other superstitions from the Phoenicians and other neig-hboring nations who probably furnished them with the symbolical figures observable in the ruins of Persepolis, and the devices their Astarte, or celestial ; We must not, however, as Hyde and Anquetil of their coins. have done, confound the Persians of the First with those of the Second dynasty, that succeeded the Parthians; nor place any reliance upon the pretended Zend-Avesta, which the latter produced as the work of Zoroaster; but which is in reality nothing more than the ritual of the modern Ghebers or Parsees. That it should have imposed upon Mr. Gibbon, is astonishing; as it is manifestly a compilation of no earlier date than the eighth or ninth century of Christianity, and probably much later.=" 94. The Greeks seem originally to have performed their upon high mountains; from which new titles, and consequently new personifications, were derived; such as those of Olympian, Dodonasan, Idsean, and Casian Jupiter.'" They were also long without statues "' which were always considered, by the learned among them, as acts of devotion to the sethereal Spirit ; s" Mr. Knight, as well as Sir William Jones, appears to us too skeptical. The Avesta. is, to be sure, in many respects, an incomplete work, but it is obviously genuine. Despite the foibles and blunders of Anquetil du Perron and his teacher, the Destur talist, however, we think, will perceive Ahriman the Kissian or Susianian divinity Harmannu ; and in Dahaka, the ophite dynasty of Zohak the Arabian that for a long period held Baby- in and Darab, the labors of Burnous have successfully vindicated him and the Avesta, from the imputations made against them. The discovery that the Zend was one of the languages of the cuneiform inscriptions, also helped confirmation. this Sir Henry C. Rawlinson turned this fact to excellent account, translating a large portion of the inscriptions by means of this language. The dialect used in the Avesta, however, is many centuries older than that of the cuneiform writings. learn from the portions still in existence, somewhat of the schism that took place between the two great branches of the Aryan family, but not whether the Brahmans or the Mazdayasnians, were the chief instruments in the separation. read also of Ahriman, or rather Anra-Mainyas, as the Potentate of Evil, and of the Serpent or dragon-king Dahaka, as the minister of his will but the clew is not given, and we must ascertain it elsewhere. The well-informed orien- We We extending its sway to Media Armenia, and eastward to the Indus, and perhaps by way of Cashmere and the Punjaub, under the modified name of Takshaka, to the countries beyond the Ganges. With this explanation it will be seen that the war of the Two Principles was a poetic or mystical form of describing the contest of the Aryan and Hamitic (Turanlonia, ian ?) races the old Iranians, giving to the evil powers the names peculiar to the religion of their adversaries, as the Jewish Pharisees, copying from ; made the Hittite god Seth or Satan, and Baal Zebub of Ekron, their ruler of the demon tribes. In short, however, recently the them, may have been compiled and we think its genuineness sustained. The English translation of Avesta arranged, Prof. Spiegel's German Version, though often difiicult to understand, will satisfy most students, so far as it goes. A. ; 130 W. ^" Maximus Tyrius: Dissert, vii. '" Pausanias: viii. c. xxii. and lib, Poseidon. Ayicient Art and Mythology. 63 mere symbols, or the invention of human error to console human weakness."" Noma, who was deeply skilled in mystic lore, forbade the Romans to represent the gods under any form either of men or beasts °"' and they adhered to his instructions during the first hundred and seventy years of the nor had the Germans, even in the age of Tacitus, Republic renounced their primitive prejudices, or adopted any of the refinements of their neighbors on this subject. ; ''^° : SQUARE TEMPLE-ENCLOSURES, AND WORSHIP OF THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE. 95. In some instances, the circular area above mentioned is enclosed in a square one; and we are told that a square stone was the primitive symbol of several deities, more especially of the celestial Venus, or female productive power, both among the ancient Greeks and ancient Arabians.'"" Upon most of the very early Greek coins, too, we find an inverse or indented square, sometimes divided into four, and sometimes into a greater number of compartments; and latterly with merely the symbol of the Deity forming the device, in the centre. Antiquaries have supposed this incuse to be merely the impression of something put under the coin to make it receive the stroke of the die more steadily:"" but in all that we have seen of this kind, amounting to some hundreds, the coin has been driven into the die, and not struck with it, and the incuse impression been made either before or after the other, the edges of it being always beaten in or out. Similar impressions also occur on some of the little .^Egyptian amulets of paste, found in ^" SiOVHor'Ll.s: Aptid Justin tyr. ^'* cd Co/wri. Gent. -p. ^™ Maximus Tyrius: CLEMENT of Alexandria. Mar- 10. Plutarch Nmna. Varro InAzigustindiCiv.DH, " : While Mr. Knight denies the genuineness of the Avesta, he is ready enough to accept the legendary history of Rome. Yet it appears on its face to be what learned writers have asserted, a compilation or rather in- stones, thirty in number the Pharians worship them, calling each by the name of some divinity but more anciently, iv. 6. ; ; The tales of Romulus and Rsemus, the Sabine women, and other such stories, are probably no more valuable than the Numa, the history of King Arthur. and afterward among the Greeks, white stones received honors as symbols of the gods." Pausanias vention of later writers. Pythagorean sovereign is evidently a character borrowed from the Oriental and the resemblance of his Vv'orld name to Ntun or Kneph, the agathodcemon of Egypt is probably something more than an accident. A. W. ; — Pausanias Achaica, xxii. 3. There stood next the statue square : : "' xxxviii. : ^toVa, xiv. 2. "The statue of (Aphrodite) was four-square like the Hermaic pillars ; and the inscription declared the AphroditeUrania to be the most ancient of those called The Fates." *^' Abbe Barthelemi : Memoiresdt t Academic des Inscriptions, xxiv. 30. D'Ancarville Recherches sur Ut : Arts, 133 Book I. iv. The Symbolical Language of 64 mummies, which were never struck, or marlced with any ira pression on the reverse. 96. In these square areas, upon different coins almost every different symbol of the Deity is to be found whence, probably, the goddess, represented by this form, acquired the singular titles of the Flace of the Gods'^'' and the Mundane House of Horns™ These titles are both Egyptian but the latter is signified very clearly upon Greek coins, by an asterisk placed in the centre of an incuse square '" for the asterisk being composed of obelisks, or rays diverging from a globe or common centre, was the natural representation of the Sun; and precisely the same as the radiated head of Apollo, except that, in the latter, the globe or centre was humanised. Upon the ancient medals of Corinth and Cnossus, the square is a little varied, by having the angles drawn out and inverted ^" particularly upon those of the latter city, which show a progressive variation of this form from a few simple lines, which, becoming more complicated and inverted, produce at length the celebrated Labyrinth °" which Daedalus is said by the mythologists to have built for Minos, as a prison to confine a monster begotten upon his wife Pasiphae, by a bull, and therefore called the Minotaur. Pasiphae is said to have been the daughter of the Sun and her name, signifying all-splendid, is evidently an ancient epithet of that luminary. The bull is said to have been sent by Neptune or Poseidon °" and the title which distinguished the offspring is, in an ancient inscription, applied to At3's, the Phrygian Bacchus "* whence the meaning of the whole allegory distinctly appears; the Minotaur being only the ancient symbol of the bull, partly humanised to whom Mir os may have sacrificed his tributary slaves, or, more probtoly, employed them in the service of the Deity."" : ; ; ; ; ; : ; "' SiMPLlcius On Aristotle, HooV " Wherefore the Egyptians call IV. the Syrian A'argatis and Isis, 'The place of the gods,' as containing all the divinities." Plutarch explains that Osiris was the beginning, Isis the re: ^" Plutarch. Isis and Gruter : : vol. iii. I. i. p. — to x.wiii. 6. Atys, the scholars are Minotaur. ^^' Osiris, 56. is also Muth.and again they call her Athyri and Methyer. They imply by the first of these names, the Mother, and by the second the mundane house of Jlorus." '''* See small brass or bronze coins of Syracuse. '^' See Hunterian Museum. *^* Apollodorus ^^" " Atlidi Minotauro" ceptacle or intermediate, and Horus the ccmplement {Isis atid Osiris). " Isis ^^^ Modern classical disposed to make a distinction between the Roman divinity, " Neptune or the Sea," and the eastern god Poseidon: Sir H. C. Rawlinson, Sir. Gladstone, and other eminent writers, consider that although Poseidon was a Deity connected with the Sea, he was not an actual Sea-God. We learn from Homer and Herodotus, that he was See Hunterian Museum. I.i4 the chief god in the pantheon of Libya and Africa, and accordingly was a Hamitic rather than an Aryan divinity. He w.n.s also worshipped in Crete. Ancient Art and Mythology. 65 THE BULL-SYMBOL. 97. In the centre of one of the more simple and primitive labyrinths on the Grecian coins above cited, is the head of a bull "° and in others of a more recent style, the more complicated labyrinth is round."' On some of those of Camarina in Sicily, the head of the god, more humanised than the Minotaur, yet still with the horns and features of the bull, is represented in the centre of an indented scroll, '" vifhich other coins show to have been meant to represent the waters, by a transverse section of waves."' On the coins, too, of Magnesia upon the Meander, the figure of Apollo is represented as leaning upon the tripod, and standing upon some crossed and inverted square lines, similar to the primitive form of the labyrinth on the coins of Corinth above cited.'" These have been supposed to signify the river Meander: but they more probably signify the waters in general; as we find similar crossed and inverted lines upon coins struck in Sicily, both Greek and Punic; "" and also upon rings and fibulae, which are frequently adorned with symbolical devices, meant to serve as amulets or charms. The bull, however, both in its natural form, and humanised in various degrees, so as in some instances to leave only the horns of the animal symbol, is perpetually employed ; and may be identified with the Philistine Dagon, whom G. W. Cox considers to be the same as Cannes of Babylonia and Ana or Ana-melech of Sip- He para. is Sidon. thus allied to the ancient worship of the East, as the representative of wisdom and civilization ; the shepherds, who countries which behind revolutionised the they occupied and them the stupendous monuments of their building of the Laby- is ; Building-God, father of the Cyclopean left The indicative of a similar idea ; Labyrinths, or winding caverns, generally underground, weie constructed in India, Afghanistan, Susiana, Arabia, Egypt and other countries occupied by the .Ethiopian race and it was customary among them also to sacrifice their children, selected victims, slaves, captives, persons sent for the purpose from tributary provinces, and all strangers not entitled to protection. The devouring of human victims by the Cyclopes of Libya, the Seirens, Lamise and Lestrygones, as well as the Minotaur, was but a poetical figure to denote this custom. A. W. **" In the cabinet of R. P. Knight, ^" In the same. Also in the British Museum. rinth greatness. Mr. Knight is probably right in dedaring the Minotaur to have been the ancient symbol of the Bull, partly huthat representation of the manised Supreme Being as the Sun in Taurus, ; — at the vernal equinox, being a general symbol in all the countries on the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, Pasiphae, the queen, is identical with The sending of the Venus-Astarte. bull by Poseidon only implied that the Libyans or Phoenicians occupied the country; as is also signified by the transportation thither of the maid Europa, the mother of Minos and daughter of Agenor or Belus, the tutelar god of '''* Hunterian Museum, tab. 14, No. ix. ^'" lb. tab. ^'" li. tab. 56, 35, No. No. iii. ix. '" See a specimen of them on the reverse of a small coin, Mus. Hunter., tab. 67, 139 No. v, The Symbolical Language of 66 to signify particular rivers or streams; which bederived from the Bacchus Hyes, as the Nile was from Osiris, were all represented under the same form.'" g8. It appears, therefore, that the asterisk, Bull, or Minotaur, in the centre of the square or labyrinth, equally mean the same as the Indian lingam— that is, the male personification of the productive attribute placed in the female, or heat acting upon humidity. Sometimes the bull is placed between two '" dolphins,"' and sometimes upon a dolphin or other fish and in other instances the goat or the ram occupy the same situation;"" which are all different modes of expressing different modifications of the same meaning in symbolical or mystical writing. The female personifications frequently occupy the same place in which case the male personification is always upon the reverse of the coin, of which numerous instances occur in those of Syracuse, Naples, Tarentum, and other cities. upon coins ing all ; : BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. 99. Ariadne, the fabled wife of Bacchus, is a personage concerning whom there has been more confusion of history and allegory than concerning almost any other. Neither she, nor Bacchus, nor Theseus, appear to have been known to the author of the Iliad ; the lines concerning them all three being manifestly spurious but in the Odyssey, she is said to have been the daughter of Minos, and to have been carried away from Crete by Theseus to Athens, where she was killed by Diana that is, died suddenly before he enjoyed her."" Such : — "^s See coins of Catania, Seliuus, Gela, Sybaris, etc. ^" See brass coins of Syracuse. 2'" 36 : " Come, Dionysus, with thy ox-foot, come to thy pure temple by the sea, and sacrifice with the Graces." Then they chant twice the words " Axii Tawri*," worthy is the Bull. The superstitious notion of modern witchcraft, ihat the devil has a cloven foot, was evidently derived from this conceit of the ox-foot xi. : Procris, "And and I fair ne, the daughter of wise Minos, *" Seen on a gold coin of Eretria (Eubaea), owned by Mr. Knight, Hence the address made by the Elian women in their hymn to Dionysus, preserved by Plutarch, Greek Queslions, Odyssey, Phsdra and of Bacchus-Dionysus. "" See gold coins of Mgx and Clazomenae, in Mr. Knight's collection. beheld Ariad- whom Theseus once led from Crete to the soil of sacred Athens but he did not enjoy her, for Artemis (Diana) ; slew her before-hand in the island Dia, on account of the testimony of Dionysus." As Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, was identical with Venus Astarte and Demeter (§ 96, note 339), so Ariadne, her daughter, is to be regarded as another form of Kore-Persephoneia. The in. terpretation of the legend is as follows The Bull sent by Poseidon to Crete, crossing over into Greece, and there caught by Hercules, implies that the Sidonian influence in that island extended to the mainland, but succumbed there to the milder cultus 140 : the Minotaur. Theseus, Ariadne, and ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 67 appears to have been the plain sense of the passage, according to its true and original reading but Theseus having become a deified and symbolical personage, in a manner hereafter to be explained, Ariadne became so likevtrise and was therefore fabled to have been deserted by him in the island of Naxus where Bacchus found and married her; in consequence of which she became the female personification of the attribute which he represented and, as such, constantly appears in the symbolical monuments of art, with all the accessory and Some pious heathen, too, made a characteristic emblems. : ; ; bungling alteration, and still more bungling interpolation, in the passage of the Odyssey, to reconcile historical tradition with religious mythology. 100. In many instances, the two personifications are united and Bacchus, who on other occasions in one; is represented as a bearded venerable figure,"' appears with limbs, features, and character of a beautiful young woman ; "" sometimes dis- tinguished by the sprouting horns of the bull,"' and sometimes without any other distinction than the crown or garland of Such were the Phrygian Atys, and Syrian vine or ivy.°" Adonis whose history, like that of Bacchus, is disguised by poetical and allegorical fable but who, as usually represented in monuments of ancient art, are androgynous personifications of the same attribute,"" accompanied, in different instances, by different accessory symbols. Considered as the pervading and fertilising spirit of the waters, Bacchus differs from Neptune in being a general emanation, instead of a local division, of the productive power; and also in being a per; ; represented by the Hero-God, HercuTheseus (Theos-Zeus) carrying away Ariadne, and her destruction by Artemis, or Diana, expresses the failure to supersede the bloody rites, Death by the hand of Diana can hardly signify perishing in maidenhood for the Ephesian or Amazonian goddess was not a virgin deity, but was identical with the Great Mother, Cybele, Isis, or Anaitis, whose worship in Armenia and Pontus, like that of Mylitta and Venus-Aphrodite in Assyria and Cyprus, was accompanied by the defloration of marriageable '^' See silver coins of Naxus, and Plates i6 and 39 of vol. vi. of Select Specimens. "* See Coins of Camarina (Sicily), women. principle." les. ; etc. Hunterian Museum, gold and silver coins of Maronea. ^''' See gold medals of Lampsacus, brass medals of Rhodes, and vol. i. **^ See coins of Lampsacus, of Select Specimens. Symposiacs, v. 3. " Both the gods (Poseidon and Dionysus) appear to be lords of the moist or female, and of the male generating pi. 39, '" The marriage of Ariadne to Bacchus is therefore perfectly in harmony with the mystical sense, allying the tale with the loves of Venus-Astarte and Adonis, and the wanderings of Dido, Isis, Ceres, and Cybele. A. W. — I4S Plutarch Phurnutus : : De NaturA Deorum, " Poseidon is the active principle in the earth, and the potency of moisture around the earth." iv. The Symbolical Language of 68 Eonificntion derived from a system of religion, engrafted more upon and philosophical the old elementary wor- refined which Neptune belonged."' by Dionysius the geographer, that is observed Bacchus was worshipped with peculiar zeal and devotion by ship, to 101. It some of the smaller British islands,"' where the women, crowned with ivy, celebrated his clamorous nocturthe ancient inhabitants of nal rites upon the shores of the Northern Ocean, in the same manner as the Thracians did upon the banks of the Apsinthus, or the Indians In Stukeley's Itinerary is the upon thtse of the Ganges.'" ground-plan of an ancient Celtic or Scandinavian temple, found in Zealand, consisting of a circle of rude stones within and it is probable that many others of these circles were originally enclosed in square areas. Stonehenge is the most important monument of this kind now extant; and from a passage of Hecatasus, preserved by Diodorus Siculus, it seems to have been not wholly unknown to that ancient historian who might have collected some vague accounts of the British islands from the Phoenician and Carthaginian merchants, who traded there for tin. " The Hyperboreans," said he, a square : ; " inhabit an island beyond Gaul, for can be no other than Britain in which Apollo is worshipped in a and riches." This island in which we know of no traces of any other circular temple, which could have appeared considerable to a Greek or Phoenician of that age. That the ac- circular temple considerable ; Plutarch Ids and Osins, 35. The Greeks consider Dionysus not ''^' ' its size the tutelar god of Libya, as Herodotus has shown he visited the .(Ethiopians, and was worshipped at Philadelphia : ; god of wine, but also as the lord of every function of nature." This assertion of Mr. Knight is desolely as the and other inland Mr. Brown accordingly considers him as identical with the Dagon of the Philistines and Hoa or Cannes of Babylon, of whom H. C. Rawlinson re" Hoa occupies in the first marks Triad the position which in the Classical Mythology is filled by Poseidon, and in some respects he corresponds nied by later scholars. The Hon. Mr. Gladstone declares of Poseidon that " Though God of the Sea he is not, so to speak, the Sea-God, or the Waterhas in him nothing of an God. elemental Deity." The true sea-god He is Nereus. He is : the building-god, and stands in close relation to the giants and other rebellious personages. ™ office, and Poseidon becomes the Supreme Ruler." Hence Ulysses, in the Odyssey, comes oftenest into collision with him and Mr. Gladstone suggests that he was " the god or the chief-god of the Phoinikes." (Juventus Mundi, ch. viii). Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., going farther, " Poseidaon, sire of gods and says men," to the Hamitic East. He was ; — A. W. Dionysius: i. 170. Mr. Knight supposes these islands to have been the Hebrides or Orkneys, *'* Diodorus ii. Siculus 13 " Hecataeus and others assert that Celtic opposite the there is an island provinces not less in size than Sicily that there was upon the island a mag- to him." " In the western portion of the Outer Sphere, Zeus practically disappears from the governing places, as well as in and in Bceotia. the island of Crete : : ; nificent temenos (or enclosed circle) of Apollo, and a famous temple of a circular form, abundantly adorned with : 'votive offerings." 146 Marsyas and Olympos. Eros and Satyr, Ancient Art and Mythology. 69 count should be imperfect and obscure is not surprising; since even the most inquisitive and credulous travelers among the Greeks could scarcely obtain sufficient information concerning the British islands to satisfy them of their existence."' A temple of the same form was situated upon Mount Zilmissus in Thrace, and dedicated to the Sun under the title of Bacchus Sabazius; "° and another is mentioned by Apollonius Rhodius, which was dedicated to Mars upon an island in the Euxine Sea near the coast of the Amazons."" PYRAMIDS, OBELISKS, AND CHURCH-SPIRES AS SUN-EMBLEMS. 102. The large obelisks of stone found in many parts of the North, such as those at Rudstone and near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, belonged to the same religion obelisks, as Pliny observes, being sacred to the Sun whose rays they signified both by their form and name."" They were therefore the emblems of light, the primary and essential emanations of the Deity whence radiating the head, or surrounding it with a diadem of small obelisks, was a mode of consecration or deification, which flattery is often employed in portraits both of the Macedonian kings and Roman emperors.'" The mystagogues and poets expressed the same meaning by the epithet Lukeios or Lukaios J which is occasionally applied to almost every personification of the Deity, and more especially to Apollo who "* is likewise called Luklgenetes, or as contracted Lukigenes which mythologists have explained by an absurd fable of his having been born in Lycia whereas it signifies the Author or Generator of Light ; being derived from Luki, otherwise Lukos, of which the Latin word Lux is a contraction. : ; ; ; ; ; »'' Herodotus: iii. 115 " I do not allow Ihat there is any river to which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus (probably the Vistula), emptying itself into the northern (IJaltic) sea, whence, as the tale goes, amber is procured nor do I know of any : ; : : ^'^ ii. n6o. Pliny: xxxvi. 14. Roman Plutarch: " Light Questions, 2. emblem of generation." See Pliny Panegyricz, Iii. Also Coins of Antiochus IV and VI. is the : tavius, etc. '" Homer Iliad, iv. loi. Mr. W. C. Bryant, not taking such a view, has rendered the term " Lycian." But Jacob Bryant, from another standing-point, derives these terms from El-Uk, a title of the sun among the Egyptians and Babylonians the : Phoenician designation, Jaho-Tzabaoth, a name applied by the Tyrians to the Sun-God in autumn, and adopted apparently by King David from them, as the title of the Hebrew tutelar god. See INMAN or : nautica, of Syria, Philip IV. of Macedonia, and of several of the Ptolemies, Oc- Saturnalia, i. 18. Macrobius It is noticeable that lacchus-Sabazins is but a variant reading of the Hebrew — ^*' islands called the Cassiterides (the Tin Islands), whence the tin comes which we use." ^^ Ancient Faith Embodied in Ancient Names, i. 29, 609. A. W. ^" ApoLLONitJS Rhodius Argo- 149 ; — The Symbolical Language of 70 103. The titles Lucetius and Diespiter applied to Jupiter the one signifying are expressive of the same attribute lu??iinous, and the other Father of Day, which the Cretans called by the name of the Supreme God."" In symbolical writing the same meaning was signified by the appropriate emblems in various countries whence Zeus Meilichios at Sicyon, and the Apollo Carinas at Megara in Attica, were repre; ; sented by stones of the above-mentioned form °°° as was also the Apollo Agyieus in various places; "" and both Apollo and Diana by simple columns pointed at the top; or, as the symbol began to be humanised, with the addition of a head, hands, and feet."' On a Lapland drum the goddess Isa or Disa is represented by a pyramid surmounted with the emblem so °" frequently observed in the hands of the Egyptian deities and the pyramid has likewise been observed among the religious symbols of the savages of North America.^" The most sacred idol, too, of the Hindus in the Great Temple of Juggernaut, in the province of Orissa, is a pyramidal stone ;°" and the altar in the Temple of Mexico, upon which'human victims were sacrificed to the Deity of the Sun, was a pointed pyramid, on which the unhappy captive was extended on his back in order to have his heart taken out by the priest."' 104. The spires and pinnacles, with which our old churches are decorated, come from these ancient symbols and the weathercocks, with which they are surmounted, though now only employed to show the direction of the wind, were originally emblems of the Sun for the cock is the natural herald of the day and therefore sacred to the fountain of light.'" In the symbolical writing of the Chinese, the Sun is still repre; ; ; ; ; initial A. vowel being finally elided. W. ^" Macrobius Saturnalia, \. 15. Pausanius Corinth, ix. § 6. " Zeus Meilichios [Moloch] and Ar: »«» ; temis also named Pairoa (the paternal, perhaps as being an Amazonian, or male-female), are made with no plastic skill; he is represented by a pyramid, and she by a pillar." Attica, yXw.'^-i: stone having the form of a pyramid, not of large dimensions ; they call it Apollo Ka- "A I'inas." ^" SuiDAs: "Agyieus (the tutelar deity, or protector of highways) is represented by a pillar running to a point, which is placed by the gates ; some say that they belong to Apollo, and others to Dionysus, or to both alike." Aguieus: "The conical pillar by the gates of buildings ; a priest of Apollo, and the god himself." ^^^ Pausanias Laconia, xix. 2. " It had a face, feet, and hands the rest is like a brazen pillar ; upon the head is a helmet, and in the hands, a lance and a bow." : ; *«' p. n Olaus Rudbeckius: ; v. and 277, xi. p. Atlantica, 261. "^ Lafitau: Matirs des Sauvages, vol. i. pp. 146 and 148. 211 Hamilton: Travels in India. s« AcosTA History of the In: dies. '" Pausanias: p. 444: "They declare the cock to be sacred to the sun, and the angel (herald) the Coming of the Sun." 150 to announce Herakles and the Daughters of Eurj'tos. Car of Juggernaut at StreeveUputoor. Ancient Art and Mythology. J\ sented by a cock in a circle "' and a modern Parsee would suffer death, rather than be guilty of the crime of killing one."' It appears on many ancient coins, with some symbol of the pas"° and in other instances sive productive power on the reverse and devices, sigemblems other and it is united with Priapic nifying different attributes combined.'" ; ; THE GOOD AND EVIL PRINCIPLES. 105. The Egyptians, among whom the obelisk and pyramid were most frequently employed, held that there were two opposite powers in the world perpetually acting against each the forother the one generating and the other destroying mer of whom they called Osiris, and the latter Typhon. By the contention of these two, that mixture of good and evil, of procreation and dissolution, which was thought to constitute "' the harmony of the world, was supposed to be produced and the notion of such a necessary mixture, or reciprocal op; ; ; eration, was, according to Plutarch, of unmemorable antiquity, derivedfrom the earliest theologists and legislators, not only in traditions and reports, but also in mysteries and sacred rites both Greek and Barbarian™ Fire was held to be the efBcient principle of both and, according to som e of the later yEgyptians, that sethebut Plutarch rial fire supposed to be concentrated in the Sun controverts this opinion, and asserts that Typhon, the evil or destroying power, was a terrestial or material fire, essentially different from the sethereal; although he, as well as other Greek writers, admits him to have been the brother of Osiris, equally sprung from Kronos and Rhea, or Time and Matter."" In this, ; ; '''' Du Halde: vol. II.: "They (the Chinese) in representing the sun, put a cock in a circle." *" Hyde Religion of the Ancient : Persians. ^" See of Himera, Coins Same- thrace, Suessa, etc. ^" See Coins of Selinus, Himera, Samothrace, etc. "* Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 45. : " The harmony of the universe is, according to Herakleitos, like that of a bow or a harp, alternately tightened and relaxed, and according to Euripides (/Eolus): 'Nor good nor bad here's to be found apart, But both immixed in one, for greater art.' '' ^" Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 45. " Therefore this most ancient opinion and philosophers, it having an original fathered upon no one, but having gained a persuasion both strong and indelible, down from the theologians and law-makers to the poets re- — — tion," etc. HIPPOCRATES " This to come into existence, to cohabit, to die, to dissolve away, to be judged." ^'^ PLUTARCH Isis and Osiris. ; : Also DiODORUS SicULUS. Wilkinson : has been handed and being everywhere ceived by both Barbarians and Greeks and that not only in popular discourse and public repute, but also in their secret Mysteries and public sacrifices that the universe is neither hurried about by blind chance, without intelligence, discourse, and direc- in i. Rawlinson's Hero- " The dolus, ii. 171, note 4, says sufferings and death of Osiris were the Great Mystery of the Egyptian relig: 153 The Symbolical Language of however, as in other instances, he was seduced, partly by his prejudices, and partly by the new system of the Jigyptian Platonists according to which there was an original evil principle in nature, co-existing with the good, and acting in perpetual opposition to it. io6. This opinion owes its origin to a false notion, which we are apt to form, of good and evil, by considering them as self-existing inherent properties, instead of relative modifica- own ; and some traces of it are percepother people of antiquity. His being the divine goodness, and the abstract idea of 'good,' his manifestation upon earth (like a Hindu God), his death and resurrection, and his office as judge of the dead in a future state, look like the early revelation of a future manifestation of the deity converted into a mythological fable, and are not less remarkable than the notion of the Egyptians mentioned by Plutarch (in Life of Numa)^ that a woman might conceive by the approach of some divine spirit. As Osiris signified good,' Typhon (or rather Seth) was ' evil,' and the remarkable notion of good ion, among tible ' and being brothers, is abundantly illustrated with early sculptures nor was it till a change was made, apparevil ; ently by foreigners from Asia, who held the doctrine of the Two Principles [represented by Oromazd and Ahriman, Zoroaster, and ZohakJ that , became evil confounded with sin, when the brother of Osiris no longer received divine honors. Till then. Sin, the great serpent,' or Aphophis, the giant (or earth-born) was distinct from Seth [or Satan] who was a deity, and part of the divine system, which recalls these words of Isaiah (xlv. 7) : ' I form the light and create darkness ; I make peace and create evil I, the Lord, do all these things.' And in Amos (iii. 6) : ' Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not ' ' ' ; it ? In like manner the mythology of India admitted the Creator and Destroyer as characters of the Divine Being. Seth was even called Eaal-Seth, and was the god of their done ' enemies also, which was from war being an evil, as peace in the above words is equivalent to good and in (Baal-) Zephon we may perhaps trace ; the name of Typhon. [The izadia.nd iau were interchangeable, as in Tzur, or Tyre.] In the same sense, the Ki^yptians represented Seth teaching a Pharaoh the use of the bow, and other weapons of destruction, which were producers of evil. Sin, the giant Aph-ophis, as the great serpent,' often with a human head, being represented pierced by the spear of Horus, or of Atmoo [the hidden one the Tammuz of Ezekiel, viii. 16] as Re ' — the ' Sun ' recalls war of the the gods and giants, and the fable of Apollo (or the Sun) and Python, the serpent slain by Vishnu. [The Greek name (Python) was probably Egyptian, Pi-Tan, and may be traced to the Tan^ or Tanin^ of Hebrew, translated and whale^ serpent^ or dragon^ in GenEzekiel, xxvii. but which in Genesis might rather 2 apply to the Saurian monsters in the early state of the world. It is singular that the Egyptians even believed that it was inhabited by large monsters. The Python evidently corresponded to the giant Aph-ophis,' or Apap of Egypt, represented as the ' great serpent,' who was sin, and was pierced by the spear of Horus (Apollo), and other gods. The last syllable of Satan (Shaytan) is not related to Tan^ as some might imagine, the / being a teth, and not a tau in the Hebrew ; but Titan may be related to esis, i. 21 ; Job, viii. 12 ; ; ' it. " Osiris may be said rather to have presided over the judgment of the dead than to have judged them ; he gave admission to those who were found worthy to the abode of happiness. He was not the avenging deity he did not punish nor could he show mercy, or subvert the judgment pronounced. It was a simple question of fact. Each man's conscience was his own judge. Thoth (or that part of the divine nature called Intellect and Conscience) ; weighed and condemned and Horus (who had been left on earth to follow ; out the conquests of his father, Osiris, after he had returned to heaven) ushered in the just to the divine presence.' 154 " Art and Mythology. Ancient 73 upon circumstances, causes, and events but though entertained by very learned and distinguished individuals, it does not appear ever to have formed a part of the religious system of any people or established sect. The beautiful tions dependent : allegory of the tvsro casks in the Iliad, makes Jupiter the distributor of both good and evil '" which Hesiod also deduces from the same gods."^ The statue of Olympian Jupiter at Megara, begun by Pheidias and Theocosmos, but never finished, the work having been interrupted by the Peloponnesian war, had the Seasons and Fates over his head, to show, as Pausanias says, that the former were regulated by him, and the latter obedient to his will."' In the citadel of Argos was preserved an ancient statue of him in wood, said to have belonged to king Priam, which had three eyes (as the Scandinavian deity Thor sometimes had, "") to show the triple extent of his power and providence over Heaven, Earth, and Hell "' and in the Orphic Hymns or mystic invocations, he is addressed as the giver of life and the destroyer."" 107. The third eye of this ancient statue was in the forehead and it seems that the Hindus have a symbolical figure of the same kind "' whence we may venture to infer that the Cyclopes, concerning whom there are so many inconsistent fables, owed their fictitious being to some such enigmatical compositions. According to the ancient Theogony attributed to Hesiod, they were the sons of Heaven and Earth, and brothers of Saturn or Time "° signifying, according to the Scholiast, the circular or central powers, "° the principles of ; ; ; : ; ^*' Homer : Iliad, xx. Bryanfs ^*° Orphic Hy/nn, Ixxii. ^" Asiatic Researches, i. p. 248 is Siva, or more anciently. Maha Deva, originally the ante-Vedic ^ jj f j^e aboriginal Hindus." ^J, -,y B,, •'™ HESIOD Theogony, v. 139. More literally the sons of Ouranos ^nd Gaia, and brothers of Kronos, -^ jt_- 1. i ^ i_ j, ^ which later divimty hardly appears to be the same as Chronos, or Time, but rather as Moloch the Fire-God.— A. W. Translation. " The lot Are free " This The gods ordain man of from to suffer, while themselves care. Beside Jove's thresh- old stand Twocasksof men; one cask con- gifts for : tains Theevil, one the good and he to whom The Thunderer gwes them mmgled, some- - times falls Into misfortune, and is sometimes crowned With blessings. But the man to whom he ''^'^ The^evi?only, stands a mark exposed To wrong, and chased by grim calamity, Wanders the teeming earth, alike unloved by gods and men, , etc. ' Hesiod: Works and Days, bo. ''^ Pausanias Attica, xi. "' Olaus Rudeeckius Atlantica, *'- : : part ii. v. p. 518. ^'^ Pausanias Corinth, xxiv. § 5 " Zeus had two eyes, placed naturally, and the third upon the forehead. They say that Priam had this bust of : Zeus from his ancestor, : Laoraedon." Scholium on v. 139. "Cyclopes (Kuklopes), the powers of the circle, or universe. Mr. Knight discards the etymology of the scholiast. Modern research, we think, has pretty accurately solved the nature and character of the Cyclopean tribes, and assigned them to the same race as the Berbers and Phoenicians, of whom they were probably o£f-shoots. They are described as inhabitants of Libya and Sicily, following a pastoral life, worshipping Poseidon, and eating 157 — The Symbolical Language of 74 the general motion of the universe above noticed. The Cyclops of the Odyssey is a totally different personage but as he is said to be the son of Neptune or Poseidon, it is probable that he equally sprang from some emblematical figure, or allegorical ; the poet meant him to be a giant of a one-eyed have lost his other eye by accident, is uncertain but the former is most probable, or he would have told what the accident was. In an ancient piece of sculpture, however, found in Sicily, the artist has supposed the latter, as have also some Whether tale. race, or to ; — learned modern writers.*'" ANIMAL SYMBOLS. io8. The .^Egyptians represented Typhon by the Hippopotamus, the most fierce and savage animal known to them and upon his back they put a hawk fighting with a serpent, to sig; for the hawk was the emblem nify the direction of his power of power, as the serpent was of life; whence it was employed Among the as the symbol of Osiris, as well as of Typhon."' ; or more probably sacrificing, strangers who fell into their power. They are, again, depicted as a giant race, that introduced a massive style of architecture into Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy also as being the progenitors of Galatus, lUyrius, and Keltus, or more ; literally of the Gauls, lUyrians, and as workers in mines, Celtic tribes and smiths who forged the weapons with which Zeus destroyed /Esculapius. The foundations of the First Temple at Jerusalem, and the great dykes and ; traces of fortifications at Arvad, in Phoenicia, exactly correspond in character with the Cyclopean structures There are also the rein Greece. records, the identity of nations since regarded as distinct and separate, ap- pears to be an accepted opinion ; and this may furnish an additional clew to this problem. The shepherds of Egypt are also denominated in the Chronicle, Phoenicians, Hellenes or Greeks, Arabians, and Strangers, or Xeni ; and it is not improbable that they were progenitors or akin to the shepherd-colonists of Libya and Sicily, as well as many of the tribes of Greece and Palestine. They occupied large districts in Thrace, where the Bacchic rites, as well as numerous sciences, were cultivated, all of which are also ascribed to Egyptian sources by mains of similar buildings in Arabia, EuAssyria, Persia, and even India. ripides seems to have afforded us the key, when he Mycenee were rodotus specialities peculiar to Solomon at Jerusalem, of the Syrian Goddess, at Bambyke, or Hierapolis, and the remarkable pillars in Ireland, are evidently to be attributed to the same origin. We notice that in the ancient at Tyre, of Atargatis, He- suspect, arts. the both of Assyria and ^gypt. The round Tower-pillars, like those in the Temple of Melkavth-Hercules We They were ophites ; and the syllable ops, which is the terminal of so many ancient names, is the contraction of ophis, a serpent. The lemainder of their appellation is Kuklos, or declares that the walls of built by the Cyclopeans styles others. therefore, that they owe their designation to their peculiar worship and after the Phoenician Canon and method. Phoenician architecture is remarkable for its massiveness and for partaking of the and cycle, which may mean the universe. Yet they do not transmit that designation to history, but are classed N\'ith the Tyrian builders, the Libyans, Italian tribes, and cognate populations wherever they happened to dwell. A. W. *''' IIOUKL Voyage en Sidle, plate 15S : 137- ^" Plutarch : his and Osiris, 50. n^;<:>r;/^i«:?^^#es^;,v^ . •'/>o Europa. ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 75 Greeks it was sacred to Apollo ; but we do not recollect to have seen it on any monuments of their art, though other birds of prey, such as the eagle and cormorant, frequently occur."" The eagle is sometimes represented fighting with a serpent, and sometimes destroying a hare,"' which, being the most prolific of all quadrupeds, was probably the emblem of fertility.'" In these compositions the eagle must have represented the destroying attribute but when alone, it probably meant the same as the .^Egyptian hawk whence it was the usual sym: : bol of the Supreme God, in whom the Greeks united the three great attributes of creation, preservation, and destruction. The ancient Scandinavians placed it upon the head of their god Thor, as they did the bull upon his breast, °" to signify the same union of attributes which we sometimes find in subordinate personifications among the Greeks. On the ancient Phoenician coins above cited, an eagle perches on the sceptre, and the head of a bull projects from the chair of a sitting figure of Jupiter, similar in all respects to that on the coins of the Macedonian kings supposed to be copied from the statue by Pheidias at Olympia, the composition of which appears to be of earlier date. 109. In the BacchcB oi Euripides, the Chorus invoke their inspiring god to appear under the form of a bull, a many-headed serpent, or a flaming lion ; °°° and we sometimes find the lion among the accessory symbols of Bacchus; though it is most commonly the emblem of Hercules or Apollo, it being the natural representative of the destroying attribute. Hence it is found upon the sepulchral monuments of almost all nations both of Europe and Asia; even in the coldest regions, at a vast distance from the countries in which the animal is capable of existing in its wild state.'" Not only the tombs, but likewise the other sacred edifices and utensils of the Greeks and Romans, Chinese and Tartars, are adorned with it and in Thibet there is no religious structure without a lion's head at ; ; " In Hermopolis, the symbol of Typhon was a river horse upon which a hawlc was placed, fighting with a serpent representing by the horse, Typhon, and by the hawk, power, and the ori" They also picture gin of things." Osiris as a hawlc." ^"^ Aristophanes : Birds, 314. The cormorant is placed on the coins of Agrigentum, as the symbol of Hercules ; the eagle is well-known as the bird of Jupiter. 8«3 See coins of Chalais and Euboea, of Elis, Agrigentum, Crete, etc. "*' See coins of Massena, Rhegium, etc. was deemed aphrodisiac and It double-sexed. '"' part OlAUS Rudbeckius : Atlantica, v. pp. 300, 320, 386. ii. '" "Appear, in form, as a bull, as a serp'snt, or as a lion in flaming fire." The invocation to the many-headed serpent shows the probable Hindu origin of this divinity as the Hydra does of Hercules. A. W. °" Histoire GMirale des Voyages, many-headed — 458 vol. v. p. p. 161 262 ; ; also Embassy to Thibet, and HoueTs Voyage en Sidle. : The Symbolical Language of 76 every angle having bells pendent from the lower jaw, though is no contiguous country that can supply the living there model/" no. Sometimes the lion is represented killing some other symbolical animal, such as the bull, the horse, or the deer; and these compositions occur not only upon the coins and other sacred monuments of the Greeks and Phoenicians,'" but upon those of the Persians,"" and the Tartar tribes of Upper Asia "' in all of which they express different modifications of the ancient mystic dogma above mentioned concerning the adverse efforts of the two great attributes of procreation ; and destruction. SYMBOL OF THE HORSE. III. The horse was sacred to Neptune and the Rivers;*"' and employed as a general symbol of the Waters, on account of a supposed affinity, which we do not find that modern Hence came the composition, so naturalists have observed."' frequent on the Carthaginian coins, of the horse with the asterisk of the Sun, or the winged disk and hooded snakes, over his back; *** and also the use made of him as an emblematical device on the medals of many Greek cities."' In some instances the body of the animal terminates in plumes *°° and in others has only wings, so as to form the Pegasus, fabled by the later Greek poets to have been ridden by Bellerophon, ; but only known to the ancient theogonists as the bearer of Aurora and of the thunder and lightning to Jupiter;"' an allegory of which the meaning is obvious. The Centaur appears to have been the same symbol partly humanised; "» Embassy '"See to Thibet, p. 288. lion. _ "" (ion Homer : Bryant's Transla- xxi. : " This river cannot aid you With silver eddies, to ; whose this fair deities stream Ye oflter many beeves m sacrifice, And fling into its gulfs your firm-paced steeds." Virgil : Ceorgics, i. 12, and ^^ Aristotle " The horse, an animal fond of washing, and of water." See also note 422. *>•* See Hunterian Museum, the coins being '"^ Cyrene, Syracuse, Maronea, Ery : coins of Acanthus and Velia, and also those of some unknown city of Phoenicia. HouEL Voyage en Sidle, pi. xxxv. and vi. *» Le Bruyn : RuiTis of Persefolis. *" On old brass coins in the cabinet of Mr. R. Payne Knight. On a small silver coin of Acanthus, in the same cabinet ; where there was not room for the lion on the back of the bull, as in the larger, the bull has the face of a the iii. 122 thee in Boeotia, etc. *<" It is so on coins of Lampsacus. *" Hesiod Theogony, v. 285. LyCOPHRON Alexander, 17. The history of Bellerophon is related in the Iliad, Book vi. but Homer The later says nothing of the horse. writers inform us that he was first named HipponoOs, and Pindar relates that he was aided by Athene to become the possessor of Pegasus and .•. j j „ „iTn- 4..^ Ua.'" gratitude raised an altar to her under the name Hippeia. : : ; • • A\_- ' I 1 1) £^ *%, « I Marsyas and Olympos. Ancient Art and Mythology. 'j'j whence the fable of these fictitious beings having been begotten on a cloud appears to be an allegory of the same kind."' In the ancient bronze engraved in plate Ixxv. of volume I. of the Select Specimens, a figure of one is represented bearing the Cornucopise between Hercules and ^sculapius, the powers of destruction and preservation so that it here manifestly repre; A symbolical sents the generative or productive attribute. figure similar to that of the Centaur occurs among the hieroglyphical sculptures of the temple of Isis at Tentyra or Dendera in .(Egypt "' and also one of 'the Pegasus or the winged horse "° nor does the winged bull, the Cherub of the Hebrews, appear to be any other than an .(Egyptian symbol, of which a prototype is preserved in the ruins of Hermontis.*" The dis; : guised indications, too, of wings and horns on each side of the conic or pyramidal cap of Osiris are evident traces of the animal symbol of the winged bull.*" LIKENESS OF THE CENTAURS AND SATYRS. On the very ancient coins found near the banks of the and falsely attributed to the island of Lesbos, the equine symbol appears entirely humanised, except the feet, which are terminated in the hoofs of a horse but on others, apparently of the same date and country, the Centaur namely, that of embracing is represented in the same action a large and comely woman. In a small bronze of very ancient sculpture, the same Priapic personage appears, differing a 112. Strymon in Thrace, : ; *"' E. Pococke, in his treatise, India in Greece, makes the Centaurs, or Ken- tauri, an Afghan tribe, and derives their appellation from Candahar, a city and district near the Indus. Bry- ant remarks {Analysis of Ancient Myikology, iii. p. 315) that they "were reputed to be of Nephelim race (see Cheiron was said to have been the son of the centaur Kronos, but the rest were the offspring of Ixion and Nepheld (Lycophron, v. Genesis, vi. 4). 1200). They are described by Nonnus as horned, and as inseparable compan- ions of Dionysus. He supposes them to have been the sons of Zeuth (or and places them for the most Jupiter) part in Cyprus." Ships were called Centaurs, and hence Bryant infers that they had a relation to the ark of Noah; which being of " gopher wood," he Ions " refines upon this by rendering NephelS (the cloud or female form mistaken by Ixion for Juno), " a fallen woman," from NePheL, to fall; and makes the Centaurs the progeny of a woman debauched after the manner of the Cyprians and Assyrians, in the perites of Mylitta and Astarte. Nonnus, as Bryant observes, makes them the offspring of Zeus in Cyprus. Dionysiaca, v., xiv., and xxxii. " I came with great measure of ardent passion for Paphia (Venus-Astarte) by which embrace was engendered the culiar Centaurs, casting the spore into the secret recesses of earth " (Gaia). The mythical King Erichthonius is said to have been the offspring of AthenS and Hephaistos (Vulcan) in a similar manner. supposes was evidence for supposing they were built in Cyprus or Cupher. Hislop in his " Two Babythat 165 *" *'" Denon Denon Denon —A. W. : pi. cxxvii. 2. : pi. cxxxi. 3. *" pi. cxxix. 2. : *" Select Specimens : i. pi. 2. The Symbolical Language of 78 little in his composition he having the tail and ears, as well as the feet of a horse, joined to a human body, together with a goat's beard ; *'" and in the Dionysiacs of Nounus, we find such ; under the title of Satyrs which all other These, he writers speak of as a mixture of the goat and man. says, were of the race of the Centaurs with whom they made *" a part of the retinue of Bacchus in his Indian expedition and they were probably the original Satyrs derived from Saturn, who is fabled to have appeared under the form of a figures described ; ; ; ; horse in his addresses to Philyra the daughter of Oceanus ''"' and who, having been the chief deity of the Carthaginians, is probably the personage represented by that animal on their coins.*'" That these equine Satyrs should have been introduced among the attendants of Bacchus, either in poetry or sculpture, is perfectly natural as they were personifications of the generative or productive attribute equally with the Faniskoi, of those of a caprine form wherefore we find three of them on the handle of the very ancient Dionysiac patera, terminating in his symbol of the Minotaur in the cabinet of Mr. R. Payne Knight. In the sculptures, however, they are invariably without horns. The Saturn of the Romans, and probably of the Phoenicians, seems to have been the personification of an attribute totally different from that of the Kronos of the Greeks, and to have derived his Latin name from Sator, the sower or planter ; which accords with the character of Pan, Silenus, or Silvanus, with which that of Neptune, or humidity, is combined. Hence, on the coins of Naxus in Sicily, we find the figure usually called Silenus with the tail and ears of a horse, sometimes priapic, and sometimes with the priapic term of the Pelasgian Mercury as an adjunct, and always with the head of Bacchus on the reverse. Hence the equine and caprine Satyrs, Fauns, and Paniski, seem to have had nearly the ; ; same meaning, and to have respectively differed in different "' D'Ancarville Recherckes sur Arts de la Grdce : i. pi. 13. There is no inaccuracy the terminal word taurus having misled the author into supposing that the animal parts were those of a bull. •"•' Dionysiacs : xiii. and xiv. See note 40S. : les ; *'" Virgil : Georgics, iii. 92. " Such Saturn (Kronos) too, himself, swift at the coming of his wife, spread out a full mane upon his equine neck, and flying filled Pelion with shrill whinneying." The etymology proposed is fanciful. ""s These are probably the personages represented on the Thracian or Macedonian coins above cited but the Saturn of both seems to have an; swered rather to the Poseidon of the Greeks, than to the personification of Time, commonly The called Kronos or represented mounted upon a winged horse terminating in a fish, and riding upon the waters, with a bow in his hand, is probably the same personage. See Midailies Phiniciennes du Dutens, pi. i. f. i. The coin is better preserved in the cabinet of Mr. Knight. Saturn. 166 figure Kentaurs and Kentauresses.' Ancient Art and Mythology. 79 stages and styles of allegorical composition only by having more or less of the animal symbol mixed with the human forms, as the taurine figures of Bacchus and the Rivers have more or less or the original bull. Where rhe legs and horns and of the goat are retained, they are usually called Satyrs where only the ears and tail, Fauns and, as this distinction appears to have been observed by the best Latin writers, we see no reason to depart from it, or to suppose, with some modern antiquaries, that Lucretius and Horace did not apply ; ; properly the terms of their own language to the symbols of their own religion/" The baldness always imputed to Silenus is perhaps best explained by the quotation in the margin."' HIPPA, THE ANCIENT GODDESS. 113. In the Orphic Hymns \he. goddess Hippa is celebrated as the nurse of the generator Bacchus, and the soul of the world;*" and in the cave-temple of Phigale in Arcadia, the daughter of Ceres by Neptune was represented with the head of a horse, having serpents and other animals upon it, and holding upon one hand a dolphin, and upon the other a dove;"° the meaning of which symbols, Pausanias observes, were evident of every instructed and initiated man though he does not "' choose to relate it, any more than the name of this goddess ; ; *" Bassi-reliezri di Roma, ii. page I4Q, note 14. " They who are bald {phalakids) are of an inflammatory habit ; and the plasma (phlegm) in their head being agitated and heated by salacity, coming to the epidermis withers the roots of the hair causing it to fall off, for which reason castrated men are never bald." The Zeus Phalakiis of the Argives, ^'* Hippocrates : mentioned by Clement (Exhortations, ii.), is supposed to have acquired that designation from the same idea. "" .ffj/OTB. xlviii. " Calling Hippa, the nurse of Bacchus." Fragment, xliii. (from Proclus). " Hippa, the suul of everything." Hippa is from the Phoenician Hip, and signifies the Parent of all. Hesychius renders .ffi^/o» as follows; "Hippon the sexual parts of a woman or The deity of a man; a large fish." Hippa was therefore " parent of gods and men," and represented by phallic symbols. The horse or hippos was sacred because the Greek name is a — The deities that of the deities. of that worship that were not Grecian originally were called Hippian, and their priests Hippai, as in the case of pun on Diomedes.=-^A. W. Pausanias ''*'' Arcadia, xliii. 2, 3. say that the offspring of Demeter (by Poseidon) was not a mare (Jiippos), but the Despoina (lady, mistress, tutelar goddess) whom the : The Phygalians Hippia Arcadians call " This cave is regarded as the temple of Demeter, and in it is an image {agalma), made of wood this image ; was made by them in this style it was seated on a stone, and was like a woman, except the head but it had the head and mane of a mare, and the likenesses of serpents and other animals grew to the head a chemise {chiton) ; ; ; covered her to the extremities of the there was a dolphin upon one feet hand and a bird on the other." *" Pausanias Arcadia, xxxvii. 6 " The name of the tutelar goddess it ; : was feared to write not been initiated." for those who had — The Symbolical Language of 8o they being both probably mystic. The title Hippios or Hippia was applied to several deities "^ and occasionly even to living sovereigns, whom flattery had decked out with divine attributes as appears in the instance of Arsinoe the wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who was honored with it."" One of the most solemn forms of adjuration in use among the ancient inhabitants of Sweden and Norway was by the shoulder of the horse "" and when Tyndarus engaged the suitors of Helen to defend and avenge her, he is said to have made them swear upon the testicles of the same animal."' ; ; ; *" Pausanias says (Attica, xxxi. 4), that near the Academy in Athens was a mound {bonius) sacred to Poseidon as Hippios and to Pallas- Athena as Hippia. He also says, " There is a mound by that of Athena sacred to Hygeia, and they call Athena by the name Hippia, and Dionysus by that of Melpomenos, and also Kissos." This latter term probably denotes the Kisssean origin of the Bacchic worship, and is commemorated in oriental fashion by the pun of Kissos or Ivy. sacred to that divinity. Elia. I., Pausanias also declares XV. 4 : " The mounds to Poseidon as — pios." . Hippios, and Hera as Hippia ; . the mounds to Arei (Mars) as Hippios, and to Athena as Hippia." It might be conjectured with great plausibility, that the horse and mare were placed for the divinities whom they represented. In the Hindu Mythology each deity has a vehan or vehicle, generally a bird or animal, that is generally depicted with them, in . But Jacob Bryant {Anthat manner. alysis of Ancient Mythology iii.) declares Hippos and Hippa, Hippios and Hippia were designations brought from Hippa, he rean older language marks, being the same as Cybel^, the Mother-goddess, worshipped in Lydia and Phrygia. She was the nurse of Dionysus after the death of his mother Semele, and his birth from the thigh , ; of his father. Homer speaks of the mares reared by Phoebus in Pieria " That guided by Eumelus, flew like birds," : and Callimachus in his Hymn also refers Apollo. to to " them Those and in many Mr. Bryant explains elsewhere the cannibalism of the Lasstrygones and Cyclopes, and the slaughtering of men allured by the Sirens, by the same hy- The pothesis of human sacrifices. horse Pegasus, said to have been the son of Poseidon and Medusa, bom from her neck after her head had been cut off by Perseus, is interpreted by Palrephatus as a ship and the steed Arei6n, the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter-Erinnys, has in like manner taxed the powers of the euhemerists. Mr. Bryant also supposes that the Great Fish Ceto which was sacred to Dagon ; or Poseidon, had the same mystical meaning as the horse and ship. It would curiously affect our literal interpreters of the Hebrew Scripture to learn that the swallowing of Jonah by the Great Fish was a figurative description of his rescue by a ship of the Phoenicians or Philistines, being the effigy of Dagon or Ceto ; and yet it is neither irrational nor incredible. A. Brypriestesses of the godd;-,s Hippa, who was of old worshipptJ in Thessaly and Thrace, Hippai, misconstrued ant declares, " were chanted hymns in her temples and performed the rites of fire; but the worship growing obsolete, the very terms were at last mistaken. How far this worship once prevailed may be known from the many places denominated from Hippa." "The rites of Dionysus Hippius were carried into Thrace where the horses of Diomedes were said to have been fed with human flesh. Those horses, xenoktonoi, which fed upon the flesh of strangers, were the priests of Hippa, and of Dionusus, styled Hippos, or more properly Hip- mares," different regions. W. "^2 Hesychius *''' Mallet toire de They 170 : Hippia. : Introduction a la His- Danemarc. *" Pausanias : iii. ch. xx. Kentaur and Eros. ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 8i MEANING OF VARIOUS SYMBOLICAL REPRESENTATIONS an ancient piece of marble sculpture in relief, Jupireposing upon the back of a Centaur, who carries a deer in his hand by which singular composition is signified, not Jupiter, going to hunt, as antiquaries have supposed,"" but the all-pervading Spirit, or supreme male principle incumbent upon the waters, and producing fertility, or whatever property or modification of properties the deer was meant to signify. Diana, of whom it was a symbol, was in the original planetary and elementary worship, the Moon but in the mystic religion, she appears to have been a personification of the all-pervading Spirit, acting through the moon upon the Earth and the waters. Hence she comprehended almost every other female personification, and has innumerable titles and symbols expressive of almost every attribute, whether of creation, preservation, or destruction as appears from the Pantheic figures of her such as she was worshipped in the celebrated temple of Ephesus, of which many are extant. Among the principal of these symbols is the deer, which also appears among the accessory symbols of Bacchus and which is sometimes blended into one figure with the goat so as to form a composite fictitious animal called a Trag-elephus of which there are several examples now extant."' The very ancient colossal statue of the androgynous Apollo near Miletus, of which there is an engraving from an ancient copy 114. In ter is represented ; ; ; ; : ; in the Select Specimens, pi. xii. carried a deer in the right hand, and on a very early gold coin, probably of Ephesus, a male represented with the horns of the same animal "" whence we suspect that the metamorphoses of Actaeon,. like many other similar fables, arose from some such symbolical composition. beardless head is ; SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORIES. 115. It is probable therefore that the lion devouring the Sun exhaling the horse, represents the diurnal heat of the 42« WiNCKELMAN Monument, Antic, ^'" carried ; inedited, No. ii. DiODORUS SicuLUS : xxviii. 20. " EfiSgies of goat-elephants were among the ornaments of the magnificent hearse in which the body of Alexander the Great was conveyed from Babylon to Alexandria, where it was deposited in a shrine or coffin of solid gold which having been melted down and away during the troubles by which Ptolemy XI. was expelled, a glass one was substituted and exhibited in its place in the time of Strabo." See Geogr. xvii. 'i'* In the cabinet of Mr. R. Payne Knight. See Ionian Antiquities published by the Society Dilettanti, vol. L ix. 173 c. iii. pL : ; The Symbolical Language of 82 waters and devouring the deer, the same heat withering and putrefying the productions of the earth both of which, though immediately destructive, are preparatory to reproduction for the same fervent rays, which scorch and wither, clothe the earth with verdure, and mature all its fruits. As they dry up the waters in one season, so they return them in another, causing fermentation and putrefaction, which make one generation of plants and animals the means of producing another in regular and unceasing progression, and thus constitute that varied yet uniform harmony in the succession of causes and effects, which is the principle of general order and economy in the operations of nature. The same meaning was signified by a composition more celebrated in poetry, though less frequent in art, of Hercules destroying a Centaur; who is sometimes distinguished, as in the ancient coins above cited, by the pointed goat's beard. harmony is represented, on the frieze 1 1 6. This universal of the temple of Apollo Didumaeus near Miletus, by the lyre supported by tvjo symbolical figures composed of the mixed forms and features of the goat and the lion, each of which rests one of its fore-feet upon it.*" The poets expressed the same meaning in their allegorical tales of the loves of Mars and Venus from which sprang the goddess Harmonia,"" represented by the lyre,"' which, according to the .Egyptians was strung by Mercury with the sinews of Typhon.*" ; ; : ; "the mother and daughter" ISIS AND PROSERPINA. 117. The fable of Ceres and Proserpina is the same allegory inverted: for Proserpina or Persephoneia, who, as her name indicates, was the goddess of Destruction, is fabled to have sprung from Jupiter and Ceres, the most general personifications of the creative powers. Hence she is called Kore the *'' See Ionian Antiquities published by the Society Dilettanti, vol. i. c. iii. l^ " This was the harp which Zeus's beaute„ o^is son Framed by celestial skill to play upon ^^^ for l"s plectrum the sun s beams he ;„ ^1 '.,„ 430 Plutarch : T Ins , and ^ Osms, used, To 40. Sophocles (Edifus Tyr., v. 190. This unarmed Mars is the plague: wherefore that god must have been strike those chords that mortal ears amused." : considered as the Destroyer in general, not as the god of War in particular. ^^^ Tlvtarch I'ytAian Priestess, 16. " They presented a golden plectrum to Apollo, remembering perhaps those verses of Scythinus, who thus wrote of the harp : *''^ Plutarch "They : fable that and Osiris, ssHermes (Thoth or Isis Mercury) took out the sinews of phon and used them Ty • for harp-strings, to denote that when JVous or reason arranged the universe it made a concord out of many discords, and so did not abolish, but merely curtailed the scope of the corruptible principle." 174 ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 83 daughter "' as being the universal daughter, or general secondary principle ; for though properly the goddess of Destruc; is frequently distinguished by the title Soteira"* and represented with ears of corn upon her head, as goddess of Fertility. She was, in reality, the personification of the heat or fire supposed to pervade the earth, which was held to be at once the cause and eflFect of fertility and destruction, as being at once the cause and effect of fermentation, from which both proceed."* The mystic concealment of her operation was expressed by the black vail or bandage upon her head,"" which was sometimes dotted with asterisks whilst the hair, which it enveloped, was made to imitate tion, she Preserver, flames."' The Nephthe or Nephthus of the Egyptians, and the Death of the Romans, were the same personage and yet, with both these peoples, she was the same as Venus and Libera, the goddess of generation."' Isis was also 118. Libitina, or goddess of : by the later .^Egyptians, the personification more generalised, so as to comprehend universal nature whence Apuleius invokes her by the names of Eleusinian Ceres, Celestial Venus, and Proserpina and she answers him by a general explanation of these titles. " I am," the same, except that was still ; ; says she, " Nature, the parent of things, the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time, the most exalted of the deities, the first of the heavenly gods and goddesses, the queen of the shades, the uniform countenance who dispose with my nod the luminous heights of heaven, the salubrious breezes of the sea, and the mournful silence of the dead whose single deity the whole world venerates in many forms, with various rites, and many names. The Egyptians, skilled in ancient lore, worship me with proper ceremonies, and call me by my true name. Queen Isis." "° ; ; 433 j^i^yi ig also translated puella or maiden, and yet she is reputed to have been the mother of Diouysus-Zagreus of the Sabazian mysteries. But in truth the name is the same as Kura, the feminine designation of the Sun, and the title given to Ceres or Demeter at Cnidus. Indeed, the two, Demeter and Kore-Persephoneia, her reputed daughter, are identical. A. W. "^ See coins of Agathocles. 'y- Orphic Hymn, y^Yx.-. " Persephoneia, alike the cause of life and death — to mortals." "' Meleager Epigram, cxix. "' See silver coins of Syracuse, : 438 Plutarch Numa. : etc. Isis and Osiris : some likewise call dit^ they also name " Nephthe, Victory." Cicero: Against call her Libera, Proserpina." ^'' " Apuleius En adsum : tuis whom Death and Aphro- who Verres. is "They the same as The Golden Ass. commota, Luci, pre- rerura natura parens, elementorium omnium domina, sasculorum progenies initialis, summa numinum, regina manium, prima ccelitum, deo-< rum dearumque, facies uniformis quse coeli luminosa culmina, maris salubria flamina, inferorum deplorata silentia nutibus meis dispenso, cujus numen unicum, multiformi specie, ritu cibus, : 17s ; ; The Symbolical Language of 84 This universal character of the goddess appears, howhave been subsequent to the Macedonian conquest when a new modification of the ancient systems of religion and philosophy took place at Alexandria, and spread itself gradually over the world. The statues of this Isis are of a composition and form quite different from those of the ancient Egyptian goddess and all that we have seen are of Greek or Roman sculpture. The original .Egyptian figure of Isis is merely the animal symbol of the cow humanised, with the 119. ever, to ; addition of the serpent, disk, or some other accessary emblem but the Greek and Roman figures of her are infinitely varied to signify by various symbols the various attributes of universal Nature."" In this character she is confounded with the personifications of Fortune and Victory, which are in reality no other than those of Providence, and therefore occasionally decked with all the attributes of universal Power.*" The figures of victory have frequently the antenna or sail-yard of a ship in one hand, and the chaplet or crown of immortality in the other *" and those of Fortune, the rudder of a ship in one hand, and the cornucopise in the other, with the modius or polos on her head "' which ornaments Bupalus of Chios is said to have first given her in a statue made for the Smyrnasans about the sixtieth Olympiad *" but both have occasionally Isiac and other symbols."' : ; ; ; ISIS-WORSHIP THE SAME AS THE ASIATIC RELIGIONS. The allegorical tales of the loves and misfortunes of and Osiris are an exact counterpart of those of Venus and 120. Isis " See medals in gold of Alexander vario, nomine multijugo totus veneraPrisca doctrina poltur orbis. the Great. lentes ^gyptii, ceremoniis me prorsus propriis percolentes, appellant vero *** Bronzi cCErcolano, vol. 2, xxviii. Pausanias Messen. xxx. 3, 4 " The first mention of which I know, *** nomine Reginam Isidem." "" See plate Egyptian The Ixx. of vol. I. figures with the horns of the cow, wrought under the pire, are common small bronzes. *" Pausanias " I am that Roman em- i. we know : made of TycliS or in his Fortune, "Hymn to (line 417). "She is mentioned also as the daughter of Ocean- Demeter" in all collections of us." Achates, xxvi. 3. persuaded that in this ode of Menander is Homer makes : Pindar, Fortune may be regarded as one of the Fates and to be strong beyond her sisters." ments, : . . Supplementary Frag- with them. Fortune directs all; and it behooves us to call her alone the god, mind, and thought, if we would not be amused by empty names." . " Nothing further among this goddess is is the gods in the affairs of men, and exercises great power." "Bupalos, the artist, first made a statue of Fortune for the Smyrnseans, of which we know that it had a polos or hemisphere on the head, and in the left hand what is termed by the Greeks the horn of Amalthea." *" Bronzi i'Ercolano, vol. ii. tav xxvi. : also Medals of Leucadia. greatest .... " Fortune means all things or do; but we are credited . than that declared 176 — Ancient Art and Mythology. 85 Adonis (Astart^ and Baal);*" which signify the alternate exertion of the generative and destructive attributes. Adonis or Adonai was an Oriental (Phoenician and Hebrew) title of the Sun, signifying Lord; and the boar, supposed to have killed him, was the emblem of Winter;"' during which the productive powers of nature being suspended, Venus was said to lament the loss of Adonis until he was again restored to life: whence both the Syrian and Argive women annually mourned his death, and celebrated his renovation "' and the mysteries of Venus and Adonis at Byblos in Syria were held in similar estimation with those of Ceres and Bacchus at ; Eleusis, and Isis and Osiris in ^gypt."' Adonis was said to *" pass six months with Proserpina, and six with Venus whence some learned persons have conjectured that the allegory was invented near the pole, where the sun disappears daring so long a time *" but it may signify merely the decrease and increase of the productive powers of nature as the sun retires and advances.'"" The Vishnu or Juggernaut of the Hindus is equally said to lie in a dormant state during the four rainy months of that climate "° and the Osiris of the Egyptians was supposed to be dead or absent forty days in each year, during which the people lamented '" his loss, as the Syrians did that of Adonis, and the Scandinavians that of Frey "' though at Upsal, the great metropolis of their worship, the sun never continues any one day entirely below the ; : : ; *" SuiDAS : " Osiris being likewise the same as Adonis, according to tlie the mystical method of blending the various gods." *" Hesychius upon Macroeius: further remarks, not considered as a distinct personage, but as Dionysus or Bacchus himself." Plutarch: Symposiacs, iv. 5. "It Saturnalia, i. that " Adonis 20, is is said that Adonis was slain by a boar. Now Adonis is supposed to be thesame with Bacchus; and many rites the worship of each confirm this opinion." Ar the boar that slew Adonis was the symbol or representative of Ares or Mars, the god of strife and destruction. The legend represents the end of stmnner as well as human life by the genius of winter and Death. in A. W. "* LuciAN De Dea Syria. Pausanias : Corinth, xx. 5. Ezekiel, viii. : 16 181 •"» LuciAN : De Dea Syria, xx. 6. "" Scholiast upon the Idyl of The•' They ooritus, iii. say concerning Adonis, that he dying, spent six months in the embraces of AphroditS and also in the embraces of Persephone." *" Ol-AUS Rudbeckius Atlantica, No. II. iii. Baillie De VAstroncmie : : Ancienm. ^^^ Plutarch Ids and The Phrygians, believing : " Osiris, 69. their god be asleep during the winter and awake in summer, in celebrating the orgies of Bacchus commemorate both those events. Paphlagonians pray and intercede for the winter to break up and terminate." "' Holwell Part II. p. 125. to : ""^ Am. Marcellin. xix. c. I. Ut lacrymare cultrices Veneris sa;pe spectantur in solemnibus Adonidis sacris, quod simulacrum aliquod esse frugum adultarum religiones mysticse decent. "'THEOPHiLUS:orf.,4«fc/)'^.i. p. 75. The Symbolical Language of 86 horizon.'" The story of the Phoenix, or, as that fabulous bird was called in the north, of the Fanina, appears to have been an allegory of the same kind, as was also the Phrygian tale concerning Cybele and Atys though variously distinguished ; by the fictions of poets and mythographers."' THE SWINE A SACRIFICIAL ANIMAL. 121. On some of the very ancient Greek coins of Acanthus Macedonia we find a lion killing a boar ;"' and in other monuments a dead boar appears carried in solemn procession "* by both which was probably meant the triumph of Adonis in the destruction of his enemy at the return of spring. A young pig was also the victim offered preparatory to initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries,"" which seems to have been intended to express a similar compliment to the Sun. The Phrygian Atys, like the Syrian Adonis, was fabled to have been killed by a boar, or, according to another tradition, by Mars in the shape of that animal '" and his death and resurrection were annually celebrated in the same manner."' The beauty of his person, and the style of his dress, caused his statues to be confounded with those of Paris, who appears also to have been canonised and it is probable that a symbolical composition representing him in the act of fructifying nature, attended by power and wisdom, gave rise to the story of the Trojan prince's adjudging the prize of beauty between the three contending goddesses a story which appears to have in ; ; ; ; who have celebrated the events of the war supposed to have arisen from it. The fable of Ganymedes, the cup-bearer of Jupiter, seems to have arisen from some symbolical composition of the same been wholly unknown to the ancient poets, kind, at first misunderstood, and afterwards misrepresented in poetical fiction for the lines in the Iliad alluding to it, are, as before observed, spurious and according to Pindar, the most orthodox perhaps of all the poets, Ganymedes was not : ; the son of Laomedon, but a mighty genius or deity who regu- lated or caused the overflowings of the Nile by the motion ol his feet."' His being, therefore, the cup-bearer of Jupiter, means no more than that he was the distributor of the waters be*" Ol. Rudbeck. Atlantic, p. : ii. "" *" Aristophanes Peace, 374. Dionysiacs. NoNNUS "Ares (Mars) in the form of a boar, with savage teeth, bringing death, came to weave the web of fate about Adonis." *"' Strabo x. Julian: Orations, v. "^ Scholiast upon Aratus. c. V. p. 153. '" Ol. Rudbeck. NoNNis : Diotiys. : M. p. ii. c. iii. et v. 396. ^"' Pelerin;vo1. I. pi. xxx. No. 17. *" On a marble fragment in relief in the Townley-Collection. : : : 182 .-.Ci^^i-^-f-'g^^'^^^^ ; ; Art and Mythology. Ancient 87 and consequently a distinct personiwhich is otherwise signified by the epithet Fluvius. Hence he is only another modification of the same personification, as Atys, Adonis, and Bacchus who are all occasionally represented holding the cup or patera; which is also given, with the cornucopias, to their subordinate emanations, the local genii of which many small tween heaven and earth, fication of that attribute of Jupiter, ; figures in brass are extant. 122. In the poetical tales of the ancient Scandinavians, Frey, the deity of the Sun, was fabled to have been killed by a boar; which was therefore annually offered to him at the great feast of Juul (Yule), celebrated during the wintersolstice."* Boars of paste were also served on their tables during the feast which being kept till the following spring, were then beaten to pieces and mixed with the seeds to be sown and with the food of the cattle and hinds employed in tilling the ground.'"' Among the .(Egyptians likewise, those who could not afford to sacrifice real pigs, had images of them in paste served up at the feasts of Bacchus or Osiris,"' which seem, like the feasts of Adonis in Syria, and the Yule in Sweden, to have been expiatory solemnities meant to honor and conciliate the productive power of the Sun by the symFrom an bolical destruction of the adverse or inert power. ancient fragment preserved by Plutarch, it seems that Mars, considered as the destroyer, was lepresented by a boar among the Greeks "' and on coins we find him wearing the boar's, as Hercules wears the lion's skin "' in both of which instances the old animal symbol is humanised, as almost all the animal symbols gradually were by the refinement of Grecian : ; ; art. 123. From this symbolical use of the boar to represent the destroying or rather the anti-generative attribute, probably arose the abhorrence of swine's flesh, which prevailed universally among the .^Egyptians and Jews, and partially in other countries, particularly in Pontus where the temple of Venus at Comana was kept so strictly pure from the pollution of such enemies, that a pig was never admitted into the city."" ; The Egyptians are said also to have signified the inert power of Typhon by an ass "" but among the ancient inhabitants of *" Olaus Rudbeckius : part I., and part II., v. «* Olaus Rudbeckids. «6 Herodotus ii. 47, and Macro- v., viii. : Bius : Saturnalia, »" Plutarch: blind, oh women, i. 20. he "68 who " For perceives 13. 187 commotion." gee brass coins of Rome, common in all countries. "s' Of Love, is not that Ares in the form of a boar, sets all evils in Strabo ™ ^lian : : xii. p. 575. De Anim. x. xxviii. ;; The Symbolical Language of 88 and probably the Greeks, this animal appears to have been a symbol of an opposite kind,"' and is therefore perpetually found in the retinue of Bacchus the dismemberment of whom by the Titans was an allegory of the same kind as the death of Adonis and Atys by the boar, and the dismemberment of Osiris by Typhon *" whence his festivals were in the spring *" and at Athens, as well as in ^gypt, Syria, and Phrygia, the Aphanismos and Egersis, or death and revival, were celebrated, the one with lamentations, and the other with reItaly, : ; ; joicing.*" PROMETHEUS AND THE VULTURE. The stories of Prometheus were equally allegorical Prometheus was only a title of the Sun, expressing /rw/- 124. for dence"" ox foresight, wherefore his being bound in the extremities of the earth, signified originally no more than the restriction of the power of the sun during the winter months though it has been variously embellished and corrupted by the poets, partly, perhaps, from symbolical compositions ill understood, for the vulture might have been naturally employed as an emblem of the destroying power. Another em*" Juvenal Satires, xi. 96. Columella X. 344. •" Plutarch " The sufferings re: : : lated in the chants concerning Dionysus and the crimes of the Titans against him, etc., the whole related as a fable, is a myth concerning the return to life." Isis and Osiris : 54. " They do not simply propound in the legend that the soul of Osiris is perpetual and incorruptible, but that his body is repeatedly torn in pieces and concealed by Typhon." "' " The festival of Bromius (Bacchus) occurring in spring." ^" Demosthenes : The Julius Firmicius. •"' Pindar : Olympic Crown. Odes vi. 81. The story of Prometheus has an aspect, and is older than oriental the Grecian mythology. He is styled by Lycophron, Daimon Promatheos Aithiops, the ^Ethiopian God Prometheus. It is most improbable therefore that liis designation expressed "providence or foresight." He belonged, as even the Greeks acknowledge, to a previous era as well as race. jEschylus says ; " Yet who like me advanced To their high dignity our new-raised gods . All ttie secret treasures . . Deep buried in the bowels of the earth, iron, silver, gold, their use to man. Brass, ? Let the vain tongue make what high vaunts it may, Are my inventions all and, in a word, Prometheus taught each useful art to man." According to Bryant (Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ii. p. 140), Prometheus was worshipped as a deity by the Colchians, a nation kindred with the .(Egyptians, and had a temple on Mount Caucasus, called the Typhonian Rock, the device over the gate of which was an eagle over a heart. This was a symbol of Egypt, the eagle being the crest and the heart the emblem of that country. Diodorus asserts that Prometheus was an Egyptian deity, and one of the Orphic hymns identifies him also with ; Kronos or Saturn. Dunlap, in his Spirit-History of Man, makes the name synonymous with the Hindu Agni, " the fire upon the altar," and Col. Wilford finds it in the designation Pramathas, the servants or votaries of Maha Deva, that were destroyed by the bird Garuda, the celebrated enemy of the Serpent-tribes, or Naga- worshippers. —A. W Prometheus and the Vulture. Venus and wounded Adonis- ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 89 this power, much distinguished in the ancient Scandinavian mythology, was the wolf, who in the last day was expected to devour the sun "" and among the symbolical ornaments of a ruined mystic temple at Puzzuoli, we find a wolf devouring grapes, which being the fruit peculiarly consecrated to Bacchus, are not unfrequently employed to signify that god. Lycopolis, in ^gypt, takes its name from the sacred wolf kept there; *" and upon the coins of Carthsea, in the island of Ceos, the forepart of this animal appears surrounded with diverging rays, as the centre of an asterisk/" blem of ; PUTREFACTION ABHORRED. 125. As putrefaction was the most general means of natuthe same spirit of superstition ral destruction or dissolution, which turned every other operation of nature into an object of devotion, consecrated it to the personification of the destroying power ; whence, in the mysteries and other sacred rites belonging to the generative attributes, everything putrid, or that had a tendency to putridity, was carefully avoided and so strict were the Egyptian priests upon this point, that they wore no garments made of any animal substance, but circumcised themselves, and shaved their whole bodies even to their eyebrows, lest they should unknowingly harbor any filth, excrement, or vermin supposed to be bred from putrefaction/'" The common fly, being, in its first stage of existence, a principal agent in dissolving and dissipating all putrescent bodies, was adopted as an emblem of the Deity to represent the destroying attribute; whence the Baal-Zebub, or Jupiter Fly of the Phoenicians, when admitted into the creed of the Jews, received the rank and office of Prince of the Devils."" ^" S^MOND : Edda, liii. " The Wolf will devour The Father of the ages." See also Mallet Introduction a VHistoire de Danemarc, vi. "' Macroeius : Saturnalia, i. xvii. •"* The wolf is also the device on the coins of Argos. ^"Herodotus : ii. 37. " They drink out of brazen cups, which they scour every day there is no exception to this practice. They wear linen garments, which they are specially careful to have always fresh-washed. They practice circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be cleanly than comely. The priests shave their whole body every third : ; day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when they are engaged in the service of the gods. Their dress is entirely of linen, and their shoes of the paper-plant it is not lawful for them to wear either dress or shoes of any other material." ; '*'' See Inman Ancient : Embodied Faiths in Ancient Names, \o\. i. -p. " Baalzebub, or Beelzebub, is 328. usually said to mean * my Lord of flies,' but this seems to me to be absurd. The word zabab signifies ' to murmur,' * hum,' or buzz,' and when we remember the Memnons in Egypt, which gave out a murmur at sunrise, I think it more consistent with what we know of priestly devices, to con- 191 * The Symbolical Language of 90 The symbol was humanised at an early period, probably by the Phoenicians themselves, and thus formed into one of those fantastic compositions which ignorant antiquaries have taken for wild efforts of disordered imagination, instead of regular productions of systematic art.*" BACCHUS AND THE LEOPARDS. Bacchus frequently appears accompanied by leowhich in some instances are employed in devouring clusters of grapes, and in others, drinking the liquor pressed from them though they are in reality incapable of feeding upon that or any other kind of fruit. On a very ancient coin 126. pards,'" ; of Acanthus, too, the leopard is represented, instead of the lion, destroying the bull "' wherefore we have no doubt that in the Bacchic processions, it means the destroyer accompanying the generator, and contributing, by different means, to the same end. In some instances his chariot is drawn by two leopards, and in others, by a leopard and a goat coupled together,'" which are all different means of signifying different modes and combinations of the same ideas. In the British Museum is a group in marble of three figures, the middle one a human form growing out of a vine, with leaves and clusters of grapes growing out of its body. On one side is an androgynous figure representing the Mises or Bacchus Diphues, and on the other, a leopard, with a garland of ivy round its neck, leaping up and devouring the grapes, which spring from the body of the personified vine, the hands of which are employed in receiving another cluster from the Bacchus. This composition represents the vine between the creating and destroying attributes of the Deity, the one giving it fruit, and the other devouring it when given. The poets conveyed the same ; My Lord sider that the word signifies ' " that murmurs.' Ancient clairvoyants or interpreters of oracles spoke with a muttering See voice, as if from the ground. BaalIsaiah, viii. ig, and xxix. 4. Zebub, of Ekron, was consulted as But in the New Testa, an oracle. ment, the name is often written BeelZebul, the latter term signifying an abode or habitation. The combination may therefore mean Baal of the Temple. After the return of the Jews from Babylonia, the Asideans, or Maccabean party (afterwards known as Pharisees or Parsees), bringing Zoroastrian sentiments with them, ap- plied the deity -names Seth, or Satan, and Baal-Zebub, to the Evil Potency. — A. W. "' See WlNKELMANi jI/ok. an/. No. 13; and Hist, c. ii. ;Wa'. dcs Arts, Liv. iii. p. 143. •"* These are frequently tigers; but the first tiger seen called by the Greeks or Romans was presented by Augustus, the ambassadors of India to while settling the affairs of Asia, in the year of Rome 734. (DiON. Cass. 192 Hist. ^'^ ^'^ NER. liv. s. 9.) In the cabinet of Mr. Knight, GesSee medal of Maronea. tab. xliii. fig. 26. A7icient Art and Mythology. 91 meaning in the allegorical tales of the Loves of Bacchus and Ampelus, who, as the name indicates, was only the vine personified THE CHIMjERA. 127. The Chimera, of which so many whimsical interpreta- seems an emblematical composition of the same class, vailed, as usual, under historical fable to conceal its meaning from the vulgar. It was composed of the forms of the goat, the lion, and the serpent, the symbols of the generator, destroyer, and preserver united and animated by fire, the essenThe old poet had probably tial principle of all the three. seen such a figure in Asia, but knowing nothing of mystic lore, which does not appear to have reached Greece or her colonies in his time, received whatever was told him concerning it. In later times, however, it must have been a wellknown sacred symbol, or it would not have been employed as tions have been given by the commentators on the Iliad, to have been a device upon coins. APOLLO AND PYTHON. 128. The fable of Apollo destroying the serpent Python, seems equally to have originated from the symbolical language of imitative art, the title Apollo signifying, according to the etymology already given, the destroyer as well as the deliverer for, as the ancients supposed destruction to be merely dissolution, as creation was merely formation, the power which delivered the particles of matter from the bonds of attraction and broke the dta^xov nepifipidri epooTO?, was in Hence the verb ATD, or ATMI (Luo or fact the destroyer. LuMi), from which it is derived, means both to free and to dePliny mentions a statue of Apollo by Praxiteles, stroy^'^ much celebrated in his time, called Sauroktonos,"' the lizardkiller, of which several copies are now extant."' The lizard, being supposed to exist upon the dews and moisture of the earth, was employed as the symbol of humidity so that the god destroying it, signifies the same as the lion devouring the horse, and Hercules killing the Centaur, that is, the sun, exhaling the waters. When destroying the serpent, he only signifies a different application of the same power to the extinction of life whence he is called Pythias,*'' or the putrefier, ; ; ; See Iliad, i. 20, and i. 25. **' Pliny: xxxiv. c. viii. "' See Winkelman: Man. ^'' <*' Macrobius " Pythius, ant. putrefy." ined. pi. xl. 199 (torn, : Saturnalia, ftithein, i. I. xvii. e. sepein, to The Symbolical Language of 92 from the verb nvdao. The title Smintheus, too, supposing it to mean, according to the generally received interpretation, mouse-killer, was expressive of another application of the same attribute ; for the mouse was a priapic animal,"' and is fre- quently employed as such in monuments of ancient art."" The statue, likewise, which Pausanias mentions, of Apollo with his foot upon the head of a bull, is an emblem of similar meaning.'" 129. The offensive weapons of this deity, which are the symbols of the means by which he exerted his characteristic attribute, are the bow and arrows, signifying the emission of its rays of which the arrow or dart, the bdos or obelos, Hence he was, as before observed, the appropriate emblem. is called ^<5flTnP, 'EKAT02, and 'EKATHB0A02, and also Chrusaor and Chrusaorus, which have a similar signification the first syllable expressing the golden color of rays, for aor does not signify and the others their erect position merely a sword, as a certain writer, upon the authority of common Latin Versions and school Lexicons, has supposed but anything that is held up it being the substantive of the verb ; ; : ; ; aeiro. HERCULES IDENTICAL WITH APOLLO AND MARS. 130. Hercules destroying the Hydra, signifies exactly the and the lizard ""' the water-snake comprehending both symbols, and the ancient Phoenician Hercules being merely the lion humanised. The knowledge of him appears to have come into Europe by the way of Thrace he having been worshipped in the island of Thasus, by the Phoenician colony settled there, five generations before the birth of the Theban hero "' who was distinguished same ; as Apollo destroying the serpent ; ; *" .iElian : History of Animals, xii. 10. The appellation Smin-iheus seem rather the Hindu to affiliate deity Ganesa, — would Apollo with who is always A. W. accompanied by a rat. ^^ It was the device upon the coins of Argos (Jul. Poll. Onom. ix. vi. 86), probably before the adoption of the wolf, which is on most of those now extant. A small one, however, in gold, with the mouse, is in the cabinet of Mr. R. P. Knight. ^" Pausanias Achaica, xx. 2. "" Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 50. : : The Hydra is evidently a reproduc- tion ot the many-headed Nagas of India, and is the designation of a constellation in the sky. As the Phosnician Hercules is the same as Cronos, or Moloch, the Sun-God, the slaying of the Hydra is the poetic or . mythological method of mentioning the entering of the sun into the signs of the zodiac which lie near that constellation. The identity of Hercules with Apollo, Bacchus, and Mars is certain enough the intelligent among the ancients did not believe in the ; current polytheism. *™ Herodotus : —A. ii. W. 44. Herakles between Vice and Vir Ancient Art and Mythology. 93 by the same title that he obtained in Greece, and whose romantic adventures have been confounded with the allegorical fables related of him. In the Homeric times, he appears to have been utterly unknown to the Greeks, the Hercules of the Iliad and Odyssey being a mere man, pre-eminently distinguished, indeed, for strength and valor, but exempt from none of the laws of mortality."' His original symbolical arms, with which he appears on the most ancient medals of Thasus, were the same as those of Apollo; "' and his Greek name, which, according to the most probable etymology, signifies the glorifier of the earth, is peculiarly applicable to the Sun. The Romans held him to be the same as Mars "° who was sometimes represented under the same form, and considered as the same deity as Apollo; "' and in some instances we find ; him destroying the vine instead of the Serpent,*" the deer, the centaur, or the bull by all which the same meaning, a little differently modified, is conveyed but the more common representation of him destroying the lion is not so easily explained and it is probable that the traditional history of the deified hero has, in this instance as well as some others, been blended ; : ; with the allegorical fables of the personified attribute for we have never seen any composition of this kind upon any monument of remote antiquity."' : THE PILLARS ASCRIBED TO SESOSTRIS. 131. Upon the pillars which existed in the time of Herodotus in diiferent parts of Asia, and which were attributed by the Egyptians to Sesostris, and by others to Memnon, was engraved the figure of a man holding a spear in his right hand, and a bow in his left to which was added, upon some of them, ; Homer Iliad, xviii. 117, and The three lines reOdyssey, xi. 5oo. lating to the apotheosis of Hercules, They declare that are interpolated. " he himself is one of the immortal gods, delighting himself at their feasts, and wedded to fair-limbed Heb6." i9t StrabO: XV. 688- Athen^us: xii. It is apparent that as the sun-god of the Phoenicians, Hercules is identical with Apollo, the sun-god of Greece, The club was given him by the epic poets. The name Hercules is evidently from the Sanscrit Her'calyus, Lord of the tribe or city. A. W. "'' : — *" Varro. See Macrobius Satumalia, i. 44. ^" Plutarch See Eusebius Praparatio Evangelica, iii. i. "Apollo : : bom of Leto, and Ares of Hera but the potency of both is the same, So also, Hera and Leto are was ; ... two appellations of a single ^™ Mus, Florent. in xcii. Q. ""' The earliest coins divinity." gemm. t. i. pi. which we have seen with this device, are of Syracuse, Tarentum, and Heraclea in Italy all of the finest time of the art, and little anterior to the Macedonian conquest. On the more ancient medals of Selinus, Hercules is destroying the bull, as the lion or leopard is on those of Acanthus and the destroying a cen taur signifies exactly the same as a lion destroying a horse ; the symbols ; ; being merely humanised. 203 ; The Symbolical Language of 94 the female aidoia, said by the Egyptians to have been meant as a memorial of the cowardice and effeminacy of the inhabitants, whom their monarch had [subdued."" The whole composition was however, probably, symbolical signifying the active power ; of destruction, and passive power of generation whose co-operation and conjunction are signified in so many various ways in the emblematical monuments of ancient art. The figure holding the spear and the bow is evidently the same as appears upon the ancient Persian coins called Varies, and upon those of some Asiatic cities, in the Persian dress; but which, upon those of others, appears with the same arms, and in the same This attitude is attitude, with the lion's skin upon its head."' that of kneeling upon one knee; which is that of the Phoenician Hercules upon the coins of Thasus above cited wherefore we have no doubt that he was the personage meant to be represented as he continued to be afterward upon the BacThe Hindus have still a correspondtrian and Parthian coins. ing deity, whom they call Rama, and the modern Persians a fabulous hero called Rustam, whose exploits are in many respects similar to those of Hercules, and to whom they attribute all the stupendous remains of ancient art found in their coun; : ; try. APOLLO AND DIONYSUS, THE DAY-SUN AND THE NIGHT-SUN. was observed, by the founders of the mystic system, power of the Sun was exerted most by day, and the generative by night for it was by day that it dried up the waters and produced disease and putrefaction and by night that it returned the exhalations in dews tempered with the genial heat that had been transfused into the atmosphere. 132. It that the destructive : ; Hence, when they personified the attributes, they worshipped the one as the diurnal a.n(l the other as the nocturnal sun ; calling the one Apollo, and the other Dionysus or Bacchus;"" both of whom were anciently observed to be the same god '""'Herodotus: ii. under correspondent titles. PausaniAS: Attica, xl. 5. "This the temple of Dionysus of the Night-Orgies." " The Pausanias Act. xxvii. 2. sanctuary of Dionysus, called the 102, 106. "" See coins of Mallus in Cilicia, and Soli :n Cyprus in the Hunter Collection. '»* cris : Macrobius: 53^ c. i8. Insaenim hsec religiosi arcani obser- vantia tenetur, ut Sol, cum in supero, id est in diurno hemisphierio est, Apollo vocitetur ; cum in infero, id est nocturno, Dionysus, qui et Liber pater habeatur. Hence Sophocles calls Bacchus " Leader of the chori of flamebreathing sta.TS," apuJ Eustath. p. 514, und he had temples dedicated to him Torch-bearer." Osiris was also lord of the Underworld. Herodotus: ii. 123. " The .(Egyptians say that Deraeter and Dionysus (Isis and Osiris) preside below." Macrobius also declares (Satumalia, i. 17) ; "Aristoteles, qui theo- logumena scripsit, ApoUinem et Liberum patrem unum eundemque deum 204 esse, cum multis argumentis asserit." Slllli! Apollon. Meleager " ; ' Ancient Art and Mythology. 95 whence, in a verse of Euripides, they are addressed as one, the epithets.'" The oracle at Delphi was also supposed to belong to both equally; or, according to the expression of a Latin poet, to the united and mixed divin- names being used as ity of both.'" This mixed divinity appears to have been represented person of the Apollo Didymseus, who was worshipped in another celebrated oracular temple near Miletus, and whose symbolical image seems to be exhibited in plates xii. xliii. and 133. in the of volume I. of the Select Specimens, and in different compositions on different coins of the Macedonian kings sometimes sitting upon the prow of a ship, as lord of the waters, or Bacchus Hyes °" sometimes on the cortina, the vailed cone or ^^^ and sometimes leaning upon a tripod ; but always in iv. ; ; ; an androgynous form, with the limbs, tresses, and features of a woman and holding the bow or arrow, or both, in his hands."" The double attribute, though not the double sex, is also frequently signified in figures of Hercules either by the cup or cornucopias held in his hand, or by the chaplet of poplar or some other symbolical plant, worn upon his head while the club or lion's skin indicates the adverse power. 134. In the refinement of art, the forms of the lion and goat were blended into one fictitious animal to represent the same meaning, instances of which occur upon the medals of Capua, Panticapaeum, and Antiochus VI., king of Syria, as wfeU as in the frieze of the temple of Apollo Didymaeus before mentioned. ; ; ; In the former, too, the destroying attribute is further signified by the point of a spear held in the mouth of the monster; and the productive, by the ear of corn under his feet.'" In the latter, the result of both is shown by the lyre, the symbol of universal narmony, which is supported between them and which ; occasionally given to Hercules, as well as to Apollo. The two-faced figure of Janus seems to have been a composite symbol of the same kind, and to have derived the name from lao or laon, an ancient mystic title of Bacchus. The earliest specimens of it extant are on the coins of Lampsacus and Teneis "" Macrobius Saturnalia, i. 17. lover of Daphne, Bacchus, Paian, Apollo." : " Lord, ™ LucAN. mount sacred to whom Bacchse ./'.^arjuA'a, V. 73. "The to Phoebus and Bromius in joint divinity the Theban celebrate the triennial fes- '"' Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 3^. They (Greeks) call Dionysus also Hyes as jord of the moist nature . and being no other than Osiris. See medals of Antigonus, Antiochus I., Seleucus II. and III., and other kings of Syria and also of Magnesia ad Mseandrum, and ad Sipylum. The beautiful figure engraved on plates xliii. and iv. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens is the most exquisite example of this androgynous Apollo. "" Numm. Pembrok. tab. v. fi?. 12. '»• ; tival. " (generation), 207 The Symbolical Language of 96 dos some of which can not be later than the sixth century and in later coins of the former city, before the Christian era heads of Bacchus of the usual form and character occupy its ; ; place. The mythological personages Castor and Pollux, who and died alternately, were the same as Bacchus and Apollo whence they were pre-eminently distinguished by the title of the Great Gods in some places; though, in others, confounded with the canonised or deified mortals, the brothers of Helen."' Their fabulous birth from the e.^Z-, the form of which is retained in the caps usually worn by them, is a remnant of the ancient mystic allegory, upon which the more whilst the two recent poetical tales have been engrafted asterisks, and the two human heads, one going upward and the other downward, by which they are occasionally represented, more distinctly point out their symbolical meaning,"" which was the alternate appearance of the sun in the upper This meaning, being a part of and lower hemispheres. what was revealed in the Mysteries, is probably the reason why Apuleius mentions the seeing of the sun at midnight zvaong the circumstances of initiation, which he has obscurely and 135. lived : ; enigmatically related."" 136. As the appearance of the one necessarily implied the cessation of the other, the tomb of Bacchus was shown at Delos near to the statue of Apollo ; and one of these mystic tombs,"' in the form of a large chest of porphyry, adorned with goats, leopards, and other symbolical figures, is still extant in a church at Rome. The mystic cistx, which were carried in procession occasionally, and in which some emblem of the generative or preserving attribute was generally kept, appear to have been merely models or portable representations of these tombs,"" and to have had exactly the same signification. By the mythologists Bacchus is said to have terminated his expedition in the extremities of the East and Hercules in the ex; '"' Pausanias: i. and iii. They were also denominated anakes, from the Phoenician term anak^ a prince, The Scholiast on Lucian remarks "The temple of the Dioscuri was ctAXzA. Anakeion : for they were called anakes by the Greelcs." "" See medals of Istrus. /wwiJjofthe divinities, Bacchus, Jupiter, etc., were but these sacred hillocks or steles misnamed. They were generally surrounded by temenS or enclosures. Cities so distinguished were called Ty- : "° Apuleius : The GMen Ass. xi. '" so The words tophos, tufh, and toph, common as a part of Egyptian names, signifies a high place, and, as Bryant declares, were applied to the mounds created to the deities. phonian. See Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ii. 167-195. A. W. "* The cistce pertain to the sexual — rather than to the funereal symbolism ; and the emblems which they contained were peculiar to the phallic rites, See Inman in Ancient The 20S : Ancient Faiths Embodiei i. p. 2?:'i. A. W. Names, — Ancient Art and Mythology. 97 West which means no more than that the nocits progress, when it mounts above the surrounding ocean in tlie East and the diurnal, when it passes the same boundary of the two hemispheres in the West. 137. The latter being represented by the lion, explains the reason why the spouts of fountains were always made to tremities of the ; turnal sun finishes ; imitate lions' heads which Plutarch supposes to have been, because the Nile overflowed when the sun was in the sign of the Lion "' but the same fashion prevails as universally in Thibet as ever it did in ^gypt, Greece, or Italy though neither the Grand Lama nor any of his subjects know anything of the and the signs of the zodiac were Nile or its overflowings and not, as some learned taken from the mystic symbols authors have supposed, the mystic symbols from the signs of the zodiac. The emblematical meaning, which certain animals were employed to signify, was only some particular property generalised and, therefore, might easily be invented or discovered by the natural operation of the mind but the collections of stars, named after certain animals, have no resemblance whatever to those animals which are therefore merely signs of convention adopted to distinguish certain portions of the heavens, which were probably consecrated to those particular personified attributes, which they respectively represented. That they had only begun to be so named in the time of Homer, and that not on account of any real or supposed resemblance, we have the testimony of a passage in the description of the shield of Achilles, in which the polar constellation is said to be called the Bear, or otherwise the Wagon "* objects so different that it is impossible that one and the same thing should be even imagined to resemble both. We may therefore rank Plutarch's explanation with other tales of the later Egyptian priests and conclude that the real intention of these symbols was to signify that the water, which they conveyed, was the gift of the diurnal sun, because separated from the salt of the sea, and distributed over the earth by exhalation. Perhaps Hercules being crowned with the foliage of the white poplar, an aquatic tree, may have had a similar meaning; which is at least more probable than that assigned by Servius and Macrobius."" ; : ; ; ; ; : ; \ ; ^'^ Plutarch ^'* Iliad, xvii. 487. : Symposiacs, the constellation Ursus, wagon, was also regarded as a vehan or wain. A. iv. 5. — The wagon, W. or more properly vehan (Sanscrit), was the vehicle or animal which was supposed to carry a deity, in the Hindu system. It may be that "° Commentary viii. Macrobius 209 upon the ^neid, line 276. : Saturnalia, iii. 12. . The Symbolical Language of 98 HEAT AND MOISTURE AS SEXUAL SYMBOLS. Humidity in general, and particularly the Nile, was by the Egyptians the outflowing of Osiris; "° who was with them the God of the Waters, in the same sense as Bacchus was among the Greeks "' whence all rivers, when personified, were represented under the form of the bull or at least with 138. called ; ; some of the of that animal.'" In the religion of the Hindus this article of ancient faith, like most others, is still retained; as appears from the title, Daughter of The the Sun, given to the sacred river Yamuna or Jumna."* God of Destruction is also mounted on a white bull, the sacred symbol of the opposite attribute, to show the union and cooperation of both."" The same meaning is more distinctly represented in an ancient Greek fragment of bronze, by a lion trampling upon the head of a bull, while a double phallus appears behind them, and shows the result.'" The title K02MOT, upon the composite Priapic figure, published by La Chausse, is well known '" and it is probable that the ithyphallic ceremonies, which the gross flattery of the degenerate Greeks sometimes employed to honor the Macedonian princes,"' had the same meaning as this title of Saviour, which was frequently conferred upon, or assumed by them.™ It was also occasionally applied to most of the deities who had double attributes, or were personifications of both powers as to Hercules, Bacchus, Diana, etc.'" characteristic features 2nTHP ; ; "• Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 36. The priests of Egypt call not only : " the Nile, but everything moist (like a pitcher of water) the outflowing of "« Sir William Jones Researches, vol. '™ Maurice : Asiatic i Indian Antiquities, : vol. i, p. 261. On the handle of a vase in Mr. Knight's Cabinet. '2' Osiris." '" Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 33. " The more learned in arcane matters among the priests, not only term the Nile Osiris, and the Sea Typhon, but they also regard Osiris to signify every principle and potency of moisture, venerating it as the cause of generation and the substance of the semen, But by Typhon they mean everything dried, fire-like, and withered, as being opposed to moistness." " The Greeks consider 35. Dionysus not alone as the patron of wine, but also of the entire moist or generative principle in nature." '" Horace Book iv. Ode xiv. Rivers so personified appear on the coins o the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. : : '^'^ Roman Museum. "^ Athenaeus " The vi. 15. Athenians received Demetrius not only offering incense, wearing sacrifi: and making libations of wine, but likewise with chants, and choruses, and Ithyphalli, accompanied by the sacred dance and processions," as in the celebration of the Mysteries, cial garlands, '"Athenaeus: vi. i6. *' Pausanias Arcadia, xxxi. 4. " The Sun having the surname of Soter or Saviour, the same as Hercules." See also coins of Thasos, Maronea Agathocles, etc. : iyX^^" Diana drawn by Nymphs. Hunt. Diana returned from a Ancient Art and Mythology. 99 DIANA THE MOON-GODDESS AND GREAT MOTHER. 139. Diana (or Artemis) was, as before observed, originally and properly the Moon, by means of which the Sun was supposed to impregnate the air, and scatter the principles of generation both active and passive over the earth whence, like the Bacchus diphues and Apollo didumaios, she was both male and female,"' both heat and humidity for the warmth of the Moon was supposed to be moistening, as that of the Sun was drying.'" She was called the Mother of the World; and the Daughter, as well as the Sister, of the Sun ^'^ because the productive powers with which she impregnated the former, together with the light by which she was illuminated, were sup: ; ; posed to be derived from the latter. By attracting or heaving the waters of the ocean, she naturally appeared to be the sovereign of humidity and by seeming to operate so powerfully upon the constitutions of women, she equally appeared to be the patroness and regulatress of nutrition and passive generation: whence she is said to have received her nymphs, or subordinate personifications, from the ocean "" and is often represented by the symbol of the sea-crab °^° an animal that has the property of spontaneously detaching from its own body any limb that has been hurt or mutilated, and reproducing another in its place. As the heat of the Sun animated the seminal particles of terrestrial matter, so was the humidity of the Moon supposed to nourish and mature them "' and as her orbit was ; ; ; ; '"Plutarch: Ids and Osiris, They place the potency of Osiris in the Moon, and say that Isis being the a,'},. " maternal principle of generation, has intercourse with him. Whence they call the Moon the Mother of the cos- mical Universe, and to have both the male and female nature, being first filled by the Sun, and so made pregnant, and then sending forth into the air the generated principles, and so inseminating them, as a male." '" Macrobius : Saturnalia, vii. 10. " The heat of the Sun dries, that of Moon makes moist." Isis and Plutarch Osiris, live of the generating of living beings and of the fructification of plants." '^' Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 48. " The Egyptian the priests style the the Universe." Mother of ] '"''^ .i^schylus : Prometheus Bound, 138. Callimachus Hymn Catullus: In Cell. : to Artemis; also Roman Mtcseutn, VII. vol. See coins of the Brettii in '^^ '5' 41. The Moon, having the light which makes moist and pregnant, is promo- Moon : ii. Italy, Himera the : EVRltlDSS PAtenicians, ijS. "Oh Selenaia (Moon), daughter of the " bright-girdled Aelios (Sun) Scholium upon the foregoingpassage: " So wrote jEschylus and the more philosophical authors. But Hesiod declared that the Moon was the Sister of the Sun." in Sicily, etc. Schol. Vet. in Horat. Carm. Sec. Duobus his reguntur omnia terrena, calore quidem solis per diem, humore vero lunse per noctem. ut calore solis animantur semina, ita lunse humore nutriuntur, penes ipsam enira et corporum omnium ratio esse dictiur et potestas. Nam 213 " The Symbolical Language of loo neld to be the boundary that separated the celestial from the was the mediatress between both the primary subject of the one, and sovereign of the other, who tempered the subtilty of sethereal spirit to the grossness of earthly mater, so as to make them harmonise and unite."' 140. The Greeks attributed to her the powers of destruction as well as nutrition humidity as well as heat contributing to putrefaction whence sudden death was supposed to proceed from Diana as well as from Apollo who was both the sender of disease and the inventor of cure for disease is the father of medicine as Apollo was fabled to be of .iEsculapius. The rays of the Moon were thought relaxing, even to inanimate bodies, by means of their humidity whence wood cut at the full of the moon was rejected by builders as improper for use."* The Eilithyise, supposed to preside over child-birth, were only personifications of this property,"' which seemed to facilitate delivery by slackening the powers of resistance and obstruction and hence the crescent was universally worn as an amulet by women, as it still continues to be in the southern parts of Italy and Juno Lucina, and Diana, were the same goddess, equally personifications of the Moon."' 141. The .(Egyptians represented the Moon under the symbol of a cat, probably on account of that animal's power of seeing in the night and also, perhaps, on account of its fecundity ; which seems to have induced the Hindus to adopt the rabbit as the symbol of the same deified planet."' As the terrestrial world,"" she ; ; : ; ; : ; ; ; LuciL. apiid Aul. (?<?/?. Lxx. c. 8. Luna alit ostrea et implet echinas, et : ; muribusfibraa, Etpecuiaddit. Ocellus Lucanus " The Moon is : OntheUni- liver, transmits below the heat of the parts above, and attracts the exhalations, thinning them for digestion and purgation. .. . Everywhere, and by necessity, that which is better pre- the isthmus which connects the immortal life to generated existence. vails over the other." Philo On Dreams, i. page 641. " The philosophers depict the Moon- the Moon is evident. Builders refuse timbers cut in the full of the Moon, as being soft, and by reason of the superabundant soft, liable to decay." mi> Plutarch Symposiacs, iii. ro. "For this reason I believe Artemis (Diana) to have been named Locheia and Eileithyia, as being no other than the Moon." verse. : sphere which is the last of the heavenly circles, but the first immediately beyond us, as that of meteors ; the air extends through everything to the ""''^ °^ "** earth." '"Jjf '^Plutarch On the Face Appeanng in the Orb of the Moon, 15. " The Sun having the potency of the heat sends and diffuses its warmth and light like blood and breath. The : iu Plutarch Symposiacs, iii. 10. Even in soulless bodies the power of : <• : 636 : Juno dicta puerperis, Tu land and sea are in the world as the bowels and bladder in the living animal. The Moon, placed between the Sun and the Earth like the liver or i. some other Rius viscus between the heart 214 Catullus xxxiv. 3. " Tu Lucina dolent'lbus potens Trivia, et nos D'<='^ '" '""'"^ Luna." Maurice p. 513. : § Indian Antiquities Also Demetrius Phale- 159. : Art and Mythology. A7icie7it loi arch or bend of the mystical instrument, borne by Isis, and called the sistrum, represented the lunar orbit, the cat occupied the centre of it ; while the rattles below represented the ter- elements;"' of which there are sometimes four, but for in the instances now extant the ancient Egyptians, or at least some of them, appear to have known that water and air are but one substance."* restrial more frequently only three : DIANA AND ISA. Diana are always clothed, and she had which her common Greek name Artemis seems to allude but the Latin name ap142. The statues of attribute of perpetual virginity, to the ; pears to be a contraction of Diviana, the feminine, according '" to the old Etruscan idiom, of Divus, or dl¥ 02, Difos and therefore signifying the Goddess, or general female personification of the Divine nature, which the moon was probably held to be in the ancient planetary worship, which preceded the symbolical. As her titles and attributes were innumerable, she was represented under an infinite variety of forms, and with an infinite variety of symbols sometimes with three bodies, each holding appropriate emblems,*" to signify the triple extension of her power, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth and sometimes with phallic radii enveloping a female form, to show the universal generative attribute both active and passive.'" The figures of her, as she was worshipped at Ephesus, seem to have consisted of an assemblage of almost every symbol, attached to the old humanised column, so as to form a composition purely emblematical;'" and it seems that the ancient inhabitants of the north of Europe represented their goddess Isa as nearly in the same manner as their rude and feeble efforts in art could accomplish ; she having the many breasts to signify the nutri; ; ; and being surrounded by deers' horns instead of the animals themselves, which accompany the Ephesian statues. In sacrificing, too, the reindeer to her, it was their tive attribute, " "'Plutarch: Ids and Osiris, 63. '^^ Plutarch: Isis and Osiris, 36. The moist principle being the chief and source of all things from the beginning, produced the first three bodies, earth, air, and fire." "" Varro iv. 10. Lanzi Sopra le Lingue Morte d Italia, vol. ii. page : 194. "' : said to have been made by Alcamenes, about the 84th Olympiad. Pausanias ; Corinth, xxx. 2. " Alcamenes first made three statues of Hecate adhering together as one, which the Athenians call turreted." "' See Duane's Coins of the Selea- La Chausse Roman Museum, vol. 1. : § 2, title 20. These figures arc 215 cidse. "^ De la Chausse: seum, vol. I. ii. Roman Mu- The Symbolical Language of I02 to hang the testicles round the neck of the figure,"* probably for the same purpose as the phallic radii, above men- custom tioned, were employed to serve. THE BLOODY RITES OF BRIMO. Brimo, the Tauric and Scythic Diana, was the dewhence she was appeased with human victims and other bloody rites; "" as was also Bacchus the devourer; "" who seems to have been a male personification of the same attribute, called by a general title which confounds him with another personification of a directly opposite kind. It was at the altar of Brimo, called at Sparta Artemis Orthia or Orthosia, that the Lacedaemonian boys voluntarily stood to be whipped until their lives were sometimes endangered "' and it was during the festival of Bacchus' at Alea, that the Arcadian women annually underwent a similar penance, first imposed by the Delphic Oracle but probably less rigidly enforced."' Both appear to have been substitutions for human sacrifices,'" which the stern hierarchies of the North frequently performed and to which the Greeks and Romans resorted upon great and awful occasions, when real danger had excited imaginary fear."° It is probable, therefore, that drawing blood, though in ever so small a quantity, was necessary to complete the rite for blood being thought to contain the principles of life, the smallest effusion of it at the altar might seem a complete sacthe only part of the vicrifice, by being a libation of the soul tim which the purest believers of antiquity supposed the Deity to require.'" In other respects, the form and nature of these rites prove them to have been expiatory; which scarcely any of the religious ceremonies of the Greeks or Romans were. 144. It is in the character of the destroying attribute, that Diana is called Tauropola, and Boon Elateia, in allusion to her being borne or drawn by bulls, like the Destroyer among the 143. troyer; : ; ; : ; '•" vol. Olaus RuDBECKius ii. ^//a«ftV3, pp. 212, 277, 291, 292, figs. 30, 31. "' Lycophron Cassandra, "Brimo tritiiorphos" Brimo : "' Pausantas : 1176. three- — '" Pausanias visaged. TzETZES " Brimo is said to be the same as Hecate and Persephone as Brimo and Hecate saiTie." and Persephone are the See Johannes Meursius. "°" Dionysus Omadius, the cruel." See Porphyry. : Scholium. . : "' : Plutarch : Lycurgus. . . Arcadia, 22,. "At the festival of Dionysus, near the Oracle of Delphi, women are scourged, as also are the young men among the Spartans by the Orthia." : Laconia. " The practice of sacrificing whomever the lot indicated, Lycurgus changed into scourging of the young men." "" PuJTARCH Themistocles. Also : Parallels between Grecian and RoHistory, 20. LiVY: History oj man jRome. '" Strabo 216 : xv. 0P #' \ \\ Hr^' ' /I 'J ffiS ^ ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 103 Hindus before mentioned and it is probable that some such symbolical composition gave rise to the fable of Jupiter and Europa for it appears that in Phoenicia, Europa and Astarte were only different titles for the same personage, who was the deity of the Moon;"" comprehending both the Diana and Celestial Venus of the Greeks: whence the latter was occasionally represented armed like the former; '" and also distinguished by epithets, which can be properly applied only to the planet, and which are certainly derived from the primitive planetary worship."" Upon the celebrated ark or box of Cypselus, Diana was represented winged, and holding a lion in one hand and a leopard in the other "" to signify the destroying attribute, instead of the usual symbols of the bow and arrow; and in an ancient temple near the mouth of the Alpheus she was represented riding upon a griffin;"" an emblematical monster composed of the united forms of the lion and eagle, the symbols of destruction and dominion."' As ruling under the earth, she was the same as Proserpina except that the latter had no reference to the Moon, but was a personification of the same attributes operating in the terrestrial elements only. ; ; ; PLUTO AND SERAPIS IDENTICAL. 145. In the simplicity of the primitive religion, Pluto and Proserpina were considered merely as the deities of death presiding over the inferhal regions and, being thought wholly inflexible and inexorable, were neither honored with any rites of worship, nor addressed in any forms of supplication "' but in the mystic system they acquired a more general character; ; ; and became personifications of the active and passive modifications of the pervading Spirit concentrated in the earth. "^ LuciAN De Dea Syria, § 4. Sidonians have another great temple in Phoenicia, which, as they say, but I think Astarte to is of Astarte be Selenaia or the Moon as some of the priests assured me it was the temple of Europa, the sister of Cadmus." Europa, Astarte, Venus-Urania, the and Babylonian Syrian, Phrygian, goddesses were but the same divm: " The : : standing in Greece, the armed image of the goddess. '" Plautus Curcullo, act i. scene " Noctivigilia, noctiluca " watching by night, shining by night, — '" Pausanias Eleans,\. 19, g i. "* Strabo " Artemis borne viii. : — ity." : 3. : by a griffin." "' See Hunteriart Collection, coins ofTelos. "* Homer Iliad, ix. 158. Bryant's Translation : : "' Pausanias : Corinth, iv. 7. "At the citadel of Corinth is a temple of Aphrodite, and statues, representing the armed goddess, the Sun and Cupid with his bow." There was also at Cytherea, in the most ancient temple of Venus-Urania " 'TIs Pluto, And who is deaf to prayer ne'er relents; and he of all the gods hateful is to mortals." Most Pluto and Proserpina are invoked in Iliad ix. and Odyssey x., but only as rulers of the Underworld. 219 The Symbolical La7igtiage of I04 Pluto was represented with the polos or disk on his head, like and, in the character of Serapis, with the Isis, — Venus and patera of libation, as distributor of the waters, in and the cornucopise, signifying its result, in the one hand His other. name Pluto or Pliitus signifies the same as this latter symbol, to have arisen from the mystic worship his ancient title having been Aides or Afides, signifying the Invisible, which the Attics corrupted to Hades. Whether the title Serapis, which appears to be Egyptian, meant a more general personification, or precisely the same, is difficult to ascertain, ancient authority rather favoring the latter supposition."" At the same time that there appears to be some difference in the figures of them now extant; those of Pluto having the hair hanging down in large masses over the neck and forehead, and differing only in the front curls from that of the celestial Jupiter; while Serapis has, in some instances, long hair formally turned back and disposed in ringlets hanging down upon his breast and shoulders like that of women. His whole person too is always enveloped in and appears ; probably meant and to be a general personification, not unlike that of the Paphian Venus with the beard, before mentioned, from which it was perhaps partly taken "° there being no mention made of any such deity in ^gypt prior to the Macedonian conquest and his worship having been communicated to the Greeks by the Ptolemies whose magnificence in constructing and adorning his temple at Alexandria was only surpassed by that of the Roman emperors in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.'" drapery reaching to his to comprehend the feet ; wherefore he attributes of both sexes is ; ; ; ; THE LOTUS-SYMBOL. The mystic symbol called a modius or polos, which is the heads of Pluto, Serapis, Venus, and Fortune or Isis, appears to be no other than the bell or seed-vessel of the lotus or water-lily, the Nymphaa nelumbo of Linnaeus. This plant appears to be a native of the eastern parts of Asia, and is not 146. upon " 669 Plutarch They say that than Pluto." '™ SumAS : Isis and Serapis Osiris, 2S. is no other femafe below. Tfiey make her also sitting on horseback, or as Hippa." Pausanias: Attica, : Aphrodite. (Aphrodite) " They sculpture her with a beard, and as having both male and female organs. They style her the patroness of generation, and say that from above the hips she is male, and xviii. 4. " There a sanctuary of Serapis whom the Athenians say was introduced as a deity by Ptolemy (Soter). Of the temples of Serapis among the .(Egyptians the most illustrious is at Alexandria, the most ancient at Memphis." '" Ammianus Marcellinus xxil is : ^'J-^^m^l^ 'imi^^iit^: Coins. "e^m^'^^ Vaga, etc. ^G^gvcjx^'^ jg^u^qng Ancient Art and Mythology. 105 now found in iEgypt.'" It grows in the water, and amidst broad leaves, which float upon the surface, puts forth a large white flower, the base and centre of which is shaped like a bell or inverted cone, and punctuated on the top with little cells or cavities, in which the seeds grow. The orifices of these cells being too small to let them drop out when ripe, they shoot forth into new plants in the places where they were formed, the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrix to nourish them until they acquire a degree of magnitude sufficient to burst it open and release themselves, when they sink to the bottom, or take root wherever the current happens to deposit them. Being, therefore, of a nature thus reproductive in itself, and, as it were, of a viviparous species among plants, the Nelumbo was naturally adopted as the symbol of the productive power of the waters, which spread life and vegetation over the earth. It also appeared to have a peculiar sympathy with the Sun, the great fountain of life and motion, by rising above the waters as it rose above the horizon, and sinking under them as it retired below.'" Accordingly we find it employed in every part of the Northern hemisphere, where symbolical worship either does or ever did prevail. The sacred images ot the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians, are almost all placed upon it '" and it is still sacred both in Thibet and China.'" The upper part of the base of the lingam also consists of the flower of it blended with the more distinctive characteristic of the female sex; in which that of the male is placed, in order to complete this mystic symbol of the ancient religion of the Brahmans; '" who, in their sacred writings, speak of Brahma its ; sitting upon his lotus iEGYPTlAN throne.''" SCULPTURES, THEIR PERFECTION AND ANTIQUITY. PRODIGIOUS 147. On the Isiac Tablet, the figures of Isis are represented holding the stem of this plant, mounted by the seed-vessel, in one hand, and the circle and cross before explained, in the other and in a temple, delineated upon the same mystic tablet are columns exactly resembling the plant, which Isis holds in her hand, except that the stem is made proportionately large, ; '•^'^ Embassy "* Theophrastus to China, vo\, \\. p. 391. History of : ^^^ Embassy to Thibet, 'p. H'i. Sir G, Staunton: Embassy to China, vol. ii. Plants, iv. 10. See also Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, pp. 49, 50, 54, 58, and plate. p. 391. '"See K^mpfer: D'Auteroche, SoNNERAT and The Asiatic Re- '*'' searches. ^^® SoNNERAT ; Voyage aux Indes, etc. Bhagavat-Cita,-p. 91. See also the figure of him by Sir William Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 243 The Symbolical Language of io6 which is requisite to support a roof and Columns and capitals of the same kind are still entablature. existing in great numbers among the ruins of Thebes in ^gypt, and more particularly among those on the island of to give that stability on the borders of Ethiopia which was anciently held none but priests were permitted to go upon it."' These are probably the most ancient monuments of art now extant at least, if we except some of the neighboring temples of Thebes; both having been certainly erected when that city was the seat of wealth and empire as it seems to have been, even proverbially, in the time of the Trojan war.'™ How long it had then been so, we can form no conjecture; but that it soon after declined, there can be little doubt for, when the Greeks, in the reign of Psammetichus (generally computed to have been about 530 years after, but probably more) became personally acquainted with iEgypt,"" Memphis had been for many ages its capital, and Thebes was in a manPhilse ; so sacred that ; ; ; ner deserted. We may therefore reasonably infer that the greatest 148. part of the superb edifices now remaining were executed or at least begun before the Homeric or even Trojan times, many of them being such as could not have been finished but in a long course of years, even supposing the wealth and resources of the ancient kings of iEgypt to have equalled that of the greatest of the Roman emperors. The completion of Trajan's Column in three years has been justly deemed a very extraordinary effort; as there could not have been less than three hundred sculptors employed; and yet at Thebes, the ruins of which, according to Strabo, extended ten miles on both sides of the Nile,"' we find whole temples and obelisks of enormous magnitude covered with figures carved out of the hard and brittle granite of the Libyan mountains, instead of the soft and 3'ielding marbles of Faros and Carrara. To judge, too, of the mode and degree of their finish by those on the obelisk of Rameses, once a part of them, but now lying in fragments at Rome, they are far more elaborately wrought than those of Trajan's Pillar. CERTAIN ANTIQUITY OF ^GYPT. 149. "* "' The age DiODORUS SICULUS Homer: Rameses of i. : sis 25. Iliad, ix. 381. ™ DiODORUS SicuLus pp. 78, " He (Psammetichus) first of the 79. kings, opened tlie eraporia of Egypt to other nations, as another country." This prhice was the fifth before Ama: i. as uncertain as all other very is who died in the second year of the 63d Olympiad, vaded Egypt. ''" Strabo : in which Cambyses xvii. " And now inap- pear the ruins of enormous magnitudcj extending eighty stadia along." 224 Ancient Art and Mythology. J07 ancient dates: but he has been generally supposed by modern chronologers to be the same person as Sesostris, and to have reigned at Thebes about iifteen hundred years before the Christian era, or about three hundred before the siege of Troy. They are, however, too apt to confound personages for the purpose of contracting dates which being merely conjectural in events of this remote antiquity, every new system-builder endeavors to adapt them to his own prejudices and, as it has been the fashion, in modern times, to reduce as much as possible the limits of ancient history, whole reigns and even dynasties have been annihilated with the dash of a pen, notwithstanding the obstinate evidence of those stupendous monuments of art and labor, which still stand up in their defense.'" 150. From the state in which the inhabitants have been ; ; found in most newly-discovered countries, we know how slow and difficult the invention of even the commonest implements of art is and how reluctantly men are dragged into those habits of industry, which even the first stages of culture require. .(Egypt, too, being periodically overflowed, much more art and industry were required even to render it constantly habitable and capable of cultivation, than would be employed in cultivating a country not liable to inundations. Repositories must have been formed, and places of safety built, both for men and cattle; the adjoining deserts of Libya aflFording neither food nor shelter for either. Before this could have been done, not only the arts and implements necessary to do it must have been invented, but the rights of property in some degree defined and ascertained which they only could be in a regular government, the slow result of the jarring interests and passions of men who, having long struggled with each other, ; ; ; acquiesce at length in the sacrifice of some part of their natural liberty in order to enjoy the rest with security. Such a government, formed upon a very complicated and artificial plan, does .^gypt appear to have possessed even in the days of Abraham, not five hundred )'ears after the period generally allowed for the universal deluge. Yet .^gypt was a new country, gained gradually from the sea by the accumulation '" Bishop Warburton, in \as Divine Legation of Moses, \v2l?. xwixo^ViC^fi ow^ of these chronologers, who proves that I. the conqueror and William III. of England are the same person. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says: " The original Sesostris was the first king of the I2th dynasty. Osirtasen, or Ses- William ortasen I., who was the first great or Sethi, and his son Remeses II. surpassed the exploits of their predecessor, the name of Sesostris became confounded with that of Sethos, and the conquests of that king and his still greater son were ascribed to the original Sesostris." This was before the Hyk-Sos or Phoenicio-Hellenic Shep- herds. Egyptian conqueror; but when Osirei, 225 — A. W. The Symbolical Language of io8 of the mud and sand annually brought down in the waters of the Nile; and slowly transformed, by the regularly progressive operation of time and labor, from an uninhabitable saltmarsh to the most salubrious and fertile spot in the universe. 151. This great transformation took place, in all the lower regions, after the genealogical records of the hereditary priests of Amun at Thebes had commenced and, of course, after the civil and religious constitution of the government had been formed. It was the custom for every one of these priests to erect a colossal statue of himself, in wood of which there were three hundred and forty-iive shown to Hecataeus and Herodotus;"" so that, according to the ^gptian computation of three generations to a century,'" which, considering the health and longevity of that people,"' is by no means unreasonable, this institution must have lasted between eleven and twelve thousand years, from the times of the first king, Menes, under whom all the country below Lake Mceris was a bog,"' to that of the Persian invasion, when it was the garden of the world. This is a period sufficient, but not more than suflBcient, for the accomplishment of such vast revolutions, both natural and artificial and, as it is supported'by such credible testimony, there does not appear to be any solid room for suspecting it to have been less for, as to the modern systems of chronology, deduced from doubtful passages of Scripture, and genealogies, of which a great part were probably lost during the captivity of the Jews, they bear nothing of the authority of the sacred sources ; — ; : from which they have been drawn.'" '" "i Herodotus ii. 143. Herodotus ii. 142. " Three generations of men make one hundred : : years." believe, next to the Libyans, the healthiest people in the world, an effect of their climate, In my opinion, — which has no sudden changes. Disease almost always attacks men when they are exposed to a change, and never more than during changes of the weather." '" Herodotus me : ii. 4. " They man who ruled over Egypt was Men, and that in his except the Thebaic time all Egypt nome or canton was a marsh, none of the land below Lake Mceris then showing itself above the surface of the water. This is a distance of seven that the first days' sail from the sea "' let it be ima- isfactory than those of the Hebrew sacred writings. Many of the numbers are peculiar and apparently mystical and it is plain rather than historical that discrepancies exist of a most inbaffling comprehensible character, credulity. There are displayed in periods of extraordinary brevity the extremes of rustic simplicity and mature civilisation : and petty inaccuracies denoting either carelessness in transcribing, or an allegorical sense which ; "' Herodotus : ii. 77. " Apart from any such precautions, they are, I told Neither up the river." unsat- Few chronologies are more 226 is now lost. Thus King Hezekiah at twenty-five succeeds his father who died at thirty-six. Ahaziah at the age of forty-two is placed on the throne of his father who had just died at forty, There are no old Hebrew manuscripts of the scriptures in existence ; the books were collected by the Pharisee Rabbis under the earlier Maccabees and more or less revised, travestied and But all the early manuamended. scripts have perished; and of those Ancient Art and Mythology. 109 gined that either Herodotus, or the priest who informed him, for cctuld have confounded symbolical figures with portraits all the ancient artists, even those of ^gypt, were so accurate in discriminating between ideal and real characters, that the diflFerence is at once discernible by any experienced observer, even in the wrecks and fragments of their works that are now : extant. ANCIENT jEGYPTIANS OBTAINING THEIR SYMBOLS FROM INDIA. 152. But, remote as the antiquity of these .Egyptian remains seems to be, the symbols which adorn them, appear not to have been invented by that, but to have been copied from those of some other people, who dwelt on the other side of the Erythraean Ocean. Both the Nelumbo and the Hooded Snake, which are among those most frequently repeated, and most accurately represented upon all their sacred monuments, are, as before observed, natives of the East and upon the very ancient .Egyptian temple, near Girjeh, figures have been observed exactly resembling those of the Indian deities, Juggernaut, Ganesa, and Vishnu. The .Egyptian architecture appears, however, to have been original and indigenous and in this art only the Greeks seem to have borrowed from them the different orders being only different modifications of the symbolical columns which the Egyptians formed in imitation of the ; ; ; Nelumbo plant. ARCHITECTURAL PILLARS DEVISED FROM THE LOTUS. The earliest capital seems to have been the bell or simply copied, without any alteration except a little expansion at bottom, to give it stability. The leaves of some other plant were then added to it, and varied in different capitals, according to the different meanings intended to be signified by these accessory symbols."" The Greeks decorated it in the same manner, with the foliage of various plants, sometimes of the acanthus and sometimes of the aquatic kind "° which are, however, generally so trans153. seed-vessel, ; versions that exist there are disagreements in the chronology. Ideler has demonstrated that the years of the world and the whole present chronology of the Jews were invented by the Rabbi Hillel Hanassi in the year 344. None of the present Hebrew manuscripts are nine hundred years old. — A. W. "' Denon: pi. Ix. 12; pi. lix. and Ix. "' See ib. pi. lix. i, 2, and 3, and Ix. where the originals from i, 2, 3, &c. which the Greeks took their Corin; thian capitals of the capitals. 227 plainly appear. It might have been more properly called the Egyptian order, as far nt least as relates to the form and decoration.* no The Symbolical Language formed by their excessive attention to elegance, that to ascertain difficult of The most usual seems which was probably adopted as them. it to is be a mysEgyptian Acacia, symbol for the same reasons as the olive; it being equally remarkable for its powers of reproduction."" Theophrastus mentions a large wood of it in the Thebaid, where the olive will not grow "' so that we may reasonably suppose to have been employed by the ^Egyptians in the same symbolical sense. From them the Greeks seem to have borrowed it about the time of the Macedonian conquest it not occurring in any of their buildings of a much earlier date and as for the story of the Corinthian architect, who is said to have invented this kind of capital from observing a thorn growing round a basket, it deserves no credit, being fully contradicted by the buildings still remaining in Upper .^gypt.'" 154. The Doric column, which appears to have been the only one known to the very ancient Greeks, was equally derived from the Nelumbo its capital being the same seed-vessel pressed flat, as it appears when withered and dry the only The state, probably, in which it had been seen in Europe. flutes in the shaft were made to hold spears and staffs whence a spear-holder is spoken of, in the Odyssey, as part of a column.'" The triglyphs and blocks of the cornice were also derived from utility they having been intended to represent the projecting ends of the beams and rafters which formed the roof 155. The Ionic capital has no bell, but volutes formed in imitation of sea-shells, which have the same symbolical meaning. To them is frequently added the ornament which architects call a honeysuckle but which seems to be meant for the young petals of the same flower viewed horizontally, before they are opened or expanded. Another ornament is also introduced in this capital, which they call eggs and anchors; but which is, in fact, composed of eggs and spear-heads, the symbols of female generative, and male destructive power or, in the language of mythology, of Venus and Mars. the tic it. ; ; : ; ; ; ; ; ; IMPOSSIBLE TO INVENT A 156. '*" These are, in reality, all the Martin On the Georgia of : gil, ii. '*' Vir- : Concerning Plants. Greek orders which are the it must be of about liundredth and eleventh Olympiad, or three hundied and thirty years before the Christian era which is earlier than any other specimen of Corinthian. architecture known, '"Homer: Odyssey, '\.se^t.\^i^|. ; the choragic monument of Lysicrates was really erected in the time of the Lysicrates to whom it is '*" ORDER. attributed, 119. Theophrastus NEW If 2J,S Coins. Alexander II., etc. 1; Ancient Art and Mythology. 1 1 lespectively distinguished by the symbolical ornaments being placed upward, downward, or sideways wherefore to invent a new order is as much impossible as to invent an attitude or position, which shall incline to neither of the three. As for the orders called Tuscan and composite, the one is that in which there is no ornament whatsoever, and the other that in which various ornaments are placed in diflferent directions; so that the one is in reality no order, and the other a combination of several. 157. The columns being thus sacred symbols, the temples themselves, of which they always formed the principal part, were emblems of the Deity, signifying generally the female productive power whence IIEPIKIUNI02, Ferikionios, surrounded with columns, is among the Orphic or mystic epithets of Bacchus, in his character of god of the waters '" and his statue in that situation had the same meaning as the Indian lingara, the bull in the labyrinth, and other symbolical compositions of the same kind before cited. A variety of accessory symbols were almost always added, to enrich the sacred edifices; the .^Egyptians covering the walls of the cells and the shafts of the columns with them; while the Greeks, always studious of elegance, employed them to decorate their entablaThe extremities of tures, pediments, doors, and pavements. the roofs were almost always adorned with a sort of scroll of raised curves,"' the meaning of which would not be easily discovered, were it not employed on coins evidently to represent water not as a symbol, but as the rude effort of infant art, feebly attempting to imitate waves."" : ; ; ; THE FISH-SYMBOL AND THE POMEGRANATE. 158. The most obvious, and consequently 'the most ancient symbol of the productive power of the waters, was a fish which we accordingly find the universal symbol upon many of the earliest coins; almost every symbol of the male or active power, both of generation and destruction, being occaand Derceto^ the goddess of the sionally placed upon it Phoenicians, being represented by the head and body of a woman, terminating below in a fish "' but on the Phoenician ; ; 584 Hymn, iv. half was a strange representation was a woman, and from the thighs to See coins of Tarentum, Cama&c. the extremities of the feet, it appeared as the tail of a fish ; but in the Holy City (Hierapolis, or Bambyke) it was Orphic ^"Stuart : xlvi. Athens, ; vol. I. plate 3. '"^ rina, '*' LuciAN De Dea Syria, 14. The image of Derceto, in Phoenicia, entirely : " 231 woman." 2 ; The Symbolical Language of 1 1 as well as Greek coins now extant, the personage is of the other sex and in plate L. of vol. i of the Select Specimens, is engraved a beautiful figure of the mystic Cupid, or first-begotten Love, terminating in an aquatic plant; which, affording more elegance and variety of form, was employed to signify the same meaning; that is, the Spirit upon the waters; which is ; otherwise expressed by a similar and more common mixed figure, called a Triton, terminating in a fish, instead of an aquatic plant. The head of Proserpina appears, in numberless instances, surrounded by dolphins '" and upon the very ancient medals of Side in Pamphylia, the pomegranate, the fruit peculiarly consecrated to her, is borne upon the back of one."' By prevailing upon her to eat of it, Pluto is said to have procured her stay during half the year in the infernal regions and a part of the Greek ceremony of marriage still consists, in many places, in the bride's treading upon a pomegranate. The flower of it is also occasionally employed as an ornament upon the diadem of both Hercules and Bacchus, and likewise forms the device of the Rhodian medals on some of which we have seen distinctly represented an ear of barley springing from one side of it, and the bulb of the lotus, or Nymphcea It therefore holds the place of the nelumbo, from the other. and accordingly we find male, or active generative attribute it on a bronze fragment published by Caylus, as the result of the union of the bull and lion, exactly as the more distinct symbol of the phallus is in a similar fragment above cited."" The pomegranate, therefore, in the hand of Proserpina or Juno, signifies the same as the circle and cross, before explained, in the hand of Isis; which is the reason why Pausanias declines giving any explanation of it, lest it should lead him to divulge any of the mystic secrets of his religion."' The cone of the ; ; ; Underworld, who is after all but Rhea, and Cybele. A. W. '** See coins of Syracuse, Motya, etc. '" Hunterian Museum : Tab. xlix. 6g. — '™ R^cueil iT Antiquities 3, etc. Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. ii. pp. 611-613. The arcane meaning of the pomegranate is evidently sexual. The goddess Nana ate of one, and became See Inman pregnant. . Women celebrating the abstained from the fruit rigidly. The Greek name of this fruit, rhoia, is a pun for Rhea, the Mother-Goddess. In the phallic symbolism, generation is a part of the mystery of death, and therefore its symbol, the pomegranate, belongs very appropriately to the Queen of the Thesmophoria, 23- : Isis, Vol. VII. pi. Ixiii. figs. i. 2, 3. The bull's head here is half humanhaving only the horns and ears of the animal but in the more ancient fragment of Caylus, to which Mr. Knight refers, both symbols are unchanged. ised, ; '" " Pausanias : Corinth, The agalma of Hera is xvii. sitting 4. upon a throne, and is of gold and ivory, the work of Polycleitus ; her crown has inwrought upon it the Graces and the Hours in one hand she holds a pomegranate, and in the other, a ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 113 which the thyrsus of Bacchus is always surmounted, and which is employed in various compositions, is probably a symbol of similar import, and meaning the same, in the hand of Ariadne and her attendants, as the above-mentioned emblems do in those of Juno, Proserpina, and Isis.°" pine, with THE DOG-SYMBOL OF DIANA, THOTH, AND OTHER DEITIES. 159. Upon coins, Diana is often accompanied by a dog,"' '" esteemed to be the most sagacious and vigilant of animals .Egyptians the symbol of employed the as by and therefore Hermes, Mercury, or Anubis, who was the conductor of the and consequently the soul from one habitation to another same, in some respects, as Brimo, Hecate, or Diana, the destroyer."' In monuments of Grecian art, the cock is the most and in a small figure of brass, we have obfrequent symbol served him sitting on a rock, with a cock on his right side, the goat on his left, and the tortoise at his feet. The ram, however, is more commonly employed to accompany him, and in some instances he appears sitting upon it "" hence it is probable that both these animals signified nearly the same, or, at most, ; ; ; ; Bacchus, as figured by the people of Lampsacus. On his shoulder he bears a thyrsus, a wand or virga, terminating in a pine cone, and having two ribbons dangling from it. concerning the pomegranate, ; not speak, for it is a matter pertaining to the arcane learning of the fice is offered is sceptre I will Mysteries." The pomegranate was of the the symbol Female Nature, and was named We see, then, that amongst certain of Rhcea. Hera, or lady^ is a title not only of Juno, but of Venus, Demeter, Isis, and Athena. All these goddesses were also styled Hippa, the ancient personification of femininity. A. W. '''' Inman : Ancient Faiths Em- the ancients, the ass, the pine cone, the basket, and the thyrsus were associated with Bacchus, or the Solar deity under the male emblem." ^®^ See coins of Syracuse, etc. bodied in Ancient Names, vol. ii. 490. " In the previous volume (pp. go, 162, 527), when speaking of the so-called Assyrian grove,' I stated my opinion that the pine cone offered by priests to the deity represented by that curiouslyshaped cut emblem, was typical of the testis,' the analogue of the mundane egg. The evidence upon which such assertion is founded may be shortly summed up by reproducing a copy of the ancient gem depicted by Moffat. In this we notice the peculiar shape of the altar, the triple pillar arising from it, the ass's head, and fictile offerings, the lad offering a pine cone surrounded with leaves, and carrying in his hand a basket in which two phalli are distinctly to be recognized. The deity to whom the sacri- say — * ' '" Plutarch Isis and Osiris, "They (the Egyptians) do not 11. : that the dog is the symbol of Her- mes, but of the conservative, watchful, philosophical principle of life." Jacob Bryant declares that the Greeks often mistook the term cohen (priest) for kuon, a dog. "' Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 44. " Anubis seems to me to have a power among the Egyptians much like that of Hecate among the Greeks, he being terrestrial as well as Olympic. Those that worship the dog have a : . . . certain secret meaning that must not be revealed. In the more remote and ancient times the dog had the highest honor paid to him in Egypt." '™ This is the case in an intaglio the Collection of the late Carlile. 235 in Earl of The Symbolical Language of 114 only different modifications of the influence of the nocturnal sun, as the cock did that of the diurnal. Hence Mercury appears to have been a personification of the power arising from both; and we accordingly find that the old Pelasgian Hermes, so generally worshipped at Athens,"' was a Priapic figure,"' and probably the same personage as the Celtic Mercury, who was the principal deity of the ancient Gauls °°° who do not, however, appear to have had any statues of him till they received them from the Greeks and Romans. i6o. In these, one hand always holds a purse, to signify that productive attribute which is peculiarly the result of mental skill and sagacity,""" while the other holds the caduceus a symbol composed of the staff or sceptre of dominion between two serpents, the emblems of life or preservation, and therefore signifying his power over it. Hence it was always borne by heralds; of whom Mercury, as the messenger of the gods, was the patron, and whose office was to proclaim peace, and denounce war; of both which it might be considered as the symbol for the staff or spear, signifying power in general,"' was employed by the Greeks and Romans to represent Juno ""' and Mars °°' and received divine honors all over the North, as well as the battle-axe and sword; by the latter of which the God of War, the supreme deity of those fierce nations, was signified; °°* whence, to swear by the shoulder of the ; ; : ; '" Pausanias Messina, : xxxiii. 87. The approved shape for the Hermaic statues among the Athenians was Herodotus : ii. 51. "The mode of making the Hermaic statues, with the aidoia erect, the Athenians did not learn from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgians," Pausanias Bliac. ii. 16. " The Hermaic statue which they venerate in Cyllene above other symbols, is an «rect phallus on a pedestal." '" C^SAR : JVars, vi. : ""• 5. Ammianus Marcellinus " Occulte Mercurio : xvi. supplicabat quem mundi velociorem sensum esse, motum mentium susci0ulianus) tantem, theologiae prodidere doctrinae." Inman : Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, i. p. 403. " Cis (i Samuel, ix. i), also spelled KiSH probably from D'3, chis, a purse or bag,' an euphemism for the scrotum." '"^ The expression, £t>0vv8iy dopi, thus signifies to govern, and venire sub hasta, to be sold as a slave. "" Plutarch Roman Questions, ; ' : Why do they part the hair of with a spear when they are married? Solution. Is it that most of these nuptial ceremonies relate to Juno? For a spear is decreed sacred to Juno, most of her statues are supported by a spear, and she is named Quiritis and a spear of old was called quiris, wherefore they call Mars by the . square, and others copied from these." "* " women " , ; name Quirinus." "" Plutarch " In Romulus. Rhegiura a spear was set up and worshipped as Ares, or Mars." '»< JusTiN History, xliii. 3. " From the beginning, the ancients have worshipped spears as emblems of the immortal gods and hence, as a memorial of this worship, spears were set up by : : ; the busts of the deities." When Julius Cassar was fighting among the Gauls, he lost his sword, which the Gauls, on finding, placed in a temple. He declined to take it again after it had thus been consecrated. In like manner the Philistines placed the weapons of King Saul in the temple of Venus-Astarte (i Samuel, xxxi. 10), as before that the 236 yx-^ 2"^ w ^-^ V-<. ^%.„ ^f^.^ Mars. Ares. — Ancient Art and Mythology. 115 horse and the edge of the sword, was the most solemn and inviolable of oaths "" and the deciding of civil dissensions or personal disputes by duel, was considered as appealing directly and immediately to the Deity. The ordeal, or trial by fire and water, which seems once to have prevailed in Greece and Italy,'"' as well as Germany and the North, is derived from the same source; it being only an appeal to the essence, instead ; of the symbol, of the Divine nature. The custom of swearing by the implements of war as divine emblems, appears likewise to have prevailed among the Greeks whence .^schylus introduces the heroes of the Thebaid taking their military oath of °" fidelity to each other upon the point of a spear or sword. 161. The dog represented Thoth or Mercury as the keeper ; bodied in Ancient 116, and 182-190. sword of Goliath had also been consecrated "behind the ephod" by Ahimelech, the high-priest of the Israelites (l Samuel, xxi. 9). Herodotus also declares that the Scythians erect an iron cimiter as the effigy of Mars, and offer to it more sacrifices than to all the The other gods of the pantheon. Getse, Goths, Alans, and Sarmatians also worshipped a sword, as Ammianus Marcellinus declares (xxxi. 2) : " Their only idea of religion is to plunge a naked sword into the ground, SEN Keys of St. Peter, or, TJie HERODOTUS iv. House of Rechab. LuciAN Scythia. 62. *<" Mallet Introduction h tffistoire de Danemarc, ix. *"' Sophocles Antigonl, 270. Virgil ^»«V, xi. 785-9. : : : : : : '•^ Summe Deum, ; freti pietate per '<" yEsCHYLUS : Seven Chiefs against Thebes, line 535. " By his spear Amphion swears." The oath by the weapon has been common till a late day. The Highlanders who served in the army of the Pretender, regarded it and the Sikhs, Rajpoots, and other warlike tribes of India preserve the custom even now. See Colonel Tod's celebrated work, Rajasthan, vol. i. p. 68 : " The Rajpoot worships his horse, liis sword, and the sun. . . He swears by the steel, and prostrates himself before his defensive buckler, his lance, his sword, or his dagger. The worship of the sword in the Acropolis of Athens by the Getic Attila, with all the accompaniments of pomp and place, forms an admirable episode in the History of the Decline and Fall of Rome ; and had Gibbon witnessed the worship of the double-edged sword by the Prince of Mewar and all his chivalry, the historian might have embellished his animated account of the adoration of the cimiter, the symbol of Mars."—A. W. ; . their tribal name being Kain, or the point of a spear. Moses was an adopted member of their tribe David lived on amicable relations with them (I Samuel, xxv. 29). Jehu sought their countenance when he conspired against the royal family of Ahab (2 Kings, x. 15) they were highly esteemed as scribes or hierophants(l Chronicles, ii. 55); and Jere- meaning of ]'p, ; ; them perpetuity of Em- medium Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna." suggests that the Kenites, or Cainites, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, worshipped the lance ; one Ancient Faiths et ignem Inman for Soractis acervo Pascitur rites. race (ch. xxxv.). custos sancti Apollo, Quern primi coUmus, cui pineus ardor with barbarous rites, and worship it as Mars." Attila, the King of the Huns, having by chance become possessed of a sword that had been consecrated, was persuaded that it would assure him the dominion of the Roman empire, and victory in all his battles. David seems to have become possessed of a similar confidence when he received from the high-priest the sword of Goliath. The Romans adored Mars by the title of Quirinus, or spear-god, and their own usual designation was Qui- miah predicted Names, ii. pp. 1 1 5, Ernest de BtJN- 239 6 — . The Symbolical Language of 1 1 of the boundary between life and death, or the guardian of the passage from the upper to the lower hemisphere to signify the former of which, the face of Anubis was gilded, and to signify the latter, black. °°' In the Greek and Roman statues of him, the wings and fetasus, or cap, which he occasionally wears upon his head, seem to indicate the same difference of character; °°° similar caps being frequently upon the heads of figures of Hephaistos or Vulcan, who was the personification of terrestrial fire "° whence he was fabled to have been thrown : : from heaven into the volcanic island of Lemnos, and to have been saved by the sea; "" volcanoes being supported by water. These caps, the form of which is derived from the e,^^^" and which are worn by the Dioscuri, as before observed, surmounted with asterisks, signify the hemispheres of the earth "' and it is possible that the asterisks may, in this case, mean the morning and evening stars; but whence the cap became a ; it was among the Scythians,'" or a symbol of freedom and emancipation, as it was among the Greeks and Romans, is not easily ascertained. distinction of rank, as BURNING AND EMBALMING OF THE DEAD. The dog was 162. emblem of the destruction as well as and sacred to Mars as well as Mercury "' whence the ancient Northern deity, Garmr, the ^if»(7z^r^r or engulfer, was represented under the form of this animal; which sometimes appears in the same character on monuments of Grecian art.'" Both destruction and creation were, according: to the relisfious philosophy of the ancients, merely dissolution and renovation vigilance, : ; Saved me, what Apuleius The Golden Ass, xi. The dog raising his rough neck, his 608 : " r ^ 1 1. 1 1 t 1 1 t,„ To my shameless "f.'^^I IrTr?"},' ^» for f t cast me from her sight, I was lame, Then great had been my misery, had not Eurynome and Thetis, in their laps, ^.^ fell,-Eurynom8, S^'^^'^f'* Daughter "f J 1 time face alternately black and golden, denoted the messenger going hence and thence between the Higher and Infer^ „ p • 1 of billowy Ocean.' j "" LuciAN '"' See small bronze coins of Metapont, silver tetradrachms of yEnos, etc. "" See coins of Lipari, ^semia, etc. «" Homer Iliad, i. Bryant's " foot, and flung o er The^Jjattlements of Heaven. And with the setting sun I All me day I struck the earth, In Lemnos. Little life was left in me What time the Sintians took me from the ground." AIso «Ti,. * 1 hen xviii I •»!.• within must ever honor and revere Who from the danger of *'" Sextus Empirica, They placed upon them PliNY my * , : ' LrOas, xxl. ; *" See coins of Phocjea, terrible fall 240 37. xxxv '-,10 /^ ., • r,*-7 Filophonkoi, cap-wearers, Scytni^"^ °^ rank. LuciAN : Seythia. "» Phurnutus The Nature of the „id r^ is xi. caps, and 0° these, stars, denoting the hemispheres.' ^ similar cap was given to the pic'"'s of Ulysses, by Nicomachus, a painter of the period of Alexander. — • jj / \t. a goddess ofc a truth Whom Dialogues of the Gods, egg divided and : : Translation. " He seized me by the : xxvi. "Like an star above." etc. ; Ancient ; Art and Mythology. 117 which all sublunary bodies, even that of the Earth itself, were supposed to be periodically liable.'" Fire and water were held to be the great efficient principles of both and as the spirit or vital principle of thought and mental perception was alone supposed to be immortal and unchanged, the complete dissolution of the body, which it animated, was conceived to be the only means of its complete emancipation. Hence the Greeks, and all the Scythian and Celtic nations, burned the bodies of their dead, as the Hindus do at this day while the Egyptians, among whom fuel was extremely scarce, embalmed theirs, in order that they might be preserved entire to the universal conflagration; till which event the soul was supposed to migrate from one body to another."" In this state those of the common people were deposited in subterranean caverns, excavated with vast labor for the purpose while the kings erected, for their own bodies, those vast pyramidal monuments (the symbols of that fire to which they were consigned), whose excessive strength and solidity were well calculated to secure them as long as the earth, upon which they stood, should be able to support them."" The Great Pyramid, the only one to ; ; ; '" " They and others that the universe and souls are indestructible ; but Strabo : iv. (Celts) declare human have been formerly overcome by and vi'ater." See also Jt;sTlN: ii. Mythology of the Eddas, iv. and xlviii. Voluspa, strophe xlix Vafthrud. xlvii Plutarch, Cicero, etc. Some writers believed the world to have existed in its present condition, for an indefinite period. DiODORt;s SicuLus i. 10. to fire ; ; ; : " Plutarch Theopompus " Origen Against Celsus, The Greeks alternated the Isis and Osiris, 47. declares as the doctrine of the Magians, that the gods will alternately conquer and again be subjected, for three thousand years, and that three thousand years more of contest, war, and destruction, will take place between them ; that in the end. Hades (Ahriman) will be destroyed, and men made happy, in a state neither needing food nor casting a shadow." This is the source of the ecclesiastical tradition of six thousand years, on which so much stress has been laid by theological writers. : : in which the earth will iv. 20. periods be purified by Herodotus : ii. '" Jacob Bryant, that the ; nominated Cyclopean appear to have been devised after the plan of caves, flood or fire." •'' followed by later authors, declares Pyramids were designed for high altars and temples ; and were constructed in honor of the Deity. Many have suppossed that they were designed for places of sepulture ; but it was usual for the Greeks to mistake temples for tombs. The Great Pyramid contained a well and passages of communications to other buildings and near the pyramids are apartments of a wonderful fabric, which extend in length one thousand four hundred feet, and about thirty in depth. They were cut out of the hard rock, and were probably residences of the priests. The stone cofiin or trough was designed for the holding of water, in which were placed lotos-flowers. Undoubtedly the lustrations and orgies of the gods were celebrated in these dark places. Many of the ancient temples of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and India were caverns in the rock, enlarged by art and cut into numerous apartments. The Egyptians, from the top of the pyramids, observed the heavens, and marked the constellations and doubtless performed many rites of worship. The structures deis 123. whose judgment 241 indicating, perhaps, that the early — 8 : The Symbolical Langiiage of 1 1 that has been opened, was closed up with such extreme caie and ingenuity that it required years of labor and enormous expense to gratify the curiosity or disappoint the avarice of the Mohammedan prince who first laid open the central chamber where the body lay."° The rest are still impenetrable, and will probably remain so, according to the intention of the builders, to the last syllable of recorded THE DIVINER HUMAN time. SOUL, OR NOUS. The soul, that was to be finally emancipated by fire, the divine emanation, the vital spark of heavenly flame, 163. was the principle of reason and perception, which was personified dasmon or genius supposed to have the direction of each individual, and to dispose him to good or evil, vifisdom or folly, with all their respective consequences of prosperity and adversity.""' Hence proceeded the notion that all human actions depended immediately upon the gods which forms the fundamental principle of morality both in the elegant and finished compositions of the most ancient Greek poets,"" and in the rude strains of the Northern Skalds i""^ for as the soul was supposed to be a part of the aethereal substance of the Deity detached from the rest, and doomed, for some uninto the familiar ; known causes, to remain during certain periods imprisoned in matter, all its impulses, not immediately derived from the materia organs, were of course impulses of the Deity."" population of those regions were cavedwellers. See Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. v. p. 191, et ultra.— A. W. «™ Savary : Sur rEsrypte. Menander: "The mind «'' _ {nous) our divinity." "A divinity (demon) is placed with every man to be his initiator into the mysteries 01 liie he is good for no divinity thinks ill, setting at nought the life of excellence the & god needs "V.V.UI. , ,, ., J ,; all things to be good. is ; , Plutarch, who assigns two demons, or genii, to each person, quotes Empedocles in opposition to Menander but the opinion of the latter is the most ancient and generally received. Sophocles says, "She called upon her ; demon." Qio. " Trachineati See Ovid : Fasti, Women, line These vi. 5. ., pestilent Priam says iii. to translation]: " The blame is with „^ =«" ^ I blame thee not who have the immortals , . Greeks agamst me." Agamemnon in like manner cates his conduct to Achilles, u The Greeks speak often of vindiId.xvL.: this feud, and cast The blame on me. Yet was I not the j c ^ n-.f*?"!^?' j u who n But Jupiter, and Fate, and she . walks in darkness, dread Erynnis. It was they Who filled '*^''^° f"^"™ my mind with fury in the hour Achilles I bore off his prize." Pindar Pyth. v. 164. " The great mind of Zeus, who loveth men, disposeth for thee the Demon." " Men are good Olympia xi. 41. and wise as the demon orders." : : «''>' A god is in us we glow with him impelling us the internal pressure has the seed of a sacred mind." Iliad, : _ ; ; . Homer «'" Helen [Bryant's As See Eddas, and Bartholinlts. Philolaus Pythagorica. " The ancient theologists and prophets testify that the soul, by way of penalty ''' : ; ; 242 Kore. Kybele. Plouton etc. : Art and Ancient Mythology. 119 tiiis system were explained in the Mysteries, persons initiated were said to pass the rest of their time with the gods '" as it was by initiation that they acquired a knowledge of their affinity with the Deity; and learned to class themselves with the more exalted emanations, that flowed from the principles of ; the same source. The corporeal residence of this divine particle or emanation, as well as of the grosser principle of vital heat and animal motion, was supposed to be the blood "" whence, in Ulysses's evocation of the Dead, the shades are spoken of as void of all perception of corporeal objects until they had tasted the blood of the victims which he had offered by 164. ; ™ ; joined to the body, and is, so to speak, buried in tliis body." Plutarch Discourse Coiueming way it is said, according to what is remembered, that truly the soul thenceforth is led by the gods." *' the DcEmon of Socrates^ 24. Tlie deity converses immediately witii but a very few, and veiy seldom but to " is : ; most he gives signs, art of vaticination is from which the derived. So that the gods control entirely the lives of very few, and of such only whom they intend to raise to the highest degree of perfection and happiness. These souls, as Hesiod declares, that are liberated from the conditions of generated existence, and in other respects separated from the body, and free from earthly care, become demons, taking care of other human beings. As athletes ceasing their exercises on account of age, yet retain some love for their delight, to see others wrestle, and encourage them, so souls having passed beyond the toils and conditions of the world-life, and are exalted into demons, do not slight the endeavors of men, but are kindly disposed to those who are striving for the same end, and being emulous in some sort with them, they encourage and Work zealously with them when seeing them already near their hope and ready to grasp the prize." Plutarch "As for what Consolatory : Letter. thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that the soul, when once freed from the body, neither suffers inconvenience nor evil, nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the doctrines received by us from our ancestors, and in the sacred orgies of Dionysus, than to believe them for the mystic symbols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood." '" Plato Phadrus. " In the same ; 626 Hippocrates The blood in man : Diseases, i. 27. contains the great- mind some say, all." Tie Heart, viii. Hippocrates: " The mind which was generated in the left ventricle of the heart of man, and is the first principle of the soul it is nourished neither by food nor drink by the belly, but by pure and est part of the ; luminous ideas evolved from the secretions of the blood." Plutarch The blood, the Symposiacs, viii. 10. principal thing in the whole body, has both heat and the seminal moisture." " Ye shall eat Leviticus, xvii. 14. the blood of no manner of flesh, for the life (the soul) of all flesh is the : " blood." The heart as the receptacle of the blood thus came, by figure of speech, to denote the person as to his moral character and in the New Testament, the evil acts denominated " works of ; the flesh" (Galatians, v. 19-21) are also spoken of as proceeding out of the heart {Mark, vii. 20-23). But in contradiction, the works of the spirit or interior principle are described as good, and above law ; and persons born of the spirit are declared to be unable to being born from above g).— A. W. sin, *" Homer : Odyssey, (1 xi. John, iii. " I be- hold the soul of my deceased mother, nor sitting near the blood in silence does she dare look upon her son, as to speak. ... I remained till my moththen er came and drank of the blood immediately she knew me and lamenting addressed me." ; ; : 245 " The Symbolical Language of I20 means of which their faculties were replenished by a reunion with that principle of vitality from which they had been separated; for, according to this ancient system, there were two souls, the one the principle of thought and perception, called noos and phreti, and the other the mere power of animal motion and sensation, called Jisuche'^' both of which were allowed to remain entire, in the shades, in the person of Tiresias only/" The prophetess of Argos, in like manner, became possessed of the knowledge of futurity by tasting the blood of a lamb offered in sacrifice "° and it seems probable that the sanctity anciently attributed to red or purple color, arose from its similitude to that of blood as it had been customary, in early times, not only to paint the faces of the statues of the deities with vermilion, but also the bodies of the Roman Consuls and Dictators,"' during the sacred ceremony of the triumph; from which ancient custom the imperial purple of later ages is derived. 165. It was, perhaps, in allusion to the emancipation and purification of the soul, that Bacchus is called Liknites '" a metophorical title taken from the winnow, which purified the corn from the dust and chaff, as fire was supposed to purify the aethereal soul from all gross and terrestrial matter. Hence this instrument is called by Virgil the mystic winnow of Bacchus; "' and nence we find the symbols both of the destroying and generative attributes upon tombs, signifying the separation ; ; ; '*' The " father of gods and men placed us, the mind [nous] in the soul, and the soul in the sluggish tores Verrius, quibus credere sit necesse, Jovis ipsius simulachri faciem diebus festis minio illini solitam, tri- body." umphantumque corpora Orphica. Gesner : sic Camillum " According to this philosophy, the fsuche is the soul, or oKJOTa, by which animate thingslive, breathe, and are sustained ; the nous is the mind, the something more divine, added or placed in certain souls by deity." 629 Homer Odyssey, x. 491. " You must come to the abode oi^ Pluto and awful Persephoneia, to consult the .soul of Theban Tiresias, the blind prophet, whose mental powers (p/irenis) are stable; to whom, now dead, triumphasse." "*' Orph. Hymn., xlv. The XiKVOV, however, was the mystic sieve in which Bacchus was cradled; from which the title may have been derived, though the form of it implies an active rather than a passive sense. See HeSYCH. in voc. '^' VlRGH Georges, i. 166. " Mys- Persephoneia has given mind (nous), may be truly wise." '™ PausaniAS ii. 3, 4. •'' Plutarch Concerning the Ro" Speedily blossoms the red mans. (milthinon) with which they anointed pressed in the large bronze figure of him engraved in pi. ii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens, than in any other we know. Even in the common small figures it is strange that it should ever have been taken for a whip though it might reasonably have been taken for a flail, had the ancients used such an instrument in thrashing corn. : J\ri!te on Orphica. : that he : : the ancient statues." WlNKELMAN Puny; xxxiii. : History of Arts, i. 2. " Enumerat auc7. : tica vannus lacchi. Osiris has the winnow one hand, in and the hook of attraction in the other; which are more distinctly ex- 246 ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 121 and regeneration of the soul performed by the same power. Those of the latter are, in many instances, represented by very obscene and licentious actions, even upon sepulchral monuments as appears from many now extant, particularly one lately in the Farnese Palace at Rome. The Canobus of the .Egyptians appears to have been a personification of the same attribute as the Bacchus Liknites of the Greeks for he was represented by the filtering-vase, which is still employed to purify and render potable the waters of the Nile; and these waters, as before observed, were called the outflowing of Osiris, of whom the soul was supposed to be an emanation. The means, therefore, by which they were purified from all grosser matter, might properly be employed as the symbol of that power, which separated the sethereal from the terrestrial soul, and purified it from all the pollutions and encumbrances ot corporeal substance. The absurd tale of Canobus being the deified pilot of Menelaus is an invention of the later Greeks, unworthy of any serious notice. ; : SACRED PURIFICATION BY WATER AND FIRE. 166. The rite of Ablution or Baptism in fire and water, so generally practiced among almost all nations of antiquity, seems to have been a mystic representation of this purification and regeneration of the soul after death. It was performed by jumping three times through the flame of a sacred fire, and being sprinkled with water from a branch of laurel; "" or else by being bedewed with the vapor from a sacred brand, taken flaming from the altar and dipped in water."" The exile at his return, and the bride at her marriage, went through ceremonies of this kind to signify their purification and regeneration for a new life "° and they appear to have been commonly practiced as modes of expiation or extenuation for private or ; A solemn ablution, too, always preceded inand Eleusinian mysteries;"" and when a Jewish proselyte was admitted, he was immersed in the secret offenses.'" itiation into the .(Egyptian presence of three witnesses, after being circumcised, but before he was allowed to make the oblation by which he professed "' Cerle Ovid : Fasti, Apollodorus iv. er. ego transilui positas ter flamflias, in ordine ^ Virgaquerorataslaureamisit aquas. 636 ATHEN.EUS : Bibliotheca, i. 5, g the infant immortal, she placed him in the fire of 2. „;g^j^ ^,,^ ix. ^_^ to : make ^^^^ j^j, ^^^.^^ flesh." Plutarch Roman Questions, i. "Is it because fire refines and water eleanseth, and a married woman ought to remain pure and chaste ?" 686 "Desiring 637 Qvid Fasti, v. 2. "^AruLEius: hu Golden Ass, Diodorus Siculus i. : 247 : : xi. ' : The Symbolical Language of 122 As himself a subject of the true God. this ceremony was sup- posed to wash off all stains of idolatry, the person immersed 'was said to be regenerated and animated with a new soul; to preserve which in purity, he abandoned every former connection of country, relation, or friend."" by fire is still in use among the Hindus, was among the earliest Romans,"" and also among the native Irish; men, women, and children, and even cattle, in 167. Purification as it Ireland, leaping over, or passing through the sacred bonfires annually kindled in honor of Baal "' an ancient title of the Sun, which seems to have prevailed in the Northern as well as Eastern dialects; whence arose the compound titles of the Scandinavian deities, Baldur, Habaldur, etc., expressing different personified attributes."" This rite was probably the abomination, so severely reprobated by the sacred historians of the J ews, of parents making their sons and daughters pass through the fire: for, in India, it is still performed by mothers passing through the flames with their children in their arms;"' and though commentators have construed the expression in the Bible to mean the burning of them alive, as offerings to Baal or Moloch, it is more consonant to reason, as well as to history, to suppose that it alluded to this more innocent mode of purification and consecration to the Deity, which continued in use among the ancient inhabitants of Italy to the later periods of Heathenism when it was performed exactly as it is now in Ireland, and held to be a holy and mystic means of communion with ; ; the great active principle of the universe."" Marsham '" : Canon Chronicum, flirt «*> lus TT T-i' DIONYSIUS OF HalICARNASSUS Roman " Aiitiquities, Ixxxviii. commanded *„ . tents fires to J .u : Romu- be built by the people ^to pass J and caused tlie through the fires for the purification of their bodies." '" Collecian. de 1 "' re- Hibernic. No. v. Olaus RUDBECKius: Atlant.'?. V. p. 140. Ayeen Akberry, and Maurice's Antiquities of India, vol. v. p, 1075. : , Fast. iv. "'' 781. , , . . ''''^ """"'""' »°n5^^„<f Trajicias celeri strenua membra pede. Expositus mos est moris mihi restat origo. '*"'''""= <:a=P'='q"= nostra tenet.''"'" Omnia piirgat edax ignis, vitiumque metal: fire idolrco cum duce purgat oves. ^^1^,^ 248 to Baal, and the valley of Gehenna or Tophet .^-^^^^ ^jg ^f innocents.—A. W. for burnt-offerings filled : ; , This is probably the construction that ought usually to be given, Ahaz and Man.isseh made their sons pass through the fire to Moloch-Hercules but the former is also said to have " burnt his children in the fire," while the latter " shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem f'-om one end to the other." The prophet J eremiah also asserted that the kinirs of Tudah had built the high pj^^^^ ^^ jjaal to burn their sons with lis. Excoquit tarunt Ignibug, et sparsa tangere corpus aqua? in his vitEe caussa est^ haec perm.^., ^^i >diditexul: His nova fit conjux : hsec duo magna pu- An, quod ; «J3 "* Ovid Sunt duo, discordes iafnis et unda dei Junxerunt elementa patres: aptumque pu- '^°' reb. p. 64. ii. An, quia cunctarum contraria semina TMra. Iq2 ix ; Ancient HUMAN SACRIFICES, Art and Mythology. 123 AND THE MYSTIC BAPTISM OF BLOOD. 168. It must, however, be admitted that the Carthaginians and other nations of antiquity did occasionally sacrifice their children to their gods, in the most cruel and barbarous manner and, indeed, there is scarcely any people whose history does not afford some instances of such abominable rites. Even ; the patriarch Abraham, when ordered to sacrifice his only son, does not appear to have been surprised or startled at it neither ; could Jephthah have had any notion that such sacrifices were odious or even unacceptable to the Deity, or he would not have considered his daughter as included in his general vow, or imagined that a breach of it in such an instance could be a greater crime than fulfilling it. Another mode of mystic purification was the Taurobolium, ^gobolium, or Criobolium of the Mithraic rites which preceded Christianity but a short time The in the Roman empire, and spread and flourished with it. catechumen was placed in a pit covered with perforated boards upon which the victim, whether a bull, a goat, or a ram, was sacrificed so as to bathe him in the blood which flowed from it. To this the compositions, so frequent in the sculptures of fhe third and fourth centuries, of Mithras the Persian Mediator, or his female personification, a winged Victory sacrificing a bull, seems to allude °" but all that we have seen, are of late date, except a single instance of the Criobolium or Victory sacrificing a ram, on a gold coin of Abydos. ; : THE TWO HUMAN SOULS ONE ETHEREAL OR NOETIC, THE OTHER TERRESTRIAL. 169. The celestial or sethereal soul was represented in symbolical writing by the psychl or butterfly an insect which ; appears from the egg in the shape of a grub, crawling upon the earth, and feeding upon the leaves of plants. In first it was aptly made an emblem of man in his earthly form; when the aethereal vigor and activity of the celestial soul, the divines particula mentis, was clogged and encumbered with the material body. In its next state, the grub becoming a chrysalis appeared, by its stillness, torpor, and insensibility, a natural image of death, or the intermediate state between this state the cessation of the vital functions of the body, "' See Bassi-relievi, di Roma, tav. There was one of these in the cabinet of Mr. R. Payne Knight, Iviii.-lx. and the eman- which appears anterior donian conquest, 251 to the Mace- 124 -^'^^^ Symbolical Language of cipation of the soul in the funeral pile and the butterfly breaking from this torpid chrysalis, and mounting in the air, afforded a no less natural image of the celestial soul bursting from the restraints of matter, and mixing again with its native : Like other animal symbols, it was by degrees melted human form the original wings only being retained, to mark its meaning. So elegant an allegory would naturally be a favorite subject of art among a refined and ingenious people and it accordingly appears to have been more diversified and repeated by the Greek sculptors, than almost any other, which the system of emanation, so favorable to art, could afford."' Being, however, a subject more applicable and interesting to individuals than communities, there is no trace of it upon any coin, though it so constantly occurs upon gems. aether. into the ; ; 170. The fate of the umbra, shade, or terrestrial soul, the region to which it retired at the dissolution of the body, and the degree of sensibility which it continued to enjoy, are subjects of much obscurity, and seemed to have belonged to the poetry, rather than to the religion, of the ancients. In the Odyssey it is allowed a mere miserable existence in the darkness of the polar regions, without any reward for virtue or punishment for vice the punishments described being evidently allegorical, and perhaps of a diflFerent, though not inferior author. The mystic system does not appear to have been then known to the Greeks, who caught glimmering lights and made up incoherent fables from various sources. Pindar, who is more systematic and consistent in his mythology than any other poet, speaks distinctly of rewards and punishments the latter of which he places in the central cavities of the earth, and the former in the remote islands of the Ocean, on the other side of the globe, to which none were admitted, but souls that had transmigrated three times into different bodies, and lived piously in each after which they were to enjoy undisturbed happiness in the state of ultimate bliss, under the mild rule of Rhadamanthus, the associate of Kronos.'" A similar region of bliss in the extremities of the ; ; ; "' This was an example of the punning so common in those times, often making us uncertain whether the accident of similar name or sound led to adoption as a symbol or was merely a blunder. Thus the Greeks because the word cohen sounds like HVtov. The term psyche, or soul, also styled a certain goddess a mare, because she was termed Hippa ; and described the priests of Egypt as dogs, W. signifies a butterfly melitta, a bee, is the name of Mylitta, or Venus. The ivy or kisses was devoted to Bacchus as the Kissean or Cushite deity. A. «•" 252 ; — Olympiodorus : ii. 108-123, etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 125 is spoken of in the Odyssey ; but not as the retreat of the dead, but a country which Menelaus was to visit while living.'" Virgil has made up a mixture of fable and allegory, by bringing the regions of recompense, as well as those of earth punishment, into the centre of the earth and then giving them the aethereal light of the celestial luminaries,'" without which even his powers of description could not have embellished them to suit their purpose. He has, also, after Plat 0,°° joined Tartarus to them, though it was not part of the regions regularly allotted to the dead by the ancient Greek mythologists, but a distinct and separate world beyond Chaos, as far from Earth, as Earth from Heaven.'" According to another poetical idea, the higher parts of the sublunary regions were appropriated to the future residence of the souls of the great and good, who alone seemed deserving of immortality.'" 171. Opinions so vague and fluctuating had of course but little energy and accordingly we never find either the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment after death, seriously employed by the Greek and Roman moralists as reasonable motives for human actions or considered any otherwise than as matters of pleasing speculation or flattering error.'" Among the barbarians of the North, however, the case was very different. They all implicitly believed that their valor in this life was to be rewarded in the next, with what they conceived to be the most exquisite of all possible enjoyments. Every morning they were to fight a great and promiscuous battle ; ; : ; which Odin was to restore the killed and wounded to their former strength and vigor, and provide a sumptuous entertainment for them in his hall, where they were to feed upon the flesh of a wild boar, and drink mead and ale out of after "* Homer Odyssey, iv. 561. Oh noble Menelaus, it " But not decreed by the gods to die but the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain, and the houndanes of the earth, : for thee. is With . . . are the son-in-law of Zeus." "» Virgil : Mneid, vi. " Solemque suum, sua sidera notunt." «" Plato lationj of Milton's Hell is taken from the Tartarus of Hesiod, or whoever was (he author of the Theogony which tears his name. His descriptions of chaos are also drawn from the same source, Lucan 66s Phcedrus. •"Hesiod: Theogony. "Beyond dark chaos." Homer: Iliad, viii. [Bryant's trans: and threshold forged the shades as earth from heaven." ; where is auburn-haired Rhadamanthus, because you possess Helen, and iron gates ^s faTbeneath ' Qua ; Pharsalia, ix. 5. niger astriferis connectitur axibus aSr, Quodque patet terras inter lunseque mea- gemidei manes habitant, quos ignea virtus : ..f^, _.,, , . . , Or I wiU seize and hurl „ , down , The offender to rayless Tartarus, „. Deep, deep in the great gulf below the earth, Innocuos vitae patientes setheris imi pg^jt gt letemos animam coUegit in or^cs " .,„ , : 253 ' „ . ""Juvenal: Satire, can Pharsalia, i. 458. , .. u. 149 ; Lu- The Symbolical Language of 126 horns of stags beautiful till when they were to be indulged with Mankind in general in all stages of night, women."' society are apt to fashion their belief to their dispositions, to make their religion a stimulus instead of a curb to their passions. and thus HERMES OR MERCURY, AND VULCAN THE FIRE-GOD. fire was supposed to be the medium through which passed from one state to another, Hermes or Mercury, the conductor, was nearly related to Hephaistos or Vulcan, the general personification of that element. The .^Egyptians called him his son "' and the Greeks, in some instances, represented him not only with the same cap, but also with the same features, and that they are only to be distinguished by the adscititious symbols."" He had also, for the same reason, a near affinity with Hercules, considered as the wherefore they were personification of the diurnal sun not only worshipped together in the same temple,'" but blended into the same figure, called a. Herm-Heracles from having the characteristic forms or symbols of both mixed."" 173. As the operations of both art and nature were supposed to be equally carried on by means of fire, Vulcan is spoken of by the poets, sometimes as the husband of Charis or Elegance,"" and sometimes of Venus or Nature °°° the first of which appears to have been his character in the primary, and the second in the mystic or philosophical religion of the Greeks for the whole of the song of Demodocus in the Oftyssey, here alluded to, is an interpolation of a much later date;""' and the story which it contains, of Vulcan detecting Mars and Venus, and confining them in invisible chains, evidently a mystic allegory, signifying the male and female powers of destruction and generation fixed in their mutual operation by the invisible exertions of the universal agent, fire. It was probably composed as a hymn to Vulcan, and inserted by some rhapsodist, who did not understand the character of the Homeric language, with which the Attic contraction Helios for Eelios is utterly incompatible. As 172. the soul ; : ; : *" Mallet : Introd. i IHistoire de Danemarc. ™ Syncellus "'See : coins of C/^m^. p. 124. /Esernia, Lipara, men Cicero: Ad Atticum, ^" Homer Iliad, xviii. The temple comHercules and Hermes by the Pausanias to : " : i. 10. [Bryant's translation]: " Charis of the snowy The etc. »" *'* whom beautiful, his wife." the great vail, god of fire Had made '''•'' Homer "" Odyssey, stadium." 254 : Odyssey, viii. viii. 266-369. line 266. ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 127 174. The Egyptian worship, being under the direction of a permanent Hierarchy, was more fixed and systematic than that of the Greeks; though, owing to its early subversion, we have less knowledge of it. Hence the different personifications of fire were by them more accurately discriminated Phtha, whom the Greeks call Hephaistos, and the Romans Vulcan, being the primitive universal element, or principle of life and motion in matter Anubis, whom they call Hermes and Mercury, the Minister of Fate; and Thoth, whom they called by the same titles, the parents of Arts and Sciences. Phtha was said to be the father of all their Cabeiri or chief gods '" and his name signified the Ordinator or Regulator, as it does still in the modern Coptic. His statues were represented lame, to signify that fire acts not alone, but requires the sustenance of some extraneous matter ;"" and he was fabled by the Greek mythologists to have delivered Minerva from the head of Jupiter that is, to have been the means by which the wisdom of the omnipotent Father, the pure emanation of the Divine Mind, was brought into action. ; ; ; ATHENA OR MINERVA, THE DIVINE WISDOM, AND HER SYMBOLS. This pure emanation, which the .^Egyptians called was considered as the goddess both of Force and Wisdom, the first in rank of the secondary deities,'" and the only one endowed with all the attributes of the supreme Deity; °" for as wisdom is the most exalted quality of the mind, and the Divine Mind the perfection of wisdom, all its attributes are the attributes of wisdom under whose direction its power is always exerted. Force and wisdom, therefore, when considered as attributes of the Deity, are the same and Bellona and AthenS are but different titles for one personification. 175. Neith,"* ; ; *'' Herodotus iii. 37. Gardner Wilkinson doubts the accuracy of this statement, but his remarks are not clear. Their worship was very ancient in Phrygia and Samothrace, also in Lemnos and Tenedos ; in short, wherever Vulcan or Hephaistos was worshipped. According to Jacob Bryant, they were the priests of the Mother Goddess. The Scholiast in Apollonius declares that " Zeus is the older of the Cabeiri." As Hephaistos was the Phtha of Egypt, it is possible that he was their father in the sense in which he is denominated father of all the gods. A. W. "' Jablonski : — Book I. ii. : Pantheon of jEgypt, 11, 13. PLATO : Timaus. " Sal's had a presiding divinity whose name is in the Egyptian tongue, Neith, which they say corresponds with the Greek Athene." The name more clearly resembles that of the Armenian goddess Anaitis, or Ana-hid, the Heavenly Venus. A. W. *'' Horace : " Pallas i. Ode 12. received the honors next to him." "' Callimachus : T/te Bath of *" — " Zeus gave to Athenaia alone of his daughters to bear the paternal honors." Athena. 259 ; The Symbolical Language of 128 Both the Greeks and Egyptians considered her as male and female °" and upon monuments of art still extant, or accurately recorded, she is represented with almost every symbol of almost every attribute, whether of creation, preservation, or destruction.'" 176. Before the human form was adopted, her proper symbol was the Owl; a bird which seems to surpass all other creatures in acuteness and refinement of organic perception; its eye being calculated to discern objects, which to all others are enveloped in darkness its ear to hear sounds distinctly, when no other can perceive them at all and its nostrils to discriminate effluvia with such nicety, that it has been deemed prophetic from discovering the putridity of death, even in the first stages of disease.'" On some very ancient Phoenician coins, we find the owl with the hook of attraction and winnow of separation under its wing to show the dominion of Divine Wisdom over both while on the reverse is represented the result of this dominion, in the symbolical composition of a male figure holding a bow in his hand, sitting upon the back of a winged horse terminating in the tail of a dolphin beneath which are waves and another fish.'" A similar meaning was vailed under the fable of Athene or Minerva putting the bridle into the mouth of Pegasus,"" or Divine Wisdom controlling and regulating the waters when endued with mo; ; ; ; tion and vitality. The Egyptians are said to have represented the pervading Spirit or ruling providence of the Deity by the Scarabaeus or black beetle, which frequents the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and which some have supposed to be an emblem of the Sun.'" It occurs very frequently upon Phoenician, Greek, and Etruscan, as well as .^Egyptian sculptures; and is sometimes with the owl, and sometimes with the head of Minerva, upon the small brass coins of Athens. It is of the androgynous class, and lays its eggs in a ball of dung or other fermentable matter which it had previously collected, and rolled backward and forward upon the sand 177. •*' Orphic Hymn to Athena, " Born male and female." «"• Pausanias I. xxiv. Her statue by Pheidias at Athens, held a spear in one hand, and near by was her Serpent. There was also a serpent kept : in her temple at the Acropolis. See Aristophanes : Lysistraius. Pausanias : Attica, xxiii. 5. " The In the medals of Athens almost every symbol accompanies the owl. *" Of this we have known instances, in which the nocturnal clamors of the screech-owl have really foretold death, according to the vulgar notion, "» See Dutens : M^dailUs Ph/nic. pi. i. v. i. *" Pausanias : •" Horapoll. statuecf Athena was also denominated that of Hygeia." : 260 II. ir. i. 10. ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 129 it acquired the proper form and consistency which it buries it in the sand, where the joint operation of heat and moisture matures and vivifies the germs into new As a symbol, therefore, of the Deity, it might insects.'" naturally have been employed to signify the attribute of Divine Wisdom, or ruling Providence, which directs, regulates, and employs the productive powers of nature. 178. When the animal symbols were changed for the human, Athene or Minerva was represented under the form of a robust female figure, with a severe, but elegant and intelligent countenance, and armed with a helmet, shield, and breastplate, the emblems of perservation and most frequently with a spear, the emblem, as well as the instrument, of destruction. The helmet is usually decorated with some animal symbol such as the owl, the serpent, the ram, the grifiSn, or the sphinx which is a species of griflBn, having the head of the sea, until after ; ; ; of the female personification, instead of that of the eagle, Another kind of griflSn, not upon the body of the lion. unfrequent upon the helmets of Minerva, is composed of the eagle and horse,"* signifying the dominion of water instead of fire whence came the symbol of the flying horse, already noticed. In other instances the female head and breast of the sphinx are joined to the body of a horse; which in these compositions is always a male, as well as that of the lion in the sphinx so as to comprehend the attributes of both sexes.'" In the stand of a mirror of very ancient sculpture belonging to Mr. Payne Knight is a figure of Isis upon the back of a monkey with a sphinx on each side of her head, and another in her hand. This is a compound symbol of the same kind as the Chimsera and others before noticed. The monkey very rarely occurs in Greek sculptures, but was a sacred animal among the .Egyptians, as it still continues to be in some parts of Tartary and India ; but on account of what real or imaginary property is now uncertain.'" : ; A '" Plutarch Ins and Osiris, 74. " There are many that to this day be- »" Herodotus : ii. 175. " man presented to the temple a number of the beetle kind (scaraiaus) hath no female, but that the males cast out their sperm into a round pellet of earth, which they roll about by large colossal statues, and several prodigious andro-sphinxes." : lieve that thrusting it backward with their hinder part and this in imitation of the Sun which while it moves from west to east, turns the heaven the contrary — way." Clement OF Alexandria: cellanies, v. 4. *'* See Medals of Velia, etc. Mis- An engraving copied from an anor amulet, discovered in France, has a priapic figure of Zeus with the chlamys hanging or Jupiter from his shoulder standing beside the Tree of Knowledge, and on the other side Pallas-Athene in full armor. The animals peculiar to each, are near them; the ram by Jupiter, and the serpent at Around the the feet of the" goddess. 263 ''" cient gem The Symbolical Language of 130 THE OR GOAT-SKIN SYMBOL. iEGIS, 179. The cegis or breast-plate of Minerva is, as the name indicates, the goat-skin, the symbol of the productive power, fabled to have been taken from the goat which suckled Jupiter; that is, from the great nutritive principle of nature. It is always surrounded with serpents, and generally covered with plumage; and in the centre of it is the Gorgon or Medusa, which appears to have been a symbol of the Moon,"' exhibited sometimes with the character and expression of the destroying, and sometimes with those of the generative or preserving attribute the former of which is expressed by the It is title of Gorgon, and the latter by that of Medusa."' sometimes represented with serpents, and sometimes with fish, in the hair; and occasionally with almost every symbol of the female generative or productive power it being the female personification of the Disk, by which almost all the nations of antiquity represented the Sun "' and the female personification was the symbol of the Moon. Among the Romans, the golden bulla or disk was worn by the young men, and the crescent by the women, as it still is in the South of Italy; and it seems that the same symbolical amulets were in use among the ancient inhabitants of the British Islands several of both having been found made of thin beaten gold both in England and Ireland which were evidently intended to be hung round the neck."" Each symbol, too, occasionally appears worn in like manner upon the fig^ures of Juno or Ceres, which cannot always be discriminated and the Disk between horns, which seem to form a crescent, is likewise upon the head of Isis and Osiris, as well as upon those of their animal symbols the cow ; ; ; ; ; ; and bull.'" engraving are the words, in '" See authorities before cited. Hebrew "And (Genesis, iii. 6) the woman saw the tree, good for food, and agreeable for the eyes, and a tree to be desired for making one wise." A. W. : — '" Orphic ment ; Hymn, quoted by Cle" The Moon Miscellanies, v. with the face of the Gorgon." Jacob Bryant considers the Gorgon, or female face, surrounded with serpents to bean agalma or syxaho\ of the personified Divine wisdom, Metis or Medusa. A. W. *" GORGO is supposed ;0 hnve been a barbarian title of Athena-Minerva, as Bendeia and Dtctynna were of Diana. — Maximus Tyrius " The Pseonians : Dissertation, Macedonia) worship the Sun the Pasonian symbol of the sun is a broad disk upon a viii. (of ; large post." One three inches in diameter was found in the Isle of Man, and placed in the collection of Mr. Knight ; and another, in Lancashire, England, was the property of the late C.Townley.Esq. ^ '*' Heuodotus : ii. 132. "As for the cow, . . . between the horns there is a representation in gold of the orb of the sun. The figure is not erect, but lying down, with the limbs under the body." 264 Ancient Art and Mythology. 131 180. The aegis employed occasionally by Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo, in the Iliad, seems to have been something very different from the symbolical breast-plate or thorax, which appears in monuments of art now extant it being borne and and used to excite courage or instil fear, and not not worn The name ^gis, however, still seems to imply for defense."'' that it is derived from the same source and composed of the same material though instead of serpents, or other symbolical ornaments, it appears to have been decorated with golden tassels, or knobs, hanging loosely from it the shaking and rattling of which produced the effects before mentioned."' Vulcan is said to have made it for Jupiter; °°' and to have furnished it with all those terrific attributes, which became so splendid and magnificent when personified in poetry. ; ; ; ; BELLS IN RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. however, of all this splendor and magnifiwas probably nothing more than a symbolical instru- 181. Stripped, cence, it ment, signifying originally the motion of the elements, like the sistrum of Isis, the cymbals of Cybele,""' the bells of Bacchus, etc. whence Jupiter is said to have overcome the Titans with his aegis, as Isis drove away Typhon with her sistrum j"" and the ringing of bells and clatter of metals were almost universally employed as a means of consecration, and a charm against the ; •'* Homer '" Iliad, iv. : Also, Iliad, - „T ^'°°J The ii. FBryant's ^ „ But aegis, Saturn's son, grief. , Transla- the god who bears hath cast on me , , ,. Much 4i,.« Tti-j Also, Iliad, XV. segis in Also, tionl : fringes, fairly wrought, the Achaian host, and ' fransla- there the Gorgon s head, a ghastly .. made i„ ^h^'^^J-^^.u V. J . . Impatient for the march, and strong ^ to endure The combat without pause." \, [^Bryant s sight. passed all v. Deformed and dreadful, and a sign of woe When borne by Jupiter." <»' Pindar. Strabo, x. "For ^ ,« n. See ,, <: .1. . thee, O Mother, first, the great array of cymbals." w1?w?^'''"°F?'^'"''J'^''H''"?™''-.. With this, and fierce, defiant looks she Through Iliad, suit. And ; hundred golden [Bryant's " Her shoulder bore The dreadful aegis, with its shaggy brim Bordered with Terror. There was Strife, and there Was Fortitude, and there was fierce Pur- "Among them walked The blue-eyed Pallas, bearing on her arm The priceless aegis, ever fair and new, And undecaying from its edge there hung A xv. '. " Now take thy hands, and shake Its orb before the Greeks, to £11 Their breasts with fear." • .t 683 TT J rr. «" tj^,,.,., Homer .: Ihad, u. [Bryant's Translation]: The fringed Iliad, „,,^,. *• .. : : p^™,,,,. »„?= fn Phcebus, ,v, the ,™hi» terrible ^gis in ifi^l^.T his hands, Dazzlingly bright within its shaggy fringe, By Vulcan forged, the great artiEcer, And given to J upiter. With which to rout Armies of men. With this he led -phe assailants on. . . . as iong as Phcebus held the aegis still. -piie weapons reached and wounded equally Both armies, and in both the people fell." "^ . • Homer Translation] " But Zeus. Kronides, who sits on high Ruling ^her, disgusted at the fraud, Will slake the «gis ^ before them aU.'' ., Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 63. * ^r * j Ihey say .i. that Typhon was turned *"" n^i : i, away, and beaten with the sistrum." 267 The Symbolical Language of 132 destroying and inert powers."" Even the Jews welcomed the new Moon with such noises;"" which the simplicity of the early ages employed almost everywhere to relieve her during eclipses, supposed then to be morbid affections brought on by the influence of an adverse power. The title Priapus, by which the generative attribute is distinguished, seems to be merely a corruption of Briapuos, clamorous; the beta and // being commutable letters, and epithets of similar meaning being continually applied both to Jupiter and Bacchus by the poets."" Many •*' Sctioliast Idyls, ii. Ovm : upon Theocritus have some relation to Bacchus for even at this day, many call the Bacchi : ; 36. Fasti, 441. by the name of Sabbi, and they make use of that word at the celebration of the orgies of Bacchus. . . . Their high-priest, on holidays, enters their temple with his mitre on, arrayed in a skin of a hind \nebris'\, embroidered with gold, wearing buskins, and a coat hanging down to his ankles ; besides, he has a great many little bells hanging at his garment, which make a noise as he walks the streets. So in the nightly ceremonies of Bacchus, as the fashion is among us, they also " Temesseaque concrepat sera, Et rogat ut tectis exeat umbra suis." '88 Jsfumbers : x. 10. " Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your bumt-ofiferings, and over the sacrifices of your peaceofferings, that they may be to you a memorial before your God." Plutarch Symposiacs, iv. 6. [An argument to show that Iao, or Adonis, of the Jews, was identical with Dionysus, or Bacchus, the god celebrated in the Mysteries.] " The time and manner of the greatest and most holy solemnity of the Jews is exactly : agreeable to the holy Orgies of Bacchus, for that which they call the Feast they celebrate in the midst of the vintage, furnishing their tables with all sorts of fruits, while they sit under booths or tabernacles made of vines and ivy ; and the day which goes immediately before this, they call the day of Tabernacles. Within a few days afterward they celebrate another feast, not darkly, but openly, dedicated to Bacchus, for they have a feast among them called Kradephoria, from carrying palm-branches, and Thyrsophoria, when they enter into the Temple carrying thyrsi. What they do within, I know not ; but it is very probable that they perform the rites of Bacchus. First, they have little trumpets, such as the Grecians used to have at their Bacchanalia to call upon their gods withal. Others go before them, playing upon harps, whom they call Leuites whether so named from Lusios, or rather from Evios, either word agrees with Bacchus. And I suppose that their Sabbaths — make use of musical instruments, and call the nurses of the god, Chaicodrusta. High up on the walls of their temple is a representation of the incurved thyrsus and drums, which surely can belong to no other divinity than Bacchus. Moreover, they are forbidden the use of honey in their sacrifices, because they suppose that a mixture of honey corrupts and deads the wine. This is no incon. . . siderable argument that Bacchus was worshipped by the Jews, in that, among other kinds of punishment, that was most remarkably odious by which malefactors were forbid the use of wine for so long a time as the judge was pleased to prescribe." '"' Such as Epibremetes, or The Roaring One ; Erigdoupos, or The One Crying Aloud Bromius, etc. Bryant compounds the name Priapus quite plausibly from the designa; tion of the Arab god of generation, Peor, and Apis, the Bull of Egypt. We can although hardly we doubt accept this idea, not the identity of the rites of Baal-Peor and Priapus. Baal-worship of Palestine was always attended by prostitution ; and the statues of the god were like those of the deity of Lampsacus. A. W. The 268 — Art and Ancient Mythology. 133 Priapic figures, too, still extant, have bells attached to them "" as the symbolical statues and temples of the Hindus have and to wear them was a part of the worship of Bacchus among the ; ; Greeks size, ; whence we sometimes find them of extremely small worn as amulets with the phalli, etc. The chief-priests of the Egyptians, and also the '" evidently meant to be lunulse, high-priest of the Jews, sacerdotal garments;'" hung them, as sacred emblems, to their and the Brahmans still continue to ring a small bell at the intervals of their prayers, ablutions, and other acts of devotion which custom is still preserved in the Roman Catholic Church at the elevation of the host. The Lacedasmonians beat upon a brass vessel or pan, on the death of their kings °" and we still retain the custom of tolling a bell on such occasions though the reason of it is not generally known, any more than that of other remnants of ancient ; ; ; ceremonies still existing.'"* THE BOAT AND THE CHARIOT, SYMBOLS OF THE FEMALE PRINCIPLE OF NATURE. 182. An opinion very generally prevailed among the machine ot the universe were mutually dependent upon each other; and ancients, that all the constituent parts of the great that the luminaries of heaven, while they contributed to fecun- date and organise terrestrial matter, were in their turn nourished and sustained by exhalations drawn from the humidity of the earth and its atmosphere. Hence the Egyptians placed the personifications of the "" Bronzi '" iT Ercolano, vi. tav. 98. Megasthenes. See Strabo, xv. Plutarch Symposiacs, vi. 2. The high-priest goeth forth mitred •*' " t. Sun and Moon : and clad in a fawnskin \nthris\ embroidered with gold, weaiing a tunic reaching to his feet, and buskins, and many bells hang from the robe, resounding at every at these festivals, step." Exodus, hem xxviii. 4-39. " Upon the robe thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and bells of gold between them round about," etc. •" Schol. in Thtocrit. c. •'* of the " It is says the said," Golden Wynkyn de Worde, " the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon of th' ayre double moche when they here the belles rongen and this is the Legend, by ; ; in boats '" while cause why the belles ben rongen when thondreth, and when grete tempeste and outrages of wether happen, to the end that the feindes and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee, and cease of the movying of the temit peste," p. 90. LuciAN Philofatris, 15. "They fled when the sound of copper or iron : was heard." There is also a tradition in Northern Europe that the Trolls and Fairies were driven from those countries by the church-bells. '" Plutarch Ids and Osiris, 34. They believe that the sun and moon : " do not go in chariots, but sail about the world perpetually in boats thus denoting their nourishment and generation from seminal moisture." Sir Gardiner Wilkinson : Raw- 269 — 134 The Symbolical Language of the Greeks, among whom the horse was a symbol of humidity, placed them in chariots, drawn sometimes by two, sometimes by three, and sometimes by four of these animals which is the reason of the number of Bigce, Trigce, and Quadrigcs, which we find upon coins for they could not have had any reference to the public games, as has been supposed, a great part of them having been struck by states, which not being of Hellenic origin, had never the privilege of entering the lists on those occasions. The vehicle itself appears likewise to have been a symbol of the female generative power, or the means by which the emanations of the Sun acted whence the Delphians called Venus by the singular title of The Chariot;"" but the same meaning is more frequently expressed by the figure called a Victory accompanying; and by the fish, or some other symbol of the waters, under it. In some instances we have observed composite symbols signifying both attributes in this situation such as the lion destroying the bull, or the Scylla,"" which is a combination of emblems of the same kind, as those which compose the Sphinx and Chimaera, and has no resemblance whatever to the fabulous monster described in the Odyssey. ; : ; ; LIGHTNING AND SULPHUR DENOTING THE MASCULINE DIVINE PRINCIPLE. 183. Almost every other symbol is occasionally employed as an accessary to the chariot, and among them the thunderUttson's " These Herodotus, ii. 58, note 9. shrines were of two kinds, One was an ark, or sacred boat, which may be called the great shrine the other, a sort of canopy. They were attended by the chief priest or prophet, clad in the leopard-skin; they were borne on the shoulders of several persons by means of staffs, sometimes passing through metal rings at the side ; and being taken into the temple, were placed on a table or stand prepared for the purpose. The same mode of carrying the ark was adopted by the Jews ; and the gods of Babylon, as well as of Egypt, were borne and ' set in their place ' in a similar manner. Apuleius [Metamorphases, xi.) describes the sacred boat, and the high priest holding in his hand a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur, after which the scribe read from a papyrus certain prayers in presence of the assembled pastiphori, or members of the sacred college. Some of ; the sacred boats, or arks, contained the emblems of life and stability, which, when the vail was drawn aside, were partly seen ; and others contained the sacred beetle of the sun, overshadowed by the wings of two figures of the goddess, Thmei, or 'Truth,' which call to mind the cherubim of the Jews. The god Horus, the origin of the Greek Charon, is the steersman, par excellence, of the sacred boats, as Vishnu is of the Indian ark." The boat-procession of Ptah-SokariOsiris was attended by the king himself ; and the deformed figure of the image probably gave rise to the Greek fable of the lameness of Vulcan, and the Gnostic notion of the imperfect nature of the Demiurge. The Phoenicians employed similar figures, called Pataeci, or fetishes. A. W. "" PLUTARCH : Amator, " They — call Aphrodite, Tie Car." See coins of Agrigentum, Heraclea in Italy, AUipa, etc. 270 "*' Charon, Soul, Hermes, and Boat. F Ancient Art and Mythology. 135 which is sometimes borne by Minerva and other deities, by Jupiter, and is still oftener represented alone upon coins; having been an emblem, not merely of the destroying attribute, but of the Divine nature in general whence the Arcadians sacrificed to thunder, lightning, and tempest '" and Krishna, the incarnate Deity, in an ancient Indian poem, says, "I am the thunderbolt." "I am the fire residing in the bodies of all things which have life.""" In the southeastern parts of Europe, which frequently suffer from drought, thunder bolt; as well as : ; is esteemed a grateful rather than terrific sound, because it is almost always accompanied with rain, which scarcely ever falls there without it.'°° This rain, descending from ignited clouds, was supposed to be impregnated with electric or sethereal fire, and therefore to be more nutritive and prolific than any other water; '" whence the thunderbolt was employed as the emblem of fecundation and nutrition, as well as of destruction. The coruscations which accompany its explosions, being thought to resemble the glimmering flashes which proceed from burning sulphur and the smell of the fixed air arising from objects stricken by it being the same as that which ; from that mineral, men were led to believe that its fires were of a sulphurous nature "" wherefore the flames of sulphur were employed in all lustrations, purifications, etc.,"' as having an affinity with divine or aethereal fire to which its name in the Greek language has been supposed to refer."* To arises : ; represent the thunderbolt, the ancient artists joined two obelisks pointing contrary ways from one centre, with spikes or arrows diverging from them thus signifying its luminous essence and destructive power. Wings were sometimes added, to signify its swiftness and activity; and the obelisks were ; *" Pausanias : vii. 29. " They worship the lightning, tempest, and thunder." •" Bhagavat-Gita, x. Phurnutus De Natura Deorum. ii. : ^^ Our souls are fire " * . m ™" " Grateful as thunder summer," is a simile of Tasso, who, notwithstanding his frequent and close imitations of the ancients, has copied nature more accurately than any epic poet except Homer. "" Plutarch : Symposiacs, iv. 2. " The agriculturists call the lightning the fertiliser of the waters, and so consider it. . . . The water often falls pregnant by the thunder, and their union is the cause of vital heat, 27s . . . The ceraunic "« HOMER fire is wonderful and for delicateness subtilty." Iliad, viii. [Bryant's : Translation]: " The Father of the Immortal gods And mortal men beheld^ and from on high Terribly thundered, sending to the earth A bolt of fire. He flung it down before The car of Diomed and The blazing sulphur." j '""Juvenal " They : fiercely glared Satire, it line 157. desired to purify, if sulphur might be had with pine, and if there was the dewy laurel." '"* Plutarch : Symposiacs, it. 2. " I believe that brimstone is called theion (or divine substance), because its smell is like the fierj' offensive scent that rises from bodies that are struck by lightning." The Symbolical Language of 136 twisted into spiral forms, to show the whirl in the air caused by the vacuum proceeding from the explosion the origin of which, as well as the productive attribute, was signified by the aquatic plants, from which they sprang."' 184. After the conquests of Alexander had opened a communication with India, Minerva was frequently represented "' with the elephant's skin upon her head instead of the helmet ; ; the elephant having been, from time immemorial, the symbol of divine wisdom among the Hindus whose god Ganesa or Pollear is represented by a figure of this animal half-humanised; which the Macha Alia, or god of destruction of the Tartars, is usually seen trampling upon. On some of the coins of the Seleucidse, the elephant is represented with the ; sometimes drawing the chariot of Minerva and at others bearing in his proboscis a torch, the emblem of the universal agent, fire and in his tail the cornucopise, the result of its exertion under the direction of divine wisdom.'" horns of the bull ; in her character of Bellona, ; THE RAM REPRESENTING WISDOM. 185. The ram has been already noticed as the symbol of Mercury but at Sais in iEgypt, it seems to have represented some attribute of Neitha or Minerva; "' upon a small bust of whom, belonging to Mr. Payne Knight, it supplies the ornament for the visor of the helmet, as the sphinx does that of the crest the whole composition showing the female and male powers of generation and destruction, as attributes to Divine Wisdom. In another small bronze of very ancient workmanship, which has been the handle of a vase, rams are placed at the feet, and lions at the head, of an androgynous figure of Bacchus, which still more distinctly shows their meaning; and ; ; in the ancient metropolitan temple of the North, at Upsal, in Sweden, the great Scandinavian goddess Isa was represented riding upon a ram, with an owl in her hand."" Among the ^Egyptians, however, Amun was the deity most commonly '"' See coins of Syracuse, Seleucia, Alexander I., king of Epirus, Elis, etc. Upon some of the most ancient of the latter, however, it is more simply composed of flames only, diverging both ways. "" See coins of Alexander II., king of Epirus, and some of the Ptolemies. "" See those of Seleucus I., Antiochus VI., etc. "s Plato Timaus. " The chief nome or canton was Sals the presiding deity of the city is in the Egyptian tongue Neith, but the Greeks have for the equivalent Athena (also Anaitis, Tanais, and Thanatos or Death)." " The people of Strabo xvii. Sals and Thebes worship a sheep." '<"• Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantica, ii. page 209, figure B. city of this ; ... : : 276 Isis, Tripod, CanopuSj etc. — ; Art and Ancient Mythology. 137 represented under this symbol, which was usually half-humanised, as it appears in pi. i. vol. i. of the Select Specimens ; in which form he was worshipped in the celebrated oracular temple in Libya, as well as that of Thebes ; "" and was the father of that Bacchus who is equally represented with the ram's horns, but young and beardless. AMUN, ZEUS OR JUPITER AND "GREAT PAN," IDENTICAL. Amun, according to some accounts, corresponded with and according to others, with the Pan '" of the Greeks; and probably he was something between both, like the Lycaean Pan, the most ancient and revered deity of the Arcadians, the most ancient people of Greece."' His title was employed by the .^Egyptians as a common form of appellation toward each other, as well as of solemn invocation to the Deity, in the same manner as we employ the title of Lord, and the French that af Seigneur ; and it appears to have been occasionally compounded with other words, and applied to other deities."* According to Jablonski, who explains it from the modern Coptic, it signified precisely the same as the epithet 186. the Zeus,'" Lycaan, that or productive of light."' is lucid, It may there- have been applied with equal propriety to either Jupiter or Pan the one being the luminous aethereal spirit considered abstractly, and the other, as diffused through the mass of fore ; "" " There: ii. 42. Egyptians give their statues of Jupiter (Amun) the face of a ram and from them the practice has passed to the Ammonians who are a joint colony of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, speaking a language between ihe Herodotus Ing, doublless, before the two." '" Herodotus ii. : 42. " quity, but were probably emigrants from Asia. They retained their country when other districts were repeatedly colonised, because it was poor and The Egyptian name for Zeus or Jupiter is Amun." "' Plutarch Isis and Osiris, 9. " They regarded him as the First God, mountainous. "* Pausanias and the same as Pan, the All." monia, and Parammon. : Wisdom Solomon "' Ovid is called )DX, Proverbs, : Fasti, " Before the Moon be believed, viii. title —A. W. was formed, if Plutarch the is a : Isis and Osiris, 9. " He- Abderite, says that the Egyptians employed this term to each when they accosted any one: ^^ jj^^ expression as an appella- they can other, their tion '" Jablonski Ere J?vl was bom, and that theh race Was older than Parammon of Hermes." catseus, the i., ii. The country had the name Arcadia, " The Arcadians are said to have held Eliac. I. xv. 7. : libations to Hera, Am- " They make Amun, by 30. Lunar Wor- ship had been introduced into Greece, Their language was brolcen into dialects, which were lost long before the appearance of Grecian literature ; they were Pelasgians and of fabulous anti- fore the Moon." Book Aristotle says that they expelled a the population, " before previous adopting of the Moon : wherefore ; mean" they were called Proselenians II. ii. 12. : EgyfUan Pantham, Wilkinson remarks that it is from a verb signifying to come; Manetho, that it means concealment ; and lamblichus, tliat which btings 279 to light. " The Symbolical Lmtguage of 138 universal matter. Hence Pan is called, in the Orphic Hytnns Zeus the mover of all things, and described as harmonising them by the music of his pipe."" He is also called the pervader of the sky''" and of the sea," to signify the principle of order diffused through heaven and earth and the Arcadians called him lh.Q Lord of Matter,™ which title is expressed in the Latin name Sylvanus; Sylva, 'l^^i^^^, and 'TAH, being the same word written according to the different modes of pronouncing of different dialects. In a choral ode of Sophocles, he is addressed by the title of Author and director of the dances of the gods j "* as being the author and disposer of the regular motions of the universe, of which these divine dances were symbols.'" According to Pindar, this Arcadian Pan was the associate or husband of Rhea,™ and consequently the same as Kronos or Saturn, with whom he seems to be confounded in the ancient coins cited in section 112 some of them having the halfhumanised horse, and others the figure commonly called Silenus, which is no other than Pan, in the same attitudes with the same female. ; ; THE MYSTIC DANCE. Among the Greeks all dancing was of the mimetic wherefore Aristotle classes it with poetry, music, and painting, as being equally an imitative art "' and Lucian calls it a science of imitation and exhibition, which explained the conceptions of the mind, and certified to the organs of sense things naturally beyond their reach™ To such a degree of refinement was it carried, that Athenaeus speaks of a Pythagorean, who could display the whole system of his sect in such gesticulations, more clearly and strongly than a professed rhetorician could 187. kind : : "= Hymn, x. " The horned Zeus." Also Fragment, xxviii. "Zeusisgodof all, of all Cerastes; Blowing with the breath the pipe, And making the au- resound. "' Orphic lie " .. Hymn, Cnpunr-T Ti-Q AI&EPO- v. /linr • , Aj^AA^f^'^n^l AAIUAArKTO^. line ' " The choral dance of the stars, the orderly concert of planets, their common union and harmony of motion, constitute the exhibition of the Dance ^f ^^^ First-Bom." Pindar : FytAia, iii. m "I will invoke the Mother of the Gods, The Revered Mistress, her, 7rn ^' ' Whom together with i>an, Themaidensby my porch at night, Welcome with joyftif song." '" Macrobius Saturnalia, i. 22. " Lord of Primal Matter." "" Sophocles: Ajax, 694-700. : "lollo! Oh : OfTnow-bou!f/cyl!ln3, thyself. Prince of the Who leadest the ''' LuciAN : dance i. LUCIAN De Saltatione, 43. The Imitative Art is a certain knovifl''" Pan, thou ocean-wanderer, Show '" Aristotle: Art of Poets, Pan! Pan! Gods, ! Concerning the Dance, " edge, an exhibition, a showing of things arcane to the mental powers, and the expressing of the things which are occult." 280 Ancient words Art and Mythology. for the truth of which, however, 139 we do not vouch, a part of the whence it was held in such high esteem, that the philosopher Socrates, and the poet Sophocles, both persons of exemplary gravity, and the latter of high in ; Dancing was the attempt being sufficient. ceremonial in all mystic rites : "' also rank and dignity, condescended to cultivate it as an and respectable accomplishment."' The author of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes that God accompanying his lyre with the dance, joined by other deities;"' and a Corinthian poet, cited by Athenseus, introduces the Father of Gods and men employed in the same exercise."* The ancient Hindus, too, paid their devotions to the Sun by a dance imitative of his motions, which they performed every morning and evening, and which was their only act of worship."" Among the Greeks the Knosian dances were peculiarly sacred to Jupiter, as the Nyssian were to Bacchus, both of which were under the direction of Pan "° who, being the principle of universal order, partook of the nature of all the other gods; political useful ; they being personifications of particular modes of acting of the great all-ruling principle, and he of his general law of pre-establishing harmony ; whence upon an ancient earthen vase of Greek workmanship, he is represented playing upon a pipe, between two figures, the one male and the other female; over the latter of which is written Nooss, and over the former Alkos; whilst he himself is distinguished by the title MoLKOs; so that this composition explicitly shows him in the character of universal harmony, resulting from mind and strength these titles being, in the ancient dialect of Magna Graecia, where the vase was found, the same as Nous, Alke, and MoLPE, in ordinary Greek. The ancient dancing, however, which held so high a rank among liberal and sacred arts, was entirely imitative, and esteemed honorable or other; "' Athen^US : Deipnosophista, i. 17. No LuciAN : De Saltatione. " ancient initiation can be found where there is not dancing." Judges, xxi. ig. The Israelites had the same custom. «8 Athen.«us ''" "The Homer : : Deipnosophista. Apollo. to Hymn Muses, answering with melo- dious voice, sing the gifts imperishable of the gods, and the sufferings of men, who with all they have received of the immortals, are unable, nevertheless, to procure counsel and resources by which to keep off death, and ward off old age. The fair-haired Graces also dance, and the Hours, Harmonia, Hebe, and Venus-Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, each holding the other's hands by the wrist. And with them sport Ares and watchful Hermes ; and Phcebus Apollo strikes the harp, taking grand and imposing steps. Both golden-tressed Leto and deep-planning Zeus are delighted to perceive the mighty Mind, their dear Son, thus sporting among the gods." '** '^^ Athen^us xix. LuciAN De Saltatoine. : : 283 "" Sophocles " Nyssian AJax. and Knossian Dances alike." : Langtiage of Tlie Symbolical 140 what it was which exhibited military exercises and exploits with the most perfect skill, grace and agility; excellence in which was often honored by a statue in some distinguished attitude '" and we strongly suspect, that the figure commonly called " The Fighting Gladiator" is one of them there being a very decided character of individuality both in the form and features and it would scarcely have been quite naked, if it had represented any event wise, in proportion to the dignity or indignity of meant The highest was to express. that ; ; ; of history. PAN, THE NYMPHS, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE SEXUAL SYM- BOLISM. 188. Pan, like other mystic deities, was wholly unknown there being no mention of him in either the Iliad, the Odyssey, or in the genuine poem of Hesiod and the mythologists of later times having made him a son of Mercury by Penelope, the wife of Ulysses a fiction, perhaps, best accounted for by the conjecture of Herodotus, that the terrestrial genealogies of the mystic deities. Pan, Bacchus, and Hercules, are mere fables, bearing date from the supposed time when they became objects of worship.'" Both in Greece and to the first race of poets ; ; ; ^gypt. Pan was commonly represented under the symbolical form of the goat half-humanised "' from which are derived ; subordinate ministers or personified emanations, called Satyrs, Fauns, Tituri, Faniskoi ; who, as well as their parent, were wholly unknown to the ancient poets. Neither do they appear to have been known in -^gypt, though a late traveller was so singularly fortunate as to find a mask of a caprine Satyr upon an ancient .^Eyptian lyre represented in the ancient paintings of the Thebaid; in a form, indeed, so unlike that of any ancient people, and so like to a Welsh or Irish harp, that we can not but suspect it to be merely an embellishment of an idea, that he carried out with him."' M. Dehis 131 Athen^ub Deipnosophista, xiv. : 26. "' Herodotus : 146. ii. " To me quite manifest that the names of these gods became known to the Greeks after those of their other deities ; and that they count their birth from the time when they first acquired it is a knowledge of them." ™ Herodotus: ii. 46. "These Egyptians, who are the Mendesians, consider Pan to be one of the eight gods who existed before the twelve ; and Pan is represented in Egypt by the painters and the sculptors, just as he is in Greece, with the face and legs of a goat. They do not, however, believe this to be his shape, or consider him in any respect unlike the other gods ; but tliey represent him thus for a (mystical) reason which I prefer not to relate. ... In Egyptian the goat and Pan are both called Mendes." "* See print fewn Mr. Bruce's drawinq;, in Dr, BuWlO^S History of Music. 284 r Nereid on a Monster, Nereid on a Hippocampus. — ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 141 more accurate and extensive survey of the same found nothing of the kind. 189. The Nymphs, however, the corresponding emanations of the female productive power of the universe, had been long known for whether considered as the daughters of Oceanus or of Jupiter,"' their parent had long been enrolled among the personages of the vulgar mythology. Upon monuments of ancient art, they are usually represented with non, in his ruins, ; Fauns and Satyrs, frequently in attitudes very lascivious and indecent but in the Homeric times, they seem to have been considered as guardian spirits or local deities of the springs, the valleys, and the mountains; "° the companions of the river-gods, who were the male progeny of Oceanus '" though the mystic system, as before observed, allowed them a the ; ; more exalted genealogy."' Pan sometimes represented ready to execute his and sometimes exhibiting the result of it in the former of which, all the muscles of his face and body appeared strained and contracted and in the latter, fallen and dilated; while in both the phallus is of disproportionate magnitude, to signify that it represented the predominant attribute."' In one instance he appears pouring water upon 190. is characteristic ofi&ce, ; "' Catullus Callimachus " Oceanus, In Celt. Nymphs." father of the : See Hymn to Diana ; : I. a fountain 2. a nubile or newlymarried woman 3. a part of the female sexual organism. It evidently was introduced into Greek usage to female principle, supposed denote the Hence the to be expressed by water. lotos was named Nymphtea, Jacob Bryant (Analysis of Ancient Mythology, ii. 345, etc.) has derived the term from the "Amonian" words ain, a fountain, and omphe, an oracle after; also, ; and ^EscHYLUS: Prometheus Bound. "' Homer : Iliad, vi. " Mountain Nymphs, Daughters of segis-bearing Jupiter, Came to the spot, and planted it with elms." Odyssey of damsel : vi. 123. "A Nymphs who female voice possess tlie ; summits of the mountains and the fountains of the rivers, and the grassy marshes, has come' around me." lofty of oracle-houses were always by such fountains : and it was doubtless from an idea of peculiar spiritual or mantistic qualities supposed to be peculiar to the female sex, that the same designation was applied to a part of their vt-orthy '" Iliad: xxi. " Achelous, Idng Of rivers, cannot viewithliim, nor yet The great and mighty deep nrom wtiich AU proceed streams and seas and founts and watery depths." '^ The term Nymph is body. Suidas informs us that the mother of Zeus or Jupiter was called Nympha evidently more peculiar than Mr. Knight has indicated. In the later Greek writers it is applied to a young woman betrothed or newly-married. More Athenians ; thus figuring the mystically his origin from the Divine Female Principle of the Universe. by an- however, it always related to a race of females, descended from Zeus or Oceanus, who presided over fountains and streams of water. Indeed, Suidas has defined nymph to mean A. ciently, : It is into Numpha. note that nympheea or ward contracted W. '3» Figures of this character are fre; and Mr. Knight has preserved copies in his celebrated treatise " On the Worship of Priapus." quent 287 The Symbolical Language of 142 but more commonly standing near water, and accompanied by aquatic fowls in which character he is confounded with Priapus, to whom geese were particularly sacred.'" Swans, too, frequently occur as emblems of the waters upon coins and sometimes with the head of Apollo on the reverse '" when there may be some allusion to the ancient notion of their singing a notion which seems to have arisen from the noises which they make in the high latitudes of the North, prior to their departure at the approach of winter."' The pedum, or pastoral crook, the symbol of attraction, and the pipe, the symbol of harmony, are frequently placed near him, to signify the means and effect of his operation. it,"° ; ; ; ; THE GOAT AND PRIAPIC ORGIES. 191. Though the Greek writers call the deity who was represented by the sacred goat at Mendes, Pan, he more exactly answers to Priapus, or the generative attribute considered abstractedly; '" which was usually represented in .^gypt, as well as in Greece, by the phallus onl3^''" This deity was honored with a place in most of their temples,"' as the lingam is in those of the Hindus and all the hereditary priests were initiated or consecrated to him, before they assumed the sacerdotal office "' for he was considered as a sort of accessory attribute to all the other divine personifications, the great end and purpose of whose existence was generation or production."' A part of the worship offered both to the goat Mendes, and the bull Apis, consisted in the women tendering their persons to him, which it seems the former often accepted, though the taste of the latter was too correct."' An attempt ; : ''^» Bronzi iTErcolano, '*' Petronius tav. xciii. ix. 15. "8 Inman Ancient Faiths Embod- : ied in Ancient Names, vols. .. Payne Knight Worship of Priapus:' DiODORUs SicuLus i. "• Worship of Priapus. " : The : ODORUS Siculus. "' Diodorus Siculus Also Dl. i. " The ii.; also : By the Mendesian steep, at the border of the sea, The horn of the Nile where herded goats mingle with womeQ." Herodotus parts." i. Ancient Pagan and Modem Christian Symbolism. "' Pindar See Strabo xvii. : "' DIODORUS SICULUS : i "They say that the iLgyptians employed the goat as the Priapus was employed by the Greeks, to signify the sexual "' R. assuming the hereditary sacer dotal rank in Egypt, are first initiated into the sacred Mysteries of this god." priests Satyriacon, 136-7. Published in the Bohn Library. "' See coins of Clazomenae in Pelleria, and the Hunterian Museum. ''" Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantica, part II. V. Also Olaus Magnuson : : A " ii. goat copulated publicly with a woman at a publie assembly of men." Diodorus Siculus : i. " In the : prescribed forty days the women only saw him (Apis) standing before his face, and raising their clothes they ex- Pan and Goat. Aphrodite on a Goat. : ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 143 seems to have been made, in early times, to introduce similar acts of devotion into Italy, for when the oracle of Juno was consulted upon the long-continued barrenness of the Roman matrons, its answer was, " Iliadas matres caper hirtus inito : " "° but these mystic reiinements not being understood by that rude people, they could think of no other way of fulfilling the mandate, than sacrificing a goat, and applying the skin, cut into thongs, to the bare backs of the ladies: • Jussse sua terga maritse Pellibus exsectis percutienda dabant which, however, had the desired effect Virque pater subito, nuptaque mater erat."' At Mendes female goats were also held sacred, as symbols of the passive generative attribute '" and on Grecian monuments of art, we often find caprine satyrs of that sex. The fable of Jupiter having been suckled by a goat, probably arose from some emblematical composition, the true explanation of which was only known to the initiated. Such was Juno Sospita of Lanuvium, near Rome, whose goat-skin dress signified the same as her title and who, on a votive car of very ancient Etruscan work found near Perugia, appears exactly in the form described by Cicero, as the associate of ; ; Hercules dressed in the lion's skin, or the Destroyer."' THE COMPOSITE SYMBOLS. 192. The Greeks frequently combined the symbolical aniupon gems, where we often mals, especially in engravings find the forms of the ram, goat, horse, cock, and various others, blended into one, so as to form Pantheic compositions, signifying the various attributes and modes of action of the Deity."' hibited their sexual parts ; but the rest of the time, it was forbidden them to come into the presence of the divinity." Plutarch Brute Beasts Making " The Use of Reason, 5. Gryllus Mendesian goat in ^gypt, which is reported to have been shut up with several beautiful women, yet never to have offered copulation with them, but when he was at liberty, with a : : lustful fury flew 160 < Lg[ (jjg upon the she-goats." rough goat approach the Trojan matrons." '" Ovid: Fasti, ii. man a "Speedily the mother was." father, the wife a See Tracts on Flagellations, collected by the late Henry Buckle ; also The Merry Sisters of St, Bridget, etc. '" Strabo : xvii. " The Mendesians revere the goat, especially the male." Herodotus ii. 46. " The Mendesians hold all goats in veneration, but : the male more than the female." Nature of the Gods, "' Cicero : i. " With goat-skin, spear, shield, and with open buskins." "* Found in numerous gems copied in Mr. Knight's Treatise upon the Worship of Ptiapus; but never upon 29. coins. 291 The Symbolical Language of 144 Cupid is sometimes represented wielding the mask of Pan, and sometimes playing upon a lyre, while sitting upon the back of a lion '" devices of which the enigmatical meaning has been already sufficiently explained in the explanations of the component parts. The Hindus, and other nations of the ; eastern parts of Asia, expressed similar combinations of attributes by symbols loosely connected, and figures unskilfully composed of many heads, legs, arms, etc. which appear from the epithets hundred-headed, hundred-handed, etc., so frequent in the old Greek poets, to have been not wholly unknown to them though the objects to which they are applied, prove that their ideas were taken from figures which they did not understand, and which they therefore exaggerated into fabulous monsters,"" the enemies or arbitrators of their own gods. Such symbolical figures may, perhaps, have been worshipped in the western parts of Asia, when the Greeks first settled there of which the Diana of Ephesus appears to have been a remain for both her temple and that of the Apollo Didymseus were long anterior to the Ionian emigration "' though the composite images of the latter, which now exist, are, as before observed, among the most refined productions of Grecian taste and elegance. A Pantheistic bust of this kind is engraved in plates Iv. and Ivi. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens, having the dewlaps of a goat, the ears of a bull, and the claws of a crab placed as horns upon his head. The hair appears wet and out of the temples spring fish, while the whole ot the face and breast is covered with foliage that seems to grow from the flesh signifying the result of this combination of attributes in fertilising and organising matter. The Bacchus Dendrites, and Neptune Phultalmios^''' the one the principle of vegetation in trees, and the other in plants, were probably represented by composite symbolical images of this ; ; ; : ; ; ; kind. ''" "• See Florentine Museum. Homer Iliad, : i. [Bijant's symbols in Babylon. "' Translation]: "Thou His bonds, and call didst come and loose up to the Olympian The huldred-handed, whom the immortal gods Have named Briareus, but the sons of men^geon." temple of the Bel at Achaia, ii. 4. " The sanctuary of Apollo in Didymi and the oracle are more ancient than any other bmlding among the lonians much older still than the Ephesian Artemis, Pausanias : ; among the lonians." ik Plutarch Sympodacs, V. 3. " Thus began the enquiry why the an: See also Pindar : Pythia, i. and cients dedicated the pine to Poseidon viii. Such were also employed in the mythological sculpture and other figures representations of ancient Egypt. Berosus notices these composite and Dionysus. As for my part it did not seem incongruous to me, for both the gods seem to preside over the moist seminal and generative prin292 Ancient Art and Mythology. 145 CYBELE COMBINED WITH DEITIES OF OTHER WORSHIPS. 193. A female Pantheistic figure in silver with the borders and the whole finished in a manner surpassing almost anything extant, was among the things found at Macon on the Saone, in the year 1764, and published by Count Caylus."° It represents Cybele, the universal Mother, with the mural crown on her head, and the wings of pervasion growing from her shoulders, mixing the productive elements of heat and moisture, by making a libation upon the flames of an altar from a golden patera, with the usual knob in the centre of it, representing, probably, the of the drapery plated with gold, lingam. On each side of her head is one of the Dioscuri, signifying the alternate influence of the diurnal and nocturnal sun and, upon a crescent supported by the tips of her wings, are the seven planets, each signified by a bust of its presiding deity resting upon a globe, and placed in the order of the days of the week named after them. In her left hand she holds two cornucopiae, to signify the result of her operation on the two hemispheres of the Earth and upon them are the busts of Apollo and Diana, the presiding deities of those hemispheres, with a golden disk, intersected by two transverse lines, such as is observable on other pieces of ancient art, and such as the barbarians of the North employed to represent the solar year, divided into four parts,"" at the back of each. ; ; DAYS OF THE WEEK NAMED AFTER ASTRAL DIVINITIES. How week came to be called by the the planets were thus placed in an order so different from that of nature, and even from that in which any theorist ever has placed them, is difficult to conjecture. The earliest notice of it in any ancient writing now extant, is in the work of an historian of the beginning of the 194. names of the the days of the planets, or why third century of Christianity '" who says that it was unknown to the Greeks, and borrowed by the Romans from other nations, ; who divided the planets on this occasion by a sort of musical and to the Poseidon Phytalmios ; (nourisher of plants) and Dionysus Dendrites (patron of trees) all the Greelcs sacrifice." Vol. VII. pi. Ixxi. The plated parts remain entire. The picture and several other small ciple ™ ones in silver, found with it, came into Mr. Knight's possession. "" Olaus Rudbeckius Atlantica, vols. i. p. go and ii. p. 212, fig. 4, and ; pp. 161, 162. "' The part siacs. in which it fortunately lost. 295 of Plutarch's Sympowas discussed, is un- The Symbolical Language of 146 beginning with Saturn, the most remote from the cenand then passing over two to the Sun, and two more to the Moon, and so on, till the arrangement of the week was complete as at present, only beginning with the day which now stands last. Other explanations are given, both by the same and by later writers but as they appear to us to be still more remote from probability, it will be sufficient to refer to them, without entering into further details.'" Perhaps the difficult}has arisen from a confusion between the deities and the planthe ancient nations of the North having consecrated each ets day of the week to some principal personage of their mythology, and called it after his name, beginning with Loki or Saturn, and ending with Freya or Venus whence, when these, or the corresponding names in other languages, were applied both to the planets and to the days of the scale, tre, ; ; : week consecrated to them, the ancient mythological order of was retained, though the ideas expressed by them the titles were no longer Perhaps, too, it according to which the order of the planets was, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon for if the natural day consisted of twenty-four hours, and each hour was under the influence of a planet in succession, and the first hour of Saturday be sacred to Saturn, the eighth, fifteenth, and twentysecond, will be so likewise; so that the twenty-third will belong to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to Mars, and the first hour of the next day to the Sun. In the same manner, the first hour of the ensuing day will belong to the Moon, and so on through the week, according to the seemingly capricious order in which all nations, using the hebdomadal computation of time, have placed them. religious, may be accounted but astronomical. from the Ptolemaic system for ; : DISA, THE ISIS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. 195. The Disa or Isa of the North was represented by a conical figure enveloped in a net, similar to the cortina of Apollo on the medals of Cos, Chersonesus in Crete, Naples in Italy, and the Syrian kings but instead of having the serpent coiled round it, as in the first, or some symbol or figure of ; Apollo placed upon human head."^ "' Cass. Hyde's : it, it is terminated in a unquestionably the Isis whom as in the rest, This goddess is Dion. De : xxxvi. p. 37. Relig. Vet Persar. v. '«= TI. v. 2q6 Olaus Rudbeckius page 219. : Atlantica, Ancient Art and Mythology. 147 the ancient Suevi, according to Tacitus, worshipped '" for the initial letter of the first name appears to be an article or prefix joined to it and the Egyptian Isis was occasionally represented enveloped in a net, exactly as the Scandinavian goddess was at Upsal.'"^ This goddess is delineated on the sacred drums of the Laplanders, accompanied by a child, similar to the Horus of the ^Egyptians, who so often appears in the lap of Isis on the religious monuments of that people.'*' The ancient Muscovites also worshipped a sacred group, composed of an old woman with one male child in her lap and another standing by her, which probably represented Isis and They had likewise another idol, called the her ofiFspring. golden heifer, which seems to have been the animal symbol of the same personage.'"" 196. Common observation would teach the inhabitants of polar climates that the primitive state of water was ice the name of which, in all the Northern dialects, has so near an afiinity with that of the goddess, that there can be no doubt of their having been originally the same, though it is equally a title of the corresponding personification in the East Indies. The conical form also unquestionably means the egg there being in the Albani collection a statue of Apollo sitting upon a great number of eggs, with a serpent coiled round them, exactly as he is upon the vailed cone or cortina, round which the serpent is occasionally coiled, upon the coins before cited. A conic pile of eggs is also placed by the statue of him, draped, ; ; ; ; as he appears on a in pi. Ixii. of vol. tetradrachm of Lampsacus,"" engraved of the Select Specimens. silver i. THE PILLAR-STONES. 197. Stones of a similar conical form are represented upon the colonial medals of Tyre, and called ambrosial stones ; from which, probably, came the amberics, so frequent all over the the Northern hemisphere. These, from the remains still extant, appear to have been composed of one of these cones set into the ground, with another stone placed upon the point of and so nicely balanced, that the wind could move it, though no human force, unaided by machinery, can displace it whence they are now called logging rocks, and it, so ponderous that ; '"Tacitus: Germany, c. i-n. Isiac Table; also Olaus Rud- •""•^ BECKlus: "' II. V. .,4^/a«/;V3, V. '«' Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica. II. vi. pp. 512, 513. pp. 209, 210. Atlantica, : Olaus Rudbeckius page 280. 299 ""In Knight. the cabinet of Mr. Payne The Symbolical Language of 148 stones, and stones of meaning from that on Damascius saw several of them in the pendre stones™ as they were anciently living God :'"'' titles, which differ but little in the Tyrian coins. neighborhood of Heliopolis or Baalbek, in Syria particularly one which was then moved by the wind '" and they are equally found in the Western extremities of Europe, and the Eastern extremities of Asia, in Britain, and in China.'" Prob; ; ably the stone which the patriarch Jacob anointed with oil, according to a mode of worship once generally practiced,'" Such immense as it still is by the Hindus, was of this kind."* masses being moved by causes seeming so inadequate, must naturally have conveyed the idea of spontaneous motion to ignorant observers, and persuaded them that they were animated by an emanation of the vital spirit whence they were consulted as oracles, the responses of which could always be easily obtained by interpreting the different oscillatory movements into nods of approbation and dissent. The figures of the Apollo Didymxus, on the Syrian coins before mentioned, are placed sitting upon the point of the cone, where the more rude and primitive symbol of the logging rock is found poised: and we are told, in a passage before cited, that the oracle of this god near Miletus existed before the emigration of the Ionian colonies that is, more than eleven hundred years before the Christian era wherefore we are persuaded that it was originally nothing more than one of these baitiilia or symbolical groups which the luxury of wealth and refinement of art gradually changed into a most magnificent temple and most elegant statue. : : : ; CAIRNS OR HILLOCKS AT CROSS-ROADS TO CONSECRATE THE SPOT. 19S. There were anciently other sacred piles of stones, equally or perhaps more frequent all over the North, called by the Greeks Lophoi Hermaioi or hillocks of Mercury ;'''"' of "' NoRDEN Cornwall, -f. "j^. '™ " Stones ensouled and Baitulia." Pseudo-Sanchon. Frag, apud Euseiium. The last title, Baitulia, seems to be a corruption of the scriptural : : name Bethel. "'Damascius: Vila Isidori. "I in the air." saw the Bcetuliiim moving '"Norden: G^rMw/a//, page 7g. Illustrated, page KiRCHER: China 270. '" 713; Arnnobius: i. Macrino. '" Genesis, xxviii. : Miscellanies, vii. Herodian: 22. " And /?2 this stone which I have set up for a pillar, A shall be God's House (Beth-El)." teme7ios or enclosure was also made there ; and subsequently a sacred Calf set up, which was afterward carried away and placed in the Museum of the king of Assyria. Hosea,-!L.ii. "5 Homer " BeOdyssey, xviii. yond tile city where is a Hermaic : Clem. Alex. ; 300 — Art and Mythology. Ancient 149 whom they were probably the original symbols. They were placed by the sides, or in the points of intersection, of roads; where every traveller that passed, threw a stone upon them in honor of Mercury, the guardian of all ways or general conductor;"" and there can be no doubt that many of the ancient crosses observable in such situations were erected upon them their pyramidal form affording a commodious base, and the substituting of a new object being the most obvious and usual remedy for such kind of superstition. The figures of this god sitting upon fragments of rock or piles of stone, one of which has been already cited, are probably more elegant and refined modes of signifying the same ideas. ; VENUS-ARCHITIS, THE ASHTGRETH OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199. The old Pelasgian Hermes of the Athenians consisted, as before observed, of a human head placed upon an inverted as also obelisk with a phallus of which several are extant a female draped figure terminating below in the same square ; ; These seem to be of the Venus-Architis, or primitive there was a statue in wood at Delos, supposed to be the work of Daedalus '" and another in a temple upon Mount Libanus, of which Macrobius's description exactly corresponds with the figures now extant of which one " Her apis given in pi. Iviii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens. pearance," he says, " was melancholy, her head covered, and her face sustained by her left hand, which was concealed under her garment." '" Some of these figures have the mystic title Aspasia upon them, signifying perhaps the welcome or gratulation to the returning spring for they evidently represent nature in winter, still sustained by the inverted obelisk, the emanation of the sun pointed downward, but having all her Some of these powers enveloped in gloom and sadness. figures were probably, like the Paphian Venus, double-sexed whence arose the Hermaphrodite, afterward represented under more elegant forms accounted for as usual by poetical fables. form. Venus ; of whom ; ; : ; ; cairn " or lophos. The expression is doubtless an interpolation. The cairns, pillars, and obelisks, erected at the crossings of streets (Jeremiah, xi. 13) were regarded as consecrating those places. It is a curious result that the change of religion has rendered the same spots unhallowed, and that accordingly suicides and criminals that might not be buried in "holy ground," were deposited A. W. "^ Anthology, Phurnutus ''" " : Pausanias the cross-roads." at Epigramm i. 12. Nature of the Gods. Bceotia, : The Delians have xi. 12. a statue of Aphro- dite (by Da;dalus), which is a foursided figure to the feet." "' Macrobius Saturnalia, i. 21. : "Capite obnupto, specie tristi, faciem manu teva intra amictam sustinens ' 301 ;; The Symbolical Language of I50 Occasionally the attribute seems to be signified by the cap and wings of Mercury. ALLEGORICAL SYMBOLS AND STORIES EXPLAINED IN THE MYSTERIES. 200. The symbol of the ram was, it seems, explained in the Eleusinian Mysteries,"" and the nature and history of the Pelasgian Mercury in those of Samothrace "° the device on whose coins is his emblem either of the ram or the cock,'" and where he was distinguished by the mystic title Casmilus or Cadmilus '"^ of which, probably, the Latin word Camillus and the Greek name of the fabulous hero Cadmus, are equally abbreviations "^ for the stories of this hero being married to Harmonia, the daughter of Mars and Venus, and of both him and his wife being turned into serpents, are clearly allegorical and it is more probable that the colony which occupied ; ; : "' Pausanias "» Herodotus : ii. 3. "The peculiarity which the Greeks observe in their statues of Mercury they did not derive from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgi. Whoever has been initiated into the Mysteries of the Ca: ii. 51. understand what I mean. Samothracians received these Mysteries from the Pelasgi, who before they went to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their religious ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who were first of all the Greeks to make their statues of Mercury in this way, learnt the practice from the Pelasgians and by this people a religious account of the matter is given, which is explained in the Samothracian Mysbeiri will The ; teries." '*' fig. Hunterian Museum : table xlvi. Also coins belonging to Mr. 21. Knight. '*' Scholiast upon Apollonius Rho- ; Book I. v. 917. " They are initiated into the Mysteries of the Cabeiri in Samothrace, whose names dius Mnaseas number tells us. They are four in Axieros, Axiokersa, AxioAxieros is Demeter Axiokersa is Persephone, and Axiokersos is Hades or Pluto. The fourth placed in the number, Casmilus, is Hermes as Dionysidorus relates." : kersos. ; . They add also a fourth, Kadmilus (Kadmiel), who is Hermes." " 302 '83 Lycophron : " Kadv. 162. milus, the Boeotian Hermes," or Mercury. The Scholium upon the same, says, " by syncope, Cadmus." These annotations are " clear as mud." Their most prominent idea is a theocrasy, by which several deities, as they are popularly understood, are reduced to a few personages. Cadmilis made to include the Theban Serpent-god, Cadmus, the Thoth of Egypt, the Hermes of the Greeks, and the Emeph or .^Esculapius of the Alexandrians and Phoenicians. The other Cabeirians embrace the gods of the universe, of generation and destruction, whether represented by Astart6, Demeter, Cybele, or Isis, not excepting Europa and Persephone also Osiris, Pluto, and the judges of the Underworld. It is hardly prudent to give an opinion where men so able and accomplished have differed ; nevertheless, it appears from the comparing of evidence, the Cabeirian like other sacred Orgies, were somewhat changed in different counlus tries, but were They substantially alike. involve the leading idea of the Eleusinian and Sabazian Mysteries, and a portion of the mythological history. The same dances upon the supposed plan of the planetary system, wailing for the First-Bom, dividing and occupying of the earth, and the introduction of the arts, characterise suppose, therefore. these rites. We Hermes drawn by Cocks. cy^A:> .. « / r Kadmos and Hermic Ancient Art and Mythology. Thebes, were called Cadmeians from the than from the name of their chief. 151 of their deity title THE PALM-TREE SYMBOL. The Egyptian Mercury, or Thoth, 201. palm carried a branch which his priests also wore in their sandals,'" probably as a badge of their consecration to immortality: for this tree is mentioned in the Orphic Poems as proverbial for longevity, and was the only one known to the ancients, which never changed its leaves all other evergreens shedding them, though not regularly nor all at once."' It has also the property of flourishing in the most parched and dry situations, where no other large trees will grow and therefore might naturally have been adopted as a vegetable symbol of the sun, whence it frequently accompanies the horse on the coins of Carthage '" and in the Corinthian sacristy in the temple at Delphi was a bronze palm-tree with frogs and water-snakes round its root, signifying the sun fed by humidof in his hand, ; ; ; The pillars in many ancient .Egyptian temples represent palm-trees with their branches lopped off; and it is probable that the palm-trees in the temple of Solomon were pillars ity.'" comprehended the old AsiaPagan system of Fire and Serpent worship, which the Phoenicians diffused over Asia, Syria, and Palestine, and conveyed to their colonies in other regions of the world and it is probable that the Babylonians had the same. The other Mysteries were imthat they tic ; itations. '** —A. W. Apuleius ii. '"' Plutarch Symposiacs, viii. 4. The palm, never shedding its foliage. : continually adorned with the same green. This power of the tree men think agreeable to and fit for representing victoi-y." "^ Gesnerius; table Ixxxiv. figs. 40, is 43. Inman : ; altar apparently to the sacred Triad." The Greek term for palm, Phcenix, is also the designation of Phoenicia, and one title the land of palm trees of the deity was Baal-Tamar, or Lord of the Palm. The designation appears to have been originally one of honor. The royal shepherds of Egypt were called Phoenicians and Hellenes, and Phoenix is said to have come from Egypt to Tyre. It was originally a title of men of rank, like the Anakim or Sons of Anak in Palestine, and the Anax andron 'or king of men in the ; The Golden Ass, : xi. " vol. vi. p. 273, and which represents a Phoenician coin, a tree resembling the palm is depicted, surrounded by the serpent, and standing between two stones below is an dian Antiquities, Ancient Faiths Embodied " On Ancietit Names, ii. 448, 449. ancient coins it figured largely alone. ill orassociated with some female symbol, It typified the male Creator, who was represented as an upright stone, a pillar, a round tower, a tree stump, an oak-tree, a pine-tree, a maypole, a spire, an obelisk, a minaret, and the like. In a curious drawing . which is copied from Maurice's In. 305 Bacchus Iliad. is also called Ph-anax Phoenician, the god of the palm, The use of the palm at triumphs was a testimony to royal, or at least, noble rank. A. W. or — ''*'' Plutarch " The : Pythagorean Dia- Creator (Demiurgus) figuratively derived from the principle of moisture (or the female principle) the nourishment of the sun, generated logues. existence and caloric." The Symbolical Language of 152 of the same form "° that prince having admitted many profane symbols among the ornaments of his sacred edifice. The palm-tree at Deles, sacred to Apollo and Diana, is mentioned in the Odyssey ; "' and it seems probable that the games and other exercises performed in honor of those deities, in which the palm, the laurel, and other symbolical plants were the distinctions of victory, were originally mystic representations of the attributes and modes of action of the divine nature. Such the dances unquestionably were for when performed in honor of the gods, they consisted chiefly of imitative exhibitions of the symbolical figures, under which they were represented by ; : the artists."" Simple mimicry seems also to have formed a part of the very ancient games celebrated by the lonians at Delos,'"' from which, probably, came dramatic poetry the old comedy principally consisting of imitations, not only of individual men, but of the animals employed as symbols of the Deity."" Of this kind are the comedies of the Birds, the Frogs, the Wasps, etc. the choral parts of which were recited by persons who were disguised in imitation of those different animals, and who mimicked their notes while chanting or singing the parts.'" From a passage of .iEschylus, preserved by Strabo, it appears that similar imitations were practiced in the mystic ceremonies,'" which may have been a reason for their gradual disuse upon all common occasions. ; ; BOXING A FEATURE OF THE MYSTIC WORSHIP. 202. "* i. The symbolical meaning of PococKE : Travels in the East, p. 217. '*' Homer : Odyssey, vi. 162. " I Apollo." 190 Plutarch Symposiacs, ix. 15, is made up of motion and : Dancing manner, as a song is of sounds and sobs. The motions they call phorai and the gestures and likeness to which the motions tend, they descriminate sebemata ; as for instance, when they represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or any of the BacchEe." See also O'Brien : Round Towers of Ireland, p. The god had and the sun, danced with him." 237. " compassion, and danced moon and stars Also Judges, ""' ; xxi. ig-z'}. Homer: Hymn to Apollo. "There fir, and the the long-trained lonians are assembled honor of thee, with their children and respected wives. They delight thee with boxing, dancing, and song, when they begin the contest. . . . The Delian girls, the servants of the Far-Shooter, after they have first chanted hymns to Apollo, and to Leto and shaft-rejoicing Artemis, calling to mind the heroes and heroines of old, sing an ode and charm the crowds of men. They ken how to imitate the voices and modulation of all ; so that each man could say that he had himself spoken, so beautiful an imitation had been made of them." ""' See Aristophanes : Horses, line 520. "' Aristophanes Frogs, line 209. '"' .iEschylijs : see Strabo, x. p. in saw such a young shoot of a palm growing up in Delos near the altar of " the olive, the : 721. 306 Ancient Art and Mythology, 153 honorary rewards in the Olympic, Isthmian, and Pythian games, has been already noticed and the parsley, which formed the crown of the Roman victors, was equally a mystic plant it being represented on coins in the same manner as the iig-leaf, and with the same signification,'" probably on account of a peculiar influence, which it is still supposed to have upon the female constitution. This connection of the games with the mystic worship was probably one cause of the momentous importance attached to success in them which is frequently spoken of by persons of the highest rank., as the most splendid object of human ambition "" and we accordingly find the proud city of Syracuse bribing a citizen of Caulonia to renounce his own country and proclaim himself of theirs, that they might have the glory of a prize which he had obtained.'" When Exsenetus of Agrigentum won the race in the ninety-second Olympiad, he was escorted into his native city by three hundred chariots "' and Theagenes the Thasian, the Achilles of his age, who long possessed unrivalled superiority in all exercises of bodily strength and agility, so as to have been crowned fourteen hundred times, was canonised as a hero or demigod, had statues erected to him in various parts of Greece, and received divine worship which he further proved himself worthy of, by miraculous favors obtained at his altars. Euthymus, too, who was equally eminent as a boxer, having won a great number of prizes, and contended once even against Theagenes with doubtful success, was rewarded with equal or even greater honors for he was deified by command of the oracle even before his death "° being thus elevated to a rank, which fear has often prostituted to power, but which unawed respect gave to merit in this instance only and it is peculiarly degrading to popular favor and flattery that in this instance it should have been given not to the labors of a statesman or the wisdom of a legislator, but to the dexterity of a boxer. apples, the ; ; ; ; ; ; : ; ; The Psalm resounds, The Bull-voiced mimes "8 DiODORUS SlCULUS i99Ptttcv' v\\ At ^.''''" ' striking terror with mystic cries: With the drum an Echo As of thunder under ground, Making aU things tremble." „ ^ ir Boxing, V' being itself their '96 is Hesychius: "Parsley, produced, the femin- ine." "° Plato The Republic, v. chap. "That most blessed life which 15. those live who gain the Olympic : prizes." See also Sophocles: Electra, '" Pausanias: vi. 3. : xiii. 82. a part otc^x. the ancient worship, those who perished ;„ the contests were regarded as sacrifices to the gods, as probably were those who perished by the gladiators. All these exhibitions were religious rather than for diversion, solely or • ^ .. It must be remembered principally. that human victims were offered in one form or another in Rome, Africa, Asia, and Greece, till long after the Christian 309 Era.— A. W. ^^^ Symbolical Language of 154 NOBLE QUALITIES CONSIDERED AS THE EMANATION. PRODUCT OF DIVINE 203. This custom of canonising or deifying men seems to have arisen from that general source of ancient rites and opinions, the system of emanations, according to which all were supposed to partake of the divine essence, but not in an equal degree whence, while a few simple rites, faintly expressive of religious veneration, where performed in honor of all the dead,"" a direct and explicit worship was paid to the shades : of certain individuals renowned for either great virtues or great vices, which, if equally energetic, equally dazzle and overawe the gaping multitude.*" Everything being derived, according to this system, from the Deity, the commanding talents and splendid qualities of particular persons were naturally supposed to proceed from particular emanations; whence such persons were, even while living, honored with divine titles expressive of those particular attributes of the Deity, with which they seemed to be peculiarly favored.*" Such titles were, however, in many instances given soon after birth children being named after the divine personifications, as a sort of consecration to their protection. The founder of the Persian monarchy was called by a name, which in their language signified the sun °" and there is no doubt that many of the ancient kings of iEgypt had names of the same kind,'" which have helped to confound history with allegory although the Egyptians, prior to their subjection to the Macedonians, never wor; ; ; Homer *<"' Odyssey, x. 6. : »' Plutarch : Sentiments which " tk^i^ j.n^ut.j Philosophers, D!,;i„,^j,^, I. : o dehghted Z. Thales, Pythagoras. Plato and the Stoics, consider the demons to be psychical beings that the heroes are souls separated from the bodies ; some are good and some bad : the good, the iood souls, and the bad. those whose souls are worthless." ' " The Persians say Hesychius. *^' 5^™' " v '*'"• '''^fL ^^"™S Kawlinson Herodotus, vi. AppenNote A 'Tvni^ ^^^°- Persian ^°\^ ^,. ^^^^p rOld Z''^"™*-) ^liis word was generally he s"P?°=ed by the Greeks to mean f : ,• , ; "" Pindar Nemea. " One race of men, one of godsFrom one mother we both breathe, All power is held separated." : «„„„,.„ Perstca D Ctesias his name from the sun. • BD, «»» : Plutarch: <i 1^1, 1 They took Artaxerxes. Persians call the sun Cyrus." i. .*;%" f'' |^"^."" "• "ifntified with the ^end Hware, modern ^/'«% '^ "°^ suspected ^\. f^"ff°' that this identification was a mistake, as the old Persian A never replaces "^^ Sanscrit S. The name is more properly compared with the Sanscrit Kuru, which was a popular title among the Aryan race before the separation of the Median and Persian £,.,„,hes. but of which the etymology oj j • "The ^"^ ^^P"^' •= , •^^known. '"' .UO ,. Jablonski : Pantheon of Egypt ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 155 shipped them, nor any heroes or canonised mortals whatsoever.'" NAMES OF GODS CONFERRED UPON DISTINGUISHED MEN. 204. "During the Pagan state of the Irish," says a learned antiquary of that country, " every child at his birth received a -name generally from some imaginary divinity under whose protection it was supposed to be but this name was seldom re; : tained longer than the state of infancy from which period it was generally changed for others arising from some perfection or imperfection of the body ; the disposition or quality of the mind achievements in war or the chase the place of birth, residence, etc." '" When these descriptive titles exactly accorded with those previously imposed, and derived from the personified attributes of the Deity, both were naturally confounded, and the limited excellences of man thus occasionally placed in the same rank with the boundless perfections of God. The same custom still prevails among the Hindus, who, when a child is ten days old, give him the name of one of their Deities, to whose favor they think by this means to recommend him '" whence the same medley of historical tradition and physical allegory fills up their popular creed, as filled that of the Greeks and other nations. The ancient theism of the North seems also to have been corrupted by the conqueror Odin assuming the title of the supreme CJod, and giving those of other subordinate attributes to his children and captains; '" which are, however, all occasionally applied to him "'' for the Scandinavians, like the Greeks, seem sometimes to have joined, and sometimes to have separated the personifications so that they sometimes worshipped several gods, and sometimes only one god with several names. 205. Historical tradition has transmitted to us accounts of several ancient kings, who bore the Greek name of Jupiter;"* ; ; ; ; : ; »» Herodotus, tians ii 50. " pay no divme honot: The Egyp- XfSi,^^^L7St^^^i^ to heroes. Vacus et Skilfingus, Va/odas et Hooj/ta-iyr Gautus et lalcus inter Deos, See also §§ 142, 143. '"^ Collectan. Hibem. No. xi. Ossier et Sua/iter, Quos puta factor esse p. 250, Indies, Omnes ex una me. am n »^ *'" Pausanias : Messina, xxxiu. 2. The names of the individuals in the VHist. de Hebrew Scriptures were often designa- f^" ""Sonnerat: 'p Voyas'e -^ •^ aux ' g J ' ' /V ™8 Mallet: Daneman. ™3 Edd. Introd. a S^mon tions of the Grunnistnal, ^tfzwKj ego nunc nominor : liii. A. 3" Supreme Being espeBook of Genesis. cially those of the W, ; — ; The Symbolical Language of 156 which signifying Awe or Terror, would naturally be assumed by tyrants, who wished to inspire such sentiments. The ancient Bacchus was said to have been the son of Jupiter by Ceres or Proserpina '" that is, in plain language, the result of the aethereal spirit operating upon the Earth, or its pervading Heat : but a real or fictitious hero, having been honored with his name in the Cadmeian colony of Thebes, was by degrees confounded with him in the popular mythology, and fabled to have been raised up by Jupiter to replace him after he had been slain by the Titans; as Atys and Adonis were ; "''' *" DiODOEUS SicuLUS iii. : " They say that the god, the offspring of Zeus and Demeter, was torn to pieces." Demeter and not Proserpina was mentioned by older writers. Arrian : ii. " The Athenians worship Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Kore that other Dionysus and the lacchus of the Mysteries, this Dionysus and not the Theban one, is celebrated with chanting." Mr. Knight aptly remarks that " an Attic writer during the independence of the Republic would not have dared to say so much." But the introduction of Macedonian influence had had its full effect when Arrian wrote and the Orphic rites were superseding the Eleusinian. Hence the appeal of Nonnus Dionysiacs, xxxi. — ; ; ; " Let not Athens hymn the new Bacchus Let him not obtain honor like the Eleusinian Bacchus Let him not change the mysteries of the former Bacchus, Nor dishonor the basket of the autumnal fruits of Demeter." ; DiODORUS SiCULUS: iv. p. 148. " Certain mythologists narrate that there had been another Dionysus born, much more venerable in time than this one. They say that Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, and that some also named him Sfebazius ; whose birth, sacriiices, nocturnal worship and hidden rites, they introduce to the attention because of shame at the unlimited intercourse which follows." Plutarch: Symposiacs, iv. thinlc that the festival of the 6. "I Sabbath not wholly without relation to the Dionysus. Even now, many call the Bacchi by the designation of Sabbi ; and this very word is uttered when celebrating the Orgies of the is festival of 312 One might say that the name was derived from a certain sobesis or pompous movement which charactergod. ises those celebrating the Bacchic rites." "** Nonnus Zeus, : Dionysiacs, v. who reigns on high, desires to rear Another Bacchus, the copy of old Dionysus, bull-formed. Unfortunate Zagreus, still loved. Whom Persephoneia brought forth to the dracontian bed of Zeus." The Orphic legend which is here makes Dionysus-Zagreus the son of Zeus or Jupiter, begotten by him in the form of the sacred Dragon upon Kore, said by some to be his daughter by Ceres or Demeter, and by others to be Demeter herself. Nonnus adopts the former idea and styles her KorePersephoneia. Zeus had destined this child for King of Heaven, and placed him in charge of Apollo and the Curecited, the ancient priest-caste of Greece, Crete, and Phrygia. But the Titans, incited by Hera, disguised themselves under a coat of plaster, and finding the child examining a mirror, attacked him and tore him into seven pieces. Pallas-Athena rescued his heart which Zeus swallowed, and thus received again into himself the soul of the child, to be born anew in the person of the second Dionysus, the son of Semele. It is easy to perceive from this legend the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls, which was a part of the Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines, and doubtless came from the East. E. Pococke uses this story to illustrate his idea of an ancient Lama-hierarchy in Greece of tes, which Zeus was the chief-pontiff. Zagreus or Chakras (universal sovereign) his son by Kore-Persephoneia (or Parasou-pani Durga). his contemplated ,^-^<?-5ffj3^c^_^^C^gg, Leda and Jupiter as a Swan. Ancient Art and Mythology. 157 by the Boar, and Osiris by Typhon symbolical tales which have been already noticed. The mystic deity was however duly distinguished as an object of public worship in the temples where he was associated by the Greeks with Ceres and Proserpina,*" and by the Romans with Ceres and Libera (who was their Proserpina), the reason for which, as the Stoic interlocutor observes in Cicero's Dialogue on the Nature of the Gods, was explained in the Mysteries.'" ; ; CONFUSION OF PERSONAGES AND OF THE ALLEGORIES. 206. The sons of Tyndarus, Castor and Pollux, were by the same means confounded with the ancient personifications of the diurnal and nocturnal sun, or of the morning and evening star; '" the symbols of whose attributes, the two oval or conical caps, were interpreted to signify their birth from Leda's ^%%, a fable engrafted upon the old allegory subsequent to the Ho- meric times the four lines alluding to the deification of the brothers of Helen in the Odyssey being undoubtedly spurious though extremely beautiful."" Perseus is probably an entirely fictitious and allegorical personage; for there is no mention ot him in either of the Homeric poems; and his name is a title of the sun,"' and his image the composite symbol of the griffin humanised. Theseus appears likewise to be a personage ; means evidently, even if it means no more, that the several rites observed in Phrygia and Asia, purporting to be originally from Samothrace, were subThe Grecian stantially identical. myth of Jupiter and Leda is but anLeda is other version of the legend. the Mother Goddess, and brings forth successor, having been murdered by the Titans was born again and made the heir-apparent (India in xvii. pp. 265, 265). A. W. — Greece, *'' Pausanias: ^«zVa. "The temple Demeter is near by She and the Daughter having statues, and lacchus a torch." These seem to have been of : to Tyndarus the Flame-God, or to Zeus the lord of ffither, Castor, the Sun or Morning-star, Polydeukes, the Evening-star, and Helene or Selene, the Cabeiri. Clement of "The Alexandria: Demeter of Praxitiles, and Kore the lacchus of the Mysteries." »'* Gods, Cicero iii. The Nature of : and the "' Sextus Empiricus ix. 37. " They say that the Tyndaridae (Castor and Pollux) succeed to the glory of the Dioscuri who were formerly regarded as gods." The Dioscuri were originally Phcenician divinities, the patrons of art and commerce. In Sanchoniathon, they are " To Sydyc (Tzadec) thus described were born the Dioscuri, or Cabeiri, or Corybantes, or Samothracians they first invented the mystic ship." This : : ; the Moon.— A. W. Odyssey, Homer *" 21. " The xi. spurious passage (written by the interpolator with the F or digamma, shows that " both of these the fruitful earth detains alive who, even beneath the earth, having honor from Zeus, sometimes live on alternate days, and sometimes again are dead, and they have obtained by lot honor equally with the [Cabeirian] gods." " Per'" Scholiast oti Lycophron sens, the Sun." 317 : ; : The Symbolical Language of 158 between the respective ages of the two there being no mention of him in the genuine parts of the Iliad, though the Athenian genealogy is minutely detailed; '" and he being only once slightly mentioned as the lover of Ariadne in the genuine parts of the Odyssey.™ He who started into being Homeric poems; seems, in reality, to be the Athenian personification of Hercuhe having the same symbols of the club and the lion's skin and similar actions and adventures being attributed to him, many of which are manifestly allegorical such as his conflict with the Minotaur, with the Centaurs, and with the les; ; ; Amazons. MEN BEGOTTEN BY DIVINE WITHOUT HUMAN AGENCY. 207. This confusion of personages, arising from a confusion of names, was facilitated in its progress by the belief that the universal generative principle, or its subordinate emanations, might act in such a manner as that a female of the human species might be impregnated without the co-operation of a male;°^° and as this notion was extremely useful and convenient in concealing the frailties of women, quieting the jealousies of husbands, protecting the honor of families, and guarding with religious awe the power of bold usurpers, it was naturally cherished and promoted with much favor and industry. Men supposed to be produced in this supernatural way, would of course advance into life with strong confidence and high expectations; which generally realise their own views, when supported by even common courage and ability. Such were the founders of almost all the families distinguished in mythology; whose names being, like all other ancient names, descriptive titles, they were equally applicable to the personified attributes of the Deity whence both became blended together, : *" Homer «'» Homer: : Iliad, ii. 546-550. Odyssey, xi. "Fair Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, whom Theseus once led from Crete to the soil of sacred Athens but he did not enjoy her, for Artemis slew her in the island Dia, on account of the testimony of Dionysus." *™ Plutarch : Symfosiacs, viii. i. ; " It is very fit that to Plato •He seemed that we should apply : not sprung from mortal man, but God.' But for my part, I apprehend that to beget, as well as to be begotten, is re- pugnant unchangeable nature of But I take heart again when I hear Plato call the eternal and unbegotten deity the Father and Creator of the universe and all other begotten things not as if he parted with any sperm, but as if by his power l^s implanted a generative principle in matter, which acts upon, forms, and It seems no incredible fashions it. thing that the Deity, though not after *« ts.ih\on of a man, but by some other certain communication hlls and impregnates a mortal nature with a to the the deity. . . : divine principle." ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 159 and historical so mixed with allegorical fable, that it is imposinstances to distinguish or separate them. The actions of kings and conquerors were attributed to personages purely symbolical and the qualities of these bestowed in resible in many ; upon frail and perishable mortals. Even the double or ambiguous sex was attributed to deified heroes Cecrops being fabled to have been both man and woman °'' and the rough Hercules and furious Achilles represented with the features and habits of the softer sex, to conceal the mystic meaning of which the fables of Omphale and lole, and the daughters of Lycomedes, were invented, of which there is not a trace in the turn ; ; Homeric poems. FOREIGN ASSUMING IDENTICAL AT HOME. DEITIES SHIPPED 208. When the Greeks WITH made expeditions THOSE WOR- into distant coun- and there found corresponding either in sound or sense to their own, they without further enquiry concluded them to be the same; and adopted all the legendary tales which they found with them whence their own mythology, both religious and historical, was gradually spread out into an unwieldy mass of incoherent fictions and traditions, that no powers of ingenuity or extent of learning could analyse or comprehend. The heroes of the Iliad were, at a very early tries either for plunder, trade, or conquest, deified heroes with titles ; so much the objects of public admiration, partly through the greatness of the war, the only one carried on period, the States of Greece prior to the Macedonian and partly through the refulgent splendor of the mighty genius by which it had been celebrated, that the proudest princes were ambitious of deducing their genealogies from them, and the most powerful nations vain of any traces of connection with them. Many such claims and pretensions were of course fabricated, which were as easily asserted as denied; and as men have a natural partiality for affirmatives, and nearly as strong a predilection for that which exercises jointly by all usurpation, '-' Justin ii. 6. See also Suidas, Jerome, Plutarch, Eustathius, and Diodorus. This assertion can hardly be correct. The heroes were but the heris or deities themselves in the manifestation denominated by the Hindus avatars and such were represented double- Eusebius, : Venus with a beard, or standing on the tortoise, denoted the same idea and it is hinted in the first and fifth chapters of the Book of Genesis ; " in the likeness of God made he him ; male and female created he them, sexed. ; and called W. 323 their name Adam." —A. ; The i6o Language of Sytnbolical their credulity, as for that which gratifies their vanity, we may conclude that the asserters generally prevailed. Their tales were also rendered plausible, in many instances, by the various traditions then circulated concerning the subsequent fortunes and adventures of those heroes some of whom were said to have been cast away in their return, and others expelled by usurpers, who had taken advantage of their long absence; so that a wandering life supported by piracy and plunder became the fate of many."" Inferences were likewise drawn from the slenderest traces of verbal analogies and the general similarity of religiotis rites, which, as they co-operated in proving what men were predisposed to believe, were admitted without suspicion or critical examination. ; OLD PRACTICE 209. NAMING PLACES NEWLY-DISCOVERED AND THE CONFUSION RESULTING. OF But what contributed most of all towards peopling the coasts and islands both of the Mediterranean and adjoining ocean, with illustrious fugitives of that memorable period, was the practice of ancient navigators in giving the 7cihich they discovered, in the names of gods and heroes to the lands same manner as the moderns do those of the saints and martyrs for in those early ages every name thus given became the subject of a fable, because the name continued when those who gave it were forgotten. In modern times every navigator keeps a journal which, if it contains any new or important information, is printed and made public so that, when a succeeding navigator finds any traces of European language or manners in a remote country, he knows from whence they came but, had there been no narratives left by the first modern discoverers, and subsequent adventurers had found the names of St. Francis or St. Anthony with some faint traces of Christianity in any of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, they might have concluded, or at least conjectured, that those saints had actually been there: whence the first convent of monks, that arose in a colony, would soon make out a complete history of their arrival and abode there the hardships which they endured, the miracles which they wrought, and the relics which they left for the edification of the faithful, and the emolument of their teachers. 210. As the heroes of the Iliad vftrt as familiar to the Greek navigators, as the saints of the Calendar were to the Spanish and Portuguese, and treated by them with the same sort of re: ; : : *''^ Stkabo : iii. 324 p. 150. Ancient Art and Mythology. i6i and veneration, there can be little doubt that they left same sort of memorials of them, wherever they made discoveries or piratical settlements which memorials, being afterward found among barbarous nations by succeeding navigators, when the discoverers where forgotten and the settlers vanished, they concluded that those heroes had actually been there and as the works of the Greek poets, by the general diffusion of the Greek language after the Macedonian conquest, became universally known and admired, those nations spect the ; : themselves eagerly co-operated in the deception by engrafting the Greek fables upon their own, and greedily catching at any links of affinity which might connect them with a people, from whom all that was excellent in art, literature, and society, seemed to be derived. JACOB BRYANT CRITICISED. 211. Hence, in almost every country bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea, and even in some upon the Atlantic Ocean, traces were to be found of the navigations and adventures of Ulysses, Menelaus, .^Eneas, or some other wandering chieftain of that age by which means such darkness and confusion have been spread over their history, that an ingenious writer, not usually given to doubt, has lately questioned their existence not recollecting that he might upon the same grounds have questioned the existence of the Apostles, and thus undermine the very fabric which he professed to support for by quoting, as of equal authority, all the histories which have been written concerning them in various parts of Christendom during seventeen hundred years, he would have produced a medley of inconsistent facts, which, taken collectively, would have startled even his own well-disciplined faith."' Yet this is what he calls a fair mode of analysing ancient profane history and, indeed, it is much fairer than that which he has practiced: for not content with quoting Homer and Tzetzes, ; ; : ; *" Metodorus of Lampsacus anturned both the Homeric ciently poems into allegory ; and the Christian writers of the third and fourth centuries did the same by the historical books of the New Testament as their predecessors the Eclectic Jews had before done by those of the ; Old. the general fact of the siege of Troy they have been mis-stated to have done), any more than Tatian and Origen did the incarnation of their Redeemer, or Aristeas and Philo the passage of the Red Sea. Tasso in his later days declared the whole of his Jerusalem Delivered to be but without, however an allegory questioning the historical truth of the crusades. (as ; Metrodorus and his followers, however, never denied nor even questioned 325 ;; 1 The Symbolical Language of 62 as of equal authority, he has entirely rejected the testimony of Thucydides in his account of the ancient population of Greece; and received in its stead that of Cedrenus, Sj'ncelius, and the other monkish writers of the lower ages, who compiled the Paschal and Nuremberg Chronicles. It is rather hard upon our countrymen, Chaucer and Lydgate, to be excluded as the latter would have furnished an account of the good king Priam's founding a chauntry in Troy to sing requiems for the soul of his pious son Hector, with many other curious particulars equally unknown to the antiquaries of Athens and Alexandria, though full as authentic as those which he has collected with so mucli labor from the Byzantine luminaries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.'" 212. A conclusion- directly contrary to that of this ingenious gentleman was drawn by several learned writers of antiquity, from the confusion in which the traditions of early times were involved. Instead of turning history into mythology, they turned mythology into history and inferred that, because some of the objects of public worship had been mortal men, they had all been equally so; for which purpose, the}' rejected the authority of the Mysteries, where the various gradations of gods, daemons, and heroes, with all the metaphysical distinctions of emanated, personified, and canonised beings, were taught;'" and, instead of them, brought out the old allegorical genealogies in a new dress, under pretense of their having been transcribed from authentic historical monuments of extreme antiquity found in some remote country. ; EUHEMERUS, SANCHONIATHON, AND EUSEBIUS ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENTLY SOLVING MYTHS AS HISTORICAL EVENTS. 213. Euhemerus, a Messenian employed under Cassander, king of Macedonia, seems to have been the first who attempted this kind of fraud. Having been sent into the Eastern Ocean with some commission, he pretended to have found engraven upon a column in an ancient temple in the island of Panchsea, a genealogical account of a family that had once reigned there in which were comprised the principal deities then worshipped by the Greeks.'" The theory, which he formed from this pre'" See Bryant : Ancient Mytho- logy. '" Plutarch As : Failure of the Ora- the Mysteries and secret observances, by which we receive the most vivid representations cles, 14. " to and manifestations of the truth concerning the demons, let me keep silent, as Herodotus says." '-* EusEBius Praparatio Evange: lica, 326 ii. 2. Plutarch : Tsis and Osiris, 23 Ancient Art and Mythology. 163 tended discovery, was soon after attempted to be more full}established by a Phcenician History, said to have been compiled many centuries before by one Sanchoniathon from the records of Thoth and Amun, but never brought to light until Philo of Byblos published it in Greek with a prooem of his own in which he asserted that the Mysteries had been contrived merely to disguise the tales of his pretended Fhanician History™ notwithstanding that a great part of these tales are evidently nothing more than the old mystic allegories copied with little variation from the theogonies of the Greek poets, in which they had before been corrupted and obscured. 214. A fragment of this work having been preserved by Eusebius, many learned persons among the moderns have quoted it with implicit confidence, as a valuable and authentic record of very ancient history while others have as confidently rejected it, as a bungling fraud imposed upon the public by Philo of Byblos, in order to support a system, or procure money from the founders of the Alexandrian Library who paid such extravagant prices for old books, or for (what served equally well to furnish their shelves) new books with old titles. Among the ancients there seems to have been but one opinion concerning it for, except Porphyry, no heathen writer has deigned to mention it so contemptible a performance, as the ; ; ; ; ; " I fear that this would be to stir things that are not to be stirred, and to declare war not only, as Simonides says, against length of time, but also against many nations and families of mankind, a pious veneration toward these deities holds fast bound, like men astonished and amazed. whom This would be nothing else than going about to remove so great and venerable names from heaven to earth thus shaking and dissolving that reverence and persuasion that hope entered into the hearts of all men from their very birth; and opening the great double-barred gates to the atheistic party who convert all divine matters into human, giving a conspicuous place to the impostures of Euhemerus, the Messenian, who out of his own mind prepared a rescript of incredible and imaginary fable, and thus sowed disbelief in the gods broadcast in the world. This he did by describing those heretofore regarded as divinities under the style of military leaders, ; and kings, whom he assumes to have lived in the more recent and ancient periods, and to have been so recorded in golden characters in Panchaia, a country which no Barbarian, nor Greek ever saw, except sea-captains, Euhemerus alon-e, who pretends to have sailed into those regions of the earth never before known, because the Panchaians and Triphyllians never existed." ''^ SANCHONIATHON, or Philo Bybliquoted by Eusebius: Prapara- us, as " But the most Evangelica, i. g. recent of the sacred Writers withheld the literal accounts of the occurrences happening from the beginning, and tio wove them into allegories and legends and having established a certain rela- ; tionship between them and the varied experiences of this life, they instituted the Mysteries, and afterward raised a great smoke around them, so that one might not easily apprehend their sense correctly." 329 The Symbolical Language of 164 fragment extant proves it to have been, seeming to them un worthy of being rescued from oblivion even by an epithet of scorn or sentence of reprobation. The early Christian writers, however, took it under their protection, because it favored that system which, by degrading the old, facilitated the progbut in whatever else these writers ress of the new religion may have excelled, they certainly had no claim to excellence in either moral sincerity or critical sagacity; and none less than Eusebius, who, though his authority has lately been preferred to that of Thucydides and Xenophon, was so dififerently thought of by ecclesiastical writers of the immediately subsequent ages, that he is one of those by whose example they justified the practice of holy lying,''" or asserting that which they knew to be false in support of that which they believed to be true. ; THE SPURIOUS LETTER OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT MOTHER. TO HIS Among the numberless forgeries of greater moment poured upon the world, is one in favor of this system, written in the form of a letter from Alexander the Great to his mother, informing her that an Egyptian priest 215. which this practice named Leo had him that all the gods were deified and manner of it are below criticism it being in every respect one of the most bungling counterfeits ever issued from the great manufactory of falsehoods, which was carried on under the avowed patronage of the leading members of the Church, during the second, third, and fourth mortals. secretly told Both the style ; Jablonski only wasted his erudition in exposing though Warburton, whose multifarious reading never gave him any of the tact or taste of a scholar, has employed all his acuteness and all his virulence in its defense."' centuries."" it "° ; DISGRACEFUL APOTHEOSES OF ANCIENT EMPERORS. 216. The facility and rapidity with which deifications weie multiplied under the Macedonian and Roman empires, gave considerable credit to the system of Euhemerus, and brought '*' Jerome Jerome: Chrysostoni Against Jovinian. Against Jovinian, : ^'^ tso : De Prolegomena. Sacerdotibus. It is alluded to by Athenagoras in his Apology; thus showing that it was extant in the Tliird Century of the Christian Era. *'' Warbuton Divine Legation, i. : 330 ; Art and Ancient Mythology. 165 proportionate disgrace on religion in general. The many worthless tyrants, whom their own preposterous pride or the abject servility of their subjects exalted into gods, would naturally be pleased to hear that the universally-recognised objects of public worship had no better title to the homage and devotion of mankind than they themselves had and when an universal despot could enjoy the honors of a god, at the same time that consciousness of his crimes prevented him from daring to enter a mystic temple, it is natural that he should prefer that system of religion which decorated him with its highest honors, to that which excluded him from its only sol; emn rites.'" THE "elementary SYSTEM," AS FOUND IN HOMER AND OTHER POETS. This system had also another great advantage: for as persons acquainted with the mystic doctrines were strictly bound to secresy, they could not of course engage in any controversy on the subject otherwise they might have appealed to the testimony of the poets themselves, the great corrupters and disguisers of their religion who, nevertheless, upon all great and solemn occasions, such as public adjurations and invocations, resort to its first principles, and introduce no fabulous or historical personages not that they understood the mystic doctrines, or meant to reveal them, but because they followed the ordinary practice of the earliest times, which in matters of such solemn importance was too firmly established to be altered. When Agamemnon calls upon the gods to attest and confirm his treaty with Priam, he gives a complete abstract of the old elementary system, upon which the mystic was founded naming first the awful and venerable Father of all 217. all ; ; ; ; then the Sun, who superintends and regulates the Universe, and lastly of the great active Spirit that pervade the The invocawaters, the earth, and the regions under the earth."^ tion of the Athenian women, who are introduced by Aristophanes celebrating the Thesmophoria, or secret rites of Ceres,, is to the same effect, only adapted to the more complicated and philosophical refinements of the mystic worship. First they call upon Zeus, the supreme all-ruling Spirit ; then upon the goldenlyred Apollo, or the Sun, the harmoniser and regulator of the world,, the centre and instrument of his power ; then upon Almighty Pallas, the subordinate diffusions "' Suetonius : Nero. *'' Homer : Iliad, iii. ; 1 The Symbolical Language of 66 or the pure emanation of his wisdom j then upon Artemis, or Nature, many-named daughter of Leto or Night ; then upon Poseidon, or the emanation of the pervading Spirit that animates the waters j and the lastly upon the Nymphs or subordinate generative ministers of both sea and land!'''' Other invocations to the same purport are to be found in many of the choral odes both tragic and comic; though the order in which tlie personifications are introduced is often varied, to prevent the mystic allusions from being too easily discernible. The principles of theology appear to have been kept equally pure from the superstructures of mythology in the forms of judicial adjuration; Draco having enacted that all solemn depositions should be under the sanction of Jupiter, Poseidon, and Athene,'" whilst in later times Demeter was joined to the two former instead of Athene."" THE "SYRIAN GODDESS," AND HER PECULIAR WORSHIP. 2x8. The great Pantheic temples exhibited a similar progression or graduation of personified attributes and emanations in the statues and symbols which decorated them. Many of these existed in various parts of the Macedonian and Roman empires; but none are now so well known as that of Hierapolis, or the holy city in Syria, concerning which we have a particular treatise attributed to Lucian. It was called the temple of the Syrian goddess Atar-gatis or Astarte who was the same as the Rhea, Cybele, or Universal Mother of the Phrygians whose attributes have been already explained, and may be found more regularly detailed in a speech of Mopsus in the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius.'" " She was," as Appian observes, " by some called Hera, by others Venus, and by others held to be Nature, or the First cause which produced the beginnings and seeds of things from seminal humidity; " "*' so that she comprehended in one personification both these goddesses; who were accordingly sometimes blended in one symbolical figure by the very ancient Greek artists.'^" 219. Her statue at Hierapolis was of composite form, so as to signify many attributes like those of the Ephesian Diana, Berekynthian Mother, and others of the kind."" It was placed ; *'* Aristophanes The Thesmo- : '^^ Scholiast on Iliad, xv. "'Demosthenes: Km Tiiioxp. *" Apollonius Rhodius i. 1098. Appian De Bella Parthico. See also PLUTARCH Crassus. : 838 ''' Pausanias : iii. " The Lacon- ians call the ancient figures of fhoriazousa, line 365. : : dite, v. "The Tyrrhenians Hera, Kupra," or AphroditS. Strabo call the *"> Aphro- Hera." : Lucian : De Dea Syria. " It has the characteristics of Pallas-Athe- Ancient Art and Mythology. 167 in the interior part of the temple, accessible only to priests of the higher order; and near it was the statue of the corresponding male personification, called by the Greek writers Zeus ; which was borne by bulls, as that of the goddess was the active power or asthereal spirit is sustained by its own strength alone while the passive or terrestrial requires the aid of previous destruction. The Minotaur and Sphinx, before explained, are only more compendious ways of representing these composite symbols. by to lions,"' signify that ; THE MYSTERIOUS THIRD ONE. Between them was a third figure with a golden dove head, which the Syrians did not choose to explain, or 220. on its by any name; but which some supposed to be Bacchus, and others Semiramis.'" It must, therefore, have been an androgynous figure; and most probably signified the first-begotten Love, or plastic emanation, which proceeded from both, and was consubstantial with both whence he was called by the Persians, who seem to have adopted him from the Syrians, Mithras, signifying the Mediator.**'^ The call others Deucalion, ; na, Venus-Aphrodite, Luna, Rhea, Ar- others Semiramis." temis, Nemesis, and the Fates." *" LuciAN : " Both are represented sign. and are made of gold. Hera is carried by lions, and he by bulls." " She is evidently the same as Rhea, for lions support her, and she carries a tabor or drum in her hand, and a tower on her head, as the Lydians re- 46. as sitting, Rhea or Cybele." The symbol is of Zeus present " ; and chair are enough no other resemblance." robes, sire The be seen, the head, we de; Tyrian, indeed, the same as that on the Phoenician medal with the Bull's head on the chain. Seen also on the silver coins of Alexander the Great, Seleucus I., Antiochus IV., etc. It was therefore the same figure as that on the Phoenician medal with the bull's head on the chair and which is repeated with slight variations on the silver coins of Alexander the Great, Seleucus I., Antiochus IV., etc. and figure, it will is is, ; "'' LuciAN De Dea Syria, 16. "Not only is no name given to it, but : they say nothing concerning the origin or form. Some suppose it to be Dionysus, others, Deucalion, and *<3 Plutarch *' It is called the Ins and Ositis, 45, Nature produces nothing but : mixed and tempered. come without a cause, and if a good thing can not afford a cause of evil, Nature then must certainly have a peculiar source and ori- what is . If nothing can gin of evil as well as of good. This is the opinion of the greatest and wisest of mankind. Some believe that there are two Deities, as though it were rival architects, one of whom they regard as the creator of good things, and the other of the bad. Some call the better one of them GoD and the other D^MON as doth Zoroaster the Magian, whom they assert to have lived five thousand years before the Trojan war. This Zoroaster called the one of these Oromasd, and other Ahriman and affirmed that the ; the former as to things perceptible to the senses, must resemble light, and the other, darkness and ignorance also that Mithras was of a nature between the two. For this reason the Persians call Mithras the mediator." Mithras is the old Persian title of 335 ; ; 1 The Symbolical Language of 68 doubt expressed concerning the sex proves that the body of was covered, as well as the features effeminate and peculiarly remarkable that such a figure as this with a the figure it is ; golden dove on its head should have been taken for Deucaof whom corresponding ideas must of course have been entertained whence we are led to suspect that the fabulous histories of this personage are not derived from any vague traditions of the universal deluge, but from some symbolical composition of the plastic spirit upon the waters, which was signified so many various ways in the emblematical language of ancient art. The infant Perseus floating in an ark or box with his mother, is probably from a composition' of the same kind, Isis and Horus being represented enclosed in this manner on the mystic or Isiac hands '" and the Egyptians, as before observed, representing the sun in a boat instead of a chariot from which boat being carried in procession upon men's shoulders, as it often appears in their sculptures, and being ornamented with symbols of Amun taken from the ram, probably arose the fable of the Argonautic expedition of which there is not a trace in the genuine parts of either of the Homeric poems.*" The Colchians indeed were supposed to be a colony of Egyptians,'" and it is possible that there might be so much truth in the story, as that a party of Greek pirates carried off a golden figure of the symbol of their god but had it been an expedition of any splendor or importance, it certainly would have been noticed in the repeated mention that is made of the heroes said to have been concerned lion ; : ; ; ; ; in it. 221. The supreme assumed different Triad, thus represented at Hierapolis, forms and names in different mystic tem- Sun-God, or more correctly, as be seen in \!cve, hordah-Avesta, of the herald, who goes before and announces the coming of the Sun, like the K will the Aswins. He is the first of the Izeds or Yasatas, the Lord, whose long arms grasp what is in Eastern India and smite that which is in Western India (Susiana and Babylonia, where Ahriman and Zohak ruled), what is on the steppes or prairies of Ranha (the Amou), and what is at the end of the land (by the Southern Ocean). The name does not appear to have been borrowed from any western people, whether Ethiopic or Shemitic but it was carried over Asia ; Minor, Egypt, and other countries, conquest of Pontus by Pompey and we find it an element in theGnostic systems and other mystic doctrines, after the Christian era. A. W. ^^ La Chausse Roman Museum, after the ; — : plates II, 13. reference to Jason and the ship Argo {Odyssey, xii. 69-72), are supposed to have been interpolated, vol. ii. '^^ The "' Herodotus : ii 104. Despite Mr. Knight's speciousness, the ethnic and social, as well as the religious affiliations of the Colchians, show them to have been a Hamitic and probably Egyptian people, Art and Ancient pies. statues Mythology. 169 In that of Samothrace it appeared in three celebrated of Scopas, called Venus or Aphrodite, Pothos and Phaethon,"" or Nature, Attraction, and Light °" and at Upsal in Sweden, by three figures equally symbolical, called ; Thor the first of which comprehended the and Mars, the second those of Juno and Venus, and the third those of Hercules and Bacchus, together Odin, Freya, and ; attributes of Jupiter with the thunder of Jupiter for Thor, as mediator between heaven and earth, had the general command of this terrestrial atmosphere.'" Among the Chinese sects, which have retained or adopted the symbolical worship, a triple personification of one godhead is comprehended in the goddess Pussa, whom ; they represent sitting upon the lotus, called, in that country, Lin, and with many arms, carrying different symbols, to signify the various operations of universal nature. similar union of attributes was expressed in the Scandinavian goddess Isa or Disa who in one of her personifications appeared riding upon a ram accompanied with music, to signify, like Pan, the principle of universal harmony and, in another, upon a goat, with a quiver of arrows at her back, and ears of corn in her hand, to signify her dominion over generation, vegetation, and destruction.'" Even in the remote islands of A ; ; which appear to have been peopled from supreme deities are God the Father, the Pacific Ocean, the Malay shores, the God the Son, and the Bird or Spirit ; subordinate to whom are an endless tribe of local deities and genii attending to every individual.'" 222. The Egyptians are said to have signified their divine Triad by a simple triangle,"" which sometimes appears upon Greek monuments '" but the most ancient form of this more concise and comprehensive symbol, appears to be that of the three lines, or three human legs, springing from a central disk or circle, which has been called a Trinacria, and supposed to ; '^' Plin. xxxiv. ''"" Ol. Rubbeck : Atlant. ii. pp. 2og, 210. ^'''^ Missionaries' First Voyage,\i.'a2i' 4. *" HoBoi, desire. Phaethon is an Homeric title of the Sun, signifying splendid or luminous but afterwards personified by the mythologists into a son of Apollo. *" Mallet : Hist, de Danemarc. Introd. vii. p. 115. Thor bore the club of Hercules ; but like Bachus he was the god of the seasons, and his chariot was drawn by Oda Thrymi tab. X. fig. 2S. Edd. goats. xxi. Ibid, et *'* Plutarch They compare : ; " Isis and Osiris, 56. the perpendicular side to the male, the base to the female, and the hypothenuse to the offspring of the two: Osiris as the beginning, Isis as the medium or receptacle, and Horus as the accomplishThe equilateral triangle of the ing." Ol. Rhdbeck. Pythagoreans not here signified, is *53 -ppjig ;g (-he . the colonies of 341 case on the coins of Magna Groecia. The Symbolical Language of 170 allude to the island of Sicily, but which is of Asiatic origin; earliest appearance being upon the very ancient coins of Aspendus in Pamphylia; sometimes alone in the square incuse; and sometimes upon the body of the eagle or the back its The tripod, however, was more generally employed for this purpose and is found composed in an endless variety of ways, according to the various attributes meant to On the coins of Menecratia in be specifically expressed. Phrygia it is represented between two asterisks, with a serpent wreathed round a battle-axe inserted into it, as an accessory of the lion.'" ; symbol signifying preservation and destruction.'" In the ceremonial of worship, the number three was employed with mystic solemnity '" and in the emblematical hands above alluded to, which seem to have been borne upon the point of ; a staff or sceptre in the Isiac processions, the thumb and two fore-fingers are held up to signify the three primary and general personifications, while the peculiar attributes of each are indicated by the various accessory symbols. THE MYSTIC DOVE AND THE ITALIAN WOODPECKER. A was probably chosen for the emblem of the by which was figuratively expressed the fructification of inert matter, caused by the vital spirit moving upon the waters. When represented under a human form, and without the emblem, it has generally wings, as in the figures of Mithras and, in some instances, the Priapic cap or .(Egyptian mitre upon its head, with the hook or attractor in one hand, and the winnow or separator in the other.'" The dove would naturally be selected in the 223. bird third person to signify incubation, ; East in preference to every other species of bird, on account of its domestic familiarity with man it usually lodging under the same roof with him, and being employed as his messenger from one remote place to another. Birds of this kind were also remarkable for the care of their offspring, and for a sort of conjugal attachment and fidelity to each other as likewise for the peculiar fervency of their sexual desires whence they were sacred to Venus, and emblems of love."' On the ; ; ; '" See Mus. Hunter, tab. 15. vii. No. *'' Aristotle : De Ccelo, the holy rites of the gods, i. we " In use this 1. A similar old coin with the symbol number." *" See Phoenician coins of Malta. on the back of a lion is in the cabinet *5' ^LIAN of Mr. Knight. De Aniinalibus, iii. 44.. '" Brass coin in the cabinet of Mr. and iv. 2. Knight. 342 : Ancient Art and Mythology. 171 same account they were said by the poets to carry ambrosia from the ocean to Jupiter; "° for, being the symbols of love or attraction, they were the symbols of that power, which bore the finer exhalations, the immortal and celestial infusions called ambrosia, with which water, the prolific element of the earth, had been impregnated, baclc to their original source, that they might be again absorbed in the great abyss of the Birds, however, of two distinct kinds appear divine essence. in the attitude of incubation on the heads of the Egyptian Isis and in a beautiful figure in brass belonging to Mr. Payne Knight, a bird appears in the same posture on the head of a Grecian deity which by the style of work must be much anterior to the adoption of anything ^Egyptian into the religion of Greece. It was found in Epirus with other articles, where the Sunnaos, or female personification of the supreme God, Jupiter of Dodona, was Dione who appears to have been the Juno-Venus, or composite personage already mentioned. In this figure she seems to have been represented with the diadem and sceptre of the former, the dove of the latter, and the golden disk of Ceres which last three symbols were also The dove, being thus common those of the Egyptian Isis. to the principal goddess both of Dodona and .^Egypt, may account for the confused story told by Herodotus, of two pigeons, or priestesses called pigeons, going from Thebes in ^gypt, and founding the oracles of Dodona and Libya.™ Like others of the kind, it was contrived to vail the mystic meaaing of symbolical figures, and evade further questions. The beak of the bird, however, in the figure in question, is too much bent for any of the dove kind, and is more like that of a cuckoo, which was the symbol on the sceptre of Here, the Argive Juno in ivory and gold by Polycleitiis, which held a pomegranate in the other hand;"" but what it meant is vain ; ; ; ; Another bird, much celebrated by the Greek poets as a magical charm or philter, under the name of Yunx,"^ appears by the description of Aristotle °" to be the to conjecture. '^* Homer: Odyssey, xii. "Timid doves which carry ambrosia to father Zeus." These lines are supposed to have been interpolated. See also Athen^us Deipnoso- . : **" Herodotus *" Pausanias: : ii. ii. : Pythia, iv. 380, was also tied to a magic which was turned round charms or incantations were used. iii. Pindar iv. tions. while 54, et seq. (Elsewhere 17. translated.) Nemea, 12. wlieel, fhista, vl. 421. *'" ARistory,^: IIisto}y of Animals, The yunx torquilla or wryneck, a bird of the woodpecker family, was used in charms and incanta^^^ ii. and Also Theocrites. 345 21. II, It See XenophoN Memorabilia, Eclogues, viii, 17; ViRGiL : : The Symbolical Language of 172 which, however, we have never observed in any monuments of ancient art; nor do we know of any natural properties belonging to it that could have authorised its use. It seems to be the Pious of the Italians, which was sacred to Mars.'" larger spotted woodpecker; OTHER DELINEATIONS AT HIERAPOLIS. 224. After the supreme Triad, which occupied the adytum of the temple at Hierapolis, came the personifications of their various attributes and emanations which are called after the names of the corresponding Grecian deities; and among which was an ancient statue of Apollo clothed and bearded, contrary to the usual mode of representing him."" In the vestibule were two phalli of enormous magnitude °°° upon one of which a person resided during seven days twice in each year to communicate with the gods,"" and pray for the prosperity of Syria and in the court were kept the sacred or symbolical animals such as bulls, horses, lions, bears, eagles, etc."' In an adjoining pond were the sacred fish, some of ; ; ; : '" Strabo " V. : a colony of Sabines, ing before ihe men indicated the way the name : for the ; The a Picentines woodpecker : fly- taking the lead, from which came bird was named and venerated as sacred to Ares or Mars." '" LuciAN De Dea Syria. "There Picus, : is a statue of Apollo, not as was usual to make represent such ; for all others Apollo young and in the attitude of running, but they have given Apollo, beard." another particular they have made an innovation in their Apollo they have covered Apollo with garments." Similar figures of Apollo are upon some of the very early coins of Syracuse and Rhegium. **' LuciAN De Dea Syria [Dryin this statue, a " In ; : " The two great den's translation]. phalli standing in the porch with the inscription on them These Phalli, dedicated to my stepI, Bacchus, mother, Juno.' The Greeks erect phalli to Bacchus, which are little men made out of wood, bene nasatos ; and these are caMod Jietirospasta [movThere is ing by artificial muscles]. also on the right hand of the temple ' : little brasen man, whose symbol is enormously disproportionate. There is also in the temple the figure of a female, who is dressed in man's a clothes. The priests are self-mutilated men and they wear women's garments. itself stands upon a hill, in the middle of a city (Hierapolis, the holy city, near Aleppo) and it is surrounded by a double wall. The porch of the temple fronteth the north, and it is two hundred yards in circumference within it are the two phalli before mentioned, each about a hundred and fifty yards high." **' LuciAN [Dryden's Translation]. " To the top of one of these phallic pillars a man ascends twice during the year and he remains there seven days at a time. The vulgar imagine that he converseth with the gods above and prayeth for the prosperity of all Syria, which prayers the gods hear, near at hand." " He never sleeps during the seven days." *'* LuciAN [Dryden's translation]. " Within the temple's precincts were The temple ; ; : ; : kept lions horses, eagles, bears, and that are in no way noxious to o.xen, ; men, but may be handled .^46 freely." SJi„)'''^l)'V'^''- ;-^-^>>j>Hi'*^ -^^^C.'.^ Ariadne in Naxt Ancient Art and Mythology. 173 which were tame and of great size and about the temple were an immense number of statutes of heroes, priests, kings, and other deified persons, who had either been benefactors to it, or, from their general celebrity, been thought worthy to be ranked with them. Among the former were many of the ; Macedonian princes, and among the latter several of the heroes and heroines of the Iliad, such as Achilles, Hector, Helen, Hecuba, Andromache, etc."" THE DEIFIED PERSONAGES. 225. The most common mode of signifying deification in was representing the figure naked, or with the sim- a portrait ple chlamys or mantle given to the statues of the gods. head, too, was sometimes radiated, or the bust placed some sacred and appropriate symbol The upon such as the cornuthe flower of the lotus,'" or the inverted obelisk; which last mode was by far the most frequent the greatest part of the busts now extant of eminent Grecian statesmen, poets, and philosophers, having been thus represented, though many of them are of persons who were never canonised by any public decree; for, in the loose and indeterminate system, of ancient faith, every individual could consecrate in his own family the object of his admiration, gratitude, or esteem, and address him with whatever rites of devotion he thought proper, provided he did nothing contrary to the peace and order of societ)% or in open violation of the established forms of worship. This consecration, however, was not properly deification, but what the Roman Catholic Church still practices under the title of canonisation the object of it having been considered, according to the modern acceptation of the : copiae,'" ; ; '" LuciAN : " priest every year, They elect a high who alone has the privilege of being clothed in purple and of wearing a golden tiara." " There are a crowd of persons attached to the sanctuary musicians with flutes and fifes, galli or sodomites, and fanatic or enthusiastic women." " Near the temple is a sacred lake ; containing great numbers of sacred fish." " Outside the temple is a large brasen altar and a thousand brasen statues of gods and heroes, kings and priests." The statue of Apollo sweat blood, when he wished to speak, and was not properly in his seat and Lucian declares that he once saw the god throw the priests down and walk, placed ; by himself in the air. This temple having been in an allucountry near the river Euphrates, vial probable that many of the statues which adorned it still exist under the accumulated soil, "" There are many instances of it is these in gems. ''" The marble bust called " Clytie " Museum, is of this char- in the British acter an 349 ; it Isis. was more properly, however^ The Symbolical Langttage of 174 words, rather as a saint than a god wherefore a deified or " canonised " Roman Emperor was not called Deus^ but Divus, a title which the early Christians equally bestowed on the canonised champions of their faith. ; EMASCULATES AND VIRGINS IN THE SACERDOTAL OFFICE. Among 226. the rites and customs of the Temple at Hierapolis, as well as in those of Phrygia, the practice of the and assuming the manners and women, is one of the most unaccountable. The legendary tale of Combabus adduced by the author of the treatise priests castrating themselves, dress of ascribed to Lucian, certainly does not give a true explanation of it, but was probably invented, like others of the kind, to conceal rather than develop for the same custom prevailed in Phrygia among the priests of Cybele and Atys, who had no such story to account for it. Perhaps it might have arisen from a notion of making themselves emblems of the Deity, by acquiring an androgynous appearance or, as Phurnutus conjectures, from some allegorical fiction, as of the castration of Heaven or Uranus by Time, or Kronos of Kronos by Jupiter,'" etc. It is possible, likewise, that they might have ; ; '" vi. p. Phurnutus : De Natura Dear., The employment of ^a/A' or eunuchs in the sacerdotal office seems to have gone side by side with the keeping of singing-women as priestesses. Emasculation enables the better performance of vocal music; and it is asserted, that youths deprived of virility are employed Peter's at fered Esmun 147. in the choirs of Rome, and perhaps, other churches. have been made St. at A reference seems to to the practice in the Gospel according to Matthew : " And there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake he that is able to receive it, let him receive it " (xix. did Origen, and very possibly 12). So others of note in the Christian Church; and the Roman Catholic monks, as well as the Thibetan lamas, are such figuratively, or as the Jesuit obliga" as a corpse." tion it, expresses Among the Asiatics and Egyptians, captives and slaves were so mutilated. In the religious rites "these mutilations were also made in honor or commemoration of the dismemberment suf; by Osiris, Mithras, (.(Esculapius), Adonis, and Bacchus ; and they are supposed to illustrate in allegorical symbolism, the cessation of the active male or fecundating power of the sun at the Autumnal Equinox." (Supplement to the Voyages of Anacharsis and Antenor) It took place in Phrygia on the third day of the festival of Atys. The priests of Cybele appeared in bands or groups, exhibiting the peculiar raptures of religious frenzy, and appearing like Bacchanals or Pythonesses intoxicated with the obsession of the divinity. In one they brandished the sacred knife of sacrifice ; in the other were Leaving burning torches of pine. the towns, they wandered like distraded persons over the fields and mountains in quest of the slain one, Having swalcrying and bewailing. lowed the mystic potion, their excitement rose to the highest pitch they beat themselves and ran a-muck hand ; through the fields, lacerating one an- they chains; heavy other with danced, wounded themselves, scourged each other, and themselves and Ancient Art and Mythology 175 thought a deprivation of virility an incentive to that spiritual enthusiasm, to which women were observed to be more liable than men and to which all sensual indulgence, particularly that of the sexes, was held to be peculiarly adverse whence strict abstinence from the pleasures of both the bed and the table was required preparatory to the performance of several religious rites, though all abstinence was contrary to the general festive character of the Greek worship. The Pythian priestesses in particular fasted very rigidly before they mounted the tripod, from which their predictions were uttered and both they and the Sibyls were always virgins such alone being qualified for the sacred office of transmitting divine inspiration. The ancient German prophetesses, too, who exercised such unlimited control over a people that would submit to no human authority, were equally virgins consecrated to the Deity, like the Roman Vestals or chosen from the rest of the species by some manifest signs of his predilection.'" Perpetual virginity was also the attribute of many of the ancient goddesses, and, what may seem extraordinary, of some who had proven themselves prolific. Minerva, though pre-eminently distinguished by the title of the Virgin^''* is said to have had children by the Sun, called Corybantes who appear to have been a kind of priests of that god, canonised for their knowledge, and therefore, fabled to have been his children by Divine Wisdom."' Diana, who was equally famed for her ; ; ; ; ; ; having completed their muhonor of the god about to appear, they invoked him, offering finally tilations in the bleeding evidences of their destroyed virility. Many died, of course, from this violence, and the accom-panying exposure and haemorrhage but those who survived wore the female dress from that time. The priests of the Syrian Goddess, Isis, Astarte and Cybele, were of this character. They not only performed the offices of the temple, but enabled the patrons who visited the sacred enclosures to vary pederasty with fornication, When strangers were lured thither to hear their fatally winning music, both semi-males and females constituted the choirs ; and as among the Seirens, Lamiae, and at the shrines of the Taurican goddess, their passions as well as misfortune, in the earlier periods thus led them to their death. The rites of the Sun-god and Mother^oddess were celebrated in a similar manner by the Israelites. Judah took his daughter-in-law for a priestess; and the book of Deuteronomy prescribed that " there shall be no kadeshah of the daughters of Israel, nor a kadesh of the sons of Israel." Yet under Rehoboam and Queen Maachah, who ; to have been like Olympias, a priestess of the Dionysiac or phallic worship, " there were also kadeshim in the land, and they did according to seems all It the abomination of the nations." that emasculation incident of asceticism, for may have been was once an monks are more ancient than Abraham but at later periods, it was a ; constituent of the vices that prevailed A. W. at very many temples. — *" Tacitus Germany. "• Scholiast upon the Oration of De: " Parthenon niosthenes in Androt. the temple in the acropolis of the Vir; gin {Parthenos) Athene." s" Strabo " Coryx. page 723. bantes : Certain deities (daemons), the 351 : ; 1 The Symbolical Language of 76 virginal purity, has the title of Mother in an ancient inscrip '" and Here or Juno is said to have renewed her virginevery year, by bathing in a certain fountain in the Peloponnesus, the reason of which was explained in the Argive Mysteries;'" in which the initiated were probably informed that this was an ancient figurative mode of signifying the fertilising quality of those waters, which renewed and reintegrated annually the productive powers of the earth. This figurative or mystic renovation of virginity seems to be signi- tion ; ity "' in the Orphic hymns by the epithet Polu-parthenos; which, though applied to a male personification, may equally signify the complete restoration of the procreative organs of the universe after each periodical effort of nature fied THE FISH-SYMBOL. Upon this principle, the placing figures upon some appears to have been an ancient mode of consecration and apotheosis, to vail which under the usual covering of fable, the tales of Arion, Taras, etc., were probably invented. Fish were the natural emblems of the productive power of the waters they being more prolific than any other class of animals, or even vegetables, that we know. The species consecrated to the Syrian Goddess seems to have been the Scarus, celebrated for its tameness,"° and lubricity in which last it held the same rank among fish, as the goat did among quadrupeds."" Sacred eels were kept in the fountain of Arethusa; '" but the dolphin was the common symbol of the Greeks, as the tunny was of the Phcenicians both being gregarious fish, and remarkable for intelligence and sagacity,"^ and therefore probably signifying other attributes combined with the generative. The tunny is also the symbol upon all the very ancient gold coins struck by the Greelcs, in which it almost invariably serves as the base or substratum for 227. kinds of fish ; ; children of Athenii and Helius . . . they were not only addressed as ministers of the gods, but as gods themselves." *" Gruter Thesauri, xli. " There is no reasonable doubt the Diana or Artemis of Asia identical with Tanait or Anait, Cybele, the Mother-Goddess of East.— A. W. : '"Pausanias: II. xxxviii. Avgives say that, every year, Hera bathing becomes again a virgin. This, which they impute to Hera, is a scene of the Arcana, from the initiation." 5. *'* that *" was and '*° the "The '" Hymn, li. Xenophon Anabasis. ^LIAN De Animal, i. ii. Plutarch Craftiness of Ani: : : mats. *»'^uan: De Plutarch: 35^ Animalibus, i. 18. of Animals. Craftiness Nereid on a Hippocampus. Aphrodite on a Sea Monster. Ancient Art and Mythology. 177 some other symbolical figure to rest upon '" water being the general means by which all the other powers of nature act. ; THE ALLEGORIES BASED ON THE DOCTRINE OF EMANATIONS. The remarkable concurrence of the allegories, symof ancient mythology in favor of the mystic system of Emanations, is alone sufRcient to prove the falsity of the hypotheses founded upon Euhemerus's narrative; and the accurate and extensive researches of modern travellers into the ancient religions and traditions of the East, prove that the narrative itself was entirely fiction no trace of such an island as Panchsea, or of any of the historical records or memorials which he pretended to have met with there, being now to be found. On the contrary, the extreme antiquity and universal reception of the system of Emanations, over all those vast countries which lie between the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, has been fully and clearly demonstrated. According to the Hindus, with whose modification of it we are best acquainted, the supreme ineffable God, called Brahm, or the great one, first produced Brahma the creator, who is represented with four heads corresponding with the four elements and from whom proceeded Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer; who is also the regenerator: for, according to the Indian philosophy, nothing is destroyed or annihilated, but only transmuted so that the destruction of one thing is still Hence Siva, while he rides upon the generation of another. an eagle, the symbol of the destroying attribute, has the lingam, the more explicit symbol of generation, always consecrated in his temples. These three deities were still only one in essence and were anciently worshipped collectively under the title of Trimurti ; though the followers of the two latter now constitute two opposite and hostile sects which, nevertheless, join on some occasions in the worship of the universal 228. bols, and titles ; ; ; ; ; Triad.'" *** Six are in the cabinet of Mr. Knight, in which it is respectively placed under the Triton of Corcyra, the lion of Cyzicus, the goat of ^gasa, the ram of Clazomenae, the bull of Samos, and the griffin of Teios. For the form and size of these coins, see Mus. Hunt. tab. 66, fig. I. They are prob- Homeric talents stamped. and may be considered as the first money. *** Maurtce Indian Antiquities, The bull Nanda is the vol. iv. ad fin. vehan of Siva the eagle was the vehan of Buddha. A. W. ably the : ; 355 — ; The Symbolical Language of 178 THE TRIUNE IDEA UNIVERSAL. This triform division of the personified attributes or first cause, seems to have been the first departure from simple theism, and the foundation of religious mythology in every part of the earth. To trace its origin to patriarchal traditions, or seek for it in the philosophy of any particular people, will only lead to frivolous conjecture, or to fraud and forgery which have been abundantly employed upon this subject nor has repeated detection and exposure either damped the ardor or abashed the effrontery of those, who still find them convenient to support their theories and opinions.'" Its real source is in the human mind itself; whose feeble and inadequate attempts to form an idea of one universal first cause would naturally end in generalising and classing the particular ideas derived from the senses, and thus forming distinct, though indefinite notions of certain attri229. modes of action of one ; ; butes or modes of action of which the generic divisions are universally three such as goodness, wisdom, and power creation, preservation, and destruction potential, instrumental, and efficient, etc., etc. Hence almost every nation of the world, that has deviated from the rude simplicity of primitive Theism, has had its Trinity in Unity which, when not limited and ascertained by Divine Revelation, branched out, by the natural subdivision of collective and indefinite ideas, into the endless and intricate personifications of particular subordinate attributes, which have afforded such abundant materials for the elegant fictions both of poetry and art. ; ; ; ; THE SIMILARITY OF SYMBOLS NOT CONCLUSIVE PROOF OF A SINGLE ORIGIN. The similitude of these allegorial and symbolical with each other, in every part of the world, is no proof of their having been derived, any more than the primitive notions which they signify, from any one particular people for as the organs of sense and the principles of intellect are the same in all mankind, they would all naturally 230. fictions ; form similar ideas from similar objects and employ similar signs to express them, so long as natural and not conventional signs were used. Wolves, lions, and panthers, are equally ; *" See Sibylline verses, oracles, etc. forged by tlie Alexandrian Jews and Platonic Christians, but quoted as authentic by Mr. Bryant's Ancien, Mythology; and Mr. Maurice's Indian Antiq. vol. 356 iv. ^^ '4i»!i,Uuwu*Ui£'MJU£^^ Gan^ mt^d s ; Ancient Art and Mythology. 179 beasts of prey in all countries; and would naturally be employed as symbols of destruction, wherever they were known ; nor would the bull and cow be less obvious emblems of creative force and nutrition, when it was found that the one might be employed in tilling the earth, and the other in constantly supplying the most salubrious and nutritious of food. The characteristic qualities of the egg, the serpent, the goat, etc., are no less obvious; and as observation would naturally become more extensive, or intellect became more active, new symbols would everywhere be adopted, and new combinations of them be invented in proportion as they were wanted. APPARENT IDENTITY OF THE HINDU AND iEGVPTIAN SYMBOLS. 231. The only certain proof of plagiary or borrowing is where the animal or vegetable productions of one climate are employed as symbols by the inhabitants of another as the lion is in Thibet and as the lotus and hooded snake were in .iEgypt '" which make it probable that the religious symbols of both those countries came originally from the Hindus. As commercial communications, however, became more free and intimate, particular symbols might have been adopted from one people by another without any common origin or even connection of general principles; though between .^Egypt and Hindustan the general similarity is too great, in points remote from common usage, to have been spontaneous or accidental. One of the most remarkable is the hereditary division into castes derived from the metempsychosis, which was a funda; ; ; mental article of faith with both as also with the ancient Gauls, Britons, and many other nations. The Hindu castes rank according to the number of-transmigrations which the soul is supposed to have undergone, and its consequent prox; imity to, or distance the divine from, re-absorption into from which it sprang and in no instance in the history of man, has the craft of imposture, or the insolence of usurpation, placed one class of human beings so far above another, as the sacred Brahmans, whose souls are approaching to a re-union with their source, are above the wretched outcasts, who are without any rank in the hierarchy essence, or intellectual abyss, ; *'* The Asp or Basilisk, the sacred serpent of .lEgypt had no hood. Modem ethnologists consider India as a former habitat of the Ethiopians or Hamitic race, with which the Egyp- 359 were affiliated. The Hindu or Brahman population of India, are of a tians different ancestry, and were originally neither phallic nor serpent worshippers. —A.W. ; The Symbolical Langiiage of i8o and are therefore supposed to have all the long, humiliating, Should the and painful transmigrations yet before them. most respectable and opulent of these degraded mortals happen to touch the poorest, and, in other respects, most worthless person of exalted religious rank, the offense, in some of the Hindu governments, would be punished with death; even to let his shadow reach him, is to defile and insult him and ; as the respective distinctions are in both hereditary, the soul being supposed to descend into one class for punishment, and ascend into the other for reward, the misery of degradation is without hope even in posterity the wretched parents having nothing to bequeath to their unfortunate offspring that is not tainted with everlasting infamy and humiliation. Loss of caste is therefore the most dreadful punishment that a Hindu can suffer; as it affects both his body and his soul, extends beyond the grave, and reduces both him and his posterity forever to a situation below that of a brute. 232. Had this powerful engine of influence been employed in favor of pure morality and efficient virtue, the Hindus might have been the most virtuous and happy of the human race but the ambition of a Hierarchy has, as usual, employed ; ; own particular interests, instead of those of the whence to taste of the flesh of a cow, or be placed with certain ceremonies upon the back of a bull, though unwillingly and by constraint, are crimes by which the most virtuous of men is irrevocably subjected to it, while the worst excesses of cruelty, fraud, perjury, and peculation leave no stains nor pollutions whatsoever. The future rewards, also, held out by their religion, are not to any social or practical virtues, but to severe penances, operose ceremonies, and, it to serve its community in general above to all, : profuse donations to the Brahmans have even gone priesthood. The so far as to sell future happiness by retail and to publish a tariff of the different prices, at which certain periods of residence in their paradise, or regions of ; are to be obtained between the diflFerent transmigrations of the soul.'" The Hindus are of course a faithless and fraudulent, though in general a mild and submissive race for the same system which represses active virtue, represses aspiring hope and by fixing each individual immovably in his station, renders him almost as much a machine as the implement which he employs. Hence, like the ancient .Egyptians, they have been eminently successful in all works of art that require only methodical labor and manual dexterity, but bliss, ; "" Maurice : Indian Antiquities, 360 vol. v. ;; Ancient Art and Mythology. i8i have never produced anything in painting, sculpture, or ar- symptom of those powers of the mind, which we call taste and genius and of which the most early and imperfect works of the Greeks always show some dawning. Should the pious labors of our missionaries succeed in diffusing among them a more pure and more moral, but less uniform and less energetic system of religion, they may improve and exalt the characters of individual men but they will for ever destroy the repose and tranquillity of the mass. The lights of European literature and philosophy will break in with the lights of the Gospel the spirit of controversy will accompany the spirit of devotion and it will soon be found that men, who have learned to think themselves equal in the sight of God, will assert their equality in the estimation of men. It requires therefore no spirit of prophecy, nor even any extraordinary degree of political sagacity, to fix the date of the fall of European domination in the East from the prevalence of European religion. chitecture, that discovers the smallest trace or ; ; ; HINDU POETRY AND MYTHOLOGY. 233. From the specimens that have appeared in European languages, the poetry of the Hindus seems to be in the same style as their art; and to consist of gigantic, gloomy, and operose fictions, destitute of all those graces which distinguish the religious and poe'tical fables of the Greeks. Nevertheless the structure of their mythology is full as favorable to both being equally abundant and more systematic in its emanations and personifications. After the supreme Triad, they suppose an immense host of inferior spirits to have been produced part of whom afterward rebelling under their chiefs Moisa- and Rhaabon, the material world was prepared for their prison and place of purgation in which they were to pass through eighty-nine transmigrations prior to their restoration. During this time they were exposed to the machinations of their former leaders, who endeavor to make them violate the laws of the Omnipotent, and thus relapse into hopeless perdition, or lose their caste, and have all the tedious and soor ; to painful transmigrations already past to go through again prevent which, their more dutiful brethren, the emanations that remained faithful to the Omnipotent, were allowed to ; comfort, cherish, and assist them in their passage and that all might have equal opportunities of redeeming themselves, the divine personages of the great Triad had at different ; l82 Ancient Art and Mythology. times become incarnate in different forms, and in different countries, to the inhabitants of which they had given different laws and instructions suitable to their respective climates and circumstances; so that each religion may be good without being exclusively so the goodness of the Deity naturally allowing many roads to the same end. ; ANCIENT RELIGION AND ITS RELATION TO ART. 234. These incarnations, which form the principal subjects of sculpture in all the temples of India, Thibet, Tartary, and China, are above all others calculated to call forth the ideal perfections of the art, by expanding and exalting the imagination of the artist, and exciting his ambition to surpass the simple imitation of ordinary forms, in order to produce a model of excellence worthy to be the corporeal habitation of the Deity; but this, no nation of the East, nor indeed of the Earth, except the Greeks and those who copied them, ever attempted. Let the precious wrecks and fragments, therefore, of the art and genius of that wonderful people be collected with care and preserved with reverence, as examples of what man is capable of under peculiar circumstances which, as they have never occurred but once, may never occur again ; ! Leda, Swan and Eros. ALPHABETICAL INDEX. COMPRISING THE PRINCIPAL DEITIES, HEROES, PERSONS, SYMBOLS, AND OTHER MATTERS MENTIONED IN THIS WORK. [the numerals refer to the pages.] A. Aah-Mosis and Thoth-Mosis Egypt, 43Ahel, Bel, or Apollo the expelled the Hyk-Sos, or Shepherds, from Sun-god of the Assyrians and Phoenicians, and probably the same as Horns, or Krishna, 63. Ablution —See Baptism and Parification. Ablution, or Baptism, generally practiced among all nations of antiquity, I2I ; always preceded initiation into the Egyptian and Eleusinian Mysteries, Jewish proselytes immersed after being circumcised, I2i. patriarch, children {benim) from stones (abenini), 25 ; his prayer supposed to heal the household of Abimelech, 46 ; not surprised or startled 121 ; Abraham, the when ordered to sacrifice his only son, 123. Abstinence of the Orphean worshippers of Bacchus, 49 and table enjoined, 174, 175. Acacia, a mystical symbol, Wisdom of the Ophites, l6. Achilles overcame the Amazons, 34 ; shield of, 97 ; features of a woman, as though double-sexed, 159. of, from pleasures of bed no. Acanthus, a symbol, 109. Achamoth, Sophia, or personified imperfect Actmon, metamorphoses ; represented with the probably invented from some symbolical composi- tion, 81. Active, or Male, Principle of the Universe, represented 10, 18, 19, 21, 22, 67, 79 ; by the goat, by Bacchus, or Dionysus, by the phallus, or lingam, worshipped by the Arabs as 21, 78, 142 ; by the bull, 18, 35. 66, 98, 142 comprehended by the Egyptians as Osiris, 21, 58 symbolised by fire, 25, 26, 27, 6i also by Jupiter, 28, 81, 82 by the fig, 29 signified by Neptune, 31, 67 denoted by Ihe thighs, which were burned in 12, 15, 142 ; Urotalt, 19 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 1 Index. 84 by evergreens, 32 Celestial Love, 38 by Baal-Peor, 49, 132 by the phallic manikin, used in the worship of Osiris, 23, the "grove," Bel & Baal, 54; by Amun, 57; by 49, and Syrian goddess, 172; by church-spire and pinnacle, 70; by pyramid, the by Priapus, 10, 57, 132; by satyrs, 78 by Fauns and Paniski, 78 the cock, 70 by the horse, 77 by the ChimEera, 91 ; exercised by night, 94 represented by the Soter Kosmou. 98 ; by the pine cone, 113 by Mars, 126 by Pan, 142 imsacrifices, 32 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; human pregnated females of the ; species without the co-operation of a male, 158. Adam, and his creation according to the Ophite theory, 16 fall, ; Lilith, first name of man, as both male and female, 159. Adjuration by Agamemnon, also by the Athenian women at the Thesmophoria, wife of, 57 ; 165. Adonis, or Adoni (the Lord), a title of Melkarth the Phoenician Hercules, 2 a divinity of the Orphic or mystic faith, corresponding with Bacchus and Osiris, 9, 85 ; same of the planets, 16 ; as Priapus, 10 ; history disguised beloved by Venus-Astart6, 67 the emblem of winter, 85, 156 an emanation, one of the seven spirits by poetical and allegorical fable, 67 ; by the ; name ; mysteries celebrated at Byblos, 84 of the sun, 85 killed ; ; boar, passes months with Proserpina, and six months with Venus, 80 killed by Ares or Mars in the form of a boar, like Atys, 86; his festivals conciliaprobably the his death and revival celebrated at Athens, 88 tory, 87 six ; ; same ; as lao, the god of the Jews, 132. Adrastus, built a circular temple, 61. Adumbla, the white cow of Scandinavian mythology, 36 ; suckled the sun each winter, 36. ^^!>, or goat-skin, the breast-plate of Minerva, 130; represented the female principle of Nature, 130; employed by Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo, 131; made by Vulcan ALgobolium or , for Jupiter, 131. sacrifice of a goat in the Mithraic rites, 123 catechumen bathed ; in the blood, 123. yEgypt, secret or mystic system preserved by a hereditary priesthood, 3 tales concerning Osiris and Typhon, 6 ; phallic symbolism, 12 story of Cleopatra, 15 ; " Burning of Lamps,'' 26 ; the sacred cow at Mo-memphis and the ; ; ancient learning obliterated by the Persian Bulls Apis and Mnevis, 35 and Macedonian governments, 44 alliance with Phoenicians, 49 Persians destroyed temples, 5i the Hyk-Sos denominated Phcenicians, Greeks, Arabians and Strangers, 74 Centaur among sculptures, 77 ; priests wore no garments of animal substance, 89 Serapis never known till the time of ; ; ; ; ; ; the Ptolemies, 104 won from ; the Lotus not the Nile, 108 ; now found, 104 ; priestly institutions lasted great antiquity, 106 ; between eleven and twelve thousand years, 108. judgment of Amenti, 8 originated the employed the hooded snake in the mysteries, and probably borrowed it from India, lO, 109 placed an egg on the monuments, 20 abstain from cow's fiesh, 36; worship /Egyptians, hieroglyphical writing, 6 ; ; mysteries of Bacchus and phallic procession, 10 ; ; ; of Isis, the female principle of generation, 36 ; many symbols appear to be Indian, 37 ; worshipped Osiris as hidden in the embrace of the sun, 37 believed the sun to be the body from which emanated the all-pervading ; ; Index. 185 spirit, 37 ; their language sacred, being a language of the gods, 38; their magistrates would put a man to death for killing a cat or monkey, 41 ; honored various animals and plants as divine symbols, 42 would never reveal anything concerning their symbols, 42 the priests probably ; ; pretended to more knowledge of them than they really had, 42 ; their priests were sacrificers, 42 esteem for hieroglyphics, 42 the relation of the conquests and empire of Sesostris, a probable fiction, 42; Hebrews never ; subject to their kings, 43 ; naval battles six thousand years ago between them and nations beyond the Mediterranean, 43 memorials of conquests ; ; the " hornet," " scourge " or plague, 43 the new system of interpretation adopted in the second century wholly inconsistent with the in Asia, 43 ; ; ancient system, 43 temples filled with lamentations, 50 wine held in never gave way to ecstatic raptures of devotion, 50 celebrated "the Mourning for the Only-Begotten," 50 ;' sexual rites not practiced abomination ; in the temples, 65 Latona, or places for the in ; ; ; 57 worshipped Night as Athor, 56 ; understood ; human the sacrifices, world, one heliocentric 65 believed ; and generating held to be the efficient principle, 71 their religion, 71 ; believed that a of a divine spirit, 72 72 ; in other the ; worshipped Leto system, 5o destroying, woman might fire ; conceive by the approach Typhon believed that the earth at an ancient period was inhabited ; powers 71 sufferings of Osiris, the mystery of believed Osiris to represent good, and ; labyrinths, ; two opposite evil, by Saurian monsters or lizards, 72; personified universal Nature as Isis, 83; celebrated the Death and Revival oi the deity, 88 worshipped Prometheus, 88 held ; ; heat and moisture to be sexual symbols, 98 ; Moon styled the Mother the of the Universe, 99 ; represented the moon under the symbol of a cat, 100 veneration for the lotus, 105 ; obtained their symbols, the lotus and hooded snake from India, 109, 179 ; had images resembling Juggernaut, Ganesa and Vishnu, 109 ; their architecture original, 109 ; originated the Corinthian order, 110 embalmed their dead to preserve them till the general conflagration, 117; used the pyramids for astronomical observations and religious; rites, 117 ; excavated temples in the rock, 117 ; practiced ablution before worship more systematic than that of the Greeks, 127 ; ; initiation, 121 considered Phtha as father of the Cabeirian gods, 127; worshipped Wisdom. or Athene as Neith, 127 ; represented the all-pervading spirit by the Scarabffius or black beetle, 128 bols of the sun and 136 ; moon ; chief-priests in boats, 133 ; wore bells, represented 133 ; placed sym- Amun by the designation Ram, Amun the same as Zeus or Jupiter and Pan, 137; used Amun as a title of courtesy and respect, 137 employed considered ; the the never worshipped heroes, 154. JSschylus, the Tragedian, narrow escape from death, for divulging a mystical describes his legend, 5 called the Moon the Daughter of the Sun, 99 goat as a sexual symbol, 141 ; ; ; on the point of a spear or sword, 115. /Esculapius, the cock offered to him in the mysteries, 4 the same deity as repreHermes, Thoth, and Cadmus, 10 the serpent his symbol, 14 sented by the Epidaurian serpent, 15 Apollo reputed to be his father, 100 slain by weapons forged by the Cyclopes, 74; the Emeph of lamblichus, 150. ^ther. Dragon of the, 16 a name of Jupiter, 23 fire of, ruled by Zeus, 131 1 characters as swearing ; ; ; ; ; closely related to sulphur, 135. ; ; 1 Index. 86 ^gypt, ^Ethiopia, the country south of other countries, 65 65 constructed Labyrinths, and sacrificed ; human victims, a designation of Prometheus, 88. ; Hades, the ancient name of Pluto, 104 Afides, Aides, or 117 36, 106. race occupied India, Affghanistan, Susiana, Arabia, ^Egypt, and Ethiopian, ; Africa, a one of the Cabeirian Whyda, serpent worshipped in luidaor Gold Coast, 36 common ; 15 cow revered on ; Poseidon or Neptune, the chief god, 64 ; human the sacrifices long after the Christian era, 153. AgathodcEmon, or Radiated Serpent, 16 said to have been worshipped by the ; Albigenses, Cathari, and Paulicians, 17 Kneph to be destroyed, ; deities, 150. to that of Numa, king similarity of the ; Rome, hardly an of Num name or accident, 63. Agenor, or Belus, tutelar god of Sidon, father of Europa, 65. Ages, Middle, barbarism and bigotry induced the destruction of ancient art, 7. Ahaz, king of Judah, said to have " burned his children in the fire," 122. Ahriman, or Anra-Mainyas, the Potentate of Evil, 62, 72 probably the same called also Seth, Satan, as Harmannu, the god of Susiana, or Kissia, 62 and Beel-Zebub, go to be destroyed at the end of 6,000 years, 117. Aidoia, the sexual parts (see Phallus) of Typhon, 58 female, engraved upon pillars by Sesostris, 93,94 on Hermaic statues, 114. Albigenses, Cathari, and Paulicians, reputed worshippers of the Agathodaemon ; ; ; ; ; ; Serpent, 17. condemned Alcibiades, for divulging a mystic secret, 5 refused to curse, 59. Alexander, (the Great,) expedition into India, 18, 136 of the Bacchic 50 rites, ; ; ; priestess of his mother a Athens priestess her boast that he was the son of Dionysus the Serpent-God, 80; his body conveyed from Babylon to Alexandria, 81; hearse adorned with goat-elephants, 81 from him to his shrine of gold melted, 81 ; ; letter mother declaring the gods to be only deified mortals a forgery, 164. Alexandria, Eclectic Jews taught the Apocrypha, or doctrine of Wisdom, 4 body of Alexander deposited there, 81 ; new modification of ancient systems of religion and philosophy, 84 Alitta, or Elissa, a name ; temple of Serapis, 104. of Mylitta, 61. Allegories, of the Egyptians, attempt of lamblichus to adapt to a Allegory, the Mystical doctrines expressed by different countries, 5, new system, 43. 150; general resemblance 5; not found in the Iliad, or Odyssey, 11; in of the Minotaur, 64 composed of legends and fables, 66, 67 of the Centaurs, expressed universal harmony produced by the changes of nature, 76, 77 ; ; ; 8l ; the fable of Ceres and Proserpin^ of this nature, 82 the Phoenix of the north, 86 death of Atys, Adonis, and Osiris, 88 punishments suffered in ; of the bird Fanina, the dismemberment of Bacchus like the ; ; the story of Prometheus, 88 ; ; and Old Testament, turned All-Prophetic, a title into, 161 of Jupiter, 47. or sacred Alma, nD?V, Kadesha, the ; popular creed of the Hindus, 155 156; confusion of legends, 158 Homeric poems and books of the ; ; physical, in mixture by Virgil, 125 story of Bacchus and Dionysus-Zagreus, Hell, 124 ; New Jerusalem Delivered, 161, passim. woman, the priestess at Delphi, 47 Index. oracle of Dodona founded in Greece, 187 Amun, in also of ; Libya, 48 ; devoted to prostitution in eastern temples, 54, 56. Alphabetic writing, 6. Amalthea, the goat that suckled Jupiter, horn of, 84. Amazons, or votaries of the Double-Sexed deity, 32 passages in the Iliad mentioning them, probably interpolations, 33 five statues in the temple of ; ; Diana, at Ephesus, 33 figure of Elephanta, 33 33 ; symbolical the classical figures not one-breasted, 34 re- reputed worshippers of Diana, ; ; ; sembled the Thugs of India in offering human victims, 34 reputed to have their country called inhabited Northern Africa and invaded Asia, 34 Assyria, 34 Eumolpus their leader, 34 statue at Athens identical with ; ; ; ; instituted the of Diana, 34 ; priestesses of Diana, 34 the Mysteries, 34 ; Diana an Amazonian goddess, 67 that Circular ; Dance of court ; of, temple of Mars near by, 69 conflict with Theseus, 158. Ambassador oi Louis XIV. asking the King of the Siamese to embrace Christian; rebuked by him, 39 ity, of India, to Augustus, 90. ; Amberics, logging rocks, or Baitulia, like the Stonehenge, 147. Ambrosial ilonts, conical stones depicted on Tyrian medals, 145. Amenti, judgment of, 8. America, North, phallic symbols, 12; jugglers and diviners make chaplets and Mexican captives sacrified, 15 savages believed girdles of serpents, 14 ; ; by a the world supported tortoise, 35 the pyramid ; among the symbols of the savages, 70. Ampelus, derived from Amphi, or oracle, 47 ; beloved of Bacchus, 91 the vine ; personified, 91. Amphi, or Om-phe, the designation of an oracle, 46 Amphi-anax, king of the oracle, 47 Ampelus, from om-phi, 47 Fompceus, messenger of the oracle nymph has the same etymology, 47. 47 ; ; ; ; Amulets, rings and fibulae so employed, 65 ; in France, with the classic figures of Zeus and Minerva, and a quotation from Genesis, iii. 8, 129, 130; in England and Ireland, 130. Amun, same as Zeus, the All-Pervading spirit, 48, 137 oracle in Libya same established by a sacred woman, or " black dove," from Thebes, 48 ; ; as Bacchus, 57 order ; hereditary priests kept genealogical records, 108 between lasted Persian invasion, 108 symbol of the Ram ; ; 11,000 ; priestly years, from Menes to the commonly represented under the Zeus and the Pan of Arcadia, 137 and 12,000 the deity most 137 ; same the luminous sethereal spirit, 137 as ; ; records said to have been compiled by Sanchoniathon, 163. Ana, or Ana-melech, of Sippara, called also Cannes, probably the same as Poseidon, or Neptune, 65. Ana%tis,t\i& Mother-Goddess of Armenia. See Venus, Diana, Isis, Ceres, CybeU, Astarti and Aphrodite. Anak, or anax, a prince, 96; the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, denominated Anakes, 96 designation applied to the Anakim, or the sons of Anak, in ; Palestine, to Agamemnon and Bacchus, 151. Anchors, an ornament on the Ionic capital, no. Ancient religions founded on the same principle, 39 generally liberal and humane, 39 ; the rites of every country performed according to the law, ; pleasing to the deity, 40 ; modified anew at Alexandria, 84. 1 Index. 88 Androgynous, or Double-Sexed Principle, represented by the bearded Venus of Paphos, 29, 104, 149, the Amazons, 33 32 ; 67, 95, 9S ; beetle, 128 ; 159 ; by the tortoise, 29, ; by the goddess Freya, ; ; ; by the Jews from the Chaldeans, dngels, adopted 34 the buccinum, 34 by Atys, Adonis, and Bacchus, Diana, 99 statue of Apollo, 81 the Scarabaeus, or black figure of Bacchus, 136. ; Animals, receiving divine honors, 41 ; 54. regarded as emanations from the Supreme Being, 42 ; worshipped in Kgypt, 42 instinctive motions observed in augury, 44 ; kept in the sacred court at Hierapolis, 172. ; Anquetil confounded the Persians of the First with those of the Second Dynasty, 62. Antenna, or sail-yard of a ship, 84. Antiquity ofEgypl, 106; the sacerdotal caste of, between 11,000 and 12,000 years' duration, 208. Anubis, Hermes, or Mercury, symbolised by a dog, 113 his power like that of Hekate, 113 his face gilded, and at other times black, 116 the Minister ; ; ; ofFate, 127. Apap or Aph-ophis, the Great Serpent, 72 Aphetor, Aq>rjTa>p, a name same as Python, ; 72. of Apollo, 92. Aphrodisiacs t 29, 45. name of Venus, also Kypris, daughter of Jupiter and name perhaps derived from paredesa, a garden, or beautiful called also Hera, or lady, a name of Juno, 29 the dove, her Aphrodite, the Greek Dione, 28 ; woman, 28 ; ; standing on a tortoise, 34 ; her bust at Corinth, 45 same as Mylitta, and her worship at Corinth, and Cyprus, accompanied by prostitu- symbol, 29 ; ; the most ancient of the Fates, 63 ; six months of each year spent ; with Adonis, 85 represented at Paphos as bearded and double-sexed, 104 ; called " The Chariot" as carrying the gods, 134. See Celestial Venus. tion, 54 ; Apis, or Epaphus, the Sacred Bull of Egypt, iS ; Mnevis his mystic father, 19 conceived by a ray of light, 19 representation of Osiris, 19, 52 by the women tendering their persons to him, 142. ; ; ; worshipped Apocalypse, or unvailing, a designation of the early Christian teaching, 4. Apocrypha, hidden or occult things, a designation of the esoteric doctrines of the Alexandrian Jews, 4. Apollo, battle with the Python, 5 his symbol, 29 ; Chryses his crowned with olive, 17 ; the raven standing on a tortoise, 34 Olen, statue ; priest, 31 ; ; and prophet, founded the oracle at Delphi, 46; inspiring exhalation from the Earth imputed to him, 47 ; the serpent Python his representative, 47 Horus in Egypt, 57, 72 meaning of the name, 58 same as his priest ; ; ; on coins, 63 ; worshipped in the circular temple of Stonehenge by the Hyperboreans, 68 Carinas, 70 represented by obelisks and simple columns, 70 protector of highways, 70; the hawk and lion his symbols, 74 the colossal statue androgynous, Didumoeus or Didymteus, temple of, 82 the Destroyer as 81, 99 Abel, or Bel, the younger, 58 ; his figure ; ; ; ; ; ; well as Deliverer, 91 putrefier, ; called Sauroktonos, or Smintheus, or mouse-killer, Chnisaor, Hercules, 92, 93; the Day-Sun, 94 ; his lizard-killer, etc., 91, 92 ; Pythios or identity with worship as Didymseus mixed with that of Bacchus, 95 ; his lyre, 95; cause of sudden death, 100; father of /Esculapius, 100; carried the ^gis, 131; accompanying his lyre with the ; Index. dance, 139 the oldest oracle ; upon statue sitting sitting Apples, and sanctuary in Didymi, 144 ; eggs, with a serpent coiled around them, on a conical stone, 148 ; the Mystic Dance, 152 — entrusted with the care of the Shooter, 152; Agamemnon, invoked by 1 bust, 147 ; 89 145 ; statue — called the Far- ; child Dionysus-Zagreus, 156 ; 165. an honorary reward at the Olympic, Isthmian and Pythian games, 153. AfuUius, imposed upon by new system of the Egyptian priesthood, 43 ; invomeaning of his " seeing of the sun at midnight," 96 decation.of Isis, 83 ; ; scription of the Sacred Boat-procession, 134. Ar, the Boar that slew Adonis, the symbol of Ares or Mars, 83, 86. Arabs, worshipped Urotalt, or Dionysus, under the form of a Bull, 19; acknowledg- ed only the male and female powers of creation, 19 the Hyk-Sos, or Shepherds of Egypt, 43, 74 ; revered the square stone as the emblem of the ; celestial Venus, or female productive power, 63 many temples were pus, the caverns cut in the rock, 117 ; ; Cyclopean buildings, 74 worshipped Peor or Pria; god of generation, 132. Arba-Il, or fourfold god, 35. by Daedalus, Architis Venus, the ancient Venus, statue also on Mount Libanus, 149. Ares, see Argive Mars. women mourned future the death of Adonis, 85 ; — prophetess perceived the by tasting the blood of a lamb, 120. Argonauiic expedition, a fable probably derived from the Egyptian device the ram-symbol of Amun, probably the same as Persephone, or been the daughter of Minos and killed by Ariadne, the fabled wife of Bacchus, 66 Proserpina, 66 Diana, 66 ; said to have ; holding a pine cone, 113 ; Arion, the steed, offspring of of in a boat, l58. Neptune ; Theseus, her fabled lover, 158. or Poseidon, and Demeter, 80, 176. Arisiarchus, charged with impiety for endeavoring to prove the truth of the heliocentric system, 58. Atistophanes, charged Diagoras and Socrates with impiety in attributing the order and unity of the universe to circular motion, 60. Ark, of Noah and first the Centaurs, 77 ; Sacred Boat of Osiris, 134 suggestion of the fable of the Argonauts, 168. ; probably the Armenia, sexual rites of Venus-Anaitis, 54, 67 probably conquered by Zohak, the Arabian Serpent-King, 62. Arrow, of Apollo, called also belos and obelos ; signify the emission of the ; rays of the sun, 92. Arsinoi, queen of Ptolemy Philadelphus, called also Hippia, 80. Artabazes, satrap of Pontus, introduced the Mithraic rites, 53. See Diana, Brimo, Hekatl. Aryan family, two great branches, the Zend, or Persian, and the Brahman, or Hindu, 62 Kuru, a popular title before the separation, 154. Asa, King of Judah, deposes his mother for making a neuropast, or phallic manikin, like those of Egypt and at the temple of the Syrian goddess and Artemis. ; the Venus-Erycina, 49. Asia, secret or mystic system inhabitants worshipped preserved by the hereditary priesthood, 3; emblem of Venus, 30 the cross or tau as the ; 1 Index. 90 overrun by the Amazons, 34; conijuests by the Egyptians, 43; great regard for oracles, 50 " Mourning for the only-Begotten," 50 massive ; architecture, 74 , figures worshipped, 144 human monuments, 74 the lion on sepulchral ; ; fire and serpent worship generally symbolical ; diffused, 151 common, 153; the mystic rites, 157. placed with the winged globe over the porticoes sacrifices Asf, or ur3eus, temples, 15 of Egyptian apotheosis of Cleopatra, 15. ; Aspasia, a mystic title statues of Venus- Architis, 149. upon the Ass, the symbol of Typhon, 87. name of the country of the Amazons, 34 ; dialect of Assyria ancient and cognate with the " language of the gods," 38 ; worship of Bel and Mylitta, 54, 67 ; Cyclopean structures, 74 ; golden calf of Beth-el placed in the Assyria, museum, 148. Heavenly Venus, a goddess of the mystic Astartl, or Aphrodite, the Celestial or rites, 9 ; same Anaitis, 34; 24 same as Diana, of the Ephesians, and the "grove," or ashera her symbol, 49; her worship at as Terra and Isis, ; kadeshEryx, Armenia, and Palestine, accompanied by prostitution, 55 uth in her temples, 56 ; Persians learned her worship, 6l ; the same ; as Pasiphae, wife of Minos, 65, 66 mother of the Centaurs, ; weapons of King called Paphia, ; 77 ; the deity of the moon, the same as Europa, 103 Saul placed in her temple, 114 ; See Celestial Venus. Astaphceus, a spirit of the planets, 16. same Asterisk, 66 as the radiated head of Apollo, 64 ; meant the male of the sun on Carthaginian coins, with a horse, 76 ; 8g the caps of Dioscuri, 116. Astral divinities, originally the sole gods, ; principle, a wolf the centre, ; I days of the week ; named after 145- Astrology, judicial, 51 ; grew out of the doctrine that the active principle of the ; Dryden, the poet, sometimes prac- universe acted by permanent laws, 51 ticed it, 52 Dr. ; Noah — Stone, of Connecticut, 52 ; — originated with the Chaldeans, 53 ; not much regarded by the Egyptians, 53. Atergatis, the Syrian goddess, same as Astarte, Isis, CybelS, and the Heavenly Venus, 64 round-tower pillars at her temple, 74. See Hierapolis. Atheism, probably not a denial of existence of the gods, but violation of the ; Mysteries, 40 and Socrates, ; punished with death 40 ; at Athens, 40 ; the offense of Diagoras theoretically the source of judicial astrology, 51 > '1*^ heliocentric system the probable matter divulged, 60. Athena, or Athene, see Pallas, Minerva, and Neith. Athenians, ship, 3 5 ; made ; the Eleusinian Mysteries punished with death those subjected colonies, 8 ; more celebrated than any other wor- who divulged any thing taught there, venerated the — form of Hermes, 149 — women ; Athens, impiety punished with death, olive, 17 ; required the priestess punished atheism with death, 40 celebrating the Thesmophoria, 165. to curse Alcibiades for profanation, 39 5, ; 40 ; subjected Asiatic colonies, 8 ; ; Amazons led thither by Eumolpns who instituted the Eleusinia, 34; statue of the Amazon, or Diana, 34 priestess refused to curse Alcibiades, 39 ; ; atheism, not merely a denial of the existence of the gods, but a revealing or calumniating of the Mysteries, punished with death, 40; Ariadne brought thither by Theseus, 66 ; festivals of Bacchus kept, 83. 1 Index. Tammuz dtmoo, the hidden one, the Attila, the Getic, 1 of Ezekiel, 72. worshipped the sword See Bacchus and Osiris. at the Acropolis of Athens, 115. Attraction, the first principle of animation, called also Eros, Love, 13, 21, 22, 38, 91 ; 9 represented by the loadstone, 59 — ; and Priapus, the sun, according to Pythagoras, the attractive force, 59 ; supposed to be a wreck or fragment of more universal science that once existed, 60. Attributes, eternal, personified, the source of the theogonies, 25. Atys, an Asiatic divinity, identical with Bacchus, Adonis, and Osiris, 49 ; the Phrygian Bacchus, 84 called also the Minotaur, 84 killed by a boar, 86, 155 double-sexed, 67, 95, 98; conceived by the goddess Nana, or Anaitis, ; ; ; eating a pomegranate, 112, Augury and Vaticination, 44 ; first by animals and birds, 44 gave place to ; oracular temples, 45 ; the Bacchic impulse, or prophetic mania, 45 of Augurs at Rome, 51. college ; Aurora, or morning, borne by the horse Pegasus, 76. Avatars, Hindu deities, manifested as heris or heroes, 159. Authority of the Mysteries rejected by the Euhemerists, 162. Avesta, Zend, its work of Zoroaster denied, 62 nothing modern Ghebers or Parsees, 62 probably genu- authenticity as the more than the ritual of the ; ; ine, 62. Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, Pluto, and Casmilus, the Cabeirian gods, 150 ; same as Demeter, ProserpinI, and Hermes. B. Baal, of Tyre, Melkarth, the Tyrian Hercules, 2 his ; figure on coins precisely high places of, 46 Peor, the Moabite divinity, 49 worship like that of Isis, 85 ; Baal-Zebub, the Phoenician oracle-god, ranked by the Jews as Prince of the Devils, 89 sacred bonfires probably children burned or passing through the fire, 122 in Ireland, 122 Grecian Jupiter, 20 like that of the ; ; ; ; ; ; same as Baldur, or Habaldur, the Scandinavian Palestine always attended by prostitution, 132 the deity, 122 ; worship in statues like those of ; Priapus or Bacchus, 132 ; Baal-Tamar, or lord of the palm, 151. Baal-bek, or Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, logging stones, 148. Babylon, divine creative attribute, personified as male and Bel and Mylitta, 54 ; women in prostituted female, called temple of Mylitta, the 54. Bacchic Orgies, or Orgies of Dionysus, doctrine taught relative to the soul, 4, 119 ; introduced by Melampus, 10 ; learned from the Phoenicians of Bceotia, 10; introduced by Orpheus, II 30 ; 45 ; ; figs and the phallus borne proceedings against them at Rome, 40 ; drinking to intoxication allowed, 45 ; superseded by the Mithraic ; in procession, the ecstasies of the votaries, extravagance of the Grecian celebrated in the 53 Orkneys, or Hebrides, as well as by the Thracians and Hindus, 68 observed the Phrygians commemorate in Thrace, where the Cyclopes inhabited, 74 women, 49 rites, ; ; ; the god asleep in winter and at Delphi, 95 ; awake women whipped — triennial celebration in summer, 85 at the triennial festival at Alea, 102 — supposed to have been celebrated by the Jews, ; 132 ; bells worn, 133. ; Index. 192 Bacchus, or Dionysus, flight of, a mystic allegory, 6; a ; Melampus, 10 ; Alexander, 15 ; god of the Mysteries, 9; called Priapus, always associated with serpent worship, 9 his worship and the phallic sacus, 10; at Lamp- introduced procession by designation of the Great Serpent showed by Taxilus to called Bougenes, 18 deity Urotalt, 19 ; also his symbol, 20 gods and of men," by Herodotus said ; to be the Arabian represented the whole generative power, 20 ; 21, 22, 36 in ; ; the goat " Father of mythology, Kronos.or Zeus, the Unknown called also " the first-begotten love," and Father, was reverenced as the Father and he as the Son, 22; statue at Eleusis, 26 ; the fig and phallus borne in his processions, 30 of Jupiter, 32; the foliage of trees and all thighs of victims burned in sacrifice, 32 ; ; carried in the thigh evergreens sacred to him, 32; the why said to be borne at Thebes, 35 ecstasy at his orgies, 45 ; the vine a favorite symbol, 45 ; the god the source of prophetic inspiration, 45 ; an Asiatic divinity, and identical with ; Maha Deva, and Atys, Adonis, Osiris, and probably Siva, or also with Baal- Peor, 49 ; husband of Ariadne, 66 sometimes depicted double-sexed, 67 , represented the general emanation of the productive power, 67; worshipped ; in the British Islands, 68; Sabazius, temple, on Mount Zilmissus, in Thrace, invocation in the Baccha, 75 the bull, many-headed serpent, and lion, his symbols, 75 ; Satyrs, or Centaurs, accompanying his Indian expedition, 69 ; 78 ; the goddess 80 : the deer a symbol, 81 ; Hippa the nurse of the generator, 79 ; a mound in Athens,. ; Kore, or ProserpinS, his reputed mother in the Orphic Mysteries, 83, 156 rites celebrated at Eleusis with those of Ceres, Ganymedes another form of, 87 dismemberment by the Titans, 88 ; 85 ; ; ; accompanied by leopards devouring grapes, go ; Ampelus, 91; identity with Hercules, 92; the nocturnal sun, 94; lao or laon, a mystic title, 95 called also Hyes, 95 ; same as Castor, 96 grapes sacred to him, 89 ; ; ; terminated his expedition in the remotest East, 96 tomb at Delos, 96 god of the waters, 98 the Devourer, 102 mystic epithet of Perikionios, III; the pomegranate on his diadem, 112; thyrsus surmounted by pine ; ; cone, I r3 ; mystic fan, or winnow, 120 ; ; ; called Liknites, 120 ; ivy, or kissos, dedicated to him as a Kissean or Cushite deity, 124; called also Bromius, 132; supposed by Plutarch to have been worshipped by the Jews, 132 ; Amun his father, 137 ; Nyssian dance sacred to him, 139 ; terrestrial genealogy a 140 ; Dendrites, 144 ; story of Zagreus, 156 ; the " son of Zeus and Proserpina, 156; called Ph-anax, 151. fable, new Bacchus," Baitulia, amberics, ambrosial stones, logging stones, pendre stones, 147, 148. Baldness of Silenus explained as caused by salacity, 79. Baldur, a Scandinavian deity, probably the Sun, or Baal, 122. Bambyki, See Hierapolis and Venus. Baptism of the man Jesus, and his union with Christ, as taught by sectaries, 17 or ablution in fire and water generally practiced, ] 21 how performed, 121 preceded initiation, 121 ; Jewish proselyte immersed before being circum- ; ; cised, 121 122; by Irish, ; considered as being regenerated and animated with a fire, Scandinavians, Italians and Jews, 122 bull, goat or new soul, by the Hindus, Romans, purification by blood of a at the bonfires of Baal, 122; practiced ram in the Mithraic ; rites, 123. Barbarians, and earliest Greeks, worshipped only the sun, moon, earth, star* and sky, i ; — mysteries and sacred rites, 71. Index. Barbarism of the middle ages, 7. Bards, Miisseus and Eumolpus said to 1 be from Thrace, 11 Apollo, said to have founded the Oracle at Delphi, 46 ; ; 93 Olen, a priest of — sacerdotal, pol- ished and methodised the Greek language, 50, symbol of the female aidoia, 28 thrown upon the altar wine made from it by the Egyptians, 31. Battle-Axe, received divine honors, 114 symbol on a coin, 170. Barley, a 31 ; as sacrifices. ; ; Banho, a personification of Night, 57. Beads, used to reclion time, and also to enclose the sacred symbols, 31. Bear, a polar constellation, called also the Venus its name in Greek, Babylonian Venus or Mylitta, 20. Bee, sacred to the Beetle, or Scarabasus, the deity, 128 Wagon, melitta, ; <)•]. being a pun on the name of represented the pervading spirit or ruling providence of androgynous, 128. ; Supreme God, Being, Supreme, or the Zeus of the primitive Greeks, 20, 22 doctrine of the Ophites or serpent worshippers, 16 existence, 25 and the primitive pervading spirit ; ; Akmon, 24 ; mode ; of his emanations, 37, 38, source of augury and oracles, 44, 45 ; Jupiter All-prophetic, 47 active principle of the universe, acting by permanent laws and pre-estab- 41, 42 ; ; lished rules, 51. Bel, or Belos, worshipped in Assyria, 54 same as Zeus and Baal, 54 composite symbols in temple at Babylon, 144. Europa, 65 ; ; father of ; Belief, generally shaped by mankind to their dispositions, 126. Bellerophon, rode the horse Pegasus, 76 ; worshipped Athene as Hippeia, 76. Bellona, a title of Athene, androgynous, 127, 136. worn at the rites of Bacchus, 132, 133; a worship, 131 charm against the destroying power, 131 ; used by the Jews at new moon, on priapic figures, 132 employed at eclipses, 132 ; on Hindu statues, 132 133 high priests of Egypt and the Jews hung them to their sacerdotal garments, 133 rung at worship by Brahmans and Roman Catholics, 133 fairies and trolls driven away, 183. tolled on occasion of death, 133 Bells, in religious ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Belos, or Obelos, the dart of Apollo, g2. Berbers, the Cyclopeans of Libya probably of that race, 73. Berekynthian Mother, 166. Bhagavat-Gita, quoted, 41, 135. which was first ? 13 ; the egg before, 15 emblem of the Spirit or Third Person, 170; the mystic dove and Italian woodpecker, or Yunx tor- Bird, or egg, ; quilla, 171, 172. Blood, of victims in Lapland, sprinkled on idols, 30 ; offered to Brimo, 102 ; the corporeal residence of the soul, 119; the shades of the dead tasting it to replenish their faculties, 119 ; doctrine of Hippocrates, Plutarch, the Pen- and Odyssey, 119; the prophetess of Argos tasted it to possess the knowledge of futurity, 120 probably the origin of the sanctity attributed tateuch ; to red Boar, and purple, 120 \Ar^ emblem ; mystic baptism, 123. of winter, and symbol of Ares or Mars, slew Adonis, 85 Atys killed by a boar or Mars Frey killed, 87 form, 86; Mars wore the skin of this animal, 87 carried in solemn procession, 86 ; ; Yule, 87 ; pa'ste effigies sacred at feasts, 87 abhorrence of the flesh, 87. fice at ; ; in that ; sacri- Mars represented, 78 ; ;; 1 Index. 94 Boat, or sacred ship, employed 133 ; by Egyptians at festivals for the gods of Babylon so transported, 134 plastic spirit floating ; upon the waters, 167, Body, material, made by the Demiurge for man sun and moon, a general symbol, denoting the 168. he had eaten of the Tree oi Knowledge, 17 soul blunted and obscured, 45. Baotia, settled by Cadmus the Cabeirian god, 10 the temple called the Serpent's Head, 15. Boon Elateia, or driver of cattle, a title of Diana, 102. after ; ; Bow, of Apollo, directed the emission of the rays of the sun, g2. Boxing, in the mystic worship, 152 ; mode a of immolating human victims, 153Bracelets, with figures of serpents, 16. Brahnt, the Great One, source of emanations, 177. ^ra^OTd, " seated upon his lotus throne," 105 the creator, produced from ; Brahm, the Ineff"able God, 177. Brahmans, retained in the Dekkan the custom of prostitution at the temples, 55 ; a branch of the great Aryan family, 22 venerated the lotus-flower, ring a bell at prayers, ablutions and other acts of devotion, 133 sell future happiness by retail, 180. Breast, the right, omitted on symbolical and Amazonian statues, 33 the Sarmatian women said to have extirpated, 33. Bridle, put by Minerva into the mouth of Pegasus, 128. Brimo, HekatS, Persephone, Artemis, or Diana, appeased with human victims and bloody rites, 102 boys whipped at her altar at Sparta, 102 the des; ; ; ; ; troyer, 113. Brimstone, called Iheion or divine substance, because of in its apparent resemblance odor and properties to lightning, 135. Britain, mystic lore of ancient priests of, 3 employed the symbol of the sun and serpent, 15 ; temple-circle at Abury called the Snake's Head, 15 Stonehenge, a circular temple of Apollo, 58 Phoenician and Carthaginian merchants traded there for tin, 68; obelisks in Yorkshire, 69; amulets, 190. Bromius, a name of Bacchus, 95. ; ; Poseidon, I46. Broivn^ Robert^ Jr. Bryant, Jacob, derives the term " Lycian" from El- Uk the sun-king, 69 ; theory of the Centaurs, 77 ; explanation of the goddess Hippa, cannibalism or human sacrifices, the horse Pegasus and the fish Ceto, 80 ; affirms that Prometheus was a god of the Colchians, and that the Eagle and Heart were the crest and emblem of Egypt, 88 tombs or sacred hillocks, 96 states that the Greeks mistook the term cohen, a priest, for kuon, a dog, 113, 124 declares the pyramids designed for high altars and temples, 117; considers ; ; the Cabeiri the priests of the Great Mother, 127 ; considers the Gorgon's head surrounded with serpents a symbol of Divine Wisdom, 130 derived Priapus from Peor and Apis, 132 derived Nymphsea, etc., from ain and ; ; criticised, 161 ; compared with Euhemerus, Sanchoniathon and Eusebius, 162. Bryant, William CuUen, translation of the Iliad, passim ; renders Lukeios, omphe, 141 ; Lycian, 69. Bubastis, the Diana of the Egyptians, 57. Buccinum, or aquatic snail, androgynous, a Builders will not cut timber in the full Hindu symbol, of the moon, 100. 34. Index. 5«//, worshipped by the Egyptians by the 195 of Mnevis and Apis, 18,35; title the form and symbol of the mystical Bacchus, 18 denoted the generative an Arabian symbol, 19 venerated by the Chinese and in Japan, Hindustan, Scandinavia, etc., 20 on the Minotaur the symbol first humanised, 65; meant the same coins, 65 as the lingam, 56 wingM, the Egyptian and Hebrew Cherubs, 77 a symbol for rivers, 98 bore the statue of Zeus at the temple of Hierapolis, power, l8 said to be the eidolon of Osiris, 19 ; ; ; ; ; — ; ; ; ; 167. Bulla, or disk, worn by the young men of Italy as an amulet, 130. Bupalos, constructed a statue of Fortune, 84. and embalming of the dead, 117. Burning the dead, thus setting free the soul from the body, Butterfly, ox psyche, symbol of the ethereal soul, 123. Byhlos, mysteries of Adonis at, 85 Philo of, 163. Burial, burning 117. ; Egyptian, the sonsof Phtha, 127; worshipped in Phrygia, Samothrace, Lemnos, and Tenedos, wherever Vulcan was venerated, 127 ; Cabeiri, the great gods, Zeus or Jupiter, a have been priests of Cybele, 127 mysteries of Samothrace, 150 mystical names, 150 further account, 150 said by Sanchoniathon to be sons of Sydyc, 157 ; the Dioscuri said to be the same deities, 157. Cadmii, or Cadmeians, a people occupying Thebes, 10 said to have been conducted to the site of the Cadmeian or citadel by a cow, 35 Bacchus the by Bryant said to ; Cabeirian god, 227 ; ; ; ; ; son of a Cadmeian damsel, 36 their ; probably so denominated from the name of god Cadmus, 151. same Cadmillus, Camillus, Casmilus, in the Samothracian mysteries, Cadmus as 150. Cadmus, reputed to have colonised Bceotia, 10 a deity identical with Thath, ; Hermes, and the Phoenician .iEsculapius, 10 a Tyrian, the first teacher of the Bacchic mysteries, 10 his daughter Ino, or Leucothoe, a sea-goddess, II said to have married an Amazon, 34 probably the same as Cadmil; — ; lus or to ; ; Casmilus in the mysteries, 150; story purely allegorical, 150; said have been changed to a serpent, 150. Caduceus, the staff or sceptre of Mercury, encircled by two serpents, 114. Cairns, or hillocks, symbols of consecration at cross-roads, 148. symbol of Epaphus, the son of Calf, the 54 ; lo, 36 ; — the golden, of the Exodus, the sacred calf of Bethel carried to Assyria, 148. Cambyses, King of Persia, conquest of Egypt and cruelty, 44. Canobus, the filtering-vase his symbol, 121. Canon, the Phoenician, employed by the Cyclopean builders in constructing the walls of Mycenae and other great works, 74. men whose extraordinary powers were re- Canonisation, a practice of deifying garded as divine emanations, 153, 154 practicedby the priests of the Syrian goddess at Hierapolis, 172 also by the Roman Catholic Church, 173. Cap, worn by the the Dioscuri, 96, Ii5 by Anubis, 96 a distinction of rank among the Scythians, 116 a symbol of freedom and emancipation among ; ; ; ; ; the Romans, 116 ; same worn by Mercury and Vulcan, 126. Index. 196 Capitals of pillars, copied from the seed-vessel of the lotus flower, 109 of acanthus and other plants added by the Greeks, 109 leaves ; Corinthian, derived ; from Kgypt [Assyria], 109 not invented from observing a thorn growing round a basket, no Ionic, no ornamented by honeysuckle and eggs and anchors, symbols of Venus and Mars, no. ; ; ; Sun-god by the Mexicans, Captives, sacrificed to the 18. Carthaginians, had serpent-symbols on their coins, 15 tin, 68 or horse, 78 Castor ; sacrificed their children to their gods, 123. Pollux, the Great Gods, Z.VL& traded in Britain for : Saturn or Kronos, the chief deity, represented on coins as a Centaur ; same as Bacchus and Apollo, 96, 116, 157 ; the four lines in the Odyssey undoubtedly spurious which relate to their deification, 157 said to have succeeded to the glory of the Dioscuri, 157. ; employed as priests Castrated men, according to Hippocrates, never bald, 79 at Hierapolis, the Phrygian temples, and those of Egypt, 174, 175 ; practiced ; pederasty, 175. Cat, killing the one punished vifith Moon and Female Cathari, Albigenses death by Egyptian magistrates, 41 and Paulicians venerated the agathodtemon serpent, Caves, temple at Phygal^, with a statute of Despoina, 79 temples, 117. 117; — Cecrops, a deified hero, 14 fabled to have been both ; Celestial, or sethereal soul, Celestial a symbol of ; Principle, 100. ; 17. — the ancient tombs, man and woman, 159. represented by a psyche or butterfly, 113. Love, (see Attraction), the emanation of the Divine Spirit, 38. Venus Urania, or the Heavenly Venus, (called also Aphrodite, Astarte, Kypris, Anaitis and Atargatis or Derceto, the Syrian goddess) the designation applied by Herodotus to the Female Principle of the Uni- Celestial Venus, verse, 20; called also Alilat or Lilith, 20; represented the female or pas- sive productive principle, 28, et passim ; symbols, 28 ; represented by the cow, 35 worship adopted by the Babylonian women, and in Cyprus, Armenia, Phrygia, Carthage, Italy and Palestine, and at Eryx, with sexual ; by the Persians, 5l a square stone her symbol, 63 mother of the Centaurs, 77 declared by Apuleius, the same as Isis, Eleusinian Ceres, and Proserpina, 83 comprehended by the Phoenician names, Europa and Astarte, 103 armed like Diana in the temples at Cythera and Corinth, 103 called also Hera, 117 the pomegranate her symbol, 113; styled by the Delphians the Chariot, 134 represented by the Hermaphrodite, 149 statue at Samothrace, 169. temples, Celtic nations, employed oaks as symbols of the Supreme God, 47 rites, 54, 55, 67 also ; ; the most ancient of the Fates, 63 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; circular, 61 ; temple in Zealand, 68 ; temple of Apollo at Stonehenge, 68 the Cyclopes the progenitors of tribes, 74 ; — ; Mercury, the deity of the an- nations burned their dead, 117. cient Gauls, 114 ; Centaurs, conjectured to be the horse-symbol partly humanised, 76; depicted on the temple of Isis at Dendera, 77 named from Candahar, near " Nephelim race," 77 tion of ships, 77 ; ; ; supposed by E. Pococke to have been reputed by Bryant to be of the the Indus, 77 offspring of Ixion supposed by Hislop to ; and Nephele, 77 be the progeny of ; the designa- women prosti- said by Nonnus to be the tuted at the temples of Mylitta and Astarte, 77 how depicted in Lesbos, 77 offspring of Zeus and the Paphian Venus, 77 ; • ; the peculiar form that of the original Satyrs, 78 ; said to be Satyrs, 78 ; ; Index. Jupiter sculptured reposing on one, 81 82 ; conflict with Theseus, 15S. name of Zeus, the god of Cerastes, a C«r«OT«;« of devotion not held government, 40. Ceres, or 85 ; to all, 197 Hercules destroying a Centaur, ; 138. be important except as a part of the civil Demeter, the goddess and guardian of the Eleusinian Mysteries, 4, 22 wandering, 6 called also Isis in Egypt, Venus and Astarte in Syria, ; 9 called also Demeter or IVlother Earth, 22 name more plausibly derived from the Sanskrit Deva-matri, or mother-goddess, 22 the personification ; ; ; of the passive or female productive principle supposed to pervade the earth, wife of the omnipotent father, ^ther or Jupiter, Hertha by the Germans, 23 the source of legislation, 27 the poppy consecrated to her, 45 Despoina, her daughter by Neptune, 79 and Proserpina, an allegory invented, 82 invoked by Lucius as Celestial Venus and Proserpina, 83 same as Isis and Proserpina at Cnidos, 83, 157 called Hera, 113 the ancient Bacchus said to be her son, 156; Thes- 23 ; called also Deo, 23 23 ; called ; ; ; ; — ; ; — ; ; mophoria, 165. Cesnola Collection, the statue of the Paphian Venus, or a priest, 29. Ceto, the great fish, Dagon sacred to or Poseidon, 80 the swallowing of Jonah by a great : symbol of a ship, 81 probably his rescue by a ship, fish, ; 58, 80. Chaldeans, or Magians, great practitioners of judicial astrology, 53 ; taught the first a conquering and existence of an universal all-pervading spirit, 63 ; civilising nation, and afterwards a learned caste, 53 ; Zoroaster probably Miththeir chief entitled Rabbi or Rab Mag, 53 a leader or president, 53 the Jewish Kabala or tradiraism probably a form of their religion, 53 ; ; ; Julius Caesar assisted in reforming the Calentions derived from them, 53 dar by Sosigines (son of Sosiosh), 63 knew the heliocentric system, 60. Chaos, descent of Achamoth to impart life to the elements, 16 ; Tartarus a ; ; separate world beyond, 125. Chaplets of serpents jugglers in North America, 15 worn by the symbolical figures on coins, 32 ; ; on the heads of of poplar or other plants worn by Hercules, 95. Chariot, a title of Venns, 134. Charts, the wife of Vulcan, 126. and his boat, a late fiction, 8 taken from the Egyptian judgment of Amenti, 8 ; introduced into the Orphic mysteries, 8 Horus the original, C/5(j«;« ; ; 134. CteVoK, the Centaur, the son of the Centaur Kronos, 77. Cherub, a winged bull, an Egyptian symbol, 77. Children, fire, ?,3.tVirx\ 122 ; or Kronos devouring his own, 24; Ahaz burned by the Carthaginians and other nations to sacrificed 123; symbols in Northern countries, 147 Odin named ; named from his in the their gods, deities, 155 ; how his, 154, 155. Chimcera, a composite symbol including the goat, lion and serpent, gi, 129, 134. mode of representing ideas, 6 Tartar princes carry a serpent as a military standard, 14; symbols on coins, 15 ; Palace of the had the symbol and story of the employed rosary, 31 horned Bull, 20 China, and Chinese, ; ; — ; — ; Index. 198 tortoise, 35 ; and rivers, 40 have no dogmatical sacrificed to the spirits of the air, mountains, the sectaries of Fohi have added 40 allegorical fables, theology, or persecution for opinion, 40 ; ; represent the sun as a cock in a 70 ; tombs, edifices, and utensils adorned virith the figure of a lion, placed sacred images upon the lotus-flower, 105. circle, 75 ; Chlamys, hanging from the shoulder of Jupiter, 129 symbol of ; deification, 173Choiropsale, a designation of Bacchus, 10. Choral dance of the stars symbolized by the mystic dance, 138. Christ, Ophite legend, 16 ; generated by the Supreme Being from Sophia, or pneuma, the Divine Wisdom, 16 entered man into the ; Jesus at baptism, C/imft'3», teachers taught the apocalypseof the Mysteries, 4; — 17. sectaries adopted — antiquaries' opinion of the of Serapis, — have been guilty of the crimes imputed the — writers of the 3rd and 4th centuries turned the Bacchanalians, books of the New Testament into 161 — writers accepted serpent-worship, 15; cieties possibly cross supposed so- 30; to to histor- 56; allegor)', ical ; the fragment imputed to Sanchoniathon, 163, 164. Chronos, or Time, said to be the same as Kronos, or Saturn, 25 ; this identity doubted, 73. Chrusaor, or Chrusaorus, names of Apollo, 92. Chryses, a priest of Apollo, Circles, the wore only the fillet, or diadem, 31. sometimes enclosed in a square, ancient temples, 60 Circular temple, of Vesta, at ; Rome, 27 ; primitive, 60 ; 63. the Stonehenge, 68 ; of Bacchus Sebarius, in Thrace, 69 of Mars, 6g. Circumcision, practiced by Egyptians, 89 Jewish proselytes, 121. CistcB, mystic chests, or baskets, contained aserpent, egg, and phallus, 15; mystic tomb of Bacchus, 96 contained phallic emblems, 96. City of the Sun, in Egypt, the Bull Mnevis worshipped, 19 Baal-bek, in Syria, ; ; ; — — ; 148. Cleanthes censured Aristarchus for impiety for publishing the doctrines of Pythagoras respecting the solar system, 59. Cleopatra, apotheosis, 15 fiction of her death from the asp, or urseus, ; Cnossus, coins of, marked by a square, or 15. labyrinth, to denote the Celestial Venus, 64. Cobra de Capella, naga, or hooded-snake, the mystical serpent of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Hindus, 16. See Snake, Hooded. Cock, offering of Socrates to ^Esculapius, 4 sacred serpent, 16 nese place it ; ; crest, or comb, on the hood of the sacred to the sun, and herald of his coming, 70 in a circle, to represent the sun, 70, 71 ; ; Chi- a favorite symbol on Grecian monuments, 113 the symbol of Cadmilus, or the Pelasgian Mercury, in the Samothracian Mysteries, 150. ; god of the Samothracian Mysteries, 24 and Saturn, 24. Ccehim, a Coins, ancient, sacred symbols, 8 tombs with ; ; the same as Serapis, Taautos, portraits of kings not placed on them, 8 ; and drachma, 8 antiquity of coining, 8 the study of them the only means by which we can obtain a competent knowledge of the mystic or Orphic faith, 8; serpent- symbols, 15 ; apotheosis of Cleopatra, 15 aphrodisiac devices, 29 with the cross found in the put in vases, the obolos, ; ; ; temple of Serapis, 30 ; ; the cow-symbol, 36 ; — a square impressed on them, to Index. 1 99 denote the Celestial Venas, 63 Saturn or probably Poseidon, represented by Carthaginians, Thracians, and Macedonians as a Centaur, or horse, 78 Carthfea, 89 the Chimtera, 91 mixed symbols of Apollo and Bacchus, 95; fish-symbol, iii elephant and cornucopiee, 136 palm-tree emblem, ; ; — ; ; ; ; iSi, et passim. worshipped Prometheus, 88 an Egyptian nation, 88. shaped like a serpent, put on the neck of human victims when Mexico, 15. Colchians, Collar, in College, of ; Augurs, in Rome, 51 sacrificed, — of Chaldeans, or Magians, 53 — of ^Egyp- ; ; tiau priests, 134, Columns, and capitals, representing the lotus-flower, 105 cred symbols, iii. Trajan's, 106 ; Comb, of a cock, on the head of the agathodsemon serpent, 16 Comedy, consisted principally of imitations, both of — sa- — woman's, the ; gunakeios, or symbol of the female principle, 28. kteis ; • men and of the symbolical animals, 152. Composite order merely a combination, in. Concha Veneris, a symbol of Venus Urania, or the female power, 28. — pine, 112, 113. Cone, vailed (cortina), 95, 147; represented Conical stones, on Tyrian medals, 147 ; ambrosial amberics, stones, logging rocks, 147. symbol of, 14 fire and water touched by the bride sword of Julius Csesar consecrated, 114 weapons of King not deification, but canonisation, the sword of Goliath, 115 ; Consecration, the serpent a a form, 26 as Saul, 114 ; ; ; ; — 173- Consuls, Roman, their bodies painted red during triumphs, 120. Coptos, phallic statue of Osiris, 58 Corinth, sexual rites, 55 Celestial Venus, 64 ; ; ; statue of Horus, 58. impressed by a square to represent the armed image of Venus or Diana in the temple, 103 coins of, ; from Egypt, 109. Corinthian Order, 109, 1 10 brought from Egypt (Assyria), 109. Cormorant, the symbol of Hercules, 75. Comucopice, given to the local genii, 87 held by Hercules, 95 ; in the capitals derived ; ; the elephant, on coins, 136 ; in the hand of CybelS, 145 tail of expression of ; deification, 173. Cortina, 95, 146, 147. Corybantes, 157 ; and said to be children of Minerva, by the Sun, priests of the Sun, 175. Cosmogony or theogony, 9; exhibits the first system of philosophy in every nation, 2 the maintenance of order in a state requires a demiurgus or chief magis; trate, and in the universe a Supreme God, 2 ; all nations, the Ganges, have their mystic lore on the subject, Country-feast of the Dionysia, mode of its from the Baltic to 3. celebration, 30. Cow, a symbol of the Celestial Venus and Isis, 45; employed by the Phoenicians, revered by the Africans and Hindus, guided the Cadmeians, 35 35 ; ; 36 ; the Adumbla, or white cow of the Scandinavians, 36 ; lo, 36 ; golden heifer, 147. Crab, the Creation symbol of Diana and the female principle, 99. and destruction symbolised by Saturn devouring his own children. ; Index. 200 24 the ; emanation of first preceded by darkness, 57 light ; merely renova- tion, 116. Creative Spirit, pervading, tion, 37 ; — original producer of order, fertility, tlie plastic, universally diffused and expanded, 41 ; and organisa- every production — essence, 41 participated by the — the source of astrological science, Creator of Ilda-Baoth, the Demiurge, 16 Eros, the the discretion of or Mystic Bacchus, 21 — have become national and 39 — supposed by the Jews the palm, 151 said by Plato peculiar God, 54 — male, be the Eternal and Unbegotten 158 — Brahma, a device on the head of the Greek and Roman statutes of the bull an amulet, 100 — expressing horns, Mnevis or Apis, 20 worn of earth, water and mistletoe, 47 all in its air, things, first-begotten ; love, left religious vi^orship to ; creatures, typified ; 51. ; to ; typified ; deity, his their to ; 177. ; Crescent, as ; comb Crest, or Crete, 130, ; of a cock, placed on the head of the sacred serpent-symbol, 16. Neptune, or Poseidon, worshipped, 64, 68 human sacrifices, 64 Ariadne away by Theseus, 66, 158; Jupiter worshipped as Lucetius and ; ; carried Diespiter, 70; Curetes, the priest-caste, 156. ram •Criobolium, the slaughter of a Cronos, Kronos, or time. for the Mithraic baptism of blood, 123. See Saturn. ^, representing the planet Venus, worshipped found on the Isiac tablets, 105, 112. at the sides and intersections of highways, 149. Cross, or circle, or tau blem, 30, 58, 112 Cross, on coins, 65 ; by cairns or hillocks of stone, thrown together Cross-roads, consecrated of Mercury, 148 ; as her em- ; — in later times unhallowed, 149 ; in honor — burial-place of sui- cides, 149. •Crowns, of olive, 17 flowers, 32 parsley, 153 of ; ; ; of turrets, 27 poppy on ; of beads, 32 statues of Ceres, 45 laurel ; ; and olive, 32 of oak and fir, 48 ; ; of of Theagenes, the boxer, crowned fourteen hundred times and canonised, 153. Cuckoo, 171. Cunnus diaboli, a cleft or fissure in the ground, symbolical of the female prin- ciple, 47. Cupid,ih.e mystic, or first-begotten love, {ste Attraction,) 112; wielding the mask of Pan, 144. Curetes, a priest-caste, 156. Cursing, unknown in ancient worship, 39 ; priestess refused to curse Alcibiades, 31. Kubele, the great mother, orgies of, 9 worshipped by the Phrygians and Syrians, 27 Cybele, or by the cubical figure, 27 the Celestial Venus, 67 Phrygian fable, 86 ; ; crowned with the ; olive, 17 identified with Diana, Isis, Anaitis, Mylitta, sexual worship, 67 cymbals ; so called because represented ; the ; same as Hippa, 80 ; and the her worship, 131 pantheic figure, 145. Cyclopeans, or Cyclopes, Neptune, or Poseidon, their reputed father in Lybia, 64 probably an Ethiopian race, and offered human victims, 65, 74, 80 reputed by Hesiod to be sons of Heaven and Earth, 73 probably of the ; in ; ; ; same race as the Berbers and Phoenicians, 73 ; a pastoral race in Lybia and Sicily a race of giants, who introduced a massive style of architecture, 74 progenitors of the Gauls, Illyrians, and Celtic tribes, 74 ; built massive buildings, round towers, etc., 74 were Ophites, 74 ; probably akin to the ; ; ; 1 Index. Ilj'k-sos of Egypt, 74 20 devised their structures after the style of caves, ; 117. Cymbals, used in the worship of Cybele, 131. Cypselus, the ark, 103. Cyrus, name said to denote the sun, 154 more properly from the Sanskrit ; ICuru, 154. D. Dcedalus, said to have built the Labyrinth in Crete, to confine the Minotaur, 64 made a statue of Venus-Architis, 149. Damon, the nous, or divine emanation, the divinity placed in every man u8 familiar of each individual, to initiate him into the mysteries of life, ; 118 ; a ; converses immediately with but very few, but gives signs to most, from which is derived the art of vaticination, 119 souls become daemons, 119. Dagon, the same as Poseidon or Neptune, and Cannes or Ana, 65. Dahaka, the serpent or dragon-king of the A vesta, 62 same as Zohak, 62. ; ; Daimon Promathaos Aithiops, 88. 50; circular, instituted by the Peleiades and of the symbol of the regular motion of the universe, 138 gods Pan, the author and director, 13S of the mimetic kind, 138 the gods taking part, 139 Hindu dance to the sun, 139 Knosian dance to Jupiter, and Nyssian to Bacchus, 139 originally imitative and mystic representa- Z'aw^j', in the Grecian temples, Amazons, 34 ; — ; ; ; ; ; ; tions, 152. Dancing, an imitative 138, 152 ; showing things arcane and expressing things occult, art, a part of the ceremonial in all mystic Dorics, ancient Persian coins, 94. Daughter, or Kore, a title of Proserpina, 82, 83, 157 of the river Jumna, 98 ; ; rites, 139. — of the sun, a Hindu title given by jEschylus, Euripides, and others to title the moon, gg. Dead, burned by the Greeks, Scythians, and Hindus, 117 ; embalmed by Celtic the Egyptians, 117 nations, and by the deposited in subterranean ; evocation by Ulysses, lig. Diana in the elementary worship, probably explaining the metamorphoses of Actaeon, 81 an accessory symbol of Bacchus, 81 in the hand of a Centaur, 81 lion devouring, represented the heat withering the caverns, 117 ; Deer, symbol of ; ; ; productions of the earth, 82 ; sacrificed to Isa, loi. Deifying, or canonising, of men, 154 ; derived from the idea that all great quali- Odin, 155 ; Castor and Pollux, 157 ; practice facilitated by the belief that the universal male generative principle might impregnate a ties proceeded from particular emanations of the Deity, 154 the Theban Bacchus, 156 ; ; human female without the cooperation of a male, 158 practiced under the Roman and Macedonian Empires, 164, 224, 227 largely carried on at the temple of the Syrian goddess, 173 how expressed by symbol, 176. ; ; ; moon, stars, earth, Apis supposed to be an incarnation, ig lamps, emblems, 26 pleased by all expressions of gratitude and submission, 39, 40 ; Krishna, the incarnate, 41, 135 symbols worshipped instead, 42 wine supposed to Deity, a particular one supposed to preside over the sun, waters, etc., I ; ; ; ; ; be a medium of communication with, 45, 50 ; ancient Persians deemed it ; 202 Index. unworthy of be represented by a definite form, 6l his majesty to ; symbol placed in the temple-enclosures, 63 the duel and ordeal by fire and water regarded as a direct appeal, 115 human soul an emanation, 118 ; initiated ; ; persons acquired the knowledge of the impulses, 118 ; Force and Wisdom affinity, 119 ; the higher soul receives attributes of, 127 ; Brahm, 177. Delphi, the Greeks, after the Persian war, rekindled their fires from the altar, 26 prophetic enthusiasm produced by exhalations from the earth, 46 by Hyperboreans, 46 women officiated, 46 ; named from ; oracle founded who ; womb, 47 plundered by the Phocians, 50 favored most those paid best, especially Philip of Macedon, 51 oracle belonged equally delphus, the ; ; ; and Bacchus, 94 commanded women to be whipped at the fesBacchus at Alea, 102. Delta, the letter A, a symbol of the Female Principle, 28. Demeter, or Deva-Matri, see Ceres. Demigods, supposed to be born of women without the cooperation of the other to Apollo ; tival of sex, 158. Demetrius, received by the Athenians with Bacchic display, 98. Demiurge, Ilda-Baoth, 16. Demodoeus, song of the loves of Mars and Venus in the Odyssey, an interpolation, 126. Dendera, or Tentyra, figure of a Centaur in the temple of Dendrites, a Deo, a title name of Ceres, perhaps from Deva, 23. Derceto, or Atargatis, the half as a Isis, 77. of Bacchus, 144. fish, Venus of Ascalon, represented half in Phoenicia, but as a woman at Bambyke woman and as a or Hierapolis, ill. Typhon, 71 ; in the mythology of India, 72 ; a designation of Jupiter, 73 ; Apollo, gi ; Hercules, 92 ; Brimo, 102 ; Siva, 103. Destruction, the coordinate of generation, personified by Proserpina, 82 ; Mars, god of, 85, 87 ; symbolised by the boar, 87 ; by the fly, 89 ; by the dog, 116. Destroyer, Deucalion, supposed image in the temple of the Syrian goddess, II7. Deus, Dseus, or Zeus (eu diphthong) the supreme god, 2, Devadasis, " the women of the idol," belonging to the Hindu temples in the Dekkan, 55 ; a Dravidian custom, afterward retained by the Brahman con- querors, 56. Devil, cloven foot, a conceit derived from the ox-foot of Bacchus or Dionysus, 66. Devils, Baal-Zebub, the Phoenician God, styled Prince Devourer, or Omadius, the eater of raw a flesh, title of, 89, 90. of Bacchus, 102 ; the North- ern deity, Garmr, 116. Dia, Ariadne, slain by Diana Diadem, or fillet, the priest of Apollo, 31 on at the island, 158. a mark of sovereignty, 31 ; ; borne on his sceptre by Chryses, of obelisks or rays on heads of kings or emperors coins, 69. Diaguras, considered guilty of atheism, as having revealed and calumniated the doctrines taught in the Mysteries, 40. Diana, and Brimo, sometimes represented as a and sometimes identical with Isis, Ceres, Rhea, Cybele, and the Celestial Venus), the statue of the Amazon at Atliens, whose worship was introduced by the Shepherds, 34 the sister of Apollo, also Bubastis, 57 ; the Mygal6, or shrew-mouse, her symbol, 57 the workilled Ariadne, 66 (also Artemis, Anaitis, Bubastis, virgin goddess, ; ; ; Index. 203 Amazonian Goddess accompanied by the deflorarepresented by a simple column, 70 ; the deer her symbol, as mother of fecundity, 81 ; the Moon, 81, 139 metamorphoses of ship of the Ephesian or tion of women, 67 ; ; both male and female, 99 called the Mother of the World, the Daughter and Sister of the Sun, 99 the regulator of passive generation, 99 the sea-crab her symbol, 99 as goddess of the moon, tempered aethereal spirit and earthly matter to make them harmonise and unite, 100 sudden death proceeded from her as well Actaeon, 81 ; ; ; ; ; ; as Apollo, 100; — Juno statues clothed, loi and Lucina, personifications of the Moon, 100; attribute of perpetual virginity apparently denoted ; by the name Artemis, loi the name a contraction of Diviana, lOl ; repre; sented with three bodies, also by a female form with phallic radii, loi ; her Ephesus an assemblage of almost every symbol, like Isa and breasts, loi Brimo, the Scythian and Tauric Diana, the Destroyer, 102 appeased with human victims, 102 ; boys whipped at her altar in Sparta, 102 same as Hekate and Persephone, 102 styled Tauropola, figures at with ; many ; ; ; and Boon ; Elateia, the driver of bulls, 102 comprehended with the Celestial Venus, Europa, and Astarti as the deity of the Moon, 103 represented winged on the ark of Cypselus, 103 ; riding on a griffin, 103 represented on coins accompanied by a dog, 113 called also Bendeia and Dictynna, 130 her bust upon a comucopiae held by Cybele, 145 ; the palm-tree sacred to her and Apollo, 152. ; ; ; ; ; Roman, their bodies painted red at triumphs, 120. DidumiBus, a designation of Apollo, 82, 98, gg, 144, 148. Diespiter, or Father of Day, a Cretan name of the supreme god, 70. Dinos, the principle of circular motion in the universe, held and taught by Socrates and Diagoras, 60. Dictators, Diomedes, his hippai, or mares, an order of priestesses, 80. Dionl, the female Zeus, or Dis, 23, 28 ; mother of Venus, 28 Zeus at the ancient oracular associated with ; temple of Dodona, 28, 171. Dionysus, ste Bacchus. Dioscuri, the great gods, g6 ; said to brothers of Helen, g6, 157 be Castor and Pollux, deified mortals and born from an egg, 96, 157 wore the Phrygian cap, surmounted with stars or asterisks, 116, 157; confounded with the ; ; ancient personifications of the diurnal and nocturnal sun, or the morning and evening star, 158 originally Phoeaician divinities, 157 described by Sanchoniathon as the Cabeiri, Corybantes, and Samothracians, who first invented ; ; the mystic ship, or boat, 157. Diphues, a title of Bacchus, denoting his androgynous nature, 90, 99. Disa, or Isa, the Scandinavian goddess, represented between two serpents, 15 ; represented by a pyramid surmounted by the cross and circle, 70 resem; blance to Diana, loi ; the reindeer sacrificed to her, loi enveloped in a net, 146 ; ; a conical figure the golden heifer her symbol, 147. Disk, winged, and two asps placed over the porticoes of Egyptian temples, 15 also on Carthaginian coins, 76 ; represented the sun, 130. ; Dithyrambus and Thriambus, names of Bacchus, to. Diurnal Sun, Apollo, 94 legend confounded with the story of Castor and Pol; lux, 157. Diviana, Etruscan name of Diana, loi. Index. 204 — honors conferred on at the Greater Mysteries, 4 honors paid to serpents, 14 JIacedonian kings of Syria and Egypt, 7 nature, all animals and even vegetables supposed to be impregnated Divine truths disclosed ; ; — with, 41 ; — honors — — ; — mind, the human — emblems, implements the blood, 119 — Wisdom, per- paid to animals in Egypt, 44 ; soul supposed to be an emanation, 45, 118; supposed war, 115 ; sonified by Neith and Athene, particle Diviners, of North America, Divus, or DiFos, the title make to reside in of ; 127, I2g. girdles and chapleta of serpents, 14. Roman Emperor, and of a deified, or canonised, also a person canonised by the early Christians, 174. Dodona, the seat of the most ancient oracular temple, and presided over by Zeus, or Jupiter, and Dione, the parents of Aphrodite, 28, 171 Pelasgian, or, rather, Druidical, 47 who pretended Selli, 48 to ; responses delivered by them from oaks, receive the site said to have been selected ; ; oracle or priests women replaced the priestess of Amun, from 47, 48 by a Selli, ; Egypt, 48. accompanies Diana, 113; the symbol of Hermes, Mercury, and Anubis, 113 the Greeks said to have mistaken the name of the animal, kuon, for sacred to Mars, 116. that of a priest, cohen, 113 ZJffo-, ; ; Dolphin, a female symbol, 66, 79, 176. Doric order, no; the only columns known to the ancient Greeks, and derived from the Nelumbo, or lotus, no. Double power, male and female, symbolised, 29, 98. See Androgynous. Double-Sexed Deity, 32; the Amazons, votaries, 32 ; Freya and the Paphian Venus, 32 symbolised, 34 the deities Hercules, Bacchus, Diana, 98 et passim. See Androgynous. ; ; Dove, a symbol of the double Cesnola Collection, 29 Mediator, 167. Dragon ; ; sex, 2g sacred to Aphrodite, 2g, 170; in the held by the Despoina, 79 ; on the head of the ; (see Serpent) of the .^Ether, Zeus, the father of Hebrew, Dionyisus Sabazius, 11 ) a Chinese device, 35 ; tan or tanin, in translated serpent, dragon, and whale, but probably means a carried as a military standard, 16 saurian, 72 ; form assumed by Jupiter when visiting the chamber of Kor8- ; Persephoneia, 156. Dramatic poetry originating from the ancient games, 152. Druids, the ancient priests of Britain, twenty years required to educate, 3 employed the disk and serpents, 15 Dodona an oracle, 49 a gloomy hierr ; ; archy, 50. Dijden, the poet, believed in judicial astrology, and computed the horoscope of his son, 52, Dseus, Deus, or Zeus {eu diptliong), the supreme god, 2. Duel, as a deciding of civil dissensions and personal disputes, regarded as an appeal directly to the deity, 115. E. Eagle, the bird of Jupiter, 75 ; fighting a serpent, or destroying a hare, probably represented the destroying attribute, 75 ; alone, the symbol of creation, preservation, emblem, 88 ; and destruction, 75 a symbol of Egypt, and the heart the the fable of Prometheus thus explained by Bryant, 88 part ; ; ; Index. of a composite figure, 103 205 a symbol of deity, 170; the vehan of Siva, ; 177. Earth, regarded originally as an object of worship, De-meter or Ge-meter, i Mother Earth, 22; Ceres, the female or productive, power of, 23, 27; called by or Terra, and Coslum, the great gods of the ancient Germans Hertha, 23 — ; the Samothracian Mysteries, 24 ; Vesta, as well as Ceres, a personification, ; 27 ; sustained by the inmost spirit, 41 ; intoxicating exhalations produced prophetic enthusiasm, 46 ; supposed to have been acted upon by the allspirit through the moon, 81 periodically liable to destruction and creation, dissolution and renovation, 117. Echidna, a serpent, or giant, 14 mother of the Scythians, half woman and half pervading ; ; viper, 14. Ecstasy, enabled the fits of, the body, 45 human soul to pierce bej'ond the encumbrances of and inspired the Pythian priestesses ; — containing prophetic power, votaries of Bacchus, 45 ; 45. Eels, 176. Egersis, or revival of Adonis, celebrated at Athens, 88. Egg, the symbol of organic matter in its inert state, 13 ; carried in procession at the celebration of the Bacchic Mysteries, 13 ; consecrated in the Bacchic Mysteries as the image of that which generated and contained itself, 13 was ; it first, or the bird ? 13 — before ; 13 all ; things in the serpent round to express incubation, 14 symbol of a bull breaking the and animating the contents with his breath, denoted the creation of coiled shell all things, ; the world, 20 cap of the Dioscuri (the Phrygian cap) derived from, 116 ; j the psyche or butterfly appears in the form of a grub, 123. Eggs, and anchors, in the Ionic capital, beetle, 128 ; 1 — of the 10; Scarabseus, or black statue of Apollo sitting upon, 147. Egypt, see jEgypt. Egyptians, see Egyptians, Eilithyia, Diana, or the Moon, presiding over child-birth, 100. Elementary, the primitive religion supposed to have been, symbolical worship engrafted, 20 character, 68 tion of the Elephant, 18 the ; ; summary Athenian skin of, Hindu God of in the address of women i ; the mystic or Neptune, or Poseidon, not a deity of ; Agamemnon, and this in the invoca- celebrating the Thesmophoria, 165. depicted on Minerva's head, 136; the form of Ganesa Wisdom, 136 Elephanta, sculptured caverns in, 33 represented with bull's horns, 136. ; ; figure of a double-sexed or Amazonian deity, 33. Eleusis, Mysteries of (or Eleusinia), more celebrated than other under the guardianship of Ceres and Proserpina, 22 4, ; mysteries, 3 called also teletai, endings, ot finishes, 4 two degrees, 4 the first, or LESSER, a kind of holv purification, 4 ; the greater, a probation required, 4 ; in the greater, the ; ; was made acquainted with the first principles of religion, 4 the cock offered to .(Esculapius, 4 the end, the knowledge of God, and noetic or spiritual matters, 4 impiety to divulge anything thus learned, 5, 40 extremely difficult to Alcibiades condemned to death for such impiety, 5 initiate ; ; ; ; ; obtain accurate information of the doctrines, 5 ; the doctrines conveyed under allegories and symbols, 5 the completely-initiated called inspectors, Epoptai or Ephori (seers or clairvoyant), 5 said to have been introduced ; ; Index. 2o6 into Greece 175 years before the Trojan war, 11 declared by Plutarch to ; have been established by Eumolpus, II no trace of them in the Iliad ox Odyssey, ri Orphic Hymns were probably litanies used, 11 the phallus and ; ; ; its meaning revealed among the last discoveries to the initiated, 12 ; the ser- pent the great symbol, 14 dedicated to the female or passive powers of production, 22 statue of Bacchus, 26 said by Herakleitus to have been in; ; ; stituted (with the circular dance) against Athens, 34 ; by Eumolpus, who led the Amazons Diagoras, and probably Socrates, accused of atheism and calumniating the doctrines taught, 40 for revealing the Grecian worship that possessed any vitality, 40 the only part of ; preceded by solemn ablution, 121 symbol of the ram explained, 150. Emanations, the system based on the principle that all things were of one substance, from which they were fashioned, and into which they were again dissolved, 41 divine honors paid to animals and plants as being such, 41 a ; initiation ; ; ; augury originating from the system, 44 the human judicial astrology, 51-53; rays of light typified ; soul, 45 by ; the basis of obelisks, 69; el passim. Einhleras, see Symbols. Emperor, of China, sacrifices to the Sovereign of Heaven, 40. Emperors, Roman, the heads of, on coins, surrounded with a diadem of obelisks, or rays, in token of their deification, 69, 163. End of the Mysteries, the knowledge of God, etc., 4. England, ironical method proving William I. the Conqueror, and William to have been the same person, 107. Enigma and III., et passim. fable, the custom of the ancients, 5 Enthusiasm, enabled the human soul to pierce beyond the encumbrance of the body, 45 felt by the Pythian priestesses and inspired votaries of Bacchus, ; ; produced at Delphi by exhalations from the earth, 46 women were 45 capable of the delirium, 46 of the Greeks, of the gay and festive kind, 50. ; ; ; Epaphus, the mystic God, the same as Apis, and son of Jupiter and lo, 36. Epidauriaiis, kept a serpent to represent yEsculapius, 15. Epoptai, Ephori, inspectors, or seers, the candidates inducted into the Greater Mysteries, as having learned the Erichthonius, a deified hero, 14 ; wisdom of the Gods, 4, 5. offspring of Athene, or Minerva, and He- phaistos, 77. Eros, love, or attraction, a character of Priapus, 13 Night, 13 ; the father of gods and men, 13 ; ; sprung from the Egg of the mystic Bacchus, 22 ; celestial love, 38. Erythrcean, or Arabian sea or ocean, the Egyptian symbols derived from some people beyond, log. Eryx, in Sicily, temple of the Phoenician Astarte, or Venus Erycina, 55 a the deity worshipped by Roman ; thousand sacred prostitutes kept there, 55 women, ; 55. Etruscans, communicated their religion and language to the Romans, 51. Euhemerus, fraudulently solved the myths as historical, 162, 177 derived considerable credit from the disgraceful example of Macedonian kings and ; Roman emperors, 164. Eumolpus, an old sacerdotal bard, 11 Eleusinian mysteries, 1 1 ; said ; said by Plato to have introduced the have led the Amazons to Athens, by Plutarch to Index. 34 ; 34 ; mentioned by Clement 20,7 one of the Hyk-sos, or shepherds of Egypt, as credited by Herakleitus with having instituted the Eleusinian Mys- teries, 34. Eusebiiis, gave the example by which ecclesiastical writers justified holy lying, 164. Euivpa, transportation to Crete, 65 the daughter of Agenor or Belus, the Phoenician god, 65 ; the same as Astarte, the deity of the Moon, Diana ; and the Celestial Venus, 103. Europe, perforated beads found sepulchral monuments, 75 31 in, ; oracle established, 49; image of Isa ; the in North on the lion like of that Diana, loi. Evergreens, Dionysiac plants, symbols of the generative power and im- i. e., mortality, 32. Evil, Ahriman the potentate, 62, 72 ; Typhon or Seth, 71 material ; 71 fire, ; supposed to be a self-existing property, 72 the cask, 73. Exanetus, of Agrigentum, won the race in the ninety-second Olympiad, 153. Execration, unknown to the public worship of the ancients, 39. ; Expiatory, the Egyptian sacrifices, 50 ping of the Spartan boys at Alea, and human ; the bloody rites of Brimo, the whip- at the altar of Diana, and of the Arcadian Eye of Horus, struck out and swallowed by Typhon, /, the digamma, 58, 59. 58, 157. occupied the place of historical truth in the earlier accounts of Fables, poetical, nations, 2 all women sacrifices, 102. ; the ancients wrapped up in enigma their thoughts concern- and Odyssey make no and bear no trace of the symbolical style, II of the Sun sucking of the Amazons, 33 of Bacchus, born at Thebes, 35 the white cow AdunibU, 36 of the birth of Horus while both his parents were in the womb of their mother Rhea, 58 of Ariadne, 66 of Atys and Adonis, 67 of Ganymedes, the lines in the Iliad spurious, 86 of Jupiter and Europa, 103 of future existence, incoherent, made up by the Greeks from various sources, 124 mention made by Virgil, 125 Greek, 159, 162 ; ing nature, or the origin of things, 6 mention of the mystic ; the Iliad deities, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; based on the doctrine of Emanations, 177. Fairies driven away by church bells, 133. Fanaticism of the )Q^-a, 41. Fanina, the Phceaix of the North, 86. Fasting required in the performing of religious rites, 175. Venus, or Aphrodite-Urania, declared to be the most ancient, Fortune one of them, 84. sculptured, 73 Fates, the Celestial 63 ; ; Father, of gods and men, Eros, Attraction, or Priapus, 13 ; the Pan-genetor, 12; the mystic Bacchus, or first-begotten love, Eros Protogonos, 21 Mysteries dedicated to him, 22 of, self-generated, 22 ; ^ther ; or Jupiter, 23 Kronos, or Saturn, Ouranus, or Heaven, 25 non, ro5 God, 169. ; Fauns and — satyrs, the ; the Orphic Kronos, or Zeus, the unknown, 22 ; ; of Ouranos, Akmon, of All, invoked by goat-symbol partly humanised, 21, 79, 140. ; mind 24 ; of Agamem ; Index. 2o8 power, personified by the Celestial Venus, i<ctnale principle, or deity, or passive or Great Mother, 20, 2S the Mysteries dedicated to, 22 ; Juno, Dione, and Hertha, 23 fication, also Omnipotent Father, 23 Rhea, ; Isis, Ceres, a personi- ; by j^ther, the the fecundation ; Astarte, and Ops, 24 water a general ; Vesta, as well as Ceres, a personification, 27 ; Cybele, the ; Universal Mother, the more general personification, 27, 193 ; enigmatical symbol, 25, 42 and representations, the Concha Veneris, fig-leaf, barley-corn, 28 29 letter Delta, ; the dove, or pigeon, sparrow, and, perhaps, the polypus, also symbols, ; the cross, or tau, a symbol, 30 also the myrtle, 32 ; ; Amazons, wor- shippers of the Great Mother, 34 the cow-symbol, 35 Adumbla, 36 Isa, 37 supposed to possess a peculiar divine virtue, 47 personified by My; ; ; Assyria, litta in of ; ; and Aphrodite all things, also bol, 63 in the square, labyrinth, and ; Greece, 54 Night, or Athyr, the source a square stone the primitive sym; a personification, 56 ; fish, all symbols, 66 ; Ariadne, a personi- 67 personified by the ancient goddess Hippa, 79 also by the Ephesian Diana, 81, 89, 91, gg, 101 by Venus and Libera, 83 and by Isis, 83 personified by Isa, or the cat and the rabbit also symbols, 100 fication, ; ; ; ; ; ; Disa, lOl ; represented by the lotus, 110; ihe fish on coins, or as part of the composite figure of Derceto, a lepresentation, iii symbol, 113 I33i 134 ; tions, 141 also the aegis, or goat-skii-., 130 ; figured by aquatic plants, 136 ; Venus-Architis, 149 ; ; the pomegranate a and the nymphs considered chariot, as emana- Syrian goddess, 166. Proserpina the goddess Fertility, or fecundity, ; the boat ; of, 83. May, among the ancient Britons and Hindus, 12 the country-feast of Bacchus and Phallephoric procession, 30 crosses worn at in honor of the gods, 32 deemed by Plato a time when allowable Festival, great phallic, the 1st of ; ; ; to drink wine to — drunkenness, 45 ; the Juul, or Yule, in Scandinavia, a boar offered to Frey, 87. Fig, an emblem of the Male Principle, 29 borne in the processions of Bac- ; chus, 30. Fig-leaf, an enigmatical representation of the most distinctive characteristic of the female sex, 2S. Fillet, or diadem, the badge of sovereignty, 32 ; borne by Chryses, the jiriest of Apollo, 32. Filtering-vase, the representation of Canobus, 121. Fir, consecrated to Pan, 48, Fire, the element supposed to contain the male or active productive principle of nature, 25 the principle of motion, 26, 127 touching it a part of the marriage ceremony among the Romans, 26 perpetual, consecrated by ; ; ; Nuina as the first of all things and the soul of matter, 2U the principal temples, 26 at Delphi, 26 power ; ; adored everywhere, 26 ; ; personified ; preserved in all f.ctive or male — the sacred, the only symbol of the Persians of by personification, 116, 126 Proserjiina, 83 ; ; their Vulcan, or Hephaistos, the general set free the soul, the agency of dissolution of all things, all consecrated, on the altar held by the Hindus to be the essence of in nature, 26 god, 61 ; 117 ; ablution, or baptism, 121 and necessary for the complete dis- solution of the body, that the spirit or vital principle (nous) might receive complete emancipation, 117, 118, 119 ablution, or baptism, amystic representation of this purification by fire after death, 121 purification by the ; ; Index. of Baal fire still among in use which the soul passed from one ing things, Krishna, 135 — ; of a sulphurous nature, 135 ; Rhea, 24 ; Fi>sl,of the goddesses, connected with cession of it by a chain Roman women Hindus and the did not signify burning alive, 122 209 — supposed ; 122 Irish, to state to another, 126 torch carried this in the bodies of liv- ; supposed to impregnate electric, probably ; be the medium through by the elephant rain, and to be as a symbol, 136. — of the deities, Osiris, 37 cause, all existence of April, phallephoric pro- of gradation, 52 to the ; — ; temple of Astarte. or Venus Erycina, 55. First-Begotten, Love, Eros, Cupid, or Attraction, the Mystic Bacchus, 21, 36 167; the Orphic Mysteries in commemoration, 22. See Only Son, Bac- chus, etc. upon coins, a symbol of the female sex, 66, 158 KrSnos, a figure of a winged horse terminating in, 78; Ceto, the effigy of Dagon, a ship, 80 story of Jonah, 80 Derceto (Atargatis, the Venus of Ascalon), represented like a woman, with the lower extremities like a tail, iii the Triton (Dagon or Ceto), 112 in the hair of the jegis, 130; springing from the temples of a Fis/i, ; ; ; ; ; bust of Apollo Didymteus, 144 ; kept temple of the Syrian goddess, at the symbol of consecration, etc., 176. Flame, or gloiy, imitated by the hair of Proserpina, 83 of sulphur, employed or nous, a vital spark, 118 172 ; ; Flower, of the lotus or Nymphaa nelumbo, white, 105 base of the Hindu lingam, 105 ; in the three orders of architecture, log capital, no ; — heavenly, the ; — hand of soul, in purification, 135. the upper part of the ; Isis, 105 the basis of the ; petals of the honeysuckle in the Ionic ; symbolised the female sex. III ; — of the pomegranate, pre- figured the male generative attribute, 112. Flowers, crowns of, substituted for laurel and sacred plants, at entertainments considered an act of luxury, not of devotion, 32. Fly, an emblem of the Destroying Attribute, 8g ; Baal-Zebub, or Jupiter Fly, 89. Fohi, a Chinese deity, 60. Force and Wisdom, divine, represented by Neith, and Athene, or Bellona, Forehead, a third eye in that of the statue of Jupiter, 73 Scandinavian deity, 73 ; also of the perhaps of the Cyclopes, Forgeries, numberless, Hindu god orMaha Siva, 127. also of Thor, the ; Deva, 73 ; 73. 164; letter of Alexander to his mother, 164. Fortune, 84 ; one of the Fates, 84 ; statue by Bupalus, 84. Frenzy, enthusiastic, at the Orgies, 49 the women more susceptible, 49. fabled to Frey. the deity of the Sun, and mourned by the Scandinavians, 85 ; ; have been killed by a boar, and hence a boar offered to him at the Yule- feast, 87. Freya, the Scandinavian goddess (Friday) named from Venus double-sexed. 32 Frogs around the sacred palm at nant, 112 ; ; week ; the female principle, 151. Fruit of the pomegranate, consecrated to Proserpina, 112 instance of Pluto, 112 the day of the ; a personage of the Northern Triad, 189. Delphi, to denote the sun fed by humidity, or her, 146 eaten by the goddess Nana, abstained from rigidly by women ; eaten by her at the who thus became preg- celebrating the Thesmophoria, 112. Futurity, the darkness of, soul entire liberty, 46 ; penetrated by giving the celestial faculties of the oracles, 46 ; judicial astrology, 51. 2 1 o Index. O, or gatnma^ changed to C in Latin, as Geres to Ceres, 23. acknowledged by the Chaldceans as a subordinate emanation, and named from the meaning (man of God or divine man), 34 afterward adopted by the Jews during their captivity, and engrafted as an angel upon Gabriel, ; the Mosaic System, 54. Games, Olympic, victors crowned with oleaster, or wild victors crowned with laurel, olive, etc., 32 part of the very ancient games at Delos, 152 honorary rewards, 153, 154 a blessed ; life olive, 18 ; grecian simple mimicr}' forming a ; olive, ; fir, and apples, the promised by Plato to victors, 153- of Wisdom, son of Maha Deva, always accompanied by image found in an Egyptian temple, near Djirjeh, 109 represented by the figure of an elephant half-humanised, 136. Ganymcdes, cup-bearer of Jupiter, fictitious, 86 a mighty genius who regulated the overflowing of the Nile, 86 same as Atys, Adonis, and Bacchus, 86. Garmr, the dog, the slayer of Tyr, or Tuisco, the devourer, 116. Ganesa, the a rat, Hindu god 92 ; his ; ; ; Geese, sacred to Priapus, 142. Gemeter, said by Diodorus to be the same as Demeter, 22. Gems, figures of Amazons on, 34 of Zeus and Minerva, and an Hebrew inscripdevices, 143. tion from the Bible, 129 ; ; Genaidai, the companions of Venus, 28. Generative power or principle, see Phallus, and Active or Male Principle. Bacchus, 79. Cenetullides, the companions of Venus, 28. Generator, of Light, Apollo, 69 Genius, Ganymedes, 86 ; the soul, the divine emanation supposed to have the ; direction of each individual, Germany, mystic A vesta Ghehers, or Parsees, the Giants (earth-born), wars 14 of, 6 war with the gods, 72 ; and to be finally emancipated by fire, 118. lore, 3 their ritual, 62. the serpent-mother of the Scythians, so-called, ; ; Apop, or Aph-ophis, of Egypt, so-called, 72. Scandinavian name of the earth, 37. Girgik, temple near, containing images of Juggernaut, Ganesa, and Vishnu, 109. Gio, or lo, the Gladiator, the fighting, 140. Gnosis, or knowledge, a designation of the mystical doctrines, 4. symbol of the Active Male Principle, and generative powei, 21 fauns and a sacred animal in Egypt, 21 symbol of the god Pan, 21, 140; the Grecian Aphrodite sitting on one, 29 satyrs, fauns, and paniski, caprine, Goat, ; satyrs, 21 ; ; ; on a monument with Anubis, 11.3 140; composite figure, 81, 82, 95 women tendering their persons at Mendes, 142 Jupiter suckled by one, 78, ; ; ; on gems, 143 Isa riding one, 169. by skipping about, indicated the site of the Oracle at Delphi, 46 female. figures of, adorned a mystic tomb, cista, or chest at Rome, 96 held sacred at Mendes. Goat-skill, the ^gis, or breast-plate worn by Minerva, Jupiter, and Apollo, 130 143 ; ; Goats, ; ; 1; Index. 131 probably symbolical, 131 ; ception, 143 Juno ; 2 Roman women whipped ; 81 figure, ornaments of the hearse of Alexander the Great, 4 — of Nature the and regularity in (the Creator) unfolded in the Greater Mysteries, supreme, of the Ophites, ; among effigies ; 81. God, a supreme, suggested by general predominance of order ; con- to assure Sospita, 143. Goat-elephant, or Trag-elephas, a composite the universe, 2 1 16 self-generated mind, ; 22 the same ; adored by Hindus and Christians, 40 tutelar deities and subordinate spirits, his mediators, 44 the oak his symbol, 47 called by the Cretans ; ; Lticetius and ; Diespiter, 70 ; the eagle the symbol, 75 God of Destruction, in India, gS. God of the Waters, Osiris, gS Bacchus, Goddess, Ino, a daughter of Cadmus, first, 20 24 ; ; Brahm, 177. gS. ; Lilith, ; 11 the Celestial Venus, Alilat, ; Mother, Deva-matri, or Demeter, 22 or Hertha, 23 Rhea, the of Love, or desire, Venus, Kypris, or Aphrodite (of the Greek — ; ; Eeinos, or Binos, 28 Venus, symbolised by the planet, 30 Venus, the sexual attribute expressed by the cow, 36 of Nature, Isa, 37 Hippa, her name by paronomasia, the source of the legends and sym- pantheon), 28 ; ; ; — and centaurs, 7g bols of horses ; — of — ; destruction, Proserpina, 82 ; — of 84 Diana, of the Moon, gg of Force and Wisdom, Neith, Bellona, or Athene, 127 Scandinavian, Isa or Disa, death, Libitina, 83 ; Isis, 83, ; ; — ; 147 ; Venus-Architis, I4g peculiar worship, 166. 136, the Syrian, her temple at Hierapolis, ; Gods, their actions intermixed with those of nations, 2 ; in the earliest traditions of their fa^ror or anger assisted or obstructed the achievements of renowned warriors, Universe, 2 men and ; 2 ; Supreme, suggested by order and regularity in the such ineffable personage called Zeus, Dseus, or Deus, before the dignity of that character was debased by the poets, 2 ; — Father, Priapus, crowns of laurel, olive, etc., worn at guardians to mortal men, 32 sacrifices and feasts in their honor, 32 their worship declared by Krishna to be the worship of himself, 41 Numa forbade the Romans to represent them under any form, 63 war Eros, or the Mystic Bacchus, 13, 21 ; ; ; ; ; with giants, 72 boats, 134; of Egypt and Babylon, were carried in arks or sacred ; sacrifices, men who names conferred on men, 153 ; perished in boxing, so regarded, 153; children on women, 158 ; at — begetting Hierapolis, 167 in Hindustan, 177. Gold Coast of Africa, cow revered as a sacred symbol, 36. ; Golden Heifer of the Muscovites, probably a symbol of the goddess Disa, or Isa, 147- Good ?ji6. Evil, regarded as a necessary mixture of all the Mysteries, 71 ; fire in the world, 71 ; the efficient principle of both, 71 the doctrine ; personified by Osiris and Typlion, 71 represented also by Ormazd and Ahriman, Zosignified by the roaster and ZohakJ, 72 similar doctrine in India, 72 war of the gods and giants, 72 a false notion to consider them as inherent properties, 72 distributed by Jupiter from two casks, 73. Gorgon, or Medusa, a symbol of the Moon, 130 the female personification of the Disk, 130 a barbarian title of Minerva, 130 regarded by Bryant as a symbol of the divine wisdom, personified as Metis or Medusa, 130. Gospel, the Hindus contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Shastras, 39 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; 2 2 1 Index. 1 Grapes, leopards accompanying Bacchus devouring go clusters, wolf devour ; ing, 89. Great Gods, of the Samothracian Mysteries, said to be Coelum and Terra, 24 Castor and Pollux, the same as Bacchus and Apollo, so distinguished, 96. Cybele, 9 Great Mother, designation of navel-stone her symbol, 47 ; Deva-matr, 22 ; Nympha, called also the omphalos or ; 47. Great Pyramid, 117. Great Whole, the luminaries of heaven and the smallest reptiles that elude the sight alike integral parts, 52 Divine Impulse, 52 Women, Grecian ; general ; movement derived from the first prediction and astrology thence deduced as an art, 52. their general state of reserve and 49 ; their extrav- agant religious enthusiasm at the Orgies of Bacchus, 49 ; their savage restraint, ferocity, 49. and consisted of a worship of the Greeks, their primitive religion elementary, Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, and Waters, or rather of the over them, I found ; a Hercules in every country, 2 presiding spirits worshipped the ; Supreme God, as Zeus, Dseus, or Deus, 2 their poets preserved the Homeric, knowledge of their sacred mythology, 3 their Mysteries, 6 estimated value by weight, 5 received the name and rites of Dionysus, or Bacchus, from Melampus, 10 said to have derived the Mystic religion ; ; — ; ; ; from Orpheus, 11 did not generally know the rites of initiation and worship of Bacchus until after the Trojan war, 11, 124; represented the ; phallus alone, 12 ; personified of Gods and Men, 13 in serpents, 14 cessions, 15 ; ; it as Priapus, the Eros, or Attraction, Father deified heroes represented with bodies terminating egg and phallus borne with a serpent in their Mystic pro- ; used a composite figure of the Mystical Serpent, 16 the image of the bull Epaphus on their coins, 18, 36 ; bore represented the ; Mystic Bacchus as a bull, or composite, 19 denominated the first of the employed lamps as symbols on coins, 26 called the ; goddesses, Rhea, 24 ; ; Universal Mother of the Phrygians Cybele or Kubele, from the cubic form of her statues, 27 their idea of the ; symbolical probably borrowed from the image at Ele- animals, 29 Amazon, or double-sexed figure ; phanta, 33 ; probably the source of much of the Hindu mythology, 37 never presumed to think attainable an adequate knowledge of the number ; or attributes of the gods, but worshipped them all, Socrates their only martyrs to religion, except those or insulted the Mysteries, 40 3S ; who Diagoras and actively violated their attributed sanctity to groves, 48 enthusiasm generally of the gay and festive kind, 50 their temples filled with dances, 50 employed wine in their sacred rites, 50 brought judicial astrology from Babylon, but paid little attention to it, 53 maintained ; ; ; ; ; ; sacred prostitutes in the temples, 55 ; personified Night as the goddess Leto, or Latona, and Baubo, 56 never regarded speculative theories impious ; unless they tended to reveal the Mystic doctrines or disprove the ex- most ancient temples circular, 61 a square stone their primitive symbol of the Celestial Venus, 63 had little information of the British Islands, 69 employed the eagle and lion as symbols, istence of a deity, 60 ; their ; ; ; represented Mars by a boar, 87 made the ass a symbol, 88 knew nothing of the Phoenician Hercules in the Homeric times, 93 considered 75 ; ; ; ; Bacchus as the god of the waters, also as the patron of wine, 98 ; consid- 3 Index. Moon ered the as the who tempered world, 102 sacrifices, 1 Mediatress between the celestial and terrestrial in generation the subtility of aethereal spirit to the grossness of earthly matter, so as to human 2 ; make them unite, gg, lOO ; resorted to received the worship of Serapis from the Ptolemies became acquainted with Egypt in the reign of Psamborrowed architecture from Egypt, log only knew the Doric order in very ancient times, no; represented Juno and Mars by a staff and spear, 114 took oaths by implements of war, 115 adopted the Phrygian cap as a symbol of freedom, 116; burned the bodies of their dead, 117; regarded Vulcan as the husband of Charis in the primitive of Alexandria, 104 metichus, 106 ; ; ; ; ; and of Venus in the Mystic, 126 had little trumpets at the wore bells at the orgies of Bacchus, with phalli, lunute, probably found composite figures when they first settled in etc., 133 Western Asia, which they exaggerated into monsters, 144 knew not the order of days of the week, 145 , adopted the legendary tales of other system, ; Bacchanalia, 132 ; ; ; nations, I5g, Diana riding upon, 44 Griffin, Grove, sacred, of Dodona another kind on the helmets of Minerva, I2g. ; the oaks gave the reponses, 47 ; sanctity attributed to groves by barbarians of the North and the Greeks, 48 any sacred place, though destitute of set up all trees, 48 ; ; designation of symbols of Venus-Astarte over Palestine, 4g. H. Halaldur, son of Odin, 122. name of Pluto, the Hades, Afides, Aides, the ancient lord of the Underworld, 104. Halios, chief of all the gods, the royal sun, 37. Hand, priapic, 30. Hare, probably the emblem of fertility, 175. Harmonia, wife of Cadmus, changed to a serpent, 108. Harmony of the world produced by the contention and mixture of good and the succession of production and destruction, 82 represented by evil, 71 ; ; the lyre supported by two goat-lions, 82 ; of the universe, like that of a bow or harp alternately tightened and relaxed, 71. Hawk, the Egyptian emblem of power, symbol of Osiris and Typhon, 74. Health, serpent an accessoi-y symbol to guardian deities, 14, 175. Heart, the symbol of Egypt, 88 ; the symbol of man morally, iig. Heat, the male or active principle, personified also by Diana, gg. Heaven, Apis conceived by a ray from, ig ; personified as Ouranos, 24 emascu- ; Lord of, sacrificed to by the Emperor of by Kronos or Time, 25 China, 40 birds and animals acting by the immediate impulse of, 55 dreams descend to instruct men, 56 heights of disposed by Isis, 83. Hetii, goddess of youth, wedded to Hercules, q3. Hebrews, the ancient, at no time from their emigration to their captivity subject to the kings of Egypt, 43 probably descended from the Hyk-sos race, lated ; ; ; ; ; 43 ; Rabbi H'ecatS, or Hillel Hanassi invented their present chronology, log. Hekate, her Mysteries at jEgina instituted by Orpheus, 11 her symbol, 113. Heifer, golden, an idol of the Muscovites, 147 ; the doj» 4 2 ; Index. 1 Helen, the divinities Castor and Pollux her brothers, g6 to die because of possessing, 125 Heliocentric system, known by same ; Menelaus decreed not Moon, 157. ; as Selene, the and Chaldeans, and taught the Egyptians to the savans of Greece, 60. abode of the bull Mnevis, Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, in Egypt, the — or Baalbek, in Syria, name Helios, the Attic ig, 35 ; vibrating stones seen there, 148. of the sun, substituted for Eelios in the Odyssey, 126. Hell, Milton's, taken from the Tartarus of Hesiod, 125. Hephaistos, Phtha, or Vulcan. See Vulcan. Herald, bears the staff or sceptre, 114. Hercules (tutelar deity, from Sanskrit, Heri, lord or deity, and culyus, a state or tribe), Greeks and Romans found one in every country, 2 called also Mel-Karth, the lord of the city (Tyre), 2 or Saturn, and Jupiter Sabazius, 16 ; crowned with ; the ; same oleaster, 17 Phoenician, as Kronos, the Grecian ; hero, overcame the Amazons, 34 caught the bull from Crete, 66 the lion his symbol, 75 ; picture of, destroying a Centaur, 82, gi lion's skin, 87, ; ; ; 143 destroying the Hydra, g2 ; ; the Phoenician, the lion humanised, g2 and the Grecian confounded, g3 the hero of the Iliad and Odyssey a mere man, g3 terminated the same as Mars and Apollo, g3 his adventures ; ; ; his expeditions Saviour, 98 and the extremity of the West, g6, g7 in represented with womanish features, 159 ; ; ; called Soter or fables of Omphale lole, 159. name HerS, the Greek of Juno, 23 ; the of Venus, 2g title also ; also of Ceres Demeter also of Athene. See Juno. Hermaic pillars, four-square, 63 statues the peculiar mode of making them learned by the Athenians from the Pelasgians, 114, 149. Hermaphrodite, the form of statues of Venus-Architis and the Paphian godor ; — ; dess, 149. Hermes (see Thoth and Mcrcun'), styled Pompceus, the oracle ipm-phe), 47 used the sinews of nearly related to Hephaistos or Vulcan, 126 ; ; lus, as being the messsenger of Typhon same for harp-strings, 82 as Casmilus, or ; Kadmi- or Kadmiel, of the Samothracian Mysteries, 150. Herm-Herakles, 126. Heroes furnish the materials for history, 2; first manifestation as the Hindu avatars, 159 ; deified, 159; or /imj, same of the Iliad, 160. Hertha, the ancient earth-goddess of the Germans, 23. HierapoUs, the holy city, called also the Bambyke, the city where Atar-gatis, or Venus, the Syrian goddess, had her principal temple, 74, iir, 166 liar delineations, worship, ; pecu- etc., 172. Hierarchies of the North, performed human sacrifices. Hierarchy, the great Northern, at Upsal, in Sweden, 20 the Egyptian knowledge of the hieroglyphics supposed to have perished with, 42 permanent, 127 the Hindu, 180. ; ; ; Hieroglyphics, symbolical characters used by the Egyptians, 7, 42. Highlanders, in the army of the Pretender, swore by their weapons, 115. High Priest, at Jewish festivals, 132 ; bells on raiment, 133 ; at the sacred boat-festival, 134. mounds, or high places, called tombs of the deities, 96 Mercury, piles of stones by the sides or intersections of roads, 148, 149. Hillocks, sacred, the ; 5; Index. 2 Hindus, have voluminous poetical cosmogonies, 3 lingam as a symbol of the universal generator, still ; of May by a rosary, ; 31 reverence for the Cow, 36 ; in the ; dancing-girls, or Devadasis, in their temples, 55 Juggernaut a pyramidal stone, 70 Rama, who resembles Hercules, 94 ; still ; Moon by symbolise the a bull, 102 133 ; burn the bodies of ; ; Dekkan, maintained their idol in the temple of ; three-eyed god, 73 ; have a deity, call the Jumna the daughter of the the rabbit, 100 their dead, 117 drawn by the Destroyer ; have bells on their ; practice the anointing of sacred stones, 148 name of one of their deities, 155 the Lotus and hooded snake, 109, 179 character of their art, 180, 181. Hindu women^ statues, ; when give a child, ; ten originated the symbols of ; taught transmigration, 179 ; peculiar all, 79 the nurse of Bacchus and Soul of the the horse a symbol, as a pun on the word hippa, 79 ; wor- ; ; shipped in Thessaly and Thrace with the same ; carry the lingam in procession between two serpents, 15. Hippa, signifies the parent of World, 79 ; use ; express combinations of attributes by symbols loosely connected, 144 days old, the the first represent the naga, or serpent, with five heads, 16 be the essence of the active or male power in Nature, 26 fire to Sun, 98 the phallus, or celebrate the ; a great phallic festival, 12; employ as a symbol the cobra de capella, or hooded snake, i5 hold employ 12, 142 1 80 as Cybele, name given the ; and chanting, 80 rites of fire the principal goddesses, 113 to ; : the personification of femininity, 113. Hippai, priests of Hippa, 79 the mares of Euraelus and Diomecles, 80. Hippia, a title of the goddess Athene, 76, 80. ; by Neptune, 79 Hippios, designation of the daughter of Ceres ; a of the title gods Poseidon, or Neptune, Mavs, Dionysus, 80. Hippocrates, asserted that the Sarmatian taught that castrated men were Hippon, defined by Hesychius, HipponooSy the original name women extirpated the right breast, 33 ; never bald, 79. 79. of Bellerophon, 76. Hippopotamus, or river horse, symbol of Typhon, 74. men, 2 History, earliest, actions of gods intermixed with those of by Sanchoniathon, "pretended," ; Phoenician 163. Honeysuckle, an architectural ornament, no. Hea, or Oannes, supposed to be identical with Dagon and Poseidon, 68. Hooded Snake (see Phoenicians, Cobra de Capelld), the mystical serpent of the Hindus, and Egyptians, 16 ; associated with the winged disk, 76 borrowed from the Hindus, 109, 172. j%io^ of Attraction, 120, 128, 142. Horned Bull, a temple or palace of in China, 20 over Hindustan, 20 ; treated with brians and Scandinavians, ; — revered in Japan and all equal honor in the West by the Cim- etc., 20. Hornet, the Hyk-sos, or shepherds, from Egypt, 43. Horse, sacred to Neptune and the rivers, 76 winged, Pegasus, 76 humanised signified a pun on the name of the goddess Hippa, 79 a ship, 79, 80 ; ; as the Centaur, 77 ; ; ; a part of the composite symbol of the griffin, 129. Horus, the Apollo of Egypt, 57 the son of Osiris and Isis, born while they were in the womb of their mother, Rhea, 58 his statue at Coptos, 58 his ; ; ; eye smitten out and swallowed by Typhon, 59 ; he and his priests wear a 6 2 ; Index. 1 the the bone of, 59 Greek Charon, 134 enclosed in single lock of hair on the right side of the head, 59 mundane house of, 64 the origin of the ; ; ; ; the ark, 168. 'TAfA {hulfd), and 'TAM (hule), 138. Human sacrifices, made to the Minotaur, Hamitic nations, 65 ; 64 common among ^Ethiopian or performed by the stem Brimo, 102 also by the Greeks and Romans, 102 ; whipping offered northern hierarchies, 102 ; ; to ; the Lacedasmonian boys and the Arcadian women as substitution, 102 ; ex- by Ahaz and other Jewish kings, 122 Abraham and by the Carthaginians and other nations, 123 piatory, 102 offered said to be offered ; ; ; Jephthah, 123. Humidity, personified by Neptune, 78 ; lizard, the symbol, 91 called the outflowing or emission of Osiris, 98 ; ; everything moist personified by Diana, 99 represented the female principle, 151. Hundred-handed, 144. Hundred-headed, 144. Hydra, a Hindu symbol, 75 many-headed Naga, 92 Sun entering of the Hercules destroying, 92 a reproduction of the the destruction by Hercules referring to the ; ; ; into the zodiacal sign near the constellation of that name, 92. Hyes, or Hues, a name of Bacchus, Hygeia, mound 95. Athens, 80. at Hyk-s$s, or shepherds, the hornets of the Old Testament, 43 ; expelled from by Josephus to have been the ancestors of the the same view accepted by Prof. Lesley, 43 said to have Israelites, 43 been Phoenicians, Arabians, and Hellenes or Greeks, 74 perhaps the progenitors of the Libyan Cyclopean shepherds, 74. Hymn to Osiris, 37 to Demeter, 84 to -4.pollo, 159. Hymns, Orphic, appear to have been invocations, or litanies, used in the their date long subsequent to the Homeric times, 12 Mysteries, 11 identify Prometheus with Kronos, or Saturn, 88. Hyperboreans, said to have founded the oracle at Delphi, 46 said by Hecatasus to inhabit an island beyond Gaul, where Apollo was worshipped in a circu- Egypt into Syria, 43 ; said ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; lar temple, 68 I. lacchus, a name — or variant of Bacchus, 9 Sabazius, the serpent-deity of the Sabazius, a variant reading of Jaho-Tzabaoth, 69 ; not the Mysteries, i5 ; ; Theban Bacchus, 150 ; associated, bearing a torch, with Demeter and Proserpina, 157. lamblichus, the Alexandrian Platonist, declared invocation in the Egyptian and Assyrian dialects pleasing to the gods, 38 allegories of the Egyptians to an entirely ; attempted to adapt the ancient new system, 43. lao an emanation of Ilda-Baoth, and the spirit of a planet, 16 ancient mystic Roman Ice, or laon, an ; of Bacchus, 95 ; probably the origin of the god Janus, 95 ; the god of the Jews, 132. title held by the ancient nations of the North to be the source of name all organised the goddess Isa, 37 ; the primitive state of water, 147 sonified by the goddess Isa, or Disa, 147. being, 56 ; of the ; per- ; Index. 217 proved the years of the world and the whole present chronology of the Jews an invention of the Rabbi Hillel Hanassi, 344 A.D., 109. Jdeler^ women Idol, of, dancing-girls in the Hindu temples, 55 the temple of Jug- in ; gernaut a pyramidal stone, 70. Hindu, holding a radiated shell, 34 worshipped by the Israelites with the accompaniment of prostitution, 54. Ilda-Baoth, or Son of Darkness, the Creator, or Demiurge, 16 creates Man and Satan Ophiomorphos, 16 forbids man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, 17 gave the law in the creates the material body for his prison, 17 wilderness, 17 sends John the Baptist, and provides for the birth of Jesus, 17; stirs up the Jews against Jesus, 17; Jesus placed at his right Idols, ; ; ; ; ; ; hand, 17. or Eilitbyas, presiding over child-birth, 100. Ilithiyce, Illyrians said to have been cognate with the Celts and Gauls, and the Cyclo- peans, their progenitors, 74. Imitation, dancing an art, showing and expressing things arcane and occult, 138, 152; the old comedy proceeded from, 152; practiced in the mystic ceremonies, 152. Impulse, Divine, general movement of the Great Whole derived from, 52. Incarnation, Krishna, 135. Incubation typified by the mystic bird, 170. /Bi/m, worship of a serpent called Dionysus, or Bacchus, 15 expedition of Alex- ; ander, 15, 18; perpetual fires burning in the pagodas, 26; sophisls, 49 ; Gymno- the the Devadasis, or Bayaderes, of the temples, 55 Bacchus ; mythology admitted the worshipped on the banks of the Ganges, 68 Creator and Destroyer as characters of the Divine Being, 72 the monkey the elephant introduced into the West, 136 the god a sacred animal, 129 ; ; ; ; Ganesa, 136. See Hindus. Indian aspect of the story of the dethroning of Kronos, or Uranus, 25 of the Egyptian symbols, 37 many ; lingam, or phallus, represented the male ; creative principle, 66. Infernal regions called also Hades, or Hell, the Underworld and abode of the spirits or shades of the dead, presided over by Pluto and Proserpina, 103. , Infinity, we can form no distinct or positive idea of, 22. Initiation, the induction of a candidate into the Mysteries consisted of nation of allegories and symbols, 5 ceremonies kept private from the ; an expla; sacred means of acquir- the gods exhibit themselves, 6 common people, 6 ; the ing a knowledge of the Deity, 119. Inmost Spirit, sustaining the Heaven, Earth and Ocean, 41. Inspectors (seers), epoptai, ephori, the persons initiated into the Greater Mys- teries, 5. Intellectual, or noetic (spiritual), the God of Nature, I'lterpolation, in the Iliad, relating to Ai-iadne, 4. Bacchus, and Theseus, 66 ; in the and her death at the in the in the Iliad, reference to Ganymedes, 86 island of Dia, 66, 67 Odyssey, the account of the punishments inflicted in the Underworld, 124 Odyssey, of the abduction of Ariadne by Theseus, ; ; and Pollux, 157. denominated Peter, and perhaps Orpheus, Pompaeus, Ampelus and Patrick, 47 spoke with a muttering voice, 90. also the reference to the deification of Castor Interpreters, of oracles, ; 8 2 Index. 1 Jnvocadofis, the Orphic hymns, II !.>, of Bacchus, 75, 165. ; mother of Epaphus, or Apis, and the same as Isis, 36 name of the Earth in Gothic, 37 lo, and Gio, Scandinavian name of the Earth, fabled ; ; 37/f/^, mystic fable of her amour with Hercules, 159. and oracle of Apollo loiiians, the sanctuary Didymi more ancient than any in other building, 144. Ionic, capital, no; emigration, 144. /yanians gave the powers the names peculiar to the religion of evil their adversaries, 62. Irish annually extinguish their 26 ; named and rekindle them from a sacred fires, bonfire, every child from some imaginary divinity, 155. Israelites, their ancestors, the Hyk-sos, had dominion over the Egyptians, 43 ; supposed the prayer of Abraham to have healed the household of Abimelech, 46 worshipped Baal-Peor, and kept the orgies of Bacchus with the ; accompaniment of prostitution, 49, 54. Jsa, Isi, or Disa, the Scandinavian goddess, 15 primordial breasts, etc., signified ice, or water in ; ; ; represented by a conical figure enveloped in a net, 146 whom the Isis its 37 represented by a pyramid, 70 represented with many like Diana, loi ; riding on a ram, and holding an owl, 136 ; state, the Suevi worshipped, 147 ; unquestionably depicted with a child, 147 ; ; represented by the golden heifer, 147. Isa, Sanskrit, also the name of the goddess of Nature, 37. Isiac tablet depicts the goddess holding a lotus-flower, 105. Egyptian goddess, under whose protection persons weie most commonly instructed in the Mystic faith, 9 a cow her symbol, 35 the female and receptive principle of generation, 36 same as Venus in many respects, 36 called Isa in the Sanskrit, 37 two goddesses by this name worshipped Isis, the ; ; ; ; ; Greece before the Pantheic Isis of later times, 37 always at the temples, 36 birth of her son Horus while herself unborn, 58 called also Muth formerly and Athyr, the Mother, the Mundane House of Horus, 64 the same as Venus and Libera, but afterwards generalised so as to comprein ; ; , ; hend the goddesses, 83, 84 all a counterpart of Venus, or Astarte, 84 ; intercourse with Osiris, she as the Moon represented sitting on a monkey, 129 tionably the same as Isa, 147 ; ; ; has and* he as the Sun, 99 ; her figure worshipped by the Suevi, unques- drove away Typhon with her sistrum, 131 occasionally depicted in a net, with Horus upon her lap, 147 ; ; enclosed in the mystic ark, or boat, 168. Ithyphalli, borne by the Athenians at the reception of Demetrius, as at the celebration of the Bacchic Mysteries, 98. hiida, or Whydah, in Africa, worship of the serpent, 15. luno, Etruscan name, derived from Dione, 23. Ivory, familiarly made from Ivy, chaplet^ rites of of, known it, in the time of 32 ; women crowned Bacchus, 68 Bacchus, is Homer, 18 ; the modius, or polos, of Venus 45, 67. ; called in with, celebrating the clamorous nocturnal Greek adopted as his symbol, kissos, 80, 124 and ; so, leopard in marble, go. Ixioii, the fabled father of the Centaurs, by a pun on a title of garland on the neck of a by Nephele, 77. Index. 219 J- Jablonski, 137. Hebrews, funeral at Abel-Mizraim taken for the recustom of " Mourning for the Only-Begotten," or Protogonus, 50; anointed a stone with oil, according to a general mode of worship, 148. Jacob, the patriarch of the ligious Jaho- Tzabaoth, the name given by the Tyrians to the Sun-god in autumn, and apparently adopted from them as the title of the Hebrew tutelar god, 69. Janus, the two-faced god of the Romans, probably derived his name from lao, or laon, the mystic name of Bacchus, 95. Japanese, the consecrated founder, half-serpent, 14 Horned Egg, 20 Bull, 20 ; ; venerate the symbol of the ; sacred images placed upon the lotus, 105. Jephthah, regarded human sacrifices not unacceptable to the Deity, and included daughter in his vow, 123. his first Temple built with foundations of Cyclopean Round-Tower pillars, 74 filled with innocent blood, 122 Jerusalem, the 74 Mundane represented Creation by the bull breaking the ; ; ; architecture, — Delivered, an allegory, 161. Jesus, the man, 17 ; him at baptism, 17 put to death, and placed at the right hand of Ilda- Christ entered into invested with a body of aether, ; Baoth, 17. Jewish Kabalists, 16. Jews, Michael their reputed tutelar angel, 17 "Son received the law from Ilda-Baoth, ; of Darkness," 17 stirred up against Jesus, 17 religious fanaticism sanguinary and violent, 41 their ancestors asserted by Josephus the Creator, ; ; ; to be the Hyk-sos, or Shepherds of Egypt, 43 adopted the Chaldean custom of honoring the subordinate emanations or archangels, 54 did not adopt the view of the generative attribute, 54 considered the true Crea; ; ; copied Persian ideas, 62, 90; genealogies their year of the world and 108 tor as their national god, 54; lost and chronology unsatisfactory, ; chronology invented A.D. 344, by the Rabbi Hillel- Hanassi, 109 welcomed the new moon with noise, 132 worshipped lao, or Adonis, 132 ; ; kept festivals like those of Bacchus, 132 fawn-skin, bells, — Eclectic, etc., 132, 133 ; ; ; the high-priest wore the spotted carried an Ark like the Egyptians, 134 ; and Aristobolus, allegorised the Old Testameni, 161. John the Baptist, an agent of Ilda-Baoth, 17 his pun on the words abenitn, or stones, as becoming benim, or sons, as in the story of Deucalion, 25. Jonah, the swallowing by a great fish probably a figurative description of his rescue by a Phoenician or Philistine ship bearing the effigy of Dagon, or like Philo ; Ceto, 80. Josephus distinctly asserts that the ancestors of the Israelites once held dominion over the Egyptians, 43. Josiah, king of Judah, found kadeshim and kadeshuth at the temple of and at high places, woman," 54 JudaJi, mistook his daughter-in-law for a "sacred the high places of Baal to burn their sons with fire, Juggernaut, temple the source of the legend of Charon, of, the idol a pyramidal stone, 70 ; ; kings of, built 122. Judea, Zadok, or Zedek, the head of the sacerdotal family or Judgment oj Atnenti, Solomon 54. caste, 53. 8. said to lie in a dormant ; 2 20 Index. months, 85 state four his figure, with those of ; Ganesa and Vishnu, at Djirjeh, log. Jugglers and diviners of North America wear girdles and chaplets of serpents, 14. Julius Cmsar, aided by a "Chaldean" (Sosigines, or son of the calendar, 53 losing his sword, the Gauls placed it Sosiosch), to reform declined to take a temple, and he in ; again, 114. it Jumna, or Yamuna, a sacred river of the Hindus, 98. Juno, or Here, the same as Ceres, 23 name derived from Dione, also from the Sanskrit Voni and the Hebrew Juneh, a dove, 23 ; Vesta her sister, 27 the Graces her attendants, 29 probably the same as Dione, 48 Nephel^, the ; ; ; ; "fallen woman," mother of the Centaurs, mistaken for her, 77 ; called also represented by a spear, 114 ; symbols, ; Lucina, and the same as Diana, 100 130 ; — Sospita, 143 ; the Argive, 171. Supreme God of the Greeks, 2 called by them him believed only by the vulgar, 3 Dragon of the ^ther, 16 ; crowned with olive, 17 Jupiter, or Zeus, the original Dseus, or Deus, 2 ; fables concerning ; ; and the a figure like his on a Phoenician coin labelled Baal-Thurz, 20 Thor, 20 also styled yEther, 23 Vesta his sister, 27 represents the male principle, 28 all-prophetic, 47 oracle of Amun, statues crowned with oak and fir, 48 48 worshipped by the Persians as the Spirit of the Universe, 61 distribution of good and evil, 73 ancient statue at Argos with three eyes like MahaDeva, 73 the father of the Centaurs, 77 reposing on the back of a Cencalled Sabazius ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; taur explained, 81 ; Proserpina his daughter, 81 ; sources of the fable of engraving discovered in France, 129 suckled by a goat, employed the aegis, 131 frightened the Titans with it, 131 ruled Europa, 102, 103 130, 143 ; ; ; ; ; bore the thunderbolt, 135 the Egyptian Amun, 137 the Knosian dance sacred to him, 139; the Nymphs his daughters, 141'; his the ^ther, 131 ; ; ; mother called Nympha, symbolising his descent, 141 ancient kings bore the name, 155 Bacchus his son, by Ceres or Proserpina, 156; the son of ; ; Semele, 157 ; the myth of Leda, 157 ; statue at the temple of the Syrian goddess, 167 receiving ambrosia, 171. ; Juul, or Yule, the Scandinavian the productive festival, a boar offered to Frey, to conciliate power by the destruction of the adverse or inert power, 87. K. Kabala, the doctrine of emanation, 16 of the Chaldeans, or Magians, 53. Kadeshim, and Kadeshuth, men and ; apparently derived from the doctrines women set apart to prostitution at the temples, 54 ; forbidden by the Israelitish law, 56, 350 Note, 872. Kadmiel, or Kasmilus, the name of one of the gods of the Samothracian Mys; teries, 10. See Casmilus and Cadimis, Keeper of the boundary between life and death, Thoth, or Mercury, 116. Key, worn as an amulet in Italy, corresponding to the cross and circle, 30. Kissos, a 80 80. ; name of Bacchus, probably because he was from Kisssea, or Susiana,. the term signifying ivy, explains the using of that plant in his worship. See Ivy. ;; Index. 2 21 Kneph, or Num, the Egyptian deity known as the agathodsemon, 17 the resemblance of the name to that of Numa, the reputed king of Rome, 63. Kore, the daughter, Persephone, the mother of Bacchus, or Zagreus, 49, 156 the story of Ariadne another form of the myth, 65 the goddess of destruction, ; ; ; 82 ; called also Soteira, or Savior, 83 ; the same as Kura, or Demeter, 83, 156. See Ceres and Proserpind. Kradephoria, or carrying of palms, 132. ICHshna, the incarnate Deity and avatar, 41, 135. Kronos (see Saturn and Time), horrid acts, commemorated the unknown in the Mysteries, Father, reverenced as Supreme and Almighty, 22 ; 6 identified with Time, and the allegory of devouring his own children interpreted, 24 emasculates his father, 25 another hypothesis suggested, 25. ; ; ICteis gunakeios, 28. ICuieli, the Great Mother. See Cybelt Kura, the female personification of the sun, a name of Ceres, or Demeter, at Cnidos, 83. JCuru, a popular title among the Aryan tribes before name of Cyrus, or Kur, 154. their separation, the prob- able source of the Labyrinth, a device on Grecian coins, 64 ; said to have been built by Daedalus as a prison for the Minotaur, 64 ; artificial winding caverns common in countries occupied human by the ^Ethiopian victims were sacrificed, 65 race, and used as temples, where the Pyramids, 117. ; Lake Mceris, the country below it a bog in the time of Menes, 108. Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, called also Deva-Matraand Shri, the probable origin of the names of Demeter and Lamentations, in Egyptian temples, 50 ; Ceres, 22. for Osiris, Adonis, and Frey, 85. Lamps, kept burning in the pagodas of India, 26 burning of lamps, 26. Lampsacus, gold coinage, 8 Bacchus venerated by the name of Priapus, 10 ; ; coins, 95. Laomedon,'kmg of Troy, had a wooden statue of Jupiter with three eyes, 73; not the father of Ganymedes, 86. Latona, personification of Night, 57 wife of Jupiter and mother of Apollo and ; Diana, 57 ; the Mygal6, or shrew-mouse, her symbol, 57. Latirel, wreaths and chaplets, 32 supposed to have a stimulating and intoxi; cating quality, 46. Leda, birth of Castor and Pollux from the egg which she produced, 157 myth another ; the version of the Eastern legend, 157. Leopards, devouring grapes and drinking the juice, accompanying Bacchus, 90 destroying the Bull, 90 ; drawing the chariot of Bacchus, go ; with a garland of ivy, 90. identified the HeJ. P., declared the Jewish legends unhistorical, and brews with the Hyk-sos race, 43. Lesley, Leto, oblivion. See Latona. Leucothol, danghter of goddess, II. Cadmus, and nurse of Bacchus, the son of Semel4, a sea- ; Index. 222 Libanus, or Lebanon, statue of Venus-Architis, or AstartS, 149. Libations, or spondai, the designation of treaties and covenants, 45 blood a libation of the soul, 102. Liber, the Latin name of Bacchus, ; Libitina, goddess of Death, the Amun, Libya, the oracle of drawing 9, 58. Libera, the goddess of generation, the the goddess of Death, 83 ; and Libxtina, Romans, 157. NephthJ, Venus, and Libera, 83. same as Venus, Proserpina, the Proserpina of the same as established, 48 Cyclopean ; tribes, 73, no food or shelter for men or cattle, 107. Lightning, borne to Jupiter by the Pegasus, 76 supposed 74 ; deserts afford ; affinity with sulphur, 135- Liknites, a was of Bacchus, from the liknos, or fan-like basket, in which he name cradled, 120. Lilith, the Night-goddess, 20 ; the first wife of Adam, 57. symbol carried by the Hindu women signifies the placing of the male in procession between two serpents, 15 Lingam (the sign), the phallic or generative ; emblem in that of the female, 66 temples of Siva, or Maha Deva, ; analogy to Pan, 142 ; always in the 177. Lion, flaming, a form of Bacchus, 75 ; more commonly an emblem of Apollo or Hercules, being the representative of the destroying attribute, 75 ; found on the sepulchral monuments of almost all nations of Europe and Asia, 75 represented killing some other symbolical animal, 76 devouring a horse ; ; or a deer, 81, 82 ; in as killing a boar, 86 lions' heads, 97 a composite figure with a goat, 82, 95 represented the Chimaera, gi spouts of fountains shaped like ; ; ; the sun in the sign of ; Leo when the Nile overflows, 97 ; union of the bull and lion, 112 on the handle of a vase, 136; the statue of the Syrian goddess drawn by, 167. Living stones, 148. See Baitulia, Amberics. ; Lizard, the symbol of humidity, or the female principle, 91 delivering the particles of matter from the bond ; — Killer, Apollo, of Attraction, or Love, 91 Saurians believed once to inhabit the earth, 72. Local gods and goddesses everywhere worshipped, 38. Locheia, a name of Diana, 100. Ijick of hair, single, worn on the right side of the head of Horus and his priests, 59. Lodestone, the magnet, or siderite stone, called the bone of Osiris, or Horus, represented the principle of attraction, 59. Logging rocks, 147. See Baitulia, Ambrosial stones, Loki, or Saturn, the evil potency of the Northmen, 146. Lophoi Hemtaioi, or hillocks of Mercury, sacred piles of stones by the side of roads, or at their intersection, to denote their consecration to Mercury, 148. Lord of Heaven, worshipped by the Emperor of China, modias, 104 ; ; power of the waters, employed every part of the Northern hemisphere, 105 employed in Egyptian description, 105 in 40. Nymphaa nelumbo, 47 ; the mystic symbol, called polos, 01 a native of Eastern Asia, and not now found in Egypt, 105 Lotus, or water-lily, sculpture, 106 ; a symbol of Ihe productive ; ; the three orders of architecture different modifications of symbolical columns formed in imitation, 109-111 ; flower on Rhodian Index. 223 medals, 112 the Chinese goddess Pussa sitting upon this flower, 169 the symbol borrowed from the Hindus, 179. Louis XIV! s ambassador asks the King of the Siamese to embrace Christianity, and is reproved, 39. ; ; Love (see Attraction, or Eros, the First-bom, or Only-Begotten), the mystic Bacchus, Priapus, Father of Gods and Men, 13, 21, 22, 112 how symbol; ised at the temple of the Syrian goddess, 167. Lucetius, or Luminous, a of Jupiter, in Crete, 70. title Lucina, Juno, the same as Diana, a personification of the Moon, lOO. Lukaios, an epithet of a deity, especially Apollo, 69. Lukegenetes, a Lusios, a Luson, a Lux, title of Apollo, 69. See Lukaios. Lukeios, name of Bacchus, 9. name of Bacchus, 9. light, a contraction from Lukl or Lukos, 5g. Lycomedes, daughters of the fabled associates of Achilles, a mystic tale, not in the Iliad or Odyssey, 159. Lyre, representation of the goddess Harmonia, 82 with the sinews of Typhon, 82 ; ; strung by Hermes, or Thoth, device upon, 140. M. queen-mother of Judah, made a mephallitzeth, or phallic manikin, Egypt and Hierapolis, and those employed by the Roman women in the worship of Venus-Erycina, 49 a priestess of the orgies of Maachah, the like those of ; Baal, 50, 54. Macha Allah, the god of Life and Death entwined serpents, human among and skulls, the Tartars, represented with scalps, 14 trampling upon the ; elephant, 136. Magians, the sacerdotal caste of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, 53 Zoroaster the traditional head of the order, 53 the Kabala probably originated from them, 57 said to teach that the gods will alternately con; ; ; quer and be subjected for periods of 3,000 years, 117. Magisterial seats, or Prytania, presided over by Ceres, 27. Supreme God, 2 an Egyptian, would put a fellow-subject to death for killing a cat or monkey, 41. Maha Deva, or Siva, probably the same as Bacchus, 49 ; an ante-Vedic deity, represented with a third eye, 73 the Pramathas his servants, 88 ; the lingam in his temples, 177. Magistrate, supreme (Greek, demiurgus), suggests the idea of a ; ; Male power, or principle. See Active, or Male Principle. Manslayers, or Oiorpata, a designation of the Amazons, 34. Mars, or Ares, and Venus, 82 ; Harmonia their daughter, 150 the Ar, or Boar, that slew Adonis, or Atys, 85, 86, 88 Destroyer, 87 ; represented by a staff and spear, 114 or spear-god. by the Romans, who sacred to him, 116. Marvellous, men naturally love, 2. ; ; ; symbolised by considered as the called also Quirinus, called themselves Quirites, 115 ; dog 2 Index. 24 Matrons, Grecian, their extravagance in celebrating the orgies of Bacchus, 49 Roman, whipped with a thong of goat-skin as a remedy for barrenness, 143. ; Matter contains the elements of all things, 22 Rhea, the personification, 24 seminal particles animated by the sun, and nourished and matured by the humidity of the moon, 99 the soul (nous) imprisoned in it, 118 the lord of. Pan, so called by the Arcadians, and also the husband of Rhea, 136. May, the first of, a great phallic festival among the ancient Britons and Hindus, 12. ; ; ; May-pole, a phallic symbol, ; 12. Mediator, Mithras, the Persian, 123, 167 ; the mystic third figure in the temple same as the mystic Bacchus, 167. Mediatress, the moon, subject of the sun, and ruler of the earth, causes the two at Hierapolis probably the to harmonise, 99, 100. ^gis Medtcsa, or the Gorgon, the female head on the Moon, 130 the female the Female Principle, 130 of Divine Wisdom, 130. the ; ; Meilichios, Moloch, or King, a Melampus introduced of Minerva, a symbol of of the disk or symbol of the sun, representing said to be the face in the title moon, symbol also a of Jupiter, at Sicyon, 70. into Greece the name of Dionysus, or Bacchus, his wor- and the phallephoric procession, 10 probably got his knowledge from Cadmus, 10. Melkarth (the Lord of the City), the Hercules, or tutelar deity, of Tyre, 2 ship, ; ; temple at Tyre, with round-tower pillars, 74. Mendes, the goat honored there with singular so called, 142 ; worship, 21, 142 rites of a part of the phallic worship, 142 ; the goat female goats also sacred, ; 143- Menes, the first king of Egypt, reigning some 11,000 or 12,000 years before the Persian invasion, 108. Mercury, Hermes, or Thoth, a tortoise placed under his feet, 34 styled Pomstrung the lyre with pasus, as the messenger of the god of the oracle, 47 the sinews of Typhon, expressive of harmony, by the mixture of good and evil, 82 the dog his symbol, 113 holding a purse and the caduceus, ; ; ; 114 ; ; as Anubis, the minister of Fate, sciences, 137 ; the ram and as Thoth, the parent of arts and his symbol, 113, 136, 150 hillocks of, beside roads, ; or at their intersection, he being the guardian of all ways, 148 ; the Pelas- by a human head on an inverted pillar, etc., 149 one of the Cabeirian divinities, the same as Casmilus, or Kadmilus, 150; or Thoth, carries a branch of palm, 151. Merry-making, peculiar to the " country-feast," or minor rite of the Dionysia, 30. gian, represented ; — Metempsychosis, a fundamental article of faith Mexico, captives sacrificed to the sun, Michael, name given by among all ancient nations, 179. 15. the Ophites to Satan Ophiomorphos, 16 emanations engrafted upon the Mosaic system, ; — and other 54. all dancing among the Greeks, 138. Mimicry, a part of the Ionian games at Delos, 152. Mind, Divine, the human soul an em.ination of, 45, I18 Mimetic, our daemon, or divinity, 118 generated tion of ; a god in us, nS in the left ventricle of the heart, wisdom, 127. 119 ; said ; ; distempered, 46 ; by Hippocrates nous, to be — the Divine, the perfec- ; ; Index. 225 Minerva, a serpent in her temple at Athens, 15 fabled to have been delivered by Vulcan from the head of Jupiter, 127 the same as Neith of the Egyptians, Bellona, and AthenS, 127 regarded as both male and female, 128 ; ; ; owl her symbol, 128 the putting a bridle into the ; represented in later periods by a plate, and spear, 129 woman armed mouth of Pegasus, 128 ; with shield, helmet, breast- her helmet decorated with symbols like the owl, ; serpent, ram, griffin, sphinx, or flying horse, 129 a goat-skin symbol, 130 the Gorgon, or ; ; the yEgis, or breast-plate, Medusa, a symbol of the moon, 130; sometimes bore the thunderbolt, 135 represented, like Ganesa, with upon her head, also with an elephant drawing her ; the elephant's skin chariot, 136 the ram, 136. ; Minotaur, the Bull-symbol partly humanised, 64 god, 64 ; the Labyrinth a cave-temple where ; the same as Atys, the Phrygian human ; Mises, a title Mistletoe, a Mithraic were sacrifices the astronomical sign of the sun in Taurus, 65 symbol of the Male Principle, 66. 65 ; offered, evidently also the of Bacchus, denoting the double sex, 90. symbol of the Divine Operative Spirit, 47. superseded the Mysteries of Bacchus, and became the foundation of the Gnostic system, 53 the baptism, or purification, by blood, the Taurorites ; holium, ^gobolium, and Criobolium, 123. Mithraism, or Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of the Persians, 53. Mithras, the sun, the Persian mediator, 123, 167. Mnevis, the mystic father of Apis, represented by a bull at Heliopolis, in Egypt, 18, 19, 20. Modius, polos, or hemisphere, placed on the head of Venus, 45 of Pluto, 104 the seed-vessel of the lotus, 104. 84 ; — ; — of Fortune, ; Moisasoor, 181. Moist Principle, the source of all things from the beginning, loi. midity, The Female Principle, et passim. See Hu- Moloch, the Fire-god, Hercules, Melkarth, or tutelar deity, 2, 92 children passing through the fire to, in the Valley of Gehenna, or Tophet, 122. ; Money, the Macedonian princes of Egypt and and not by weight, and consisted of spikes, or obelisks, 8 the obolos or spike, and drachma or handful, the usual coins, 8 first coinage probably by the Lydians, 8. Monkey, death the penalty in Egypt for killing, 41 ; a sacred animal in Egypt and in some parts of Tartary and India, 129. Moon, the spirit presiding over it an object of ancient worship, i sustained by the Inmost Spirit, 41 worshipped by the ancient Persians, 6c the goddess Diana her symbol, 81, 99 nourishes and matures the seminal particles of terrestrial matter, 99 her orbit placed between the sun and the earth so that she, as mediatress, primary subject of the one, and sovereign of the other, causes them to harmonise and unite, 99, 100 builders refuse to cut timber at the full, 100 represented by the Egyptians under the symbol of a cat 100 Europa and Astarte the same personage and deity, 103 } the Medusa, or Gorgon, on the .i^gis of Minerva, a symbol, 130 said to have the face of the Gorgon, 130 new, welcomed by the Jews with noises, 131 her personification borne by the Egyptians in boats, 133 Arcadia said to be formed before the moon, and the Arcadians to be older, meaning. Syria, 7 first ; portraits upon, those of first circulated by tale, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; — ; ;; 2 26 Index. moon, or female the doubtless, before principle, was worshipped, 137) Helen, 157. Magna Mother-Goddess, or " Mother of the Gods," same as the Mater, or " Great worshipped by the Amazons, 34 the omphalos, or Delphi, her symbol, 46, 47 Leda, the mother of the Dioscuri, Mother," Rhea, 24 navel-stone, at ; ; ; See CybeU, Rhea, Celestial Venus, Ceres, 157. Mother of the World, a title of Diana, gg. 9 ; Mylitta, her Assyrian appellation, 20 ; the designation applied to Ceres, 22 ; represented by the cubical block, whence Mother, the Great, orgies of, her name, Kubele, supposed to have originated, 27, Mounds, or high places. So. Mountain, every one had its local deity, I the favorite place of worship of the ancient Persians, 61 also sought for the same purpose by the Greeks, 62. ; ; "Mourning for the Only-Begotten" or the First-Born, the designation given in the Bible to the lamentations at the several Mysteries, 50, 130. Mouse, a Priapic animal, 92. Mouse-killer, or Smintheus, a Mundane House of Horus, title of Apollo, g2. a designation of Musaus, the Orphic bard, 11. Music accompanied devotion among Mygale, Isis as his mother, 64. the Greeks, 50. Mus Araneus, or the shrew-mouse, the symbol of Latona, 57. Mylitta, the Assyrian designation of the Mother-Goddess, 20 the name of the ; bee, melitta, a pun, 20 nian women ; same the as the Venus of the Greeks, 34 prostituted at her temple, 54, 67, 77 ; ; Babylo- her worship adopted by the Persians, 61. Myrtle, a symbol both of Venus and of Neptune, 31. Mysteries, a secret or mystic system existing in the more civilised countries of Greece, Asia, and Egypt, preserved generally by an hereditary priesthood of Eleusis, the more celebrated and known, 3 two degrees in the Eleusinia, the first degree preparatory, and the second, or " Greater," completing the rites, 4 difference in the several countries more in form than in substance, 4 the secret doctrines called gnosis, or knowledge and wisdom, including all science of a higher in temples of long-established sanctity, 3 ; ; ; ; character, 4 called also Apocrypha, or hidden things, ; 4 ; the disclosures, or apocalypse, 4 ; neophytes, mystie, and epoptai, or seers, 4 ; their end and purpose the knowledge of the First, the Lord, and the noetic, or Nero dared not ask because of the murder spiritual, science, 4 of his mother, the divulging of the doctrines punished as impiety, 5 ; ; peril of .iEschylus, 5 ; initiation, difficulty to obtain accurate information, 5 conveyed under allegories and symbols, 5 initiation consisted of explanations, 5 made ; the legend of Charon a part of the ; 5, 40 doctrines the last, or epoptic, stage of the mythological story, 6 rites, 8 ; ; ; the Orphic the protecting deities, 9 ; the Bacchic said to have been brought from the Egyptians by Orpheus, also the initiation of Hekate, II ; no mention of them in the Iliad or Odyssey, 11 the Eleusinian said to have been introduced 175 years before the Trojan War, II ; credited to Eumolpus, 11, 34 the Orphic Hymns, II ; the manithe Egg also carried in procession at the orgies ; kins or images of Osiris, 12 — ; of Bacchus, 13 ; Christian, serpent in, 16 ; dedicated to Eros Protogonos, or mystic Bacchus, 22 also to the female, or passive power, represented ; ;; Index. 227 at Eleusis by Ceres, 22 Samothracian, the Great Gods, 24 violating or insulting, punished with death, 40 based on the hypothesis that there is a faculty in the soul capable of elevation to seership, 46 ; the Bacchic, held at night, 49 ; Mithraic superseded the Bacchic, 53 ; the contention of ; ; ; good and evil, thus producing the harmony of the vi^orld, taught, 71 ; the of the ancients explained, 118; philosophical, or psychological, system dancing always a part of the into the rites of Pan, 142 ; 139; rites, — of the all Egyptian priests first initiated Cabeiri, celebrated at Samothrace, 150 the Cabeirian substantially like the Eleusinian and Sabazian, 150 and imitations a part of the ceremonies, 152 ; the mimiciy games connected with ; the worship, 153. Mystic egg, or mundane egg, the Egg of Night, 13 Bacchus, or Priapus, said to have sprung from Eros, Love, Attraction, ; 13 ; the symbol of the Universe, 13; incubated by the World-Serpent, 14; produced Castor and Pollux, the Great Gods, 96, 157. Mystic symbols taken from the signs of the zodiac, it, or, more probably, the signs of the zodiac from mystic symbols, 97. Mystic system, faith, or doctrines, preserved in the more civilised countries, 3 ; the basis of the ancient worship, 4 ; called gnosis and wisdom, and included all science of a higher character, or esoteric, 4 ; difficult to obtain accurate information, 5 ; taught under allegories and symbols, 5 ; study of coins a principal means of obtaining a competent knowledge, 9 ; the deities under whose protection persons were most commonly instructed, g introduced not referred to in the Iliad or Odyssey, 11 into Greece by Orpheus, 11 of immemorial antiquity in Egypt and all over Asia, 12 ; engrafted on the old elemental worship, 21 Kronos, or Zeus, and the mystic Bacchus, or ; ; ; first-begotten Love, only one Being, 22 the universe, with the planets ; placed the sun in the middle of moving around, 59 censured by Cleanthes for impiety for teaching ; Aristarchus, of Samos, 60 this, Socrates and Diagoras probably of the same nature, 60 ; ; not the crime of known to the Greeks when the Odyssey was written, 124. Mystic winnow, or basket, of Bacchus, 120. Mythology, tht theology of ancient and pagan nations affords all the most interof Pindar more consistent esting and important subjects of ancient art,l ; — than that of any other poet, 124 popular, confounded the hero in Thebes with the ancient god Bacchus, 156 turned into history, 162. ; ; N. Naga, the cobra de capella. See Hooded snaie. Names, Zeus, Dseus, and Deus, given by the primitive Greeks to the Supreme God, 2 of gods conferred on children, 154, 156 giving those of gods and ; ; heroes to newly-discovered lands a source of fable, 160. Nana, goddess, mother of Atys, became pregnant from eating a pomegranate, 1 12. Nature, the personified universe, as the female principle, represented by Isa, 37 personified by Isis, 83 ; Venus, 126. Nazir, or dedicated person, Samuel, the prophet, 56. Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, 127; name resembles Analtis, 127. 2 Index. 28 Nelumho. See Lotus. Nephell, rendered by Hislop, a fallen woman, who had observed the rites of Mylitta, 77 ; fabled mother of the Centaurs, 77. NephtM, or Nephthus, the Egyptian Goddess of Death, and yet the same as Venus and Libera, 83. Neptune, or, more properly, Poseidon, the god of building, fortification, and the waters, 48 64, 66 sent the bull into Crete, the reputed father of the Minotaur, an Hamitic divinity, worshipped in Libya, Dagon, and Cannes, or Ana-melech, 64, father of the Cyclopean Shepherds, 65, 74 belonged to the old and Crete, the same Africa, 65, 63 ; not an actual sea-god, 64 ; ; ; as ; elementary worship, 68 not an elemental deity, but the building-god, ; standing in close relation to the giants, 68 ; supreme ruler in the " Outer chief god of the Phoinikes, Sphere," where Zeus practically disappears, 68 76 his ; ; same as Hea, of Babylon, 68 the horse sacred to him, daughter by Ceres, 79 called Hippios, 80 the horses Pegasus and or Phoenicians, 68 ; ; ; ; Arei6n his sons, 80. Nero dared not compel the priests Net, the figures of Disa, or Isa, him into the Eleusinia, 5. and Apollo, enveloped in, 146, 147. to initiate Isis, — Night, the egg of, 13 Eros, Bacchus, sprung from, 13 Lilith, 20 personified as Leto, or Latona, and Baubo, 57 represented with a vail, 57 seeing ; ; ; ; ; the sun at midnight, 96. Nocturnal Sun, Bacchus, 94 ; seen in the Mysteries at midnight, 96. Noise, of bells, the ^gis, sistrum, cymbals, a 131 charm and means of consecration, the trolls and fairies driven away, 133. ; Noos, or phren, the higher or divine soul, the pneuma, or spirit of the Testament, 120. New See Soul. North America, jugglers and diviners make girdles and chaplets of serpents, 14 pyramid a symbol, 70. North of Europe, Thor represented with the head of a bull, 20 sanctity imputed ; ; the general system, 53 Bacchus and .'Vpollo worshipped, 68 ; obelisks of stone sacred to the sun, 69 ; hierarchies performed human sacrito groves, 48 102 fices, ; ; ; paid divine honors to the spear, 114 regarded as appealing to the Deity, 115 ; ; and the ordeal the duel Skalds, 118 barbarians, their ; life, 125 trolls and fairies driven away, 123 representation days of the week consecrated to gods, 146 hillocks on the belief in future of Isa, 136 ; ; ; ; roads, 148. Norway and Sweden, divine honors paid to serpents, 14 ; oath by the shoulder of the horse, 80. Numa, fabled King of Rome, said to have consecrated the Perpetual Fire, 26 ; forbade to represent the gods under any form, 63 ; resemblance of his name to Num, or Kneph, the agathodsemon of Egypt, something more than an accident, 63. Nymph, nymphe, has always a female idea, 47 ; designation of a young woman, supposed by Bryant to be derived from ain, an eye or fountain, and omphe, an oracle, 141 relates, doubtless, to the female principle, 141. 141 ; ; Nympha, a name of the Mother-goddess, 47 ; the namfe of the mother of Jupiter 141. Nymphea nelumho, the lotus, or water-lily, 104. Nyinphaum, an oracle-temple, 141. See Lotus. ; Index. Nymphs, a 229 race of females, descended from Jupiter, or Oceanus, 99, 141. Nyssian dance, sacred Bacchus, 139. to O. Oak regarded God, 47 Obelisk, first found at Uodona, and by the Celtic symbol of the Supreme nations, as a kinship of Druidism signified with the ancient Pelagic worship, 48. coins in that form, 8 stars represented by them ranged in a circle, ; ; Northern in Egyptians, 71 ; Europe, 69 most ; employed by the symbol of deifi- frequently symbolise the thunderbolt, 136 spiral, to ; cation, 173. Ocean, sustained by the Inmost Spirit, 41 ; fabled origin of the nymphs, 99 Erythraean, the Egyptian symbols, especially the Nelumbo and Hooded ; — Snake, copied beyond, log. Oceanus, father of Philyra, mother of Cheiron, 7S father of the ; nymphs and river-gods, 141. Ochus, persecutions in Egypt, 44. Odin, the All-Father, hall Olen, a priest one of the Scandinavian triad of deities, crowned with at the Olympian games, 18. 125 of, Oleaster, or wild olive, victors ; and prophet of Apollo, Olive consecrated to Minerva, 17 Olympian Jupiter, three-eyed, ; built the Oracle at Delphi, 46. and statues crowned with victors it, 17, 32. 73. Olympic Games, the victors crowned, 18 the honorary rewards. 157, 159. ; Omadios, or Omestes, the devourer of raw Omphe, or amphi, an 169. flesh, a title of Bacchus, 102. oracle, 46. Omphalos, the navel, designation of the oracle-stone at Delphi, 46. One-eyed, priests of Horus, 59. Only- Begotten, Protogonos, the mystic Bacchus, etc., 22 Ophites, or Serpent-worshippers, a sect of Gnostics, 12 of Emanations, 16 nition, 17 ; ; their theory of creation, etc., 16 Isis, Astarte, ; secret signs of recog- — ; Pompasus, 47 ence in public counsels, 50 commanded women ; the ; who paid best, 51 to be scourged at Alea, 102 ; name 45, 46 anciently called interpreter called Peter, 47 those best favored ; ; how produced, ; Delphi, built by Olen and the Hyperboreans, 46 om-phe, or amphi, 46 phic, ; and Rhea, 24 a supposed contraction of of his, a serpent, 74. of Zoroaster, 38 Oracle, temple at Dodona, 28, 48 at for, 50, 150. constructed a doctrine the Cyclopeans, 74. Ops, consort of Saturn, the analogue of — mourning ; ; ; ; influ- — Del- Nymphjeum, 141 ; hanging-stones consulted, 148. Ordeal, or trial by fire and water, regarded as an appeal to the Deity, 115. Orders of architecture suggested by the lotus, 105-107. in Judah presided Orgies, or Mysteries, of Dionysus, egg consecrated, 13 over by Queen Maachah, 49 the Cabeirian and others substantially alike, — ; ; 150. See Mysteries. Oriental sages, 43. Origin of evil, Typhon, or the Hittite god Seth, 71, 72 ; the Great Serpent, or Saurian, Apop, or Aph-ophis, 72. Orpheans, ascetics and devotees, like the Gymnosophists of India. 49. Index. 230 Orpheus credited with introducing the Mysteries into Greece, 11 his personal existence denied by Aristotle, 11 name perhaps signifies an interpreter of ; ; the oracles, 47. Orphic Mysteries included the legend of Charon and his boat, 8 mystic system, 9 II ; ; — Hymns, invocations or — Mystagogy, Hymn, theology the out-birth, II all — ; faith, the used in the Mysteries litanies, — ; language, 13 — ; — placed the sun in the centre of the universe, 59 Hymns celebrate Hippa, 79 Hymns identify Prometheus with Kronos, or 38 ; ; Saturn, 88 ; — Hymns ; — call Pan the mover of all things, 138. Orthia, or Orthosia, a title of Brimo, or Diana, at Sparta, 102. god of the Mystic religion in Egypt, 6, 9 the same as Bacchus, or Dionysus, of the Mysteries, 9 phallic manikins employed in his rites, 12 the bull Apis his terrestrial representation, 19 hymns to, 37 bone of the Osiris, the ; ; ; ; ; lodestone, 59 ; the potency of good, 71 ; the hawk his symbol, 74 loves and misfortunes, 84 ; dead or absent forty days in each year, 85 ; dismem; berment by Typhon, 88 in the Moon, ; outflowing of the Nile so termed, 98 Ouranos, or Uranus, the vault of heaven personified. Owl, the symbol of Minerva, 128 Oysters in his potency ; gg. See Heaven. decoration of her helmet, 129. ; sympathy with the Moon, or female principle, 28. P. Pagan, from pagus, a village, or rural canton, a the ancient religion, after its term applied to the votaries of Roman outlawry by the Palestine, Egyptian conquest doubted, 43 Senate, religious prostitution, 54. ; See Athena and Minerva. Palm, symbol, 1 5 1. Pan represented under the form of a goat, 21 Pallas. to him, 48 dians, ; character like Saturn, 78 ; ; and caverns consecrated fir-trees the most ancient deity of the Arca- and perhaps the same as Amun of the Egyptians, 137 the husband of Rhea, and therefore the same Zeus, 138 ; called also as ; Kronos, or Saturn, 138; director of the mystic dances, 139; not known to the earliest poets, 140; confounded with Priapus, 141; represented by thesacred goat of Mendes, 142 ; all priests in Egypt initiated into his Mys- teries, 142. Panchaa, pretended island, 162, 177. Paniski, or Paniskoi, 78 ; subordinate ministers of Pan, 140. Pantheic figures, of Diana, 81 ; of the Deity, 143 ; of Cybele, 145 ; — temples, 166. Paphinn Venus, bearded, or double-sexed, 2g, 32, 104, I4g taurs, 77. Paradesa, 28. Paris, his statues taken from those of Atys, 86. Parsley used to crown Roman victors, 153. Pasiphah, wife of Minos, and mother of the Minotaur, 64. Passive Principle of Nature. Pedum, a See Female Principle. pastoral crook, or hook, 142. ; mother of the Cen- 1 Index. Pegasus, the winged horse, 76 23 Minerva putting a bridle ; in his mouth, 128. Penance, the whipping of the Arcadian women, 102. Peor, the Moabitish god, equivalent to Bacchus and Priapus, 49, 141. surrounded with columns, as in a temple-circle, a Perikionios, or title of Bacchus, III. Numa, Perpetual Jire, consecrated by 26. Persecution not incurred anciently because of religious opinions, 40. See Proserpina. Persephonl, or Persephoneia. Perseus, a fictitious personage, 157 ; floating in a Persia, mystic lore of ancient priests, 3 coins, 7. Persians, employed no statues, box or ark, 168. kings never put their portraits on ; but worshipped fire, 61 adopted the ; rites of Astarte, 62. means of multiplying Personification, a divinities, 25. Petasus, a cap placed on statues of divinities, 116. Peter, ham peteh, Phahhon, to open or an oracle, 47. reveal, the interpreter of 169. Phalhis, symbol and procession introduced into Greece, lo kin, carried festival, 12 ; ; an image, or manni- by Egyptian women, 12 the triple symbol, 12 symbol of the sexual attribute, 12, 142 personified ; ; ; May-pole as Priapus, boine with figs, 29 a mepkallitzeih, or mannikin, made by Queen 13 Maachah, 49; double, 98; symbolised by the pomegvanate-flower, 112; images of Pan, 141 two enormous pillars in the temple of Hierapolis, ; ; ; 172. Pharisees, Pharsi, or Asideans, Persian religionists in Judea, 53, 90. Phil(C, 36, 106, 109. Philyra, daughter of Oceanus, fabled mother of the Centaur Cheiron, 78. Phcenix, 86. Phren, the mind, or principle of thought and perception, 120. Phtha, Hephaistos, or Vulcan, the primitive element, and father of the Cabeiri, or chief gods of Egypt, 127. Phidtalmios, an epithet of Neptune, or Poseidon, 144. Picus, the sacred woodpecker, 172. Pillars of Sesostris, 93 ; architectural, 109. Pine-cone on the thyrsus, or mace, of Bacchus, 112, 113. Pipe, symbol of harmony, 142. Place of the gods, a phrase applied to Isis and the Syrian goddess, doubtless referring to the womb of the Great Mother, 64. Planets worshipped, i ; depicted upon the crescent of Cybele, 145. Pluto not worshipped in the primitive religion, 103 adopted in the Mystic worship, 104 the same as Hades, 104 how he procured the stay of Pro; ; ; serpina in the Under- World, 112. a designation of Jupiter, 87. produced by the ecstatic raptures of devotion, 50. Poets debased the dignity of the Supreme Being, 3. Pollux. See Castor and Pollux also Diosctiri. Polos, the round cap, or hemisphere, on the head, called also modius, 84 by Pluto and other divinities, 104 the seed-vessel of the lotus, 104. /'/aOT«j, Poetry, Greek, , ; Polu-parthenos, 176. ; worn ; ; Index. 232 Polypus, 45. Polytheism, the result of the doctrine of Emanations, 38 prehensive creed, 60 ; had a lax and com among not believed in by the intelligent ; the an- cients, 92. Pomegranate, sacred to Proserpina, 112 fruit dicted in the Thesmophoria, 112 the name pun rhoia a Rhea, 112 for ; its arcane meaning, 112 inter- ; Nana becoming pregnant with Atys, ; ; 112 ; held by Juno, 171. Pompasus, Mercury, the messenger of the oracle, 47. Pompeius, the interpreter of oracles, 47. Poplar, chaplet worn by Hercules, 95, 97. Poppy, sacred to Ceres and Venus, 45. more and ^thiopic Poseidon, the name correct of the Building-god, the divinity of the Libyan nations, but better known a3 Neptune, 64. See Neptune. Pothos, 169. Priapus, originally a name of Bacchus, 10 personification of the phallus, 13 ; same as Eros, Attraction, and the mystic Bacchus, 13 statues made of fig- wood, 29; "black-cloaked," 57; name derived from Briapuos, or clamorous, also from Peor and Apis, 132 geese sacred to him, 142 similarity to the Pan of Egypt, 142. the ; ; ; Priesthood, hereditary, 3, 108 ; initiated into the rites of Pan, 142. Primitive religion of the Greeks, elementary, i Pluto not worshipped, 103. ; Probation required of initiates before the final disclosures, or epopteia,^. Prometheus, a title of the sun, and his binding, a symbol of winter, 88 ; more probably an Ethiopian god, worshipped by the Colchians, and having his in temple the device of an eagle over a heart, an Egyptian crest and symbol, 88 ; same as Kronos, or Maha-Deva, 88. supposed Prophetic po7ver supposed to be attended by ravings and mania, 45 to be produced by intoxicating exhalations from the earth, 46 ; female sex ; more receptive, 49 ; abstinence essential, 175. Proserpina, Kore, or Persephone, Queen of the Under- World, mother of the mystic Bacchus, 49, 156, 157 Goddess of Destruction, called also the Preserver, 82, 87 same as Ceres and Isis, 83 same as Diana, 103 personifi; ; ; cation of the passive or female principle, 103 Prostitution a religious rite in Babylon ; ; she eats the pomegranate, 112. and other countries, 54, 67. Prytania, Greek council-houses, 26, 27. Psuchi, or Psych/, the soul, or power of animal motion and sensation, 120 typified Purification, fire, by the first 121, 122 butterfly, 123. characteristic of initiation into the Mysteries, 4 ; by the blood of a bull, goat, or ; by water and ram, 123. Purple, a sacred color, applied to the statues of deities and the bodies of Roman consuls and dictators, 120. Purse, symbol of the productive attribute, 114. Pnssa, or Chinese Venus, comprehending the triple godhead, 169. Putrefaction, a symbol, 8g. PyraHhca, the Persian fire-temples, 61. Pyramid, a religious symbol, 70; employed most by Egyptians, 71, 118. Pythagoras taught the heliocentric, or solar, system as a Mystery, or arcanum, sg. Pythian ptiestess declared all religious rites acceptable to the Deity, 40 ; ecstasy Index. and enthusiasm, 45 favored those most ; 233 who paid best, 51 ; always a virgin, 175- Pythios, a title of Apollo, 91. Python, battle against Apollo, a symbol, 6, 21 name ; of Apollo, 47. R. Hindu symbol of Rabbit, a the Moon-goddess, 100. Radiation, or diadem of obelisks, a symbol of deification, 6g, 173. Ram, a symbol of Mercury, 113, 136 ; blood shed for mystic purification, 123 depicted on the helmet of Minerva, 129 ; symbol explained in the Eleu- ; sinian Mysteries, 150 Rama, the Hindu ; Isa riding on one, i6g. hero, an avatar of Vishnu, 94. Raphael, a subordinate emanation, engrafted by the Jews upon the Mosaic system, 54. See apocryphal book of Tobit. Ray from heaven. Apis miraculously conceived, 19. Rea, 24. Red or purple, a sacred color, 120. Regeneration of the soul after death, a pagan dogma, 121. Renovation a part of the system of the universe, alternating with dissolution, 116. Res, 24. Rewards in the Under-World, 124. Rhaabon, a chief of inferior spirits in the Hindu system, 181. Rhadama7ithus (from the Egyptian Ro-t-amenti, the judge of Amenti, a name of Osiris), the associate of Rhea, first 71 mother of ; Osiris and ; Pan her husband, 138 Rivers had guardian deities, i, the ; 65 same 58 also of Typhon, pun upon her name, Isis, the pomegranate-symbol, rhoia, suggested as a ; 112 Kronos, and judge in the Under-World, 124. of the goddesses, 24 ; as the Syrian goddess, 166. the horse sacred to, 76. ; Romans, found a Hercules in every country, 2 worshipped the hooded snake, 16 ceremony of marriage, 26 made no alterations in the religious institutions of conquered countries, 40 women worshipped Astarte, or VenusErycina, 55 derived their religion and language from the Etruscans, 51 forbidden by Numa to worship images, 63 r represented Juno and Mars by ; ; ; ; ; ; a staff or spear, 114 ; women scourged with thongs of goat-skin, 143. Rudder, 84. Runic monuments, 30. Rustam, a Persian hero, 94. S. Sabazius, the Serpent-deity, 16 ; a title of Bacchus, 69. Sacred language employed in the Mysteries, 13, 38 ; — animals, 18 — symbols, ; 18, et passim. Samothracian Mysteries, 38 ; \!cie. Great Gods, 24 a "sacred language" employed, the Pelasgian Mercury, called also Cas- the Cabeiri worshipped, 127 ; ; — received from the Pelasgi, 151. milus, or Cadmilus, explained, 150; Sanchoniathon said to have compiled a Phoenician history, 163. ;; ; Index. 234 Saturn, "horrid acts," 6; own children, 24; cutting off the be identical with Chronos, or Time, 25 devouring his genitals of his father, 25 ; said to appeared under the form of a horse to Philyra, 78 the ; same as the Arca- dian Pan, 138. Satyrs, ministers of Bacchus, forms of the goat-symbol, 21, 140; probably the same as Centaurs, 78 ; equine and caprine, 78, 143. Saurians once believed by the Egyptians to have principally occupied the earth, 72. Sanroktonos, or Lizard-killer, a title of Apollo, gi. Scandinavians, mystic lore and cosmogony, 3 ; phallus employed, 12 ; revered Thor under the symbol of a bull, 20 ; used the cross, 30 ; worshipped Freya, 32 fabled that the sun in winter sucked the ; for Frey, 85 ideas of the future ; 125 life, cow Adumbla, 36 ; mourned worshipped Odin as the Supreme ; God, 155. Scarabaus, or black beetle of Egypt, 128. Scarus, a fish sacred to the Syrian goddess, 176. Scylla, a combination of emblems, 134. Seasmis personified, 73. See Mysteries, Orgies, and Eleusinia. Secret system. worshippers of Vishnu and Siva, in Hindustan, very hostile to each Sects, the other, 177. Selloi (same as Dodona, Galli), the priests of the oracle at 47, 48. Semiramis, 220, god of the later Egyptians, 24 the cross, \, found in his temple, 30 probably a general personification, 104. Serapis, a ; Serpent (see Hooded snake and Water-snake), represented the Principle of Life, Mundane Egg, 14, 147 the general symbol of immoremployed by the Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Japanese, Tartars, Scandinavians, jugglers of North America, Africans, ancient and modem Hindus, Phcenicians and Carthaginians, Egyptians, Druids, and inhabitants of the Friendly Islands, 14-16 the hooded snake the favorite symbol, 16 the five-headed serpent of the Hindus, 16 probable reason of its adoption, 14 ; coiled round the tality, 14 ; ; ; 17 ; — worshippers Hydra, 92 in early Christian sects, 17 the caduceus, 114 ; formation of ; ; Cadmus and his ; ; flying, 35 ; — Python, 91 ; the and Medusa's head, 130; transwife Harmonia, 150 water-snakes in the the aegis ; sacristy at Delphi, 151. of his empire and conquests Sesostris, stories fictitious, 43 ; reported to have erected pillars in the countries of Asia which he conquered, 93 ; conjectured to have been the same as Ra-Meses, and to have reigned at Thebes, 107. Sexual rA!:%, 114. Shell, or Concha Veneris, a female symbol, 28 Siamese shun disputes, and believe that God ; radiated, 34. delights in a variety of forms and ceremonies, 39. Sibyls always virgins, 175. Silenus, 78. Silvanus, 78 Sistrum, of ; Sylvanus, 138. Isis, loi ; Typhon vanquished by its noise, 131. Hindu Trimurti, called also Maha-Deva, Siva, the third in the or the Chief God, represented with three eyes, 73 the destroyer and generator, 177 enmity between his votaries and those of Vishnu, 177. ; ; Index. .sky an object of worship, Smin-theus, a title 235 i. of Apollo, supposed to mean Mouse-killer, 92. Snake. See Serpent, Hooded snake, and Water-snake. Socrates, when commanded dying, the sacrifice of the cock, as if about be to 4 his reputed offense of atheism probably but the revealing of arcane and occult knowledge, 40, 60 cultivated dancing, 139. initiated, ; ; Solar system, a mystic doctrine of the Orphic system, taught by Pythagoras, the open teaching of which was declared by Cleanthes to be an impiety, 59. See Sun. Solomon, Cyclopean architecture and round pillars in his temple, 74 the palm and other profane symbols, 152. Soteira, Savior, or Preserver, a title of Proserpina, the ruler of the ; employed world of the dead, 83. SilTHP K02M0r, soter kosmou, savior of the world, a Priapic figure, 2S. See Worship of Priapus, by R. Payne Knight. Soul, an emanation of the Divine Mind, and of a prophetic nature, 45, ir8 the principle of reason and perception personified into the familiar djiemon, 118 imprisoned in matter, 118 supposed to reside in the blood, 119 two ; ; ; souls, the ; nous or phren, and the sensation, 120 butterfly, 123 by purified ; fate of the ; fire, psuc/i/, 120, 121 umbra, or or power of animal motion and ; symbolised by the psyche, or terrestrial soul, 124. Soul of Matter, Fire, 26 of the world, the goddess Hippa, Sparrow, symbol of the female principle, 29. ; 79. emblem of Juno and Mars, 114 95, no a composite symbol, 129, 134, 167. Spintria, tickets issued by the Emperor Tiberius for admission to his private Spear, symbol of the destructive power, Sphinx, wife of Cadmus, 34 ; ; entertainments, 56. Spires and pinnacles of churches, emblems of the sun, 70. by the Serpent, 14 the mystic Bacchus, or Spirit, vital, represented ; love, its fabled to dwell in the sun, 37 ; the First Cause, 38, 53 all things participate in its essence, 41 ; signified by the mistletoe, 48 ; wor- emanation, 36 ; ; shipped by the Persians, 5l of a Centaur, 8l ; ; symbolised by Jupiter reposing on the back — upon the waters, 112 — invoked by Agamemnon, 165. ; Spondai, or libations, 45. Square area, or stone, a symbol of the female productive power, caduceus of Mercury, 114. Staff, or sceptre, 31 63. ; Statues, of the bull, 20 ; of the gods, the Greeks long without, 62. Stonehenge, the circular temple of Apollo, in England, 68. Stones, square, 63. Stones, amberics, ambrosial stones, logging-rocks, pendre-stones, pillars, stones of God, baitulia, 147 ; cairns, 148. Sulphur, called also theion, or divine substance, supposed to have an affinity with the divine nature, 135. Sun, anciently worshipped, i reputed by the Scandinavians to suck the white cow Adumbla, 30 Osiris concealed in his embraces, 37 formed by the ; ; ; Divine to Spirit, 38 ; signified by Apollo, 57 ; be placed in the centre of the universe, 59 shipped as Jupiter and Apollo, and by spires, pinnacles, by Pythagoras and others Bacchus Sabazius, 69 wor- said ; human ; sacrifices in and weather-cocks on churches, 70 ; Mexico, 70; sethereal fire, 71 Index. 236 Prometheus a name of the sun, 88 Apollo the and Bacchus the nocturnal, 94 supposed to impregnate the air, 99; called also Baal, 122 his children by Minerva, 175. Frey, the Sun-god, 87 ; ; diurnal, ; ; Sunnaos, or bedfellow, 171. Supreme Being, idea suggested by supreme magistrate, or demiurgos, 2 ; taught 4 ; reverenced as Kronos, or Zeus, 22 self-generated, 22 the idea of having parents, 25 all things his emanations, 41. Stipretne councils, held in the Prytania, or fire-temples of Greek cities, 26. Supreme magistrate, or demiurgos, suggested the idea of a Supreme God, 2. in the Mysteries, ; } ; Swans, 190. Swine (see Boar), the flesh abhorred by the Egyptians and Jews, also in Pontus and other countries, 27. Sword, an oath taken upon it inviolable, 115. Symbols, secret doctrines conveyed, 5 sacred, as the means of conveying divine truth, 6 on coins, 7 of immemorial antiquity in Asia and Egypt, 12 et ; ; ; ; passim. Syrian Goddess, Atar-gatis, or Derceto, Astarte, Mylitta, Rhea, Cybele, Isis, the Celestial Venus, or Mother-goddess, round-tower pillars in her temple at Hierapolis, 74; her image, III, 166; served by galli, or castrated priests, 174 •, the fish sacred to her, 176. Taautos, Tat, or Thoth, or perhaps Seth, 24. Taras, son of Poseidon, and reputed founder of Tarentum, 176. Tartars, princes Macha carry the dragon for their militaiy standard, 14 Allah, 14, 136 place the picture of the lion on ; ; worship tombs, sacred edifices, and utensils, 75 ; regard the monkey as sacred, I2g. Tartarus, the fabled place of punishment after death, 125. Taurobolium, the sacrifice of the bull for purification, 123. Tauropola, a of Diana, 102. title Teletai, or perfectings, the common Greek designation of the Mysteries, 4. Temenos, or temple-circle, mentioned by Hecatseus, probably Stonehenge, Temples, of the sun, in Mexico, 15, 70 ; — Grecian, image of the bull, 18 ; 68. of Vesta, oracular, 46, 47 primitive, were circles of rude stones, 61, 68 of Juggernaut, 70 at Thebes, 106 symbolical of the female power, III at Delphi, 151 pantheic, that of the Syrian goddess most known, 166. Terra, rrj epa, 24 one of the Great Gods in the Samothracian Mysteries, 24. circular, 27 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Terrestrial soul, the umbra, at p sue hi, 124. Thamyris, a very ancient part of Thrace, mentioned by Homer, 11. Bacchus said to have Thebes, Boeotian, or Cadmasan, 10 signifies a cow, 35 ; been bom ; there, 35. Thebes, Egyptian, temples and ruins scattered ten miles on both sides of the between 11,000 and Nile, 106; Sesostris, 107; records of the priests for 12,000 years, 108. Themis (Coptic, Thmei), the guardian of assemblies of men and gods, Theocrasy, a method of curtailing the number of deities, 150. 27. Theodosius demolished the temples, 30. Theogony exhibits the first system of religion in every nation, 2 ; of Hesiod, 73. Index. 237 Theseus (Theos-Zeus), a symbolical personage, 66, 67 when supposed to have started into existence, 157, 158 a probable personification of Hercules, 158. ; ; Thesmophoria, the Mysteries of Ceres, observed only by women, fabled to have come from Egypt, 165. Thigh, sacrificed as the most honorable part, being regarded as the seat of the generative attribute, 32. Third figure, at Hierapolis, 167 the dove, 170. ; Thor, signifying a bull, the Scandinavian god, equivalent to Jupiter, 20 ; repre- sented sometimes with three eyes, 73 the eagle pictured on his head, 75 one of the Scandinavian triad, and mediator, i6g. ; Thoth, parent of the arts and sciences, 127. Thradan, the origin of mystic Three bodies of Diana, loi lines or legs from a central Thunder and lightning carried Thunderbolt, Krishna, 135 See Mercury. religion in Greece, 11 — statues ; at ; rites ; of Bacchus, 6S. Samothrace, and figures at Upsal, 169 ; disk, 169. by the horse Pegasus to Jupiter, 76. represented by two obelisks, 135. ; Thurz, Baal (the lord bull), a pun on Baal-Tzur, or Baal of Tyre, 20. Thyrsus, the staff of Bacchus, always surmounted by a pine-cone, 113 said ; by Plutarch to have been carried by the Jews at festivals, 132. See Saturn. Time, of, 6 name, perhaps, from the Hebrew dismembered Bacchus, 88, 156. Titans, wars 72 ; ; Titles applied to children derived tan, a dragon or Saurian,. from attributes of the Deity, 155 ; those of founders of families so applied, 158. Tombs, coins placed there as sacred symbols, 8 covered with pictures of the lion, 75 symbols, J 20. Torch, held erect to signify life, ; and reversed ; beads found in them, 31 , or chests, 96 ; — mystic, to cistae, denote death, 26 ; carried by the elephant, 136. Torch-bearer, Dionysus, 94. Tortoise, a symbol of Venus, 29, 35, 113. Tragelaphus, a goat-elephant, 81. Tragodiai, or tragedies, goat-songs, 21. Trajan^s column, 106. Transmigration of souls, into their different bodies, or perhaps conditions, 124 a doctrine common to Hindus and other nations, 179. Trees, v/orship of oaks, 47 firs ; devoted to Pan, 48 ; Bacchus the patron, 144- Triads, Egyptian, 38 ; the Supreme, represented at Hierapolis, 168 ; Samothrace, Upsal, among the Chinese, and on the Pacific islands, 169 Hindu Trimurti, 177, 179 ; ; — ; at the the idea universal, 178. Triangle, Egyptian symbol of the Triad, 169. Triform division, the first departure from simple theism, and the foundation of religious mythology, 178. Trimurti, the three Hindu deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, 177, Trinacria, 169. Trinity in unity in almost every nation, 178. Tripod, 170. Triton, a composite representation terminating in a fish, 112. ; hidex. 238 Triumph, painting the statues red, also the bodies of the consuls and dictators, 120. Tunny, \li>. Turrets, Cybele crowned with them, 27 also the Syrian goddess, 167. Tuscan order, m. ; Tutelar deity Hercules, of Tyre, 2 , ; Cybele, of cities, 27. Tiao principles, active and passive, or male and female, 25, et passim. Tyndarus swearing the been his sons, 157. suitors of Helen, 80 Castor and Pollux said to have ; Typhon, the evil potency of the Egyptians, brother of Osiris, and the same as Seth, or Satan, the Hyk-sos and Hittite god, 6, 71 ; said to have been emasculated (or dethroned) by Horus, whose eye he struck out, 58 ; the destroy- ing power, 71 his sinews, 82 157 t ; represented by the hippopotamus, 74 the harp strung with represented by an ass, 87 ; dismemberment of Osiris, 88, ; ; Typhonian rock, fable of Prometheus, 88. U. Umbra, or shade, the terrestrial soul, 124. Universal -powtT, 84; — conflagration, 117. Upsal, seat of the Northern hierarchy, 20, 136 Uranus, Ouranos, or Heaven, Uriel, or Uraeus, 16 ; three statues, l6g. ; 24. an emanation adopted by the Jews as an archangel, 54. Urns, sepulchral, emblazoned with a reversed torch, 26. Urotalt, the Arabian name of the Supreme Being, 19. Urus, auroch, or European buffalo, 19. V. Vail, the Night-goddess depicted with one, 57 Vailed cone, or egg, 95. Vailing, muesis, or initiation, ; upon the head of Proserpina, 83. 4. Vase employed as a symbol of the vine, 45. Vaticination, the art derived from the dsemon, or guardian spirit, 119. Vemis, or Aphrodite (for the Great Mother of the Asiatics, see Celestial Venus), the Graces her ministers, 29 the planet symbolised by the y, or cross of ; symbolised by a cow, 36 represented holding a poppy-head, 45; Vulcan her husband, 126; detected in an amour with Mars, 126; dancing, 139 Harmonia her daughter, 150 statue at Samothrace, 169. Vesta, daughter of Rhea, and first of the goddesses, symbolised by fire, 27. Serapis, 30 ; : ; Victims, human, ; in Mexico, 70 — ; to the Minotaur, 64, 65 ; by the hierarchies of Northern Europe, offered to Brimo, by the Greeks and Romans, 102; children so offered, 123; Abraham and Jephthah, 123; perished in boxing and gladiatorial matches, 153. Victors in the games crowned with olive or oleaster, 1 8, 32. 102 ; sacrificed also Victory, personified, 84, 123, 134. Vine, a favorite symbol of Bacchus, Hercules destroying it, 93. 45, 90 ; personified as Ampelus, 91 Index. 239 Virgin, mother of the Scythians, half-serpent, 14 character, 67 ; Diana of Ephesus not of ; this Minerva, also mother of the Corybantes, Diana, also " the Mother," 175, 176. Virgins, the Sibyls and German prophetesses, 175. Virginity the attribute of Diana, but hardly correctly so, loi ; an attribute of Juno renewed every year, 176. Vishnu, slew a serpent, 72 or Juggernaut, lay dormant four months, 85 images at Girjeh, or Djirjih, with Ganesa and Juggernaut, log the steersman of the sacred ark, 134 the Preserver, the second person in the Hindu various goddesses, 175 that of ; ; — ; ; ; Triniurti, 177. Votaries of Bacchus, inspired, 45. Vulcan, the personification of band of Venus, 126 ; fire, n6, 126, 127 husband of Charis, 89 ; father of the Cabeiri, 127 made ; his- ; the fegis, 131. Vulgar, or the populace, the great preservers of ancient customs, 48. of Prometheus probably a symbol of the Winter and Destroying Vulttire Power, 88. W. Wagon, a name of the constellation Great Bear, 97. Watch-night, the Nyktelia, a night-festival of the Mysteries, 34. Water, typifies the passive, or female, principle, 25, Bacchus, as well as Neptune, 67 ; Osiris, god et of, passim; symbolical ol poured by Pan upon 98 ; swans the emblem, 142. or Hydra, compreWater-snake, worshipped in the Friendly Islands, 15; hended both symbols, the serpent and the lizard, 92 at Delphi, 151. on Waves, imitated by the raised curves at the extremities of roofs. 111 the phallus, ijl ; — ; ; Phoenician coins, 128. Weather-cocks, on churches, originally Week, days of, called by names of the emblems of the Sun-god, 70. planets, 145. Wheel, a symbol of the universe, carried in mystic processions, 60. Whipped, a Jew, for neglect or violation of the ritual, 41 Lacedaemonian boys, Roman matrons, to promote at Sparta, and Arcadian women, at Alea, 102 ; ; fecundity, 143. Wine always accompanied devotion among the Greeks, 50. Wings, upon Eros, or Cupid, emblems of spontaneous motion, 116 ; Winnow, — on the thunderbolt, 135 13 on Mercury, ; of Cybele, 145. ; mystic, of Bacchus, 120, 128. — solstice, the period of Yule, 87 Winter, the boar an emblem, 85 binding of Prometheus a symbol, 88. ; Wisdom, the secret doctrine of the Mysteries, 4. Wolfi'P&nnx), an emblem of the destroying power, Women, Hindu, carried the lingam in procession. — Sarmatian, said of the not eat the of swine, 36 — amulets, 30 would ; flesh the flesh nymph even ; when the 89, 178. 15 ; — Italian, wear Priapic — Cyrenean, destroy the right breast, 33 cow, 36 ; Barcsean, abstained also from to — ; only, officiated at the oracle, 46, 48 relates to them, sexually, 47 ferocity, ; celebrating the ; — ; the term Grecian, their enthusiasm, and orgies of Bacchus, 49 ; prostituted Index. 240 Nana themselves in ihe temples of Mylitta, Astarte, the Celestial Venus, Aaiatis, Venus-Erycina, and in Rome and India, brated the nocturnal rites of Bacchus, 68 ; — 54, 55, 67 — ; British, cele- their constitutions affected by the — — Arcadian, whipped annually at the festival of Bacchus, 102 moon, 99 Roman, whipped with thongs of goat-skin to promote fecundity, 143 enthusiastic, at the Athenian, invocation at the Thesmophoria, 165 ; ; ; — ; temple of the Syrian goddess, 173 more ; liable than men to spiritual enthusiasm, 175. Woodpecker, the yunx, or wry-neck, sacred to iVIars, 171, 172. Worship, mystic and symbolical, in Asia, of immemorial antiquity, 12 ples of, 50, ei Wreaths of princi- ; passim. foliage, 32. Writing, alphabetic and hieroglyphic, 6, 42 ; symbolical, 70. Y. Yamuna, or Jumna, 98. by the barbarians Year, represented of :'iie North, 145. Yule, the feast of Frey, kept at the winter solstice, 87. Yunx torquilla, or the wry-neck, 171. Zadok, the head of the sacerdotal family in Judea, 53. Ekron, made by the Jewish Pharisees identical Zebiib {Baal), the oracle-god of with the Hittite god Seth, or Satan, and styled Prince of Devils, — or Jupiter-Fly, the destroying attribute, 89 ; name conjectured 62, 89; to mean Baal of the Temple, or Lord of the Oracle, 90. Zend Avesta. Z^tis. See Avesta. the Grecian Kronos, 22 ; name the for the Supreme Being, Dseus, or Deus, all-pervading spirit of Meilichios, or Moloch, 70; correspondent with given to Pan, or the great All, 138 ; phoria as the all-ruling Spirit, 165 goddess, 167. horned, 138 ; 2 the universe, 6r statue at ; ; ; the same called Amun, 137; invoked at the as also name Thesmo- the the temple of the Syrian See Jupiter. Zodiac, use in astrology, 52 ; the signs taken from myslic symbols, 97. Zoroaster, Zerdusht, Zerathustra, the sacred college of Chaldseans, or Magians, or the president (Rab-lMag) of the college, 53 the Avesta claimed by Persians of the second, or post-Parthian, dynasty to be the work of ; Zoroaster, 62. Hands with Necromancer's Emblems. OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST Drawn from the Antique THE FIGURES REFER TO by A. L. THE BOTTOM OF THE FOLIOS AT See the same names Refers No. I. Gnostic Gem. Abra.xas to the in the to all, life and in Hades is I lao in lieaven is is the highest of the SuN. all the In the winter, Under World as (Aides) when the harvest is ripe he is summer he is the scorching Helios in spring ; Zeus, the god of the weather 2. Page. the nights are longest, he dwells in the Zeus Chthoxios, love, the text. semes (shemesh) ILAM-IAO, JehoAdonis, Adonis is the Semitic and Mosaic Adonai, the Lord" (Movers). and m —Metropolitan Museum vah the great sun (god). " lao when PAGES. Index. numbered paragraphs god from King's Gems, gods; he gives RAWSON. ; in ; autumn the season of fruits he is lAO tlte source of all beauty, and life." Phoenician in origin but adopted in many other lands. in — Frontlspiece, Soorya. From the original The original is a carving in marble nearly six feet high, by Hindu art- some remote age of anticjuity, perhaps before the great gods were given more than one pair of arms. Soorya is the spirit residing in the ists in all things to grow, as the lotus emblem held in each The sign of the female principle is made by both hands, as the priest now makes it, by elevating the thumb and two lingers, and it is also the sign of the Holy Trinity. The smaller figure of sun which causes hand indicates. a priest at the left shows a phallik sign with the a cup (the sign of the female) in the sword and shield stands on the right. left. A right hand and holds female warrior with Before the feet of the god Arun the charioteer seated on an elephant's head, guides the seven horses of 42 2 List of Illustrations. Page. No. the sun, the seven day.s of a quarter of a the sides are for the winds, waters, monster's head found P. Mr. J. fruits the sun as a boar 1833 on Saugur island in Mr. — the ; at the and son, by whose leave 3. Gods .vxd 4. YouNi; Bakchos this it At the top a statue was flowers. mouth of of Philadelphia, where small figures on The destroyer. G. Sinclair, an East India Company's W. Rulon, The moon. tlie now is, flanges, India, by and sold by him pilot, to in possession of his drawing was made. Goddesses Before Persephone a Tiger. c>n — — Moiitfaucflii Mus Boiir. 9 The young god holds in his hand the sacred Kanthar, the two-handled drinking cup. Rawlinson, Herod, ii, 74, says : " It connected with is deep drinking, as being raised with both hands and emptied draught, a fashion in which Marius is 5 a at A said to have copied the god." vine with clusters and leaves hangs on the tiger's neck, and a Thyrsos lies under The god his feet. is crowned with ventor of comedy," another title as well masks indicate " the The group of Bakchos. both the creative and the destructive powers He may ivy. called Dionysos as Bakchos, unless the comic in nature 1)6 in- represents combined. Richard Payne Knight's Worship of Priapus,\s. 74, also Cabinet See Seerel. pp. 20, 32, 45, S9, 112, 113. 5. Seili",nos. — Bourbon Museum 10 and moisture, and so of " thirsty souls." A The word means a bubbling fountain. dweller in fertilizing streams. " He gives drink of delicious sweetness." His son Evanthes gave ( Jdysseus wine which Polyphemos said was sweeter than honey. He The god is also a p(jets of humidity god of Wisdom, made him for Platon said Sokrates learned of him. }sos, or of Adonis, or Pan, whiclr and sun or wind. A very Payne Knight IVorship of ( 6. The son of Aphrodite, or of the Naiad Chione and of Pion- — Seilenos. Bourhou The names of the ancient was he was a union of water to say different idea of this god is given by R. J'l-iapus, pp. 41, 42). Museum artists who 10 designed these two pictures of the god of generous drink are lost, but their work remains for our admiraand delight. They are well worth stn<h- for the several attributes tion cif 7. 8. Seilenos, and the beatity of their grouping and execution. Xymphs and Water Gods. — Mou/faueiiu Three Graces. — Bourlwii Museum A Hindu rays, as 11 14 personification of the bright ravs of the sun, or of the tlashing young women with wings. ancient and Neail)" all the modern times have made groups as three, then four, or more, led I'V famous of the f iraces -Apollo or Merem}'. ; artists ot sometimes The names ol the three are Thaleia (the blooming one), Aglaia (the shining), and Euphrosyne 157- (joy), sometimes called Pasiphae (all brilliant). See Note — List of Illustratious. 42 3 — P.M. I., No. 9. 10. Perseus and Persephone. Venus on a Shell. — Bout-. Causeiis 15 Mus 29 Found at Gragnano, Italy, painted on a stuccoed The shell is an emblem of the feminine principle, as hand, and the tunny 1 1. See Cabinet Seen/, fish. Apollon and Python. — Mus. light is a garden. also the leaf in her p. 69. 30 Kadmos and Em- Serpent, and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, good and Apollon was the the picture in Francaise Also may be named Herakles and Hydra, blem of wall Purifier (sunlight Cadmus and called on fog in marshes). The evil. original of the Dragon, although the lion's skin of Herakles and dart of iVpoUon are there. 12. Roman Campana A.MAZONS AND GREEKS. The Amazons were Achilleus, Herakles, Theseus, beautiful, fierce, shine. riors and Bellerophon, and and powerful, as said to have been might be said of the clouds in sun- Another view of the Amazons was that they were female war- whose right breast the bow, spear, or sword, to a 31 mysterious beings, slaughtered or overcome by had been amputated to free the arm in using and an attempt was made to trace the word supposed root " mazos," meaning a female breast. Some authors them on the island Hesperia, west, near the Atlantic Ocean. The gardens of the Hesperides are in an island which no bark ever approaches, where the ambrosial streams perpetually flow by the Couch locate of Zeus, and it is darkness which near the land of the Gorgons, and of that everlasting is the abode of Ahi and Pani, of Geryon, Kakus, and Echidna. 13. The Herakles of the Farnese Palace. —Rome As a hero he 33 is both god and hero. and Alkmene and others say of Amphitryon. Juno was jealous and sent two serpents to destroy the infant. This means that the rising (infant) sun strangles (disperses) the dark morning clouds, called Herakles, like Theseus, Jupiter is son of ; serpents (offspring of the great night-dragon or serpent). this figure is the sun at noon, Herakles in at his greatest strength, irresistible as a giant with a club. 14. The Nymph Deianeira and Kentaur The Nymph was Nessos. — Guido . intrusted by Herakles to the Kentaur Nessos to be and he made love to her on the way across, and was shot by the sun-god. The dying Nessus requested the Nymph to give his shirt, which was red with his blood, to Herakles. When the god put the shirt on he was on fire with torment and died in the flames on Mount Oita. The sun sets in a bank of fiery carried over a river, against her wish, clouds, crimson, scarlet, Herakles. the enemy Deianeira of the day. is gold and purple. the See other references to Hindu Dasyanari, the wife of the fiend, 3S List of Illustrations. 424 No. 15. Theseus, Eurytos anh Ariadne. Page. — Gat. dcs Peints .... 38 Eurytos was father of lole (loved by Herakle.s), teacher of the use of the bow Coins. 16. Sun 17. •' 1 8. (the clouds — Britisti as a Rev. Athena " Rev. 19. Eurytos and Kteatos were sons of the grinders to Herakles. MoHon and Aktor Museum and Am. Num. man and Moon were formed by the winds). 42 Hadrian. a lion. as a Soc woman in a crescent star ; and sea-crab. with helmet and earrings. Owl and olive sprig; A(th)E (for Athens) in a simk square. 20. 21. Boar's Head. SvRAKOsioN (Syracuse). and band, Arethusa, earring, hair in a net curls like flames, surrounded by dolphins (tun- nies). It is to conjectured that the meeting of the two fishes opposite her nose that of Kimon, later, when the island on which the was connected with the main land by a causeway. and 22. Rev. Chariot and crowned by Victory. '• is four horses driven a union of the horse, This is male principle, and of the sun emblem was city built by ApoUon who of humidity, chariot, of the as the male. is C hx the date of the coin between the reign of Gelon, 485-478 B. Trophy in the fe- space be- low. 23. Herakles 24. V.ASE 25. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor, Cesar. 26. in the garden of the Hesperides. two-handled kanthar ; ; two dots. " Rev. Perseus cutting off the head of Medousa; Pallas assisting (the sunlight cuts off the cloud or disperses it). Sebaste (Samaria). 27. Thasos. Satyr carrying off a nymph (wind blowing a cloud away). 28. Akanthos. 29. Eo\PT. 'J'rajan Lion killing a horse (sun drying Hadrian head; (money of) Hadrian the Venerable. up Imperial fog). Caesar — List of lllii.strations. 42 Nn- " Rev. Serapis on a ram 30. 31. s I'ACJE Bakchos (Bacchus) Homer makes Zeus .Vote 812), names which 6th year. ; Rom. Mus or Dionysos. say Dionysos his son is to say, of the hc.'.ven is Greek poetry came in later time 46 by Semele (the and of the earth), (See The two earth. to denote very different ideals. Dionysos was the son born out of darkness, the worker through the long day of life, contender with and conqueror of enemies (clouds), sleeper in the dark, silent land (night), and he He sleep in the dawn-land. The day-sun. nature of divinities " The Great Dioiiysiak Hfyt/i," each descriptive of some attribute. ual ; again from Apollon the is read in their names, and Brown, in is A few of these are when human : sacrifice Agrionios, the was offered to Bromios, the noisy, as patron of the noisy and vociferous ; rit- Choiropsalas, the sow-seeker, a phallic epithet (see Clement Alex- andrinus, Protrept. ii, rises as gives forty-three epithets of this god, savage, referring to an early time the god who also the night-sun is 22). 39, ii. and Aristophanes, The word Bakchos is said to many emblems Associated with this god are Sphejies, 1364, mean to howl and Peter, or shout wildly. the serpent as a symbol ; of the sun, of time and eternity, of earth-life, fertilizing moisture, and as a phallic emblem; sesame (always put in the mystic chest), cake pyramids and knobbed cakes to W. See Myth, of the The name Dionysos Co.\. rian Daiannisi, or Dian-nisi, judge of into be the son of Persephone, of 16, of Arge, of Dione, and of Amaltheia. Nations, Sir G. made also salt, ivy, pomegranate, ser- Dionysos was also said pents and ferules. , ; is men, and Aryan referred to the Assyit corresponds to the Egyptian Rhotamenti, Rhadamanthys, the King of the Under World. The Dionysiak myth who invented people is a treatise on it. Dionysos world, son of Zeus the 32. is was Dawn in its Apollo with his a welcome, while : Hermes des Feints 50 said to be a son of Dionysos loveliness foiu- and Aphro- and splendor, unruffled by cloud horses ushers in the da)', bears the infant aloft to Zeus a cloud attended by his eagle. are near, Orpheus says — Gal. the sun, and dite, that is the or wind. as conceived by the various the kosmic spirit of the material The sun whom men call Dionysos as a surname. One Zeus, one Aides, one Helios, one Dionysos." Birth of Bakchos. Bakchos life, cause and all-father, and of Semele the first foundation of nature (Brown). " is A'arious and Pan pipes who waits on nymphs, gods and goddesses and Narcissus (Narkissos) the weary sun, goes to sleep (turns into a flower). 2,:>,. 34. Persian Banner The Mystic Egg The Solar Egg is ; ; emblem see of the Sun 54 Note 60. a manifestation of the Kosmic Egg, supported by two serpents of plenty, each crowned with the modius of Serapis. On some —— List of Illustrations. 42 6 No. Page, ancient Roman tombs we human head with two see a wings; on others a head with wings; the cherub. serpents as In this group of the egg with serpent wings we ha\e the sun as the agathodaimon " with healing on his wings," rising which are the horses of Indra, the golden pinions of Protogonos, as " on wings of glory up the east he soars," I I}'perion This the climber. is Assur, Egypt, and Persia, where the w'inged solar circle of Kaldea, it originated. It means the brooding and generative power of nature. 35. 36. Mary and The A'irgin and flames, an emblem child Jesus, in a circle of roses See Notes 576, 577. of maternity. The Venus of Cyprus. — Met. Museum. The hermaphrodite, with male and female emblems. 37. The Arda — Nari — Iswara. —Moor' s Pantlicon. With both male and female emblems. The tiger, bull, spotted leopard garment, and a stream of vitalizing fluid issuing from the male side of the head, the origin of the spiritual river Ganges, the stream of all liv- ing souls. 38. The Bull 39. Persian emblem. — Causeus. 40. Herakles (Sandon) Apis of Sun drying the 41. fog. Egypt.— 7?. Payne " King's IV. of P. Met. Mas. killing a boar. From Knight, Gems." Tyre. Colony of Tyre the metropolis —the two sacred stones, double altar, in- cense altar flaming, and shell under an oak from which hang two acorns. — Causeus. 42. Emble.m of the Dog Star Sirius. 43. The god Atys, Adonis, Tammuz. 44. Kerberos. — Causeus. See Engraving No. 211 Coins. — Am. 45. 46 Alexander " i?('(-'. Dkmetrios 50 Numismatical Society II. king of Epirus ; 62 head in elephant's See Note 92. Cyziciis. II Nikator, Philadelphos. Cerks with Hekakles ; eagle. Bakchos on a coin of 48 Re'o. another form. I Bull. " for A hena armed 47 49 Alontfaue-on. phallic emblems. killing a bull. Herakleia. skin. List of Illustrations. 427 No, I'AI,E. 51. Bull butting; 52. Priest sacriiicing on flaming 53. Athexa. 54. " Rev. Owl 55. Syrakosion. 56. Archelaus. 57. Alexander altar cock and serpent. ; olive Arethousa in a circle of dolphins. Horse. II. king of Epirus. " Rev. Zeus holding eagle and Lion with wings. 60. Dejietrios 62. Tliurium. on a vase; goddess of plenty near; 59. 61. below. Athens. branch. 58. fish staff; eagle at his feet. Leontopolis. II. " Rev. Shrine of Kyeele Head Herakleia. goddess on a goat's back. ; of god in an olive wreath. Hair of flames. 63. Zeus. Jupiter. —Marble at Rome 65 Zeus lived in the clear blue sky, and some poets said he cether, unruffled by wind or storm, and He gods on Olympos. egates others to do his will. This God and Zeus as the One is the blue accompanied by the immortal is never takes part is in affairs of Zeus Ouranion. mankind, but " del- The thought of Father of All was the birth of religion." The Zeus Pater of Greeks, Dyaus Pitar of Hindus became Jupiter at Rome. The birth and amorous exploits of Jupiter are the subjects of many lines in the Iliad and Odyssey, in Hesiodic and Orphic theogonies, and low, and 64. in Ovid's Metamorphoses. \ See other engravings of Zeus be- 4. Ceres Demeter. —Florence Museum 69 Hindu Dyava Matar, female as such they made her the Dawn-Mother. as Dyatis Pitar is male Others say she is Ge-Meter, earth-mother. In the myth of Proseq^ine .Max Miiller sees in the name Demeter the ; (Persephone) she 65. is Rhea Kyeele. This goddess Avord is is called Mother Earth. —Florence Museum the Latin ideal ripener of 73 fruits. from a Sanskrit root Sri meaning (Lakshmi) is to iSIax JMiiller says the cook or ripen. Sri the wile of Vishnu, and she rose from the sea like Venus. See Notes I44, 148, also engraving XXXIV in Cabinet Secret. List of Illustrations. 42 8 Nil. 66. Venus de Medicis — Rome and Anli(|ue marble found at 15S0; carried in — Am. 67. 1 79 up the garden of the Medicis in I., and 815. Num. Head Cyrene. set Florence in 1680, and to Paris by Napoleon to restored to Florence in Coins. Pagr. Flor. Miis Soc 86 of king with ram's horn of Ammon, and two plants. 68. 69. " Rev. The sacred Silpion, and Atrato. Alexander Severus, emperor. Perinthos. " Zeus Ri'v. Gaia and Thalassa below; seated, eagle, above Helios with horses to his Star and crescent above. See* border of dots. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. Head Thasos. and 219. " Rev. Herakles as an archer, disk, and Thasion. Day and ISTRiA. Hawk " Rev. night sun. on a tunny ; Istrie. Apollon, olive wreathed, LvKiA. bow and quiver. " Rev. Lyre from tortoise-shell, name in square. holding vase, dove in a vine, dog. Zeus on an 77. Abdera, Thrace. 78. Demetrios. 79. ^Nus. 80. Lion ass, Griffin (eagle Goat, altar, and inscription lion). in sunk square. Leontopolis. Alexis. Emperor IMarcus BizvA, Thrace. ; and Ceres with phallic symbols. killing a bull. gustus 82. bulls. in Zodiac, all ; of Bakchos crowned with ivy. 76. 81. and Selene with car, Inscription Julius Philippus, Au- head olive wreathed. " Rev. Asklepios (Aesculapius), Apollon, Hygeia, and Telesphoros, altar with serpent. Fortune and Zeus above. 83. ^-Enus. S4. lo Goat looking back. AT Canopus. — Bourbon The word lo denotes fore the same relates that as Isis, the horned 91 brilliance of the honied o/u\ as in tlie moon, and engraving. heifer wore syinl:)ols in divinities are figured in pi. Jewish worship. VII, Cabint:t Seerr/. there- The myth Zews loved her and jealous Juno changed her into a The new moon and red e]-al Museum Greek the in heifer. Sev- List of Illustrations. No. 85. 86. and is in crowned by vine Crowds of people 91 102 a car drawn by leopards. in the He carries a ttiyrsos, His attendants dance, blow trumpets, leaves. burn torches, drink wine, and Seilenos 88. Page. —Poussin Bakchik Procession — Ovid Met Discord on Olympos The god Bakchos 87. 429 is borne drunk on a braying ass. windows, doorways, and elsewhere look on. —Pal. Royal. x\phrodite Dancing. — Gal. Rhea. Ceres. To 105 105 des Peiiits ApoUon, and the lively attraction of Eros, the gods and goddesses engage in the mazy dance. Aphrodite, Hermes, Herakles, and a winged Victory. the music of — Mas Child and Demon —Bour. Mus 89. Ganvmedes and Eagle. 90. Angel, Coins. 91. 92. British " Rev. Isis Museum, Worlidge, &c on a column inside an Young Herakles bow and quiver. 94. Demetrios. seated on (Catania). 97. Abdera. Grififin. 98. Baal head on 99. Leontopolis. Svrakosion. Sop bearded. in field. a Phoenician coin. Lion killing a bull. Arethousa, hair banded and netted, ear- and Syrakosion 10 1. Medousa. Antique gem 102. Philippus. 103. Demetrios. 106. column, Arethousa, olive leaf and wreath. ring, tunnies 105. club, " Rev. Kybele on a goat. Katanion 104. 117 inscription. a lion's skin, Head diademed, 96. 100. 115 Ptolemy, ram's horn. 93. 95. 115 Boiir. in the field. from Worsleyana. Horse bearing boy with palm branch Head ; vase. in lion's skin. " Rev. Victory. Egypt. Horus in a flower. Bakchic Ecstasy. See \ 70, 74. —Rom. Campana 121 List of Illustrations. 430 Ni>. 107. llAUBO AND Ceres. Page. —-Gal. des Feints 121 Baubo was one of the names of the night goddess Ceres was the mother earth. The two meet at Eleusis to mourn for Kore Persephon; was sown the grain that hia, Coins. —Am. Num. ; that Soc. in Plouton's is and Br. dominions. 08. Thunuerholt ; 09. THL'NUERiioLT ; king Alexandres 10. Thuxderkoli' ; Ptolemy Epiphanes. 11. Sf.leukos 12. Antiochos VI. 13. Lampsak.^s. 14. A'elia. Griffin with lion's head. 15. Chios. Griffin, \ase 16. CuM.t:. Arethousa, earring, waved hair. 17. '• 18. CuiLK. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. JicT. tail and ; Vaga. PHffiNicLA. Cow olive wreath. J bull's horns. in a fish tail. and bunch of grapes. and hinge end. woman and two dog ;\Ian attacking suckling a Head Alli!;,\. heads, dolphin a lion. calf. with olive wreath. " Rev. Skylla, two dog heads and two swans. Athena 25. 26. Phienicia. •' Rev. Cow in horse-tail helmet. looking backward. Acre. Prow TAREXit •^L Head of ruler in dotted border. of ship Phoenician incription. Horse with wings, a fish tail, and " Rev. Taras on a dolphin, disk, wreath, and T,o. Horse ending Skylla " Rev. 29. 183. shell. SvHARis. 28. '^^ Elephant carrying a torch. Shell, side " See I. Shell, mouse and inscription. 24. 27. Elephant with I. Jic'i'. " Rev. king Antiochos 127 Afiis trident. (BIOS. Scrolls for water. Woman headed sphinx, and vase. shell. shell, fish 1 List of Illustrations. 43 No, 131. 132. Pace. Cock and her pheasants I'HiT.xiciA. Hfad ' Rev. 127 of ruler with diadem and inscription: Caius Papilius Mutilius, General of the Samnites. 133. 134. Rev. Bull on a crocodile. Ph(Kxicia. Mauritania. and King Masinissa Phunicia. Rev. 136. Poseidon. Marble group See Eng. No. Coins. 140. 141. killing a bull ; palm branch. 131 3, 320. and Am. Num. Soc 135 See S i34- Janus. SvRi.\. Lion —Br. Mus. Diana and Deer, bow and branch. 138. Ephesus. 139. inscription, bird, wreath altar. 135. 137. : Insc. below. Antiochos VI., rayed crown. " Rev. DiosKOUROi mounted ; olive wreath. Bull with man's face. K,4MARINA. Meaning the sun in the underworld. head below, 142. Thurion. Bull butting 143. Tortoise. Eretria. 144. Paljiyra. Three Kabeiroi (Cabiri). 145. Etruria. Eagle's head. 146. Two 147. Ptolemy. 148. Sphinxes. Head On ; lion's a coin eera. unnamed. of king with diadem. " Rev. Ptolemy Soteros and mint mark. (savior) in a circle; also an eagle, date 149. 150. Syria. Antiochos Soteros (savior) in dotted border. " Rev. Zeus, or ApoUon, seated Antiochos Soteros. 151. Krotona. Tripod, serpents, scroll (for water) border. 152. Rhegium. Lion's head, flames for mane. 153. Etruria. Head 154. Aic-E. 155. Leontinu.m. with polos. Ram's head. Lion's head ; four barleycorns. — List of Ilbistrations. 432 Page. No. 156. dem and 157. Tripolis, Kastor Phcexicia. and Polydeukes, olive dia- beaded border stars, in 135 Ceres with cornucopia and staff; inscription, The sacred and free city. " Rev. (money) of the Tripolitans. 158. Sybaris. 159. Philetairos. 160. fish. King of Pergamos, olive wreath. Pallas crowning name of king, " Rev. Goddess seated grapes. 161. on a Bull shield ; Alexander the Great. bunch of and bow. Engra\ing one fourth size of the original gold coin. Bellerophon 162. " Rev. 163. Seleukos 164. Head I. 165. — Bull of India. Colossal stone bull LiNGAJL killing the Chimaira. with cow's horns. JMoor' s Paiitlieon Moor' s Pantheon 137 Brahn:ia, bull, lingam, Ganesa, Prajapati. 166. 137 Tanjore pagoda, India. ; iScc. Theseus, Ariadne and Minotauros. The myth sent a bull by whom — Boiir. Mas. was shut up in the labyrinth made by Daidalos Athenians fed him with \-oung children, The monster adne, killed him. . . 141 : Echidna, Orthros, Geryon, or Kerberos, called Minotauros. like . At the prayer of Minos Poseidon Pasiphse became mother of a composite monster of the Minotaur says is until the miasma, in Crete, Theseus, aided who slain is He where the Ity Ari- bv the sun. The Minotaur signifies the savage passions which our nature contains. The thread which .Vriadne gave to Theseus is the divine mind in us. The labyrinth the obliquity and variety of life (Taylor from >l\"mpi" In this monster we see (Jsar-Hapi of Egyq.it, the Calf of odoros). Sinai, the Bulls of Jeroboam, the >iIolekh (Moloch) of Syria, the Ha( mon of Kart-hada, the Melikertrs of Korinthos, the Palaimon of Ten- edos, the Laphystios or Clutton-Zeus of ,\los, the mythic Ph.alaris of Akragas, who feasted on children (Aristotle), the burning Talos, the giant of i:ironze of .Sardinia, and Dionysos the raw-flesh-eating. child-devouring .Minotaur was probably an idol of brass with a figure 167. and has left IV 76, . bull's ils and EuROPii. head (Movers, Phonizier, traces all .Strabo, X. ;i). Human sacrifice See Diodorus, 4. Palais Royal Sec Eng. No. 177. i. round the Mediterranean Sea. The human 141 List of Illustratious. No1 68. Pa,.,:. — Boar. Herakles, Tf.lephos and Deer. Telephos, the far-shining, 433J Mas 144 son of Aleos the bUnd and Aiige the is liril- and he was exposed on Mount Parthenion, wheie he was He went to Delphoi to learn who was his mother, and was sent to Teuthras, king of Mysia, where he met his mother liant, suckled by a doe. who did not recognize him, and offered her for his wife. is and lokaste repeated with story of <3idipous It is cules prevents Telephos from killing his mother. Telephos the Her- variation. little is the dawn. 169. Bakchos and Ariadne at Naxos. Theseus on his way — Boitr. Athens abandoned Ariadne to Naxos, where Bakchos found her. : " Beautiful Thestus was conducting sacred Athens, was slain by Artemis the testimony of Dionysos." the island of Another legend says whom Ariadne, daughter of Minos, 144 JSTiis in Sea-girt in In the Theognis to the Dia (Xaxos) through we read, " Dionysos Chrysokoraes (the golden-haired) made the blond-haired Ariadne, daughter of Minos, his spouse, and immortal and Very Holy. e\'er young.'' him Kronion for The word This was a favorite subject with ancient was daughter of ilinos (son of Zeus) (Zeus) made her Greek Ariagne and means is and the .\riadne artists, all-brilliant Pasiph;e (mother of the Minotaur). 170. Marsyas Teaching Olympos. Mus 147 for fear its use would spoil her beauty, and challenged .VpoUon with He See Eng. No. 213. He marble was found in in suggestion than this, inet Secret^ pi. II., also Pan and Pan is purifying who — is at and was skinned by the god. Herculaneum which and represents Marsyas the artists, and a much broader as a satyr. See Cab- Boiir. 2/its 147 Hindus (Sanskrit) He the Faunus. is gentle to is the pavana, by the wind, the wind whistles among the reeds by Pan makes love soft the riverside Syrinx (reed). Herakles Stealing Oxen. The oxen and sheep is Eng. No. 178- breeze, called by the When said failed awav here teaching the young Olympos the use master of the reed and pipe music, and he Favonius and zephyr. it is Ero.s. a satyr Latins, is This was a favorite subject among ancient of the pipe. group 172. Boiir. says Marsyas found the reed pipe that Athena thre\v his lyre to a trial of skill. 171. — The myth are clouds, — Gal. and des Pciiit.': are the property of Eurvtos, the are set to keep them, when Herakthem by dispersing the vapors. Eurytos and Autolykos taught Herakles to shoot with the bow and to wrestle. These names denote the light and splendor of morning. Since the sun disperses the clouds in the daytime the oxen may have been hid- Kentaur (cloud), les (the sun) den in whose daughters steals a cave of light, for intense light obscures, and the myth says the 152 Li^i of Illustrations. 434 No, Page. oxen were hidden his club and liberated the dark thundercloud. 173. before dras. the club of Herakles — (Jaganauth). Government at It is is the the lightning. is Photo now 152 when in religious processions of India, wheels and were crushed. its the English Herakles killed with Others say the cave of Cacus cattle. Then Car of Juggernaut. Formerly drawn whom cave of Cacus, in the fanatics lay up by order of laid Ma- Streeveliputur, in the Presidency of decorated with hundreds of large and thousands of small It is carved figures in wood, of gods and monsters and ornamental objects. " .See 174. 175. 176. 177. 120. —Bour. Miis VouNt; Zeus and Eagle. — Bour. Miis Satyr, Aphrodite and Eros. — Gal. dcs Feints Europe. — Palais Royal Zeus of Pheidia.s. 155 155 159 159 Daughter of Agenor, King of Phcenicia, and of Telephassa. Europe said is daughter of Tityos the giant, who was Pindar killed by an arrow of Artemis, and condemned to work like Ixion, Sisyphos, Tan- Europe means the splendor of the morning, and Prometheus. talos seen first in the purple-land, She Phoinikia (Phrenicia). the is dawn who borne across the blue heaven by the lord of the pure ether (Zeus), assumed a for her all (far-shining) search Telephassa died in Thessaly, and was told at who gave such great pleasure to Delphoi that his search The in vain. is Kadmos beautiful being all who beheld her will no more be She became mother of Minos, Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus seen. by Zeus 178. Kadmos and Telephassa bull's form. the long day. in Crete. See Eng. No. 167. Marsyas and Olympos. Mars}"as is —Bour. Mus 164 one of the most noted of the Satyrs, and groves and make the branches of the music of the winds, while the clouds whirl who dance trees in wild to the the air above. are companions of Dionysos, lord of the wine-cup the burly heedless giant. animate forests The)- and of Herakles, After the storm has passed the stillness is called the sleep of the Satyrs. 179. Kentaurs and Kentauresses. Those trwo bon Museum at Naples, wrought with exquisite Italy. skill. a I1i\rs()s and a pine cone The Kentauresses each tiful two —Bour. Mus groups were drawn from two silver vases ; The 167 now in the liour- figures are finel)- designed in the lower a pine branch is carry a lion's skin over the arm. in its The place. beau- lamps aboxe, neai the border of eggs and spear points, are lights each. and In the upper group the Kentaur bears for — ; : List of Illustrations. No. iSo. Kentaur and Eros. When Mus 171 Here the Ixion in pride attempted to seize queen of the bright in his way the mist-maiden Nephele, and the KenThe sun at high noon calls out the clouds which horses across the sky. They are the Gandharvas of the air, Zeus placed taur was born. move —Roman 435 Pagk. like Vedas. t8i. Fortune. Tyche —Bourbon Museum or Fortune is 177 the notion of blind chance, scattering favors with- out heed to the needs or deserts of any one. she directs so she affairs more or she less as Another view may be She in the other. also stands her power over to indicate on a globe or holds one its affairs, Many of the fates (parete, Eumenides). when other she shows a peculiar 82. The second is titles Akraia (wealth bringer), and Agatha (the good). 1 that is propitiated, and represented with a rudder in one hand and the horn of is Amaltheia hand human in her properly one are given her The separate head style of dressing the hair. figure holds a rudder and cornucopia (horn of Amaltheia), and bears on her head an Isis form of or- nament or emblem. I S3. The winged ing in the 184. figure bears a brought before the c;- Ganymedes. Ganymedes was myth means the dom. — Ovid. Atet iSo the biting frost that kills the spirit of the fruits and flowers, the beautiful 8 float- ideal. The Boar That Killed Adonis. The boar was 1 palm branch and seems This was a later air. Adonis whom warm summer he — Gal. is 183 act of fructifying nature, attended overflowing of the Nile by moving his Bakchos, or Zeus himself " There he by the Eagle of Zeus. aloft in a new feet. disguise. The by Power and Wis- Pindar said Ganymedes was a mighty genius needlework, Virgil says When dcs Pcints and borne seized Aphrodite loves. melts and dies. He who caused is the Atys, Adonis, Speaking of a certain : Ganymedes is wrought with living art. Chasing through Ida's groves the trembling hart Jove's armor-bearer bird in open day With crooked He is boy away." the morning light carried to heaven on a bright tinted cloud. Hebe was 186. talons bears the to be the wife of Herakles. Ganymedes on Olympos. Banquet of the gods in cup-bearer to the gods — —Palais Royal. the distance. the rain-cloud. Ganymedes 183 is the immortal List of Illustrations. 436 No. 1S7. Death of Adoms. Adonis, Tammuz, Atys by the biting must have phone 188. and a part of the is, Met 1S6 and flowers who the spirit of fruits is is The summer, Venus, warm and flowers, therefore In the every spring. \'\<.E. Oviit. the boar. frost, iVuit — Adonis brought to is killed loving, life again myth Adonis is in the underworld, as Perseyear, and in the region of light the other part. Prometheus and Vulture. Hesiod says Prometheus are Epimetheus, Atlas is —Palais Royal a son of the Titan lapetos, and 1S9 his brothers -Eschylus says mankind were and Alenoitos. hopeless in savagery until Prometheus stole hre from heaven and taught them its use. Hesiod which was followed by sa^s that men began to live in a a silver age, then a l:)razen, golden age and we are now in owed his throne to the e-xertions of Prometheus, but when he befriended man with the gift of fire Zeus became angry and punished him by causing a vulture to gnaw always The an iron age. poet also says Zeus which is renewed every day. Tortures and death have no power over him, for he is delivered b)- the bright and lovely lo, and his release brings Zeus to humiliation. Zeus had punished him for teaching man the use of lightning and fire, and so awakened their at his liver lasting them with comforts of life, teaching them how to and open mines, and so Prometheu> senses, providing plow and became build, to cross the sea second creator and preser\^er of mandkind. the Deukalion was another restorer of mankind, 189. Venus and AV(.)unded Adonis. The Summer-Heat (\'enus) mourns fruits (Wounded Adonis). 190. Bakchos, and Tiger. \'ine, See description in paragraph 1 26, after the —Pal. His son mythical flood. Royal 189 the frost-bitten flow'ers and for — ]Vorship of Priapiis and 193 Richard Payne Knight's also in Worship of Friapiii. 191. Apollon. — Unknown antique 196 This statue in white marble was found Antium, Italy. It is and small .Apollon, supposed The form of the cloak. left be a copy of a bronze because of the fore-arm. the ftngcis of the right hand, have been restored. parts of the leg was given from to 1505 near the harbor of in the action which is Its name, the Pythian the instant after sending an arrow through the great serpent, which means that the sun's ray> have pierced the dark morning clouds. Belvedere from Coins. — British 192. Chimaira. It " Rev. in Dove Greek means also called the A]iollo Pope Julius II. 19S Aliiseuin SegestK. Lion's head head from the back, and serpent 193. is location in that garden bv its in body, goat's tail. an olive wreath. a \ear old goat, and and The word chimaira also means winter. List of Ilhistrations. 437 Page. N.I, 194. Bull on 195. Camarina. a coin of Magnesia Young Bakchos with circle of scrolls or 196. 198. Antiochos kam. fish, ; See ^ fish in ; a 157. *^\ crescent and Note 586. 157, " Rev. Apollon on egg-shaped basket; bow and arrow 199. Gela, 200. Athena. 201. Phcenicl\. King Antiochos. at his foot. Man-faced Sicily. bull gelas above. ; Skylla and griffin on helmet. Head of Ceres with wheat ears in the hair. " Rev. Horse, palm tree and Phoenician for 203. See I. and Pegasos 202. bull's I'lOrns curved lines of water. " Rev. Aphrodite on a swan, curved and lines of water 197. 198 Karka, the name of a Two A(jRiGENTUJL letters krka, city. cormorants on a rabbit. See Note 392204. Akanthus. 205. Leontini. Lion's head; 206. Phienicia. Head 207. Bull with lion's head. mane See ^| 158. as flames. (of king) with helmet. ' Rev. Isis with rays and necklace, mlk (melek-king) LEPD. 208. 209. Agrigentum. Cormorant on " Rev. Sea-crab, 210. Agrigentuinl 211. 212. starfisli, Cormorant, " Rev. Sea-crai! ; and fish below. akraciyntos. Victory below. Herakles between Vice and Virtue. This composition has a double meaning between truth and cal in akragantinon. a serpent, integrity, or of deceit which the sun chooses he goes across the heavens. his : — Gal. the choice of a and craft ; way among dark des Feints 202 young man and the mythologior light clouds as — List of Illustrations. 438 No- 213. Apollon Skinning Marsyas. Pace. — Gal. dcs Feints 202 In the contest between Phoibos and Marsyas the prize was awarded by Minos to the satyr when god doomed the umpire the to wear His servant discovered the secret of the ears as a punishment. ass's ears, to keep it, whispered it into a hole in the ground. A reed grew up from the place and repeated the words to the winds who and unable news to all the world. On a second trial the victory ApoUon, who skinned Marsyas for presuming to contend in music. The meaning is the sun and wind produce scattered the was given with him to ; superior music to that made by the rushing winds in the dark hours of night. 214. 215. 2 1 6. —Rom. Miis Diana drawn by Nymphs. — Gal. Pdnts Apollon. Meleager. As though moon was drawn by 205 211 ties the clouds or stars. Diana returning from a hunt. Diana said by one poet to have killed the hunter Orion in Ortygia, is Palais Royal. 211 while another said she killed him accidentally, having aimed at a mark on the sea which Phoibos said she could not hit. Asklepios tried to raise him from the dead, and Zeus struck the healer with a thunderbolt. In this picture the goddess has other game fruits, one of which the rustic in a hat is tasting. See Cabinet Sctret, pi. No. — xx.xii. 217. AND Kerberos. Pi.ouTGN — Ro?n. M/IS 21S Plouton and Serapis are similar ideals, but not identical. Plouton is Hades, Aidoneus, Polydegmon, the king of the underworld, and Zeus Katachthonios, the unseen king who can make himself and The cap on his head is a sign of that power, and is others invisible. also Ais, As Plouton, the the tam-kappe or nebel-kappe of Teutonic legends. richest of all monarchs, he is like built the ^\'alls that enclose the Kuvera of the Ramavana. realm of darkness, '' Poseidon the land of the and the gates are guarded b)- Kerberos, the fearful dog with three heads. This monster is said to have belonged to a great majority," terrible brood : arc children of Hydra, Chimaira, Geryon, Orthros, and Sphinx, who Echidna and Typhon, and are and llashes of lightning \vhich precede a two heads. Hesiodos gave Kerberos him the hundred footed of Typhon. and Great Hear. Coins. 218. in beast. their fifty of rain. Geryon has hiads, and Horace calls The Kg\ptians astronomv See Engraving No. 45 called him tl'ie Dog Kcrl)crcis takes the place of the for a curious iigure of Kerberos. — Duteiis 221 Va(;a, Hercules and lion's skin. holds the lion by the 219. ideals of the hurricane fall " Rev. Cow tail suckling a Sun hot and swings calf. at his club. noon. He A^aga. Phcenician letters vo(;a. List of Illustrations. 439 No, 2 20. Page. Perga ill ApoUon Pamphylia. with olive wreath and quiver " 221. 7?("'. tion, 222. 221 Artemis with spear and myrtle Inscrip- deer. ; Artemis of the Pergaians.. Syracuse, Arethousa Sicily. ming meet hair as flames, fish swim- ; the end of the nose at under chin shell ; ; SVRAKOSION. 223. 224. 225. " Rev. Horse head, palm branch, Phoenician Triquetra on letters. a coin of Sicily. Four Seasons. Hadrian Happy Inscription, coin. times. 226. 227. 228. 229. Gaza, Philistia. ending in a fish " Rev. Owl Saturn on a winged horse (Pegasos?) tail with ; fish Isis below in water of waved emblems " Rev. Elephant carrying torch (cornucopia) 230. Etruria. 231. " Rev. Wheel of Wheel Dioskuroi. on a Inscription, Illustrious, Dionysos. of four spokes, three dots, coiled between the two stars G and leaf around it, two and caps of the Inscription, v/Elia. Egg-shaped Delphos. it, ; and the horn tail. four spokes. Vase with serpent Etruria. handles, cover in trunk the in (money) of King Antiochos the 233. of dots. Antiochou Epiphanous Dionysous. of Amaltheia 232. in circle lines. altar with serpents coiled around pile of loose stones, dividing the word del- ph-on. 234. 235. Triquetra. With one wing on a coin of Seilenos on an ass, holding a two handled cup on a vine, and dog under the donia. Sicily. ass. Mende in ; dove Make- —— List of Illustrations. 440 N,i, 236. Page- ScARAB/Eus cut The Cut Egypt. 237. " one quarter is 221 size of the original or back view with inscription in hieroglyphs. Rc'7'. " (Seyffarth) The governor of the people, lord of both countries (up- per and lower Eg}'pt), king, crusher .strong one, the crusher of the whole Sacred emblem of dark hard stone. in justifier ; chosen of Amen, the ; Glorifying the kingdom, the wicked. Lord (Amen), Master of the Lands offspring of the Amen's ; favorite, the splendid (Siii-SHA-NK), the fervid, the deliverer of life, the destroyer of malefactors." 238. Neapolis, Man-faced Italy. Curved vase. bull, forepart star ; and lines for water below. Bull between two 239. Neapolis. 240. Ram.\. — Asiatic See fish. ^| 97. Rcscarclics. The source of being and cause of destruction, UpenName dra and Mahendra the younger and the elder Indra (Muir)." Hindu *' god. below. in Sanskrit 241. Brahjia. — Asiatic Researches. The He self-existent principle. generated from the great mundane is he manifests himself. Both created and uncreated. Mahadeva created Brahma, Vishnu, and Indra, and is the Priapos of egg, in which 242. Name (Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part IV., p. 27), India. below. — Krishna. Sanskrit race, son of Aditi, called ^'ishnu, younger Asiatic Researches. Yadava " Krishna of the brother of Indra. -\s Krishna vinda. in the son of god who transcends the is Nanda, the bull, all, he is called Krishna minute, the vastest of the vast, the gi-eatest of the great." made to am " I say both priest and victim Go- the minutest of the is and righteousness ; (dharma) present and past, the creator and annihilator of the aggregate of existences." 243. (j-NNESA. Name in Sanskrit below. Asiatic Rcsearclies. Eldest son of Siva (fire) and Parvati (mountain goddess); god of pru- dence, policy, and wisdom, and in Japan also of marriage. called Pollear, Coins. 244. 245. —Br. '• ,; .mai' 229 of king in elephant's skin Athene armed, alex.vnai'ov. Makonic.a, Thrakia. globes 247. Head I'ai.i.as .Alexander 246. Mkscidii .Alexander. " Rev. Al.^o and compared with the Latin Janus. eagle, and (money) of Mint stamp. Fore part of horse between two (dxea). Rev. Ram's heah ; cegis. in a dotted sunk square. List of Ilhistrations. 441 No. 248. Page. PopULONiA. the lion's 249. 250. 251. 252. Chimaira, with goat's head the end of tail 229 Metapontum. soteria (Soteria) Savior. Ceres, Wheat " Rev. at head and meta (pontum). Abdera, Thrakia. Griffin. " Rev. Artemis, deer, bow, and branch ; polykrathe, Polykrates. 253. Maronea. Horse with Kanthar on his back, maron (EA). 254. " Rev. Vine in a sunk square; in the border, EPIMEDROTO. Head of Ariadne, diademed. 255. Crete. 256. " Rev. 257. Thrakia. Dog between two tunnies, Head Dikaia. apeion. of king or Herakles, with lion's skin. 258. 259. 260. " Rev. Sunk square. Malta. H 261. 262. Headoflsis; of the Maltese, Krotona. • Rev. Cormorant on a Tripod 265. for with stool. three ring-handles: shell. Crotona. Paphos. Image of Aphrodite in the center, Cyprus. dove over each wing of the temple, and one in the paved court 264. See 223. qpot(onaj, 263. barley. " Rev. Osiris with four wings, crook and whip. ; KOINON KYPRION. Amphipolis, Thrakia. " Rev. Lamp burning Money Head of the Cypriotes. of Apollon, olive wreath. in a square, and in tlie border amphipoliteon. 266. Tyche, Fortune, draped figure, rudder and horn of Amal- theia. 267. Selinus. 26S. • Rev. Pallas. Cock and Sun. .\ovino. — List of Illustrations. 442 No. 269. Page. " Rev. Europe on the Bull 270. 271. Apollon with quiver Tripoli. T.^RENTUM. tripoleiton. ; Taras on a dolphin TA waves. 229 ; curls or scrolls for T. " Rev. Taras on a horse. 272. Head 273. Syracuse. of Arethousa, olive branch on hair; and waved in front hair plaited way. by Gelon, 485-478 " Rev. 274. earrings, ; necklace of Four tunnies in the field, all swimming one SYRAKOSION (money) of the S3Tacusans. Struck pearls. B. C. Chariot and two horses driven tory flying above, lion springing by a boy, Vic- belovi'. Moor' s Pantheon 233 The goddess of fecundity and consort of Osiris, tlie sun, and therefore the moon. The Greek lo, the homed one (See Eng. No. 85). Iris 275. Isis. and Osiris were the parents of Horus, the Egyptian ideal youth, or represented savior, Har-pi-chru-ti, as the Horus-child, Greek in Harpokrates. 276. Mars. Ares. A —Rom. Mus Latin god, at ener of fruits sonified first and 237 worshiped as the softener of grains. Plouton and Other Deities 278. Nemesis. — Cartari The word nemesis means no escape. sister of Rhamnus tant. 279. She is rip- who then was Hades. — Cartari . . . . 243 243 evil are it said her nature is more evenly distributed also called Adrasteia, the being from Hesiodos says she Helen and Apollon. in Attica in righteousness, and good and to see that mankind. is and god of war. 277. is earth In later time the Greek Ares was the per- storm-wind and was added to the Mars ideal called the duty tlie is and among whom there the daughter of Night (Leda) and Pausanias sa)s a statue of her was esteemed the finest work at of art in marble ex- After Alexander's time she was represented with Avings. Kore. — Cartari 243 In The secondary or female principle in nature, called the daughter, earth Kore, but in Hades Persephoneia (Proserpine). The personifit cation of heat, the preserver of fermentation. See Engraving tcries She is and destroyer .\o. 52, p. 156, in (Bouton, 1891). ; the cause of sometimes drawn with a 77/f Eleuxiiiian Sec Note 259. veil fertility and on her head. and Bacchic Mip- List of Illustrations. No. 280. Kybele. Page. — Cartari See Note 420, 281. 443 243 p. 169. — Gal. Mars, Ares. des Feints 249 Mars the ripener speeds over the grain fields from the equator north and south at the rate of about twelve miles a day. 282. Victory. The — Unknown 249 artist winged Victory, recently discovered antique marble statue of a life-size, was an event of great importance in shown in the view.s when found. mutilated as like that of other ancient figures of Nike. the art world. The It is one of the pieces of sculpture remaining from the ancient w^orld. temple at who was Rome in said in the Latin legend to was is finest Sylla raised a honor of Nike as the daughter of the giant Athena and Nike are 283. It general action Pallas, be father of Minerva (Athena). sisters. Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan. — Ovid Met. . 255 Herodotos says the Skythians worshiped Ares as patron of corn and cattle, and gave his figure a sword, As such he was Linga. one of the forms of the Hindu father of all living things, Marspiter, or Mas- Romulus and Remus. As the ripener and grinder of grain he is Pilumnus and Picumnus, the god of bakers Mars is also the god who crushes with a (Breal, Herculus et Cams). piter, the parent of the twins thunderbolt (Miiller). 284. Minerva. —Rom. Mus The name Latin 258 of Athena, Pallas, Max Muller connects the word with the Greek menos, and Sanskrit ananas, mind. Minerva lectual The myth was Zeus. 286. Athena des Feints Pallas. Recently discovered in style The necklace is 261 —Antique 261 this figure of Pallas is full of interest. and workmanship, but horse-tail rich in of serpents and brooch a a 287. on the inside of emblems of the great goddess. Medousa head. which is left rests Her right ; the hand on the edge of a a large serpent, and on the outside is winged Medousa head. Farnese Vase. —Bour. Mus Sardonyx, eighteen inches diameter. 265 Was presented to the Elizabeth Farnese, wife of the Bourbon King of Naples. is Archaic helmet has a sphinx of extra large proportion supports a small winged victory, and her shield, purely intel- not expanded. — Gal. 285. The a more majestic idea than the Plellenic Athene. is the prosperity of Egypt, woman Two reclining The country is Museum by The subject represented by the young on the sphinx and holding up two heads of wheat. other young women on the right, with a cup and a horn are ^^^i of Illustrations. 444 No. Page. daugliters, the delta. man on the of plenty, 288. is — The Gorgo belonging ster Bou7-. Miis to tlie an awful face and a head of Medousa underworld, and glance terrific will which can be cut when in the Iliad as said in the she a being with is myth to look Darkness has a bright head, the night on the The Gorgons to stone. across the night sky. fly The is with snakes for hair (Cox). the color, sound, Medousa is Robert Brown, the moon-glare on the and motion of the world of day have See Note 684, and coin No. 27, page 42, Perseus cutting Medousa's head. gone." Coins. 289. 290. — B)-. " and Rn\ off Ahis Head Bactria. a moon, So the Medousa combines beauty and hideous- off. woman says " the petrifying stare of darkness, ; change the beholder swallower, a devourer. ness, a beautiful are of the Odyssey are the storm-clouds that Jr., 265 The Gorgons and Keto, Stheino, Euryale, and is the liideous head of a mon- daughters of Phorkys Medousa. old mulberry tree and holding the horn on the reverse side of the Farnese Vase. the three The Father Nilus, and overhead are the winds. Medousa's Head. This in the center standing. is sitting against a left is farmer .'\ 271 of King Eukratidcs. Dioskuroi, mounted, spears, palm branches, caps stars. Inscription Eukratides the Great King. Wheel with si-\ Mint mark. 291. 292. 293. 294. Etruria. " Rev. (below) Vase with two handles in two rings. Etruria. Ausculum. " Rev. Wheel, Calenus. 296. Popuhinia. 297. Ci'M.E. 299. 300. five dots in a group. A. Devil-fish. Head of king diademed. " Rev. Cornucopia with flowers. PosEiDrtNiA. " Rei'. is the Name of citv. Poseidon advancing with trident. Name, same die incused. 301. Curious Idol found 302. lhn;Ri.\. 30;,. Wheel. Cock and Sun. 295. 298. spokes. Head in Thibet. of king ; helmet with wings " Rev. Composite; man's and hog's heads. ; fish. — — — List of Illustrations. 445 No. Page. 304. Aphrodite 305. TuD^, Umbria, ; olive wreath border of serpents: Man 306. Skylla. hair ; flames, in dotted with crescents field Italy. and diadem Dog sleeping. with three dogs, and two Lion over flames 271 lish tails. barleycorn above. 307. A'f,L-4. 30S. CuM.E. 309. " Rev. Skylla; woman, three dog heads. The mythical skylla work then- will among storm-beaten rocks and charybdis in the awful whirlpools (Cox). The Seirens bask on the rocks among the sunlit waters and lure mariners by their singing to shipwreclv and ruin. They are half women and half fishes, daughters Head with ; Petasos and olive wreath. of Echidna and Melusina. .Skylla is daughter of Phorkys and Keto, and sister of the Gorgons, Harpies, Kentaurs, Titans, Graiai, and Phaiakians. 310. CH.4R0N. jMoiitfaucoii " The gaper," " the all-swallowing," and similar imaginary boatman who was supposed to ferry which was said to separate the living 275 epithets denoted the souls over the river The from the dead. fable was adapted from the Egyptians, whose dead were ferried over the Nile, or over an artiticial lake near each great temple, in a boat of a peculiar shape to represent in a crescent Greeks added an obolus that form the female principle. (2 cents) presented to Charon without which he refused passage. Charon is The and a golden bough must be Poetically the all-devouring darkness of night, which swallows ever}" and living thing in time restores none — except Herakles, or some other sun-god. 311. Isis. 277 jMoiitfaucoit With cow's horns and ears, rays, vail and necklace. The emblem in the forehead denotes the female principle. 312. Tripod. — Montfaucon Copper. .Serpent coiled with semicircular basin ; tiger or 277 head rayed leopard's ; ram's heads on the legs claws for feet ; ; two cocks below. 313. Canopus — Causeus ... 277 Egyptian water jar with emblems of humidity. 314. Venus emblems on 315. Bacchantes and Fauns. — a coin of Cyprus. Br. Miis Boiir. AFiis These three groups are from Pompeii, and are samples of a large number of similar designs. Graceful and charming in form and suggested motion these pictures were valued accessories to the luxurious decorations of a Pompeian palace. 277 2S1 List of IlliLstrations, 446 No. 316. NEREin AND Hippocampus. The — Page. Boiir. Miis the deep calm sea) and of Doris, and to be names are given by denoting dwellers fifty numbers, whose in Ovid i^Works and Days). The most noted are Dynamene, Pherousa, Proto, Kymodeke, words Amphitrite, Galateia, waters, their powers, the in For other pictures of them see Cabinet abode. 285 are said to be daughters of Xereus {the wise old deity of N't^td-ids strength, office or Secret, pi. xxk, xlix, and below. 317. Nereid and Sea M(")Nster. —Bour. Mus 285 Seldom has the imagination been exercised on a more beautiful or more harmless subject than the lovely beings who comfort Prometheus in his agony and with Thetis cheer Achilleus riven with his grief for his dead friend Patroklos. and marsh, lake, river 318. well, tree, hill, valley of the world was said employed good deeds. in Pan and Goat. The reed to have the winds set in rests at always Campana 289 Hermes the gods are cheered by the music of all trees, or He is the child of the disturbed. He is said to be son the purifying breeze." noon and rages if nymph Dryops Aither and a or of Hermes and Penelope, or and Penelope, or of Ouranos and Gaia, or finally, of Nereid. He had goat's legs and feet and small horns, and was of laughter Hermes and of of Odysseus full the and 1'}^^ ; play. Aphrodite on a Goat. Intended 320. is is every portion who was motion by the sun among the reeds, the "Pan elsewhere. 319. his heart fountain and pipe of Pan, the harp of Orpheus and the lyre of are variants of the idea that morning, in short, guai'dian Nereid, its —Roman : when Each — Causcus 289 See \ 191, to exhibit the reproductive principle in nature. and Notes 115 and 749. Poseidon and Amphitrite. Poseidon was said to —Bour. Mns be wiser than Apollon (Iliad wisdom and prophetic powers. mysterious 293 xxi.), and have to Jupiter (Zeus) and Aido- neus (Aides, Hades, Plouton,) were brothers and sons of Kronos. The world was divided among the three brothers, Zeus having the heavens, Poseidon the sea, and Aidoneus the underworld. supreme king of the waters, including humidity Troy " were the " walls of was said woman and sult of the is love to ent at /. <^., made many is was Even of his mist or cloud. He the hfe). The wile of Poseidon pictured as dwelling in the lowest depths of the on the white crested the birth of Apollon. facfd and loud-sounding. Eng. No. 348. He forms. others, almost innumerable, the re- union of water and earth (and who its I>emeter, the earth, and their children are the horse, and Amphitrite, sea, riding his, in all billo\vs, her horses, and alwa)'s pres- In the (Jdyssey she Sometimes called is the sea, purple- Salatia, the sea. Stc —— — List of Illustrations. No, 321. 323. 297 and the ripener of grains fruits (Mars). Venus and INIars. —Bour. Mus Hermes drawn by The sun 324. Pace. — Mars and Venus. Bour. Mas A pictorial union of summer heat (Venus) and 322. 447 Cocks. Gal. des Feints 303 rising causes the soft breezes to blow. Kadjios and Hermione. The myth and 297 of Kadmos says — Ovid Mdamor his grandfather 303 was Phoroneus (iire-bearer), grandmother was Kerdo (clever), or Peitho (persuasion) was Agenor. King of Phoenicia, and mother Telephassa his father shining), and Europa is Europa, his sister The the bull (Zeus). search of : his (far- who was carried away to Cyprus by Kadmos and Telephassa for the lost the long journey of the sun across the heavens from east to Kadmos is then no other than Kadmos with bringing 1 6 letters of the The myth the sun. west. credits alphabet to Greece, to which and Epicharmus the Simonides of Ceos added five, He who had devoured many of his which grew up armed men and fought as is Sicilian five more. said to have killed a dragon is men, and sowed his teeth Athena helped instead of Medeia. Ovid says Kadmos and Hermione were changed to serpents, at their own request, because of the jealousy and persecution of Juno. said in the Argonantic story, only 325. Siva, Parvati 326. Hindu 327. Boxer. and Bull Nanda. Zeus smiting the Engraved from a very ject has Rome, cameo in in the Lanciani Mus The This sub- Titans are the great powers of and Brontes, the three Kyklopes, are the dazz- and scorching flashes which plow up the storm-clad heavens. These are explained by S. P Andrews to be the Static, Motic, and Dynamic forces (circles) in nature and the twelve Titans are as in this ling ; table :— I, 2, Twelve Titans Kronos and Rhea Themis Time and 3, 4, Japetos, and 5, 6, Hyperion and Theia. 7, 8, Okeanos and Tethys 9, 10, Koios and Phoebe II, 12, Kreios or .... . . succession. Motion and direction. .Aboveness and beneathness. .... Water and 307 313 Bourbon Museum. one fonn or another more times than any art of its kind. nature, Arges, Steropes Italy. Bour. Titans. fine been reproduced work of other 307 very superior figure in bronze found in ex- cavating ancient ruins in 328. 507 PJioto (Kybele) figure of the ripener A — mistiness. Quality and negation. and Eurybia. ..Power and extension, Memory. Mnemosyne Zeus also contends with the hundred-handed monsters, called fleka- —— —— i^^^^ ^if Illustrations, 44^ Paor. No. These and the Titans are the giants who cannot be toiicheircs. killed only reduced to slavery as the workers in the laboratory of 1-Hil nature. Other powers engage the mighty Zeus I ,, ^ tates ; Atropiis. Past Remorse Lachcsis Present Despair Klotho Future Foreboding ] Necessity. \ I Allekto I P r 1 Megaira J .. Eumenides \ -| Tisiphone j Hatred. Jealousy. Revenge. The Forty Harpies 329. Marsvas 330. Sculptor 331. at work. Daedalus and Daedalus solar artificer, the Icarus. — Bour. Sun 332. Leda and Leda 313 Mus himself, and Icarus his in metals, the another Phaethon, in a is Daedalus reputation. father's the Minotaur, and wings of See Ovid, Met. VUI. Jupiter as the Swan. wax for 3. Palais Royal. 316 and by her Zeus became the night, the mother of the gods, i.s 313 workman, the unequaled smith new attempt to make fame on made the labyrinth in t.'rete for his ambitious son. 313 Mas Boiir. the cunning is Slander. Boiir. Miis seated. two pairs of twins at one birth as shown in the picture. From two eggs were born Helen and Pohdeukes, and Klytaimnestia and Kastor. This is a poetical view of the origin of the human race father of which I^-^. is ; as near the tiuth as any other. Theseus and Kentaur. Theseus air, is — Palais Royal 319 said to be a great solar hero, a child of Aithra, the pure Ai or according to another poet, son of Poseidon, or of Aigeus. geus denotes the dash of waters on the shore, so he Theseus is is Poseidon. the core of a double account, the mythical god, and the The god does a number of great deeds, more or less which repeat the account of the war of the gods of hght, Indra, (Jidipous, Herakles (and Theseus) against the powers Attic hero-king. like those of Hercules, of darkness, X'ntya, Ahi, Sphinx, Theseus Sinis Pityokamptes is wind is {l)oar of Erymanthos, Chimaira), an obscurer of the sunlight. ron, the monster who Kerkyoii (Kerkopcs), who wind, and as the whirlwind children. pealed. The beater, the In In the enemies overcome is ; that kills is Alopfi the l>y Phaia, the .sow of clifis is wrestling is story of Krommyon clift ; the fierce and or other beings air, it who heavy wind with rain or snow. is ; is the destroy Auge, Scmele, Danae robber Piokroustes (Procrustes) Skei- wind probably the whirl- the child of the son AmuUus, Ity to say, the storm- is the dense fog on the hurls travelers from the story of Laios, or Akrisit)s, or their ^:c. a robber is re- the hammerer, the Theseus and Kentaur is — List of Illustrations. 449 Nil Pace. The sun and cloud. Theseus was king-life of of adventures. full His father was Aigeus (/Egean Sea), who married Medeia the wise woman, who aided Jason. He had labors to perform before his father would recognize him. He killed the minotaur of Knossos, aided by Ariadne, and abandoned her in Naxos later the minotaur ; men and maidens the pestilence which devours young is the Attic Demoi into one Athenian with success and honor. Amazons state, and improved the laws and Theseus, the mythical, Phaidra, wife of Theseus, who Hippolytos, also loves i-uled enemy of is the reflexion of the sun in is the gleaming, is and loves Theseus, life again by killed but raised to Theseus was one of the company Asklepios. the is Antiope, stolen by Herakles, became the bride of Theseus and mother of Hippolytos, who ; the sun were Herakles, Achilleus and Bellerophon), and they (as were dark clouds. water ; Thucydides says Theseus consolidated dispels pestilential miasma. in the Argo to recover the golden fleece, and in the hunt of the Kalydonian boar, and in the war of the Epigonoi at Thebes, and he made an excursion into Hades, from whence Herakles rescued him. The chief Lykomedes of SkyTheseus the old, decrepid, deposed king of Athens from and the sun has set. ros hurls cliff, 334. Mercury. The 321 made says he infancy of a tortoise-shell and seven sheep-gut cords. his hungry he the prise Phoibos who warmed that first fire ate For named Hermes seen world. is river his success in this enter- the Master Thief He also sound, the twilight is and so Hermes morning or evening. the whispering breeze of the early is Feeling bank of the Alpheios the earth on the two of the oxen. obscures (steals and hides), but he evening he a lyre in from the pastures of the gods, and kindled stole fifty cattle he cooked and is Lantin The myth Hermes. inventor of music and song. a In the Psychopompus, the guide of souls from this to the unWhen he drives the clouds across the heavens he is the messenger of Zeus and He the gods. all is the god of boundaries, His staff guardian of gymnasia, and patron of gymnastic games. had magic powers, even of to raising the tached to his cap and sandals. 335. dead Hermes were without wings, which Judgment of Paris in the P.\ris. Greek myth — is in to life. The early figures the later statues were at- In Egj'pt he was Anubis. Gal. dt-s Feints 327 the son of Priam, the last kiug of Troy, and of Hekabe (Hecuba). He was exposed on Mount Ida, rescued and reared by a shepherd. He married (Enone, daughter of the river Kebren. He is said to have been the most beautiful of men. The poets say he seduced Helen, wife of Mcnelaos, the Greek, and so caused the war of Troy. The decision by which he gave the apple to Venus (.\phrodite), when Juno (Hebe) and Minerva (Athena) were competitors was story is : .a favorite theme of many poets and artists. The All the gods and goddesses, except Discord (Eris) were in- vited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. In revenge Eris threw —— — List of IlltLstrations. 450 ti" Page. an apple (orange, quince, or j^omegranate) into " For most beautiful (woman)." tlie Minirva glory lo\cliness of the the cheat ; and the bright Juno promised war, and \^enus the most beautiful in and Helen was bis reward. fied dawn. and Aphrodite Paris thief for wife, Hindu Pani, darkness personiaway golden treasures (Helen), evening. The ten years siege of Troy steals beautiful tints of and the east, sunendered by Paris at the in ])iiwer to Paris, woman the is who midst, inscribed embodiment of the the is are the ten hours of night before the gold again tlieir appear scarlet clouds The Argo- of Troy. fall nautic voyage for the recovery of the Golden Fleece (bright morning clouds) only another myth to explain the phenomena of victory of is light over darkness. 336. Nereid on a Sea Monster. 337. Aphrodite. Bour. Miis 333 —Bour. Mus 333 Aphrodite, Himeros, Pothos and Eros, wafted by the gentle zephyrs That over the sea. Longing, Desire, Attraction, and Love attend- is Summer Heat. See Note 847. 33S. A'ase with the ship Argo. Bow. Mus ing the pleasant 337 The Argonautic myth rises like the dawn in the far Arghanautha, the Hindu Dionysos, is Lord of the land of the morning. was found the worship of the sun this cultus in the Greeks- The P'leece, recovered. strung a great some final and the Yoni, with have civilized people stage in and conception was of a Golden lost treasure, the legends about the heavens, and Danaos and Orpheus was invited living thing can resist, The number and darkness. and he is the only one ship -Argo on this perilous voyage. The it they light, of the Argonauts Aig)'ptos, of Thestios for his harjj this beautiful a form as This was the thread of the legend and on many minor See its histor}'. In no other people has into so highly poetical like the chilchen of .Vsterodia. at IVors/iip, (Bouton). clouds, waters, winds fifty, Every also. one form or other and Serpent myth been developed was divine ship which and serpent worship prevailed A\'Tierever tree the cultus of the Phallos and the Ship,, the Linga had where Iswara bore the Achaian heroes from the land of darkness to the in lireece Tr,-i- east and whose sweet tones no who can surely pilot the was endowed with the ship pow cr of understanding the thoughts of men, and the gift of speech. Before the start Orpheus sings of all events from Chaos to the present. It is the story of the return of the sun, Jason, to the east, golden fleece, the bright morning clouds, again to the west, to Greece, where the den away from mortal 339. ]'uss,.\. Bor/,}//;;' s is myth where the recovered and brought says it still remains hid- eyes. Bnvrs of Life 34° The Hindu ideal figure of the universal mother, Kwan-Von. water)' principle in matter. The Queen of Heaven, (loddess of a Thousand Arms, are a few of the many Lady titles. The of Bounty, She sits 1 ; List of Illustrations. 45 Page, No. on her lotus throne under her lord, Il'u, Thi-an, or Zi-anu, and both are contemplating the creative energies of nature, the chief which womb. the is " This is emblem of a most perfect ideograph of a religious an arcanum of mytholog)'. See | 221. In India she is and the Lady Isani Kybele in Greece and Rome, and Disa in Germany and the north Mut in Egypt, and in all countries she is now the Holy ^'irgin, Mater Dolorosa. See 1 192. ideal," and is called Alaut, ; : 340. PiCUS. — Ovid Alctainorphoses 344 Picus and his wife Canens were notable for for his great personal qualities ; he beauty and his love of horses, and for a kindly These and other disposition. many good parts attracted the love of the of the hills of Latium, Naiads of the fountains. many (once called Albula), and of Nymphs Dryads of the Tiber other rivers and localities. But to one nymph only was he attracted, the daughter of Ionian Janus, the sweet singer Canens. ^Vhen Picus hunted a boar in a wood where Kirke gathered herbs for her magic spells, she saw and loved him, and invited his attentions. He refused and she changed him into a woodpecker (Latin picus). Ovid makes Kirke say to Picus " By experience thou shalt learn what one slighted, what one in love, what a woman —and can do that woman Kirke." Compare Shakspear's " Hell has no fiercer fiend Than woman scorned." And for another example See Introduction Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. 341. Ariadne in Naxos. — to Cabinet Secret, the plate Botir. Alits 347 See Eng. No. 166. 342. 343. 344. 345. — Gal. Feints Nereid on a Sea Monster. — Gal. Feints — Ganymedes. Moor's Pantheon Leda, Swan and Eros. —Bourbon Museum Xereid on a Hippocampus. des 353 dcs A very beautiful composition from Pompeii, which 353 357 362 a fore-runner of is the picture No. 332, in time, as that represents the sequence of The fructifying seed nature trees, ; is the pollen of flowers, of grain, of and wings are supplied by birds and bees. motherhood this. many departments of trees the seeds of many provided with wings in —the universal mother. The myth ; Leda is the ideal of says she was mother of the Dioskouroi and Deianeira, the brightest and the gloomiest of beings ; and of Helen the treasure of the Argonautic expedition, the tints of morning or evening cloud most lovely and tenderly beautiful and of Klytaimnestra who murdered her husband Agamemnon Apollon, the sun god, and as she the great womb mated beings. is of nature out of which Eros holds a ; Leto or Latona, the Night, she came and now come jar containing four eggs plied an egg for each of the four children shown. ; all of is ani- the artist sup- List of Illustrations. 452 No. 346- Poseidon and Amphitrtte. —Bour. 363 Afiis Called by the (h-eeks Zeus Poseidon. Is not >.epalso as the " earth-shaker " or producer of earthquakes, Libyan pantheon. Known tune. and " rain-bringer," and " gatherer of clouds," and " he who The the winds." Akropolis came out). Aryan loose Athens), and brought forth water (some say the horse (at See Poseidon, by Robert Brown, A'ations, by Sir i). W. — Co.\, also Jr., and Mythology of Eng. No. 320. 347- Cupid 34S. Necromancer's Emblems. — From the middle Pine cone, lizard, serpent, hook, dial, .\xi> tortoise, disk, Psyche. balances, woman aud hawk, child. lets poets say, he struck his trident on the rocks of the MiDitfaticun flail, urn, 365 ages caduceus, frog, agathodaimon, Serapis-bust with modius, knife, ram's head, tripod, sacred plant, woman and 423

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