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 Itibrarp VOL. 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, M.D. W7//; 34s Illustrations by A. L. Rawson NEW YORK J. W. BOUTON, 8 WEST 28TH STREET i8q2 IT K7I i] Copyright, 1891 Ev J. W. BOUTON 46e Cavfon (JJtciiC 171. 173 Macdougal Street, New V'>r)< Groups 01 Gods and Goddesses before Proserpine. PREFACIv The original edition of this worlc was privately printed by the author at London, in the year 1818. It had not been 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 ' Select Specimens of Ancient Sculpture^ published by the 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 com- pletion, he has been induced to print a few copies of this pro- posed 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 pur- suits, 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 " was reprinted, in continuous portions, in the Classical Journal. 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 scholars of the earlier period of the present century. His works display profound judgment, discrimination, taste, acute- ness and erudition, united with extraordinary candor and im- partiality; 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 ■ 5 iv Preface. Higgins ; while they excel in respect to scope, accuracy, conciseness, and the arrangement of subjects. They are of untold value for the unfolding of correcter views of Ancient Mythology than have been commonly entertained. Later 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 all men 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 disposi- tion of those in power and station to circumscribe and violate the personal rights of individuals. In religious matters, 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 conse- 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 Kanaka Islands. To be sure, it had become impossible to offer up a 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 perse- cution 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 offense. If he had " spoken blasphemy," it was, as in the case of Jesus Christ, a crime for which no punishment known in law or custom was too extreme. It is easy to perceive that Mr. Knight, although an exemplary citizen of unexception- able 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 Kingdom of Naples, etc. ; to which is added a Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its Connection 6 Preface. v ivith the Mystic Theology of the Ancients." Although the sub- ject was extraordinary and prohibited from common conver- sation as indelicate, Mr. Knight had discussed it with mod- eration and remarkable caution, giving little occasion to prudishness or pruriency, or even to " prurient prudes " to resort to his pages for their accustomed aliment. He added engravings, however, from coins, medals, and other remains of ancient art, which he had collected ; all of which were genuine and authenticated, but were made a handle by which to misrepresent and vilify him. Having been elected to Par- 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 sedu- lously kept vailed from popular knowledge. Mr. Knight had 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 otherwise. Opinions and institutions are not revolutionised ;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 dis- closure. 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 \i Preface. to the student, were liable to expose it to popular clamor, while at the same time it embraces a larger field of investi- gation. The endeavor has been made to give an accurate outline of the ancient religion of the countries from which we have derived our classical literature ; and thus to afford correct ideas of the nature and signification of their worship. The fables which have seemed puerile and often contradic- 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 of agriculture, celibacy, learning, love and fire. It is to be 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. 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 ver- sions of Homer, Plato, Thucydides, and other Hellenic writ- ers, 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. VII after him, rather add to the results of his investigations than replace them in important particulars. The labors of Cham- pollion, Bunsen, Layard, Bonomi, the Rawlinsons and others, comprise his deductions so remarkably, as to dissipate what- ever 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 cor- rect 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 Mysteries, vi.-xii 3 Ancient Coins, xiii.-xvii 7 Bacchus or Dionysus, xviii.-xx 9 Origin of the Mystical Rites, xxi., xxii II Phallic and Priapic Symbolism, xxiii 12 The Mystic Egg, xxiv 13 "^ The Serpent-Symbol, xxv.-xxvii 13 The Sacred Bull and Goat, xxviii.-xxxiii iS *The Source of All Things, xxxiv 21 "^he Mother-Goddess, xxxv.-xxxvii The Generations of the Deities, xxxviii.-xl 22 24 ftFire and Water as Symbols, xli.-xlii 25 Venus-Urania, the Mother-Goddess, xliii.-xlv 28 The Cross and Rosary, xlvi., xlvii 30 "■ The Myrtle and other Emblems, xlviii., xlix 31 The Amazons or Votaries of the Double-Sexed Deity, 1., li 32 — The Cow-Symbol, lii.-liv 35 Sun- Worship, and the Doctrine of Emanation, Iv.-lvii 37 Liberality and Sameness of the World-Religions, Iviii.-lxii 39 — Why Divine Honors were Paid to Plants, Ixiii., Ixiv 41 Improbability of the Neo-Platonic Interpretations, Ixv., Ixvi 43 Augury and Vaticination, Ixvii.— Ixix , 44 Prophetic Ecstasy, Ixx.-lxxiii 46 Enthusiastic Frenzy at the Religious Orgies, Ixxv., Ixxvi 49 Judicial Astrology, Ixxvii.-lxxxi 51 Sexual Rites at the Temples, Ixxxii.-lxxxv 54 The Night-Goddess, Ixxxvi., Ixxxvii 56 Horus and Typhon, Ixxxviii 58 The Solar System Anciently Known, Ixxxix., xc 59 The Ancient Temple-Circles, and Fire-Worship, xci.-xciv 5o Square Temple-Enclosures, and Worship of the Female Principle, xcv. , xcvi 63 The BuU-Symbol, xcvii., xcviii 65 Bacchus and Ariadne, xcix.-ci 66 II Contents. PAGE Pyramids, Obelisks, and Churcli-Spires, as Sun-Symbols, cii.-civ 69 The Good and Evil Principles, cv.-cvii 71 -Animal Symbols, cviii.-cx 74 ? Symbol of the Horse, cxi 76 Likeness of the Centaurs and Satyrs, cxii 77 Hippa, the Ancient Goddess, cxiii 7g Meaning of Various Symbolical Representations, cxiv 81 Symbolism and Allegories, cxv., cxvi 81 " The Mother and Daughter " — Isis and Proserpina, cxvii.-cxix 82 Isis-Worship the Same as the Asiatic Religions, cxx 84 The Swine a Sacrificial Animal, cxxi.-cxxiii 86 Prometheus and the Vulture, cxxiv 63 Putrefaction Abhorred, cxxv 8q Bacchus and the Leopards, cxxvi go The ChimEera, cxxvii 91 Apollo and Python, cxxviii., cxxix 91 Hercules Identical with Apollo and Mars, cxxx 92 The Pillars Ascribed to Sesostris, cxxxi 93 Apollo and Dionysus, the Day-Sun and the Night Sun, cxxxii.-cxxxvii.. , 94 Heat and Moisture as Sexual Symbols, cxxxviii 98 Diana, the Moon-Goddess and Great Mother, cxxxix.-cxli 99 Diana and Isa, cxIii loi The Bloody Rites of Brimo, cxliii., cxliv 102 ■ Pluto and Serapis Identical, cxiv [03 The Lotus-Symbol, cxlvi , 104 ^Egyptian Sculptures, Their Perfection and Prodigious Antiquity, cxlvii., cxlviii 105 Certain Antiquity of ^gypt, cxlix.-cli. 106 Ancient ^Egyptians Obtaining Their Symbols from India, clii 109 Architectural Pillars Devised from the Lotus, cliii.-clv 109 Impossible to Invent a New Order of Architecture, clvi., clvii no ^rhe Fish-Symbol and the Pomegranate, clviii in The Dog-Symbol of Diana, Thoth, and other Deities, cliv.-clxi 113 Burning and Embalming of the Dead, clxii 116 The Diviner Human Soul, or Nous, clxiii.-clxv iiS ^Sacred Purification by Water and by Fire, clxvi., clxvii 121 Human Sacrifices and the Mystic Baptism of Blood, clxviii 123 The Two Human Souls — one /Ethereal, or Noetic, the other Terrestial or Sublunary, clxix.-clxxi 123 Hermes or Mercury, and Vulcan the Fire-God, clxxii.-clxxiv 126 Athena, or Minerva, the Divine Wisdom, and her Symbols, clxxv.-clxxviii, 127 The ^I'-gis, or Goat-Skin Symbol, clxxix., clxxx 13a Bells in Religious Worship, clxxxi 131 The Boat and the Chariot, Symbols of the Female Principle of Nature, clxxxii 133 Lightning and Sulphur, Denoting the Masculine Divine Principle, Ixxxiii., clxxxiv. 134 12 Contents. ^^ PAGE The Ram Representing Wisdom, clxxxv 136 Amun, Zeus or Jupiter and " Great Pan," Identical, clxxxvi 137 The Mystic Dance, clxxxvii 13S Pan, the Nymphs, and their Relations to the Sexual Symbolism, clxxxviii.- cxc 140 The Goat and Priapic Orgies, cxci 142 Composite Symbols, cxcii 143 Cybele Combined with Deities of Other Worships, cxciii 145 Days of the Week Named after Astral Divinities, cxciv 145 Disa, the Isis of Northern Europe, cxcv., cxcvi 146 The Pillar-Stones, cxcvii 147 Cairns or Hillocks at Cross-Roads to Consecrate those Spots, cxcviii 148 Venus-Architis, the Ashtoreth of the Old Testament, cxcix 149 Allegorical Symbols and Stories Explained in the Mysteries, cc 150 The Palm-Tree Symbol, cci 151 Boxing a Feature of the Mystic Worship, ccii 152 Noble Qualities Considered as the Product of Divine Emanation, cciii. . . 154 Names of Gods Conferred upon Distinguished Men, cciv., ccv 155 Confusion of Personages and of the Allegories, ccvi 157 Men Begotten by Divine without Human Agency, ccvii 15S Assuming Foreign Deities Identical with those Worshipped at Home, ccviii 159 Old Practice of Naming Places Newly-Discovered, and the Confusion Resulting, ccix., ccx 1 60 Jacob Bryant Criticised, ccxi 161 Euhemerus, Sanchoniathon, and Eusebius Accused of Fraudulently Solv- ing Myths as Historical Events, ccxiii 162 The Spurious Letter of Alexander the Great to his Mother, ccxv 1&4 Disgraceful Apotheoses of Ancient Emperors, ccxvi 164 The '' Elementary System" found in Homer and Other Poets, ccxvii. . . . 165 The " Syrian Goddess," and her Peculiar Worship, ccxviii., ccxix 166 The Mysterious Third One, ccxx.-ccxxii 167 J The Mystic Dove and the Italian Woodpecker, ccxxiii 170 Other Delineations at Hierapolis, ccxxiv 172 The Deified Personages, ccxxv 1 73 Emasculates and Virgins in the Sacerdotal Office, ccxxvi 174 iThe Fish-Symbol, ccxxvii 176 The Allegories Eased on the Doctrine of Emanation, ccxxviii 177 The Triune Idea Universal, ccxxix 17S The Similarity of Symbols net Conclusive Proof of a Single Origin, ccxxx. 178 Apparent Identity of the Hindu and Egyptian Symbols, ccxxxi., ccxxxii. 179 Hindu Poetry and Mythology, ccxxxiii l8i Ancient Religion and its Relation to Art, ccxxxiv 182 13 Perseus and Persephone. INTRODUCTION. > — ^ Till a comparatively recent period, it lias been usual to de- scribe the ancient religion of Babylonia, Assyria, 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 women, in the wild intoxication of religious excitement, abandoned their houses and vocations to celebrate secret cere- monies, and to wander at considerable distances over the fields and mountains ; and although in many places ascetic prac- tices 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 beliefs which we have considered absurd and immoral, were to countless millions as the breath which sustained their life; and could not be dislodged without peril to those who had cherished them. The religion of every person is included in his ideal of the Absolute Right. Every man's conception of the Deity is the reflection of his own interior character. His religion is an integral part of himself, true in essence, supe- rior to the forms of worship, but necessarily contaminated with the defects of the age and country in which he lives, and of the race to which he belongs. All are not called to the 15 xiv Iiitrodjidioii. same formulas of doctrine; every man has a divine right to revere and copy his own ideal. The heavenly principle and 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 practi- cal. 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- mon a practice to misunderstand them. The classical authors themselves were sometimes too frivolous or superficial to de- 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- ligious dogmas. Yet, let it 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 fabri- cated. In process of time they evolved a twofold character, the external and the spiritual. Then symbolism became the handmaid to worship; and the Deity in all his attributes was represented by every form that was conceived to possess sig- nificance. The sun and moon, the circle of the horizon, and signs of the Zodiac, the 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 typified all germinal existence, the exterior emblems of sex which as the agents for propagating and therebv perpetuati no- all living beings, clearly indicated tlie demiurgic potency 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 pro- cess 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 into a pantheon. The tutelar divinities of tribes were trans- 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 less confused. Such complications and a forced literal con- 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 relig- ions. Candid criticism, if there is any such thing, can not accept their condemnation unqualifiedly. The attacks of Hermias, Tatian, and Athenagoras, resemble very closely those of Voltaire against Christianity. Ridicule is always hard to refute ; but it is not the weapon of noble men. The interpre- tation of Euhemerus 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 ' ' We use this term with hesitation. It has degenerated into slang, and is generally employed with more or less of an opprobrious meaning. The cor- 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 of the rites and doctrines included in the Christian, as well as in the Jewish Institute, appeared first in the other systems. Zoroastrianism anticipated far more than has been imagined. The- 17 XVI Introdziction. described by writers like Ovid and Juvenal, by what it had become in its decline, is like any individual or system in the period of decay. The loftiest ideas are sure to degenerate in the hands of sensual persons, into a gross sensualism and superstition. It was an innocence born of primitive Nature, 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, and the emblems which are accused of obscenity. The Her- maic or Baalic statue that constituted the landmark which might not be removed without profanation,' and that conse- crated 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 moral- ist, 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 master-pieces, as well as the evolution of all its laws and principles. The Canon 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 ingen- ious writer has plainly shown, has shaped and colored all her productions, animal and vegetable, as well as earthy and cry- stalline, according to laws which may be accurately ascer- tained 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 Cross, the priestly robes and symbols, the sacraments, the sabbath, the festivals and anniversaries, are all 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 of humble localities. To this fact it owes its later designation. From bein" kept up in the/aj-;, or rural districts, its votaries were denominated pagans, oi provincials. — A. W. ' Deuterono7ny, xix. 14 and xxvii. 17. ' Progress of Religious Ideas, Hindostan or India, vol. i. pp. 16, 17. 18 Introduction. xvii copies from nature, must necessarily, as indeed it does, con- stitute the source from which every true artist derives the best lessons of his sublime vocation. Even the objects and representations which modern fastidiousness requires to be hidden from view and excluded from familiar speech, are im- portant 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 knowl- edge of ancient mythology and symbolism is therefore indis- pensable to a correct understanding of the details and intrica cies of artistic production. Religion antedated and developed human skill and ideality. The Mysteries, which appear to have evolved and perpet- uated the esoteric principles of the ancient worships, were doubtless instituted when those worships had reached a com- parative 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 leaf, flower and fruit are included in the bud, so mankind at first comprehended religious ideas as a unity, not distinguish- ing 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 principles ramifying into the profoundest details of science, art, and philosophy. Then immortality was born of the faculty of veneration ; for he who can perceive God in the universe will recognise himself as divine from the existence of that power of perceiving ; and that which is divine is immortal. It is the kernel in the nut, the germ in the kernel, the entity of life in the germ. Hence, in the fullness of time, were established the Mysteries, which evolved from the phenomena of life the conception of its actual essences, and taught how purity, virtue 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 ' Clement : Stromata, iii. " OXfiioZ odrii idaov sxeiva noiya. sii vxoxBovioc, oiSsv jiisy fiiov tEXEvrar, oiSsv Se Jio% Sorov apxav" xviii Introduction. or disdain to include esoteric learning in his teachings. When he first 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 and were filled." ' He thenceforth divided his instruction into the moral and the esoteric ; and " from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." He explained the reason to those who continued with him : " It is given to you to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given ; therefore, I speak to them in allegories, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." " The Apostle whose name 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 pres- ent 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 wor- shippers 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 festi- vals 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 John, vi. 26. ' Gospel according to Matthew, xiii. II, 13. ' I Corinthians, ii. 6-8. The archons of Athens always exercised the super- intendency of the Eleusinia, Thesmophoria, and Bacchic festivals ; and Paul who was contrasting the " Mystery of Godliness " with the other orgies, ingen- iously adopted their modes of expression. In the same connection, he also de- nominates their initiates Jiatural or psychical, thus signifying that they had not attained the diviner state — that they were still in the realm of " o-eneration " not having passed beyond the sphere of the Moon, and therefore had not at- tained the noetic or spiritual life. Introduction. xix there by Melampus, a mantis or prophet, who got his knowledge of them by the way of the Tyrians from Egypt. The great his- ' torian, treating of the Orphic and Bacchic rites, declares that they " are in reality Egyptian and Pythagorean." ' The Mys-- 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 sects many centuries after the general dissemination of Chris- tianity. The Albigenses, it is supposed, were Manicheans or Mithracising Christians. 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 derogation, nevertheless preserved the interior sense of the ancient worship. A distinguished writer' has employed his poetic talent to depict the scenes of an initiation in 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 produc- tion, actually seems to have been a religious allegory or drama illustrating this very subject. This is not improbable; ' Herodotus : ii. 49, 81. * £xodiis xxxviii. 8 ; i Samuel ii. 22 ; and Ezekiel viii. 14, • Moore : The Epicurean, XX Introduction. for the Apostle Paul himself does not hesitate to assert the same thino- of narratives in the Old Testament, which are not easy to verify as authentic history.' The " Mystic Drama of Eleusis," as Clement so aptly de- nominates 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 sup- pressed by the Emperor Theodosius, about the year 380, a per.iod of more than eighteen centuries. In it appears to have been expressed all that was vital and essential in the religion of Greece. Of its sacredness and majesty, Antiquity has but one voice. Renan gives us the following outline of the holy orgies : "Setting aside the immense superiority of the Christian dogma, setting aside the lofty moral spirit which pervades its legend [the story of Jesus and his Passion], and to which noth- ing in antiquity can be compared — perhaps, if we could be per- mitted to assist at an ancient Mystery, we would witness simi- lar 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 so- journ of a deity on the earth, to bis passion, his descent into hell, his return to life. Sometimes it was the death of Adonis, 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 circum- stances of this myth, all the incidents of the search after Pro- serpina by her mother, gave room for a picturesque symbolism ' In the Epistle to the Galatians, the circumstances relative to the wife, con- cubine, and two elder sons of Abraham are denominated aXysYOf>ovi.iEva (allegoroumend) or allegorising ; and to the Corinthians he declares that the ex- odus from Egypt and adventures in the wilderness were rvitoi {iupoi), types or S3mibols, which were written for instruction. ' "The worship of this Great Mother is not more wonderful for its antiquity in time than for its prevalence as regards space. To the Hindu she was the Lady Isani. 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 Laplanders. She swayed the ancient world, from its south-east corner in India to Scandinavia in the North-west ; and everywhere she is the ' Mater Dolorosa.' And who is it, reader, that in tlie Christian world struggles for life 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.) 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, circuits in the dark, terrors, anxieties — then, all at once, splen- did 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 per- formed 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 to joy ; the burlesque resumed its place in the gephyrtsmes, or 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 in- volved 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 ' " 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, xlvii. 23 xxii Introductiofi. 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 an- thromorphism 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 charac- terised 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, re- ceive 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, Dio- nysus-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. xxiii Thrace at a very ancient period, eleven generations before the destruction of Troy ; also into Thebes and other parts of Greece. He is affirmed to have preceded all other religious teachers ; and his disciples were distin- guished for their knowledge of medicine, astronomy, and music, also for the employment of symbols and their devotion to a life of celibacy. The legend of 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 the same as Demeter or Ceres, reputed to be her mother in the Eleusinian story. It was the purpose of Zeus to place the son thus obtained upon the throne of Olympus. But the 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 being sworn to secresy ; and at the end, the Hierophant 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 Jor- dan. 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 similar in constitution to that still existing in Thibet. " The Lamaic system," says he, " was, at the earliest periods of Greece, undoubtedly administered with great vigor. 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 prime- val Phoenician Egypt, it would have been impossible to assure its dominant in- fluence 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 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 this vast system of hierarchic domination which in those ancient days extended over the known world with an uniformity and vigor un- paralleled but by the same system of Buddhistic Rome, during the Middle Ages was tenned ' Jeenos ' by the Greeks, written ' Zeenos,' and appellation 25 xxiv Introduction. This is the same proclamation as was made by the bride at the nuptial ceremony ; and indeed the idea of a sacred marriage is conveyed by the rites of initiation. " Those who are initiated sing: 'I have eaten from the drum ; I have drank from the basin [cymbal] ; bearing the earthen cup, I have gone to the nuptial chamber.' " ' In his relation to the sun, as lord of Heaven, demiurge and Father of Creation, Bacchus was denominated Uvpntaii, Puri- pats, or Son of Fire, and was represented with the phallic sym- bolism ; as was Zeus by that of a serpent, denoting the essen- tial spirit that preceded all things. Hence, in the mystic cista 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 super- seded 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 given to the 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 employed to express the Ruling Saintly Pontiff of his day. Such was the Jeenos, ' the King of 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 set- tled 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 Pon- tiff) who stands pre-eminently marked in the Orphic Theogony, and whose ad- ventures constitute one of its peculiar features. Zagreus [Chakras or ruler of a continent], 'the horned child,' is the Son of Zeus by his own daughter (or votary) Persephone (Parisoopani or Durga, called also Kor^ or Gouree). He is the favorite of his father ; a child of magnificent promise, and predestined to grow up to succeed to supreme dominion.' This intended successor to the Pontificate appears to have been murdered by the Tithyas [Titans] or Heretics. With the usual Buddhistic belief, however, of transmigration, the young Lama is 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- tion, who had the name of ' Dio-Nausus,' as being born upon the holy mountain of ' Meroo,' a history converted by the Greeks to the ' meros' or thigh of Zeus ! " —{India in Greece, chap, xvii.) ' PsELLUS: Maniiscripis. 2(' Introduction. xxv admission, through the Secret Societies of the Middle Ages and the Rosicrucians, down to the modern faint reflex of the latter, the Freemasons.' The Mithraic rites supplied the model of the initiatory ceremonies observed in those societies, and are de- scribed by 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 consecu- tive trials denominated Tortures, undergone within a cave con- structed for the purpose, and lasted forty days before he was ad- mitted to a participation in the Mysteries.' The peculiar symbol of these rites have been found all over Europe ; and the burial- place 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 judg- ment. 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. The Cabeirian Mysteries appear to have been the least un- derstood. Indeed, they were probably different in different countries. Creuzer traces them to the Phoenicians, and asso- ciates the worship 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 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 ' C. W. King : The Gnostics and their Remains, p. 47. The late Godfrey 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 at the sacred fount, and thus initiates them into the religion of Mithras ; he marks on the forehead his own soldiers ; he celebrates the oblation of bread (with water) ; he brings 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. 27 XXVI Inirodjictton. believe them to have been Demeter, Persephone, and Pluto, and others add a fourth, Cadmus or Kadmiel, the same as Her- mes 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 relig- ious ceremonies to the inhabitants. The Athenians, then, who were the first of all the Greeks to make their statues of Hermes 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 Mysteries." ' It is apparent that the idolatry ascribed to the Israelites and other inhabitants of Palestine was borrowed from these rites. Plutarch supposed the Feast of Tabernacles to have been Bacchanalian, and notices the carrying of the thyrsus at the feast of trumpets. The Mysteries of the Greeks were connected solely with the worship of the divinities in the Underworld; and such appears to have constituted a part of the orgies of Baal-Peor." " The children of Israel walked in the statutes of the heathen, did secretly (in the Mysteries) things that were not right against the Lord their God, built high places in all their cities, set up Hermaic statues and the emblems of Venus-Astarte in every high hill and under every green tree, worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal- Hercules, 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 wor- ship, including the mystic orgies, the sacred dances and pro- cessions, that the description of the one is equivalent to that of the other. 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 ' Herodotus, ii. 51. ' Psalms, cvi. 28. " They joined tLemselves also unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." » 2 Kings, xvii. 7-17, abridged. 2S 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 ; after which they fell into general disrepute. But they were secretly ob- served in all 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, is to be accredited the extinction of the 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. Singu- lar 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, commis- sioned the destroyers to go over those lands like locusts to- consume and eradicate the product of their own planting. ' 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 offer- ing 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. ' Plato: Cratylus, 31. "It appears to me (said Socrates) that the first men of those connected with Greece con- sidered those only as gods, whom \ many of the Barbarians now do ; namely, the Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, and Sky." 31 2 The Symbolical Language of 3. In every stage of society, men naturally love the mar- vellous ; but in the early stages, a certain portion of it is abso- lutely 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 tra- ditions or histories of all nations ; and poetical fable occupied the place of historical truth in their accounts of the transac- tions 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 prin- ciples 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. 4. As the maintenance of order and subordination among men required the authority of a supreme magistrate, the con- tinuation 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 in- spired, TjtVi^jDseus, or Deus' (^2^ diphthong), signifying, accord- ' This statement seems to require giarised by tlie Greeks, and travestied some qualification. Hercules was after their peculiar manner. — A. W. originally the tutelar deity of Tyre, ' Phurnutus : Concerning the A'a- the same as Baal or Moloch, the Fire- ture of the Gods, ii.: " By certain ones god of the Hebrew Scriptures; and he (Zeus) is also called Z'^aj." hence, by a figure of speech, he is The letter Z {zetd) was, as is well described as having visited every coun- known, no other than /i'2 or ^A (ds try to which the Tyrian commercial or sd) expressed by one character ; and exploring expeditions resorted, and in the refinement of language Some have derived the name from and the varying of the dialects, the ^13-~l1N, aur-chol, the light of the sigma was frequently dropped, as ap- univeise; but the Sanscrit Heri-Ctil- pears from the very ancient medals of yus, or Lord of the Noble, is almost Zankle in Sicily, inscribed DANKLE. equally plausible. An inscription in In the genuine parts of the Iliad Malta has been deciphered as follows: and Odyssey, there is no instance of a NnV 7y3 mx DIPPD, Melkarth Ado- vowel continuing short before AKO'2, inn Baal Tzwra, Melkarth, our Lord, JEIN02, AEIAD,, etc.; so that the Baal, or tutelar deity of Tyre. the initial was originally a double He was represented by the Sun, whose consonant, probably A'S ; which at annual progress through the Signs of first became /I A, and afterwards A, the Zodiac was typified and commem- though the metre of the old bards has orated by the twelve Orgies, or Works preserved the double time in the of Hercules. This legend was pla- 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 re- ligion, 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 Reve- lation ; 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 speci- mens above mentioned, we may, nevertheless, easily console ourselves for the loss of all of them as poetical composi- tions, 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- tity ; and only revealed, under the most solemn vows of secresy, to 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 * Hermippus: afud Plin. lib. xxx. c. editum, et filium Mannum originem I. Vicies centum millia versuum a gentis conditoresque. Zoroastre condita. ' Cmsks.: de Bello GallUa,-n, Mag- ' Tacitus : Germany. Celebrant num ibi numerum versuum ediscere (Germani) carminibus antiquis, quod dicuntur ; itaque nonnuUi annos vi- unum apud illos memorise et anna- cenos in disciplina permanent ; neque Hum genus, Tuistonem deum terra fas esse existimant ea litteris mandare. 35 The Symbolical Language of for a particular investigation, which may lead to a general knowledge of all.' 7. These mysteries were under the guardianship of Ceres and Proserpina, and were called teletai, endings, on finishes, be- cause no person could be perfect that had not been initiated either into them or some others. They were divided into two 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 made acquainted with the first principles of religion ; * the knowledge of the God of nature ; the first, the supreme, the intel- lectuals'' by which men had been reclaimed from rudeness and bar- barism 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 ;" ' The secret or Mystical system ap- pears to have been the basis of the ancient worship ; the difference be- tween the sacred rites and legends of the several countries being more in form than in substance. The desig- nation of mystery or z'aj'A'w^ Is applied to it as having been vailed from all ex- cept 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 theurgical by preference. The in- terior doctrines, supposed to have been treated of by the Alexandrian Jews, were called the Apocrypha, or 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 pro- bation, the candidates were called neophytes, or new-born, and mysta, or vailed, while those that had passed all the trials successfully were denom- inated epopta, or seers, as having learned the wisdom of the gods. A. W. 8 Salmasius: not. in ^1. Spartan. Hist. p. 116. Meursius: Eleusinia, c. viii. etc. • Plutarch : Concerning Isis and Osiris. " The end of which is the knowledge of the First, the Lord, and the noetic." "> Cicero: DeLeg. i. c. 24. Mihi cum multa eximia divinaque videntur Athe- na: tuae peperisse — turn nihil melius illis mystcriis, quibus ex agresti im- manique vita exculti, ad humanitatem mitigati sumus : initiaque, ut appellan- tur, ita revera principia vitas cognovi- mus : neque solum cum Isetitia vivendi rationem accepimus, sed etiam cum spe meliori moriendi. Plutarch: Consolatory Letter, x. "As for what you hear others say, who persuade the vulgar that the soul, whenever freed from the body, suffers no inconvenience or evil, nor is sensi- ble 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 ex- treme 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 con- tributed greatly to the ruin of that republic, and the subver- sion 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 cau- tion, 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 pas- sages, 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 initia- tion consisted in an explanation and exposition of those alle- gorical tales and symbolical forms, under which they were vailed. " All that can be said concerning the gods," says 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, xxxiv. " Proclus: Theology of Plato, i. 4. " Andocides: Oration concerning " The Orpheans endeavored to express tAe Mysteries. divine things by symbols, the Pytha- " Thucydides: iv. 45. goreans by similitudes." " Plutarch: Symposiacs, ii. 3. Demetrius: Phaler. De Eloc, 100. " Other matters, according to Herod- " Wherefore also the Mysteries are otus, it is proper to be silent about, expressed in allegories, for the being a mystical subject." purpose of inciting confusion of mind According to Clement of Alexan- and terror, as in darkness and dria, the tragedian ^schylus narrowly night." escaped being murdered on the stage " Epoptai or Ephori. All that is of the theatre for using an expression left in ancient authors concerning the which was supposed to have been ceremonies of initiation, etc., has been taken from the Mystic Orgies, and diligently collected and arranged by only escaped by shovring the people Meursius, in his Eleusinia, that he had never been initiated. 39 6 The Symbolical Language of fable their thoughts and discourses concerning nature ; which are not therefore easily explained." " " In all initiations and mysteries," says Proclus, " the gods exhibit themselves under many forms, and with a frequent change of shape; sometimes as light, defined to no particular figure; sometimes in a human form; and sometimes in that of some other creature."" The 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 knowl- edge 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 weak- ness of human intellect, when vailed under symbols, and wrap- ped 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 character- istic 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 con- vention 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 '^^ Vkoclvs: The Jiefublic. of Plato. everybody may lawfully and freely 20 Plutarch: IHs and Osiris, 25. hear, as they are told in the mytho- " What they sing about among the logical story. The like may also be Greeks concerning the Giants and said of those things which, being Titans, and certain horrid acts of vailed over in the mystic rites and Kronos (Saturn), as also of the sacred ceremonies of initiation, are combats of Python with Apollo, the therefore kept private from the sight flights of Dionysus (Bacchus), and the and hearing of the common people." wanderings of Demeter (Ceres) come " Maximus Tyrius: Dissertation, nothing short of the relations about x. 4. 40 Coins of Syracuse, ttc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 7 which, from its use among the Egyptians, has been denomin- ated the hieroglyphical mode of writing, was everywhere em- ployed 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. 13. In examining these symbols in the remains of ancient art, 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 emble- matical 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 them- selves 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 au- thority, and therefore, whatever meaning they contain, must have been the meaning of nations, and not the caprice of indi- viduals. 14. This is the class of coins, the devices upon which were always held so strictly sacred, that the most proud and power- ful 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 prac- ticed in the coins of several of the Macedonian kings, previous to the custom of putting their portraits upon them." 15. It is, in a great degree, owing to the sanctity of the " See those of Archelaus, Amyntas, cules, seem meant to express those of Alexander II., Perdiccas, Philip, Alex- the respective princes. For the fre- ander the Great, Philip Aridseus, and quency of this practice in private Seleucus I., in all which the different families among the Romans, see Statu characters and features, respectively Sylv. 1. 1, 231-4. given to the different heads of Her- 43 8 The Symbolical Language of 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 pos- terior 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, con- tinued, after the invention of coining, to be employed in ex- pressing the respective value of two pieces of money, the one of which was worth six of the other. In Greece and Mace- donia, 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 reckon- ing by weight, or according to the lesser talent, and its sub- divisions,''' 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 de- cline, and compare the various religious symbols which have been employed in ages and countries remote from each other. '" The whole legend of Charon and Thrace made them a part of the his boat to conduct passengers or mystic rites. — A. W. spirits from the living world to the " Bentley: Onthe EpistUsofPha- region of the dead, was taken from laris, &c. Pausan. 1. i. c. 39. the Egyptian Judgment of Amenti. " Rawlinson: Herodotus, Km. to After the inquest upon the deceased Book, i. "A gold coinage existed person had been satisfactorily con- among the Asiatic Greeks, as at Pho- cluded at the Kiroim, or sacred tower, casa, Cyzicus, Lampsacus, Abydos, &c. an offering was made to the divinities It was copied from the Lydian, to of the Underworld, and the body which it conformed in weight and gen- ferried over the Acheron to the Cata- eral character." As far as has been combs. The Orphic Mysteries of ascertained, the Lydian coinage is of the highest antiquity. — A. \V. 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 mu- tilated or restored ; and also that they exhibit two composi- tions 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 ex- plore the vast and confused labyrinths of poetical and allegor- ical 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- chus), called iniEgyptlsis 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 com- mon Greek name, Dionusos, is derived, or what it signifies, is not so easy to determine, or even to conjecture with any rea- sonable 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 conjec- tures 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 •' Herodotus: ii. 42. " They (the *' They are in fact the same name in Egyptians) declare Osiris to be identi- different dialects, the ancient verb cal with Dionysus," or Bacchus. PAXil, in Laconian BAXil, having EURlPmES: Bacchm, 73. "Oh become by the accession of the augment happy, blessed is he that vifitnesseth VWAlCil, v. laxon- the initiation of the deities, for he " See Macrobius: i. c. 18, & Bry- venerateth the source of life ; not only ANT : Ancient Mythology , iii. 103. does he divine the Orgies of Cybele, ''■' Asiatic li£searches,\A.-f.'iOd,.Y)if^s. the Great Mother, but waving the Nahushaor Deo-nus. He is said to thyrsus, and crowned with ivy, he is have overcome the adversaries of the also a votary of Dionysus." Brahmans in all countries, and after- 47 10 The Symbolical Language of 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 any- further than that it implies his having the peculiar superin- tendence and direction of the characteristics of the female sex." At Lampascus, too, on the Hellespont, he was vene- rated under a symbolical form adapted to a similar oflBce, though with a title of a different signification, Friapus, which will be hereafter explained.'" 20. According to Herodotus, the name Dionysus, or 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 settled in Bceotia. The whole history, how- ever, of this Phoenician colony is extremely questionable ; and we shall show 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 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 express- ing 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 Dithyram- bus." '* Herodotus; ii. 49. " Melampus introduced into Greece the name of Dionysus, his worship and the proces- sion of the phallus. He did not so completely apprehend the whole doc- trine as to be able to communicate it entirely, but various sages since his time have carried out his teachings to greater perfection ; still it is certain that Melampus introduced the phallus, and that the Greeks learnt from him the ceremonies which they now per- form. I therefore maintain that Me- lampus, who was a wise man, having the art of vaticination, became ac- quainted with the Dionysian worship through knowledge derived from Egypt, and that he introduced it into Greece, with a few slight changes, to- gether with certain other customs. I can not allow that the Dionysiac cere- monies in Greece are so nearly the same as the Egyptian, merely from co- incidence: 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 ac- companied him into the country called Bceotia." It is hardly necessary to remark that Cadmus was a deity, identical with Her- mes, Thoth and jEsculapius ; also that Melampus or black-foot is but an epi- thet for an Egyptian. He was doubt- less a fictitious character. — A. W, *• Odyssey, xv. 226, et seqq. " Kasiuillus ox Kadmiel is the name of one of the gods of the Samothjacian Mysteries.— A. W. 48 Ancient Art and Mythology. 1 1 Iliad ;" and Ino, or Leucothoe, a daughter of Cadmus, is mentioned as a sea-goddess in the Odyssey" But no notice 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- theless, we learn from the very high authority of Strabo that the Greek music was all Thracian or Asiatic," and, from the un- 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." 22. As there is no mention, however, of any of the mystic deities, nor of any of the rites with which they were wor- shipped, 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 '* Iliad, V. 807. " According to the Parian or ^' Odyssey, v. 539. Arundelian Marbles, the Eleusinian ^ EusEBius : Praparatio Evangeli. mysteries were introduced 175 years i. ch. 6. " They say that Orpheus, the before the Trojan war ; but Plutarch son of CEagreus brought the Mysteries attributes their introduction to Eu- from the Egyptians and communicated molpus, de Exit. them to the Greeks." *> Cicero : Nature of the Gods, i. c. Aristophanes : Tht Frogs, 1032. 28. Orpheum poetam docet Aristote- " Orpheus showed us the initiations." les nunquam fuisse. The passage is — TeUtai. not in the works of Aristotle now ex- PrOCLUS : Theology of Plato, i. 5.» tant. "All theology among the Greeks is ^' Strabo; x. p. 471. theoutbirth of the Orphic Mystagogy." ■" Iliad, iii. 595. Pausanias : Corinth, xxx. 2. " The ''^ Plutarch : On Banishment. jEginetans have the initiation of He- " Some suppose them to have been kate every year, saying that Orpheus the more ancient worship, thus vailed the Thracian instituted the rites." for preservation. — A. W. SI 12 The Symbolical La7iguage of the Mysteries" are proved, both by the language and the mat ter, 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 the deity by repeating adulatory titles, not being then in use, though afterward common." 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 Herodo- tus 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 gene- rative 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 which seems to have been among the last discoveries revealed to the initiated." It was the same, in emblematical writing, as the Orphic epithet, Pan-genetor, universal generator, in which sense it is still employed by the Hindus." It 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 may- pole 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 personi- ^i' Pausakias: ^«jV(J, c. xxxvii. s. 3. " Tertullian: Concerning tlit "Whoever has witnessed an initiation Valeniinians, (a sect of Ophites or at Eleusis, or those called Orphic, of Gnostics.) "After many sighings knows what I say." of the seers (epoptm), the entire sealing ■" Arrian, lib. V. of the tongue, (from divulging it) an " Herodotus: ii. 48. image of the virile organ is revealed." ^ Diodorus Siculus: i. 88. " Sonnerat : Voyage aux Indes. ^' Isis and Osiris. " They exhibit '* Lafitau, Mtxurs des Sauvages, i. the statue in human semblance, hold- v. 150. ingthe sexual part prominent as fecun- " Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica, dating and nourishing." p. ii. c. 5. '» Isis and Osiris. " They display " Maurice : Indian Antiquities, vi. the emblem and carry it around, hav- pp. 87-94. ing the sexual parts threefold." 52 Ancient Art and Mythology. 13 fied attribute into a distinct deity called Priapus, whose uni- versality was, however, acknowledged to the latest periods of heathenism." THE MYSTIC EGG. 24. In this universal character he is celebrated by the Greek poets, under the title 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 per- vade the universe with the motion of his wings, bringing pure light : and thence to be called the splendid, the self-illumined, the ruling Priapus''' — 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 state, or, as Plutarch calls it, the material of generation, con- taining the seeds and germs of life and motion without being actually possessed of either. It was, therefore, carried in pro- cession 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 Pla- tonic 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 things in itself^" THE SERPENT-SYMBOL. 25. As organic substance was represented by the symbol of the Egg, so the principle of life, by which *' Titul antiq. in Gruter, i. 195, No. was the first. My friend Sylla saying I. PRIEPO PANTHEO. that with this little question, as with " Aristophanes: 5!>(/j,6q3. He- an engine, was involved the great and SIOD: Theogony, 116. Orphic Hymn, weighty one concerning the genesis of V. 29 and 57. the world, declared his dislike of such " Orph. Hymn, V. v. 5. problems. * * I speak to those who " Sophocles: CEdipus Tyrannus, understand the sacred legend of Or- 1437. pheus, which shows not only that the ™ Plutarch: Symposiacs, ii. 3. egg is before the bird, but makes it " They suspected that I held the Or- before all things. The other matter phic and Pythagorean dogmas, and we will not speak about, being as refused to eat the egg (as some do the Herodotus says, of a mystic character, heart and brain), because it is sacred ; * * * Therefore, in the Orgies imagining it to be the first principles of Dionysus it is usual to consecrate of generated existence. * * Soon after an egg as representing that which Alexander proposed the problem con- generates and contains all things in ceming the egg and the bird, which itself" 55 14 The Symbolical Language of it was called into action, was represented by that of the Serpent ; which having the property of cast- ing its skin, and apparently renewing its youth, was nat- urally adopted for that purpose. We sometimes find it coiled 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 gen- eral 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 ser- pents." 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 repre- sented on their stuffs and porcelain, as well as upon those of the Japanese. The inhabitants of Norway and Sweden con- tinued 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 themselves girdles and chaplets of serpents, which they have »' Phurnutus: Concerning the no- Herodotus mentions this legend, but turea/tht Gods.iaami. "They have set makes Hercules the lover of the ser- apart the serpent to him (yEsculapius), pent-queen (iv. 8-10. See also Kaem- because those who are engaged in this pfer's History 0/ Japan, ii. p. 145). healing art make use of it as a symbol « Arrian: in Prccf., p. 80. LuciAN, for becoming young as it were after De Hist, conscrib., p. 39. sickness, and putting off old age." " Ol MAGi^.de Gent. Sefitent. Hist «2 Justin Martyr: Apology, ii. Epit.l. in. Serpentes ut sacros cole- By all among you who worship the bant ;— asdium servatores atque penates neathen gods, the serpent is depicted existiman es :— reliquise tamen hujus as their great symbol and mystery." superstitione culturae— in nonnuUis eapERSius: Satires, l "Paint two secretis solitudinum sedibusque per- snakes, my boys, and the place then is severant ; sicuti in septentrionalibus ^°\T' ^ regnis Norvegije ac Vermelandi^. •"DioDORUS SlcuLUS:ii.43."The " Ol. Vareui: Hunagr. Olans Scythians related the fable of a giant RuDBECK:^//a»^. No. iii. c. i (earth-bom) maiden among tliem ; that 6" Voyageen SibMe par F Abb'i Chap- she had the womanly organs of the pe cT Cuteroche, pi. xviii. The figure bodyabove, but those of a viper below, in brass is in the collection of Mr. (echidna) s.nA that by intercourse with Knight. Zeus she had the child Scythes." 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 his neck while the priests performed the horrid rites." In the 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 power- ful 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 Epidau- rians 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 attri- butes 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 des Sauvages, t. '* See Stukeley's Abury; the orig- i. p. 253. inal name of which temple, he ob- ™ AcoSTA: History of the Indies, p. serves, was the Snake's Head: and it 382. is remarkable the remains of a similar ■" Hist. Gen. des Voyages, t. iv.p.305. circle of stones in Bceotiahad the same " Maximus Tyr: Dissert., viii. c. 6. name in the time of Pausanias. '^Livy: .ffij/., xi. epitom. Pausanias : .Soj^rfa, xix. 2. "The '■* Herodotus: viii. 41. Thebans call a certain little spot of " SoNNERAT : Voyage aux Indes, t. ground surrounded by stones selected i. p. 253. for the purpose, the Serpent's Head." ■" See the mystic cistae on the num- " Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica, mi cistophori of the Greek cities of part iii. i. 25, and part ii. p. 343, plate Asia, which are extremely common, A, i. 510. and to be found in all cabinets and ** The report that Cleopatra came books of ancient coins. to her end from the bite of the asp or " Medailles de Dutens, p. i. Mus. umus, is due to the wearing of an Hunter., tab. 15, fig. v. and viii. effigy of the reptile upon the regal 57 i6 The Symbolical Language of the Friendly Islands ; "' and, in the mysteries of Jupiter Sa- bazius, 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 symbols, which will be hereafter further noticed. The mys- 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 In- dia, 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 it." diadem. She had arrayed herself in 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. 171, Clement of Alexandria : Exhortation to the Gen- tiles. Julius Firmicius, c. 27. Jupiter Sabazius or lacchus Sabazius is the serpent-deity of the mysteries, identical with Kronos or Hercules ; and the drama or allegory there repre- sented is thus set forth by Nonnus ; " 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 tlie chamber of dusky Kore, Waving his rough beard '*' * 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 their Remains, ^ The serpent appears also to have been adopted by certain sectaries as a part of the Christian mysteries, and some remnants of the worship still ex- ist. Adopting the book of Enoch, and kindred treatises in preference to the New Testament, and almost entirely overriding the Old Testament, the Ophites constructed a doctrine of emanation after the model of the Zo- roastrians, Buddhists and Jewish Ka- balists, by which they explained the production and evolution of all forms of existence. The Supreme Being generated from himself a second, Sige or Silence, and by her Sophia or Pneu ■ ma, the divine Wisdom, and then by lier the perfect being, Christ, and the imperfect one, Achamoth. These four produced the Holy Church according to the heavenly ideal. Meanwhile, Achamoth, the imperfect wisdom, de- scended into Chaos, imparting life to the elements ; and finally by conjunc- tion 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- taphaeus. These, with himself, be- came the seven spirits of the planets ; he also generated archangels, angels. Energies, Potencies, to preside over the details of the creation. The seven 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 Demi- urge, enraged that his production .should be superior to himself, animated the image of himself formed by reflec- tion in the abyss as in a mirror. This was Satan Ophiomorphus, called by the Ophites Michael and Samael — 58 Ancient Art and Mythology. 17 27. Not only the property of casting the skin, and acquir- ing a periodical renovation of youth, but also that of pertina- ciously retaining life even in amputated parts, may have re- commended 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 pos- sess 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 knowl- edge, which could enable him to un- derstand 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 un- justly 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, con- tinued 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 to aid the children of Seth. She also 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 began his work. Ilda-Baoth stirring up the Jews against him, he was put to death. Immediately Sophia and Christ invested him with a body of Eether and placed him at the right hand of Ilda-Baoth by whom he is unper- ceived. Here he collects the purified souls ; and when all these are restored, the world will end, and all the re- deemed will enter into the pleroma. In their eucharist the Ophites have a 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 the Christian era. They abounded in Asia, Egypt, Spain, and all parts of the Christian world. The Ophites and Gnostics employed secret signs of recognition. Epiphan- ius thus describes them : " On the 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- dance of meats and wine. After they are well filled the entertainer rises and withdraws, leaving his wife behind, with the command : ' show thy charity to this man, our brother.' " The Albigenses, Cathari and Pauli- cians are reckoned among the worship- ers of the agathodasmon. — A. W. *' Virgil: Georgics, ii. v. 30, and 181. Theophrastus : Hist. Plant, lib. v. '^ Pausanias : EHac. i. s. I. S9 iS The Symbolical Language of and other deities ; " the preserving power, or attribute of im- mortality, being, in some mode or other, common to every personification of the divine nature. The victors in the Olympic Games were also 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. 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 most distinguished. The Greeks called him Epaphus," and 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 propaga- tion of the elephant ; " which was not known in Europe, nor even in the northern or western parts of Asia, till Alexan- der'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, Plutarch : Ids and Osiris. " Many Aradus, Tyre. etc. of the Greeks make bull-shaped sym- ** Aristophanes: Plut. 586. bols of Dionysus ; and the women of '' Ibid. 943. the Eleans praying, invoke the cloven- ™ Herodotus; ii. 153. " The Greek footed divinity to come to them. The name for Apis is Epaphus." Argives call Dionysus the Bull-begot- EiiRlproES: /'/za;»w«,688. " Epa- ten" {Bougenes), or "a bee" as it is phus, child of lo, whom she brought sometimes rendered, from the fable of forth to Zeus." bees hatched in a putrefying carcass. " C.«sar: War in Gaul,'h<:>oW\. Athen^us : Dipnosophistts, b. xi. »' Pausanias : i. c. 12. This proves 476. " In Cyzicus, he (Bacchus) is that the coins with an elephant's skin represented as bull- formed." on the head, are of Alexander II., It is probable that the bull-symbol king of Epirus, son of Pyrrhus. was astrological, The Sun formerly »»Lycophron: 2og. "The Bull" entered the sign of Taurus at the (taurus) i. e., Dionysus. vernal equinox, thus beginning a new 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- stances, quite old, and in others quite young; and the human- ised 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 same) through the sun by night. Apis, however, held the highest rank, he being exalted by the superstition of that superstitious people into something more than a mere sym- bol, 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 miracu- lously 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 man- ner 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 traced.'"' 30. Their neighbors the Arabs appear to have worshipped their god under the same image, though their religion was more simple and pure than that of any Heathen nation of an- tiquity, 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. He- season and resuscitating tlie year, ray of fire comes from heaven upon From this, the bull became the em- the cow, and she immediately becomes blem or representative of the Supreme pregnant with Apis." Being, and of course a sacred or sacer- " Herodotus-, iii. 27. " Always on dotal animal.- — A. W. his appearance the whole of Egypt '■' Bronzi Hercolano, t. i. tav. I. feasted and kept jubilee." Coins of Camarina. Plate ii. of the last '™ PLUTARCH: Ids and Osiris. volume of " the Select Specimens." "Apis, in Memphis, was regarded as —-" " Coins of Lampsacus, Naxus. the eidolon or visible representation of ^^ VlJJTAS.cn: Isis and Osiris. "The the soul of Osiris." bull maintained at Heliopolis, called "" Strabq: xvii. " Of Apis, who is Mnevis (some regarded him as sacred Osiris himself." See plate 2 of vol. i. to Osiris, and others as the father of of Select Specimens, where the horns of Apis) is black, and has the sacred the bull are indicated in the disposing honors of the Apis." of the hair." " See the /«a' Hist. Gen. des Voyages, i, vi. p. Syrian designation of the Mother- 452. Goddess. Thus lin or Tlt^ Tur ox ""^ Recherches sur les Arts de la Greci, Sttr, signifies an ox ; and IV Tzttr, or &c. rock, the name of Tyre, has nearly the >»5 Plutarch: In Mario. same sound, and so makes a very good 109 Plutarch :/« .Sy/Za, c. 17. " The phonetic for symbolical writing. — Phoenicians call the bull Thur." A. W, "' Olaus Rudbeckius: Ailantica, i"" See coins of Thurium, Syracuse, part ii. c. v. p. 300, fig. 28 ; also pp. Tauromenium, Attabyrium. 321, 338, 339. "» Memorable Embassy to the Em- ^"^ Medailles de Dut^)Ls, p. I. The peror of Japan, p. 283. coin, better preserved, is also in Mr. '" See coins of Acanthus, Maronea, Knight's collection. Eretria, Sic. I think this an example of punning 64 , id i:i:ii;ill!!i!!iiiii:l Zeus. Jupiter. 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 rep- resented 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 lu- bricity, 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 him- self had appeared.'". The fauns and satyrs, the attendants 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 it been possible for them to exist ; "^ and the god Pan was there represented under such a form."" THE SOURCE OF ALL THINGS. 34. 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 personifica- "' Five of these are in Mr. Knight's This is done at the season when the collection, on one of which the disk is .(Egyptians beat themselves in honor remaining. of Osiris." Herodotus : ii. 132. " As for the '" Diodorus Siculus : i. 88. cow, the greater part of it is hidden "'' K'SOl.'L.OViO^Xii: Bibliotheca, iii. c. by a scarlet coverture, and between iv. s. 3. the horns there is a representation in "' Herodotus : ii. 46. " A goat gold of the orb of the sun. The fig- was exhibited copulating with a wo- ure is not erect, but lying down, with man." the limbs under the body ; the dimen- "« Herodotus: ii. 46. " The artists sions being fully those of a large ani- in .(Egypt delineate and sculpture the raal of the kind. Every year it is taken symbols of Pan, like the Greeks, as from the apartment in which it is having the countenance and limbs of kept and exposed to the light of day. a goat." 67 2 2 The Symbolical Language of tion of the divine nature ; Kronos or Zeus, the unknown Father, being everywhere reverenced as the supreme and al- mighty. In the poetical mythology, these titles are applied to distinct personages, the one called the Father, and the other the Son ; but in the mystic theology, they seem to have signified only one being — the Being that fills eternity and infinity.'" The ancient theologists appear to have known that we can form no distinct or positive idea of Infinity, whether of power, space, or time ; it being fleeting and fugi- tive, 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, sig- nifying 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 nat- urally 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 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 Mat- ter.'" Those of Eleusis were under the protection of Ceres, called by the Greeks Demeter ; that is, ISJ other Earth; "" and '" Euripides : Hiridida. " Seest containeth the elements from which thou the immense Kther on high, and everything is produced." the earth around held in its moist '^" DiODORUS SicuLUS; ii. 12. "In embrace ? Revere Zeus and obey like manner to call her Demeter, by a God." trifling transposition of a word, the "8 Orphic Fragments, xxxviii. A ancient name being Ge-meter." passage from Empedocles, preserved by Solon : In Brunch's Analectica, i, Athenagoras, thus describes the ele- 24. " Great mother of the deities of ments that compose the world : Olympus, the most excellent black " Firewater, earth, and the soft air above, earth." And vrith them, Love." y^ns Kennedy more plausibly forms '" Plutarch: Symposiacs, ii. qu. 3. Demeter ixoxa. the Sanskrit Deva-ma- "For matter hath the function of tri, or Mother-Goddess; and Cerei mother and nurse, as Plato says, and Uom Shri. Both are names of Laksh. 6S l!!iiiiig|iil'lii!ii!iiiii^ Ceres. Demeter. A7icient Art and Mythology. 23 though the meaning of her Latin name be not quite so ob- vious, it is in reality the same ; the Roman c being originally the same letter, both in figure and power, as the Greek gam- ma,"" which was often employed as a mere guttural aspirate, especially in the old iEolic dialect, from which the Latin is principally derived. The hissing termination, too, in the ^ belonged to the same : 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 to their pronunciation ; and not, like the English and French 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 produc- tive principle supposed to pervade it,'" which, joined to the active, was held to be the cause of the organization and ani- mation 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 produc- tive 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 divi- sion, appropriation, and cultivation of the soil. mi, consort of Vishnu. See Hindu in love with her great body, nourishes Mythology, pp. 394-395. all her offspring." '■" See Senatus Consultum Mar- "■'Plutarch. SeeEosEBlus./'ne- cianum ; also coins of Gela, Agrigen- poratio Evangelica, iii. i. " Ge (earth) turn and Rhegium. is Hera," (Juno, or Lady.) ''^' Ovid; Fasti, i. 673. '" Moor, the author of the Hindu " Officium commune Ceres et Terra tuen- Pantheon, Godfrey Higgins and others tur ; derive the name Juno from the San- Hfficprjebetcausamfrugibus, Ilia locum." ^^^.jj y^^^-^ ^^ ^^^ Hebrew and Chal. "^ Virgil: 0<^!yz«, ii. 324. "Then daic njV Juneh, a dove, representa- the Omnipotent Father, great Rxhcx, tive of the Mother Goddess. The with fecund showers, descends into the Hebrew and Sanscrit have no J. bosom of his rejoicing wife, and united '^' Tacitus ; Germany. 71 24 The Symbolical Language of 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 how- ever 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 origin- ally 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. Hence Varro says that Coelum and Terra, that is universal mind and productive body, were the Great Gods of the Samothra- cian 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 im- aginations of the poets gave a progenitor even to the person- 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 ; the gen. "'' Z)e Lingtta Latina, iw. 10. "' Phurnutus: De Natura Deo- "' Akamatos, akamon, akmon, etc. rum, i. 72 Rhea. Kybele. Ancient Art and Mythology. 25 erative spirit, or vital principle of order and renovation, being beyond its reach.'" 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 metaphy- sical theology : a Being purely mental and absolutel)' immate- rial, 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 ab- stract principle of motion. These modes of action, being 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 re- finement 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 expres- sions. FIRE AND WATER AS SYMBOLS. 41. The elements Fireand Water were supposed to be those in which the active and passive productive powers of the uni- verse respectively existed ; '" since nothing appeared to be ''" It is by no means certain that revolution in government and worship. Kronos, or Saturn, is identical with — A. W. Chronos, or Time; and hence Mr. '*' Hesiod: Thcog. i5o. Knight's solution of the allegory, '^^ Ovid: Metamorphoses, \. /^■^o. though ingenious, can hardly be enter- g^jpp^ ^^5 temperiem sumpsere humor- tained. We notice again an example que calorque, of playing upon words. Kronos, en- Concipiunt: et ab his oriuntur cuncta deavoring to devour his own sons, or duobus. benim, is deceived with stones, or Hippocrates : Diceta, i. 4. " All abenim. The same play is perceived living creatures, not only the animals, in the words of John the Baptist : but likewise man, originate from the ,' God is able of these stones (abenini) Two Principles, differing in potency to raise up children {benim) to Abra- but agreeing in purpose : I mean Fire ham " {Matthew, iii. 8). The whole and Water." " Fire is able to give life stoiy has an Indian aspect. The tin- to all things, but water can nourish gam represented the divine energy, them." which, being removed, was equivalent lb. 8. " The soul moveth itself in to the dethroning of the divinity. man, being the commixture of fire and Thus, Cronos succeeded to Uranus, water, necessary to the human body." the meaning of the allegory being a — et passim. 75 26 The 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 life upon which she was entering."'' Their sentence of banish- 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 exis- tence. 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."" A similar preju- dice still prevails among the native Irish, 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 Questions. iv. 5. Lafitau: Mo:urs dcs Sauvages, "Why do they direct the bride to i. 153. touch fire and water? Is it not be- '^'■Plutarch: Arlstides. cause, as among the elements and "' Collect. Hibern. v. 64. principles, the one is male and the "' HERODOTUS : ii. 62. other female : the one constitutes the '^' See coins of Amphipolis, Alex- principle of motion, and the other the ander tlie Great, c&c. potency existing in Matter ? " '*» Asclepiades : Epigram, xxv. '" Plutarch: Numa. from Brunck. Analect. \ ?i6. '"^ HUET.: Dcmonstr. Evang. Prop., "' PauSANIAS : 1. c. 76 Ancient Art and Mythology. 27 upon sepulchral urns and other monuments of the kind, inva- riably signifies death or extinction.'" 42. Though water was thought to be the principle of the passive, as fire was of the active power ; yet, both being es- teemed 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 ; where- fore 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 per- sonification of that attribute, and the guardian of all assem- blies, both public and private, both of men and gods ; '*' whence, all legislation was derived from Ceres, a more general per- sonification including the same powers. The universal mother 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, accord- ing 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 workman- "' See Portland Vase, &c. Poly- /^^ y_ 201. nices infers his own approaching death from seeing in a vision {Stat. Theb. ^fiVe^flamma.m""''" """"^ '''''™ '""''' xi. 142). „ , , '•*= Ovid: .^cjA'. The temple is still r^Sm ^^"^ "" '"■" "" '='''^"'.. converted into a church, and Effigiem. the ruins of another more elegant one, Fire without moisture IS unnourisned ,4, 17 _„,„„„. n ,1. u j J J J k ■»! t 41. ■ /ESCHYLUS: Prometheus Bound, and dry, and water without warmth is „ r. it • ^r 1 »■ i-i J i-r 1 " 200, Potters translation, unprohiic and liieless. ' '^^ VVKS^VKIVZ: Nature of the Gods, Now Gaia, under various names de- xxviii. "But neither of the two, signed. Demeter or Hestia, is properly ''"' Lexicon, Antiq. Frag, de Herm. distinct from the other, upon the Grainm. " Demeter, as the earth, is earth." the tutelary of the state, whence she Ovid : Fast. lib. vi. v. 267. is described as the beaver of the tower. VeSa eadem est qua Terra, subest vigil pybele is said to represent the earth, ' ' utrique. from the cubic figure in geometry. 77 28 The Symbolical Language of ship, to be either posterior, or very little anterior to the Ma- cedonian conquest.'" VENUS-URANIA, THE MOTHER-GODDESS. 43. The characteristic attribute of the passive generative power was expressed in symbolical writing, by different enig- matical representations of the most distinctive characteristic of the female sex ; such as the shell, or Concha Veneris,^'"'' the Fig-leaf,"" Barley Corn,"' or the letter Delta ; '^ all which oc- cur very frequently upon coins, and other ancient monuments in this sense. The same attribute personified as the goddess of 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 daugh- ter of Jupiter and Dione ; that is, of the male and female per- sonifications of the All-pervading Spirit of the Universe ; Dione being, as before explained, the female Dis or Zeus, and there- fore 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 Theog- ony attributed to Hesiod. 44. The GenetuUides or Genaidai were the original and ap- "' It is most frequent on rbve ooias with the moon, and hence they were of the Asiatic ooJonias ; hai afl that similarly employed as symbols, we have seen with, srt are of late '" SuiDAS : " Delta, the fourth let- date, ter - it also signifies the vulva." >'» Augustin: 'Ikt City oj God, '" The first may be from the vevb vi.g. Clement of Aiexandria: .£.j:/;i;>?-- beindn, Suidas explaining Bsivoi tations. " Ths Kteis gtmakeios (wo- or BiroS to be the name of a goddess; man's comb), which is, to speak with a and the name Venus only differs from euphemism, and in mystic language, it in a well-known variation of dia- the female sexual paits." lect. '"Plutarch: Isis and Osiris, -id- The second may be from Kuo^ropiS, " They make a figure of a fig-leaf, i. e. Hveir 7topiiSKOv(Sa, though the both foi the king and southern climate, theogonists derive it from the island which fig-leaf is interpreted to mean of Cyprus. Sc/ioi. Ven. on the Iliad, the generating and fecundating of the v. 458. Hesiod : Theogony. universe, for it seems to have some re- The third is commonly derived semblance to the sexual parts of a from a^/iro.?, the foam of the sea, from '™^'*' which she is fabled to have sprung ; "■^ EUSTATHIUS; On Homer. " The but the name is older than the fable, barley-corn, denoting the vulva among and doubtless received from some other the writers upon the Bacchic ko- language. It is perhaps from the San- '"^^^^- skrit, faradesa, a garden or beautiful Clement: Exhortations, iii. " A woman ; or from Dis, the masculine species of oysters in sympathy with of Dione. the moon." There was a notion enter- "'Strabo: viii. 506. "In the tained in ancient times that shell-fish same temple with Zeus, or Jupiter, had some secret sympathy or relation was also the simulacrum of Dione." 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 repre- senting 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 con- cupiscence. The refinement of Grecian art, however, when advanced to maturity, contrived more elegant modes of dis- tinguishing 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. 4. but clothed in womanly robes, with '" Iliad, xiv. Bryant's Translation. the sceptre and height of a man." " Do what I ask ■'■" "^^ Cesnola Collection at the And thou shall have from me a wedded Metropolitan Museum of Art in this spouse; , ,, , city, is a bust, life-size, of this charac- ?hinef ^°""'^" '"> liolding ^patera on one hand, and Pasithea, whom thou hast desired so the mystic dove on the other. — A. W. long." 160 Pausanias : Eliac. ii. c. 25, s. 2. Pausanias: C;r/«//2. xvii. 6, "The "'Plutarch: Isis and Osiris. ^^^//7/a of Hera (Juno) was seated on a "The Greeks made the dove the throne of prodigious size, made of sacred animal of Aphrodite, the ser- gold and ivory, the work of Polyklei- pent of Athena, the raven of Apollo, tus. Upon it was a crown, having the and the dog of Artemis, or Diana." Graces and the Hours wrought on it ; "* Eustathius : On Homer. " The and in her hands she bore a pome- sparrow is set apart to Aphro- granate and a sceptre." dite, by reason of its fecundity, and 158 Pausanias: Laconia^ xiii. 6. its burning salacity, the same reason " They called the ancient xoanon^ for which the dove is assigned to the "stock," or wooden representation of Aphrodite of mythology." Aphrodite, Hera." "^ Athen^us : Deipnosophista, ii. "' Macrobius: iii, 34. " The figure 23. of the Venus of Cyprus is bearded, "•■ Horace: Satires, i. viii. 81 30 The Symbolical Language of ancient processions in honor of Bacchus,"' and still continu- ing, among the common people of Italy, to be an emblem of what it ancientl}' meant : whence we often see portraits of per- sons of that country painted with it in one hand, to signify their orthodox devotion to the fair sex. Hence, also, arose the Italian expression, /ar la fica, which was done by putting the thumb between the middle and fore fingers, as it appears in many Priapic ornaments now extant ; or by putting the 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 its ap- "' Plutarch: Love of Wealth, vii. IV, act v. sc. 3, 3.ndJ!omeo and fuliet, " The country-feast of the Dionysia act i. sc. i. Another old wriier, who was anciently celebrated popularly probably understood Italian, calls the and with merry-malcing. One carried \tM.t\ giving the fico ; and, according an amphora of wine and clematis; toils ancient meaning, it might very then one led a goat ; another followed naturally be employed as a silent re carrying a basket of dried figs, on proach of effeminacy, which was a phallus." "^ Proclus: Pamphr. Ptokm, lib, "" Bronzi, tab. xciv. ii. p. 97. See also MiCHAEL Angelo: It is to these obscene gestures that De la Chausse, part ii. no. xxxvi. fol. the expressions oi figging and biting 62, and Jablonski: Panth. ALgypt. the thumb, which Shakespeare prob- lib. ii. c. vii. s. 6. ably took from translations of Italian "' SuiDAS in v. Taurus. novels, seem to allude ; see i Henry "' Sheffer: Lapponic. c. x. p. 112. Ancient Art and Mythology. 31 pearance in the world."" 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.'" 47. Beads were anciently used to reckon time ; and a circle, being a line without termination, was the natural em- blem of its perpetual continuity : whence we often find circles of beads upon the heads of deities, and enclosing the sacred symbols upon coins and other monuments.'" Perforated 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 con- fined to the statues of deities and deified personages, as we find it upon the most ancient coins. Chryses, the priest of 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. ^ 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 em- ployed 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- ably, 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 '™ Ans. Rudbeckius: Atlant. p. ii. Plutakch : Ids and Osiiis. " The c. xi. p. 662, and p. Ill, c. i. s. iii. Ol. fig-leaf is interpreted to denote drink- Varellh: Scandagr. HuniCf'SiOKl.ASE: ing and motion (generation or gesta- Hist. of Cornwall, p. io6. ticn), and is supposed to resemble the '" Pellerin: Villes. T. iii. pi. cxxii. male sexual organ." fig. 4. Archaol. vol. xvi. p. 2. Ni- "* Herodotus: ii. 77 :" The drink choff. s. ix. Maurice : Indian An- of the Egyptians is a wine which they tiguiiies, vol. v. obtain from barley, as they have no '^^ See Coins of Syracuse, lydia.. vines in their country." "" See Coins of Syracuse, Marseilles, "' EUSTATHIUS: also Coins of Gela, etc. Schol. in Aristoph. lysistr. 646. Leontium, and Selinus. 83 32 The Symbolical Language of thrown upon the altar, with salt, the symbol of the preserving power, at the beginning of every sacrifice, and thence denomi- nated oulochutai."° The thighs of the victim, too, were sacri- ficed in preference to every other part, on account of the gene- rative 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. 49. Instead of beads, wreaths of foliage, generally of laurel, olive, myrtle, ivy, or oak, appear upon coins, sometimes encircling the symbolical figures, and sometimes as chaplets on their heads. All these were sacred to some particular per- 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 dia- dems signified perpetuity of existence. Hence the crowns of laurel, olive, etc., with which the victors in the Roman triumphs and Grecian games were honored, may properly be 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 giv- ing 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 prob- 1" EUSTATHIUS : On the Iliad. neys, and the fat that is upon them by '" EUSTATHIUS : " They made a the flanks and the caul above the holocaust of the thighs, as being the livei." — A. W. honorable part, having taken them "* Straeo:xv. : " Megasthenes says from the other parts of the animals, that the worshippers of Dionysus dis- because they serve the animals in played for emblems the wild figs and walking and in generation in emitting ivy, laurel, myrtle, the box, and other the semen." evergreens." In the same manner the book of "' Plutarcpi : Symposiacs.: " Mak- Leviticits prescribes the burning of ing the crown of pleasure, not of de- " the fat and the whole rump by the votion." backbone, and the fat that covereth ""• Aristophanes: Clouds, 1364. the inwards, and all the fat that is '" Mallet : History of Denmark. upon the inwards and the two kid- Introduction to, vii. .S4 Coins. Cyrene, Perinthos, etc. Ancient Art and Mythology 33 able that the fable of the Amazons arose from some symbol- ical composition ; 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 not- withstanding 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 at- tendants, 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 other, something which cannot be ascertained.'" It is prob- 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 their first notion of an Amazon. Hippocrates, however, states that the right breast of the Sarmatian women was de- 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. Bry- His third exploit— the man-like Ann- an t's Translation : ^°°^-" " When came the unsexed Amazons to Pliny : ,\xxiv. 8. war." Pausanias: v. 30, and vu. I. " And then he slew— i85 NiEBUHR : Voyages, vol. ii. t.-ib. vi, 87 34 The Symbolical Language of breast was avoided by their great artists, though the bisexual character is strongly marked throughout, in the counte- nance, 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."" 51. This character of the double sex, or active and passive powers combined, seems to have been sometimes signified by 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 princi- ples from which this double power in nature sprang. The tortoise is, however, a more frequent symbol of this attribute ; though it might also have signified another : for, like the ser- pent, it is extremely tenacious of life ; every limb and muscle retaining 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 tri- '" E. Pococke derives the term Amazon from the Sanscrit U/na- Soona, the children of Uma or Bha- vani. This would imply their relation to the Thugs, which their title Oior- pata or man-slayers, would seem to corroborate. The Amazons are mentioned as occupying Northern Africa, to the ex- treme west, as overrunning Libya and Asia Minor, invading Thrace and sev- eral countries of Greece, and as con- stituting 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 arrang- ing of these legends affords opportu- nity for the solution. The Amazon at Athens was the Goddess Artemis or "Diana of the Ephesians," identical with the Mother Goddess Anaitis, Astarte and Isis, whose worship was brought into Greece by the Shepherds. One legend represents Cadmus as having married an Amazon, named Sphinx. The probabilities are, there- fore, that the Amazons were priest- esses of the goddess. Indeed, Calli machus states that the queen of the Amazons had daughters, known as the Peleiades, who were the first to insti- tute the circular dance and tV& panny- chis or watch-night. The designation is probably Phcenician from Am, mother, and Axon, or Adon, lord ; and tlieir occupation of various Moorish and Hamitic countries doubtless has reference to the institution of the rites and worship of the Mother god- dess. They 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 Sicily. "' See Sonnerat's, and other collec- tions of Hindu Idols. '*" jElian : De Animal., lib. iv. c. xxviii. 190 Plutarch: Conjugal Precepts, 138. "Pheidias made the Aphrodite of the Elians standing on a tortoise, as a symbol to women keeping at home and silence." Pausanias : v. 25. " The agalma of 88 Ancient Art and Mythology. 35 pods, pateras, and other symbolical utensils employed in re- ligious rites. 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 the tortoise with a sort of flying serpent or dragon ; and thus made a composite symbol expressive of many attributes.'" THE COW-SYMBOL. 52. At Momemphis in ./Egypt, a sacred cow was the sym- bol of Venus [or Isis], as the bulls Mnevis and Apis were of the male personifications at Heliopolis and Memphis.'" The Phoenicians employed the same emblem ; '" whence the Cad- meians 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 rest upon it.'"" This cow was probably no other than the 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 signifying a cow.'"" Hence we may perceive the origin of the fable of 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 Urania (the celestial Venus) is made of movement into and out of the cara- ivory and gold, and was the work of pace represented the acting Unga, Pheidias. This statue stands with whilst a front view indicated the same one foot on a tortoise. . . Another idea as the Hindu and Egyptian statue stands on a brazen goat, the 'eye,' viz.; the Arba-Il, or four-fold work of Scopas. . . But as to what creator." is signified by the tortoise and the ^'^'^'L.kyyykv : Mo;ursdes Sauvages,\. goat, I leave to such as desire to 90. guess." "' KiRCHER : China Illustrata, p. Inman: Ancient Faiths Embodied in 187, col. 2. Ancient Names, i\. -p. iZl. ''' Strabo ; lib. xvii. p. 552. See " Where we notice its appearance also eund. p. 536, and .(Elian: Z>e and remark the frequency with which it Anim. lib. xi. c. 27. protrudes its head from the shell, thus "'' Porphyry : On Abstinence, lib. changing its look of repose with the ii. p. 158. utmost rapidity to one of energy and '•* Pausanias ; ix. p. 773. Schol. action, we shall readily see why the in Aristoph. Frogs, \2%b. OYlv.Meta- animal was said to be sacred to Venus, morph. and why it is symbolic of regenera- ''* Scholia in Lycophror, v. 1206. tion, immortality, and the like. The "Theba among the Syrians signifies a tortoise, from the configuration of its cow." head and neck, as well as their rapid See also Etymologicum Magnum. 35 The Symbolical Language of 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 deity, by the inhabitants of the Gold coast of Africa ; '"' and more particularly by the Hindus ; among whom there is 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;'"" among whom the Greek colonies of B area and Gyrene were settled at 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 an- cient 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 ; pre- serving 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. p. whom they worship both with fasts 392. and festivals. The Barcsean women "" See those of Dyrrachium, Cor- abstain not from cow's flesh only, but cyra, etc. also from the flesh of swine." '»» Herodotus: iv. 186. "Thus »»» Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantis, from Egypt as far as Lake Tritonis, p. n, v. p. 235, and vi. p. 455. Libya is inhabited by wandering tribes *"' See Coins of Dyrrachium and (nomades) whose drink is milk, and Parium. their food the flesh of animals. Cow's '■"''■ Euripides : Phomicians, 688. flesh, however, none of these tribes '"^ Plutarch : Isis and Osiris. 53. ever taste, but abstain from it for the " For Isis is the Female and receptive same reason as the Egyptians, neither principle of generation, as by Plato do any of them breed swine. Even and many others she is called nurse at Cyrene the women think it wrong and niyrionumos, from having, in a to eat the flesh of the cow, honoring word, innumerable forms and sem- in this Isis, the ^Egyptian goddess, blances." 90 lo at Canopus. Discord on Olympos. Ancient Art and Mythology. 37 of life.''" In the same manner the Greek sculptors of the finest ages of the art represented lo,'" who was the same god- dess confounded with an historical or poetical personage by the extravagant imaginations of the Greek mythologists ; as we shall further show in the sequel. Her name seems to have come from the north ; there being no obvious etymology for it in the Greek tongue ; but, in the ancient Gothic and Scan- dinavian, lo and Gio signified the earth ; as Isi and Isa signi- fied ice, or water in its primordial state; and both were 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 Egyp- tian 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. 55. The .Egyptians, in their hymns to Osiris, invoked that god as the being who dwelt concealed in the embraces of the sun ,• °°'' and several of the ancient Greek writers speak of the great luminary itself as the generator' 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 20^ NoRDEN : ^gypt. are fanes or enclosures of Isis ; of "" Herodotus : ii. 41. " The em- which they call one Pelasgian and one blem of Isis is that of a woman hav- Egj'ptian, and two of Serapis, as he is ing cow's horns as the Greeks make called in Canopus." lo." ™* Pausanias : Laconia, c. xii. s. 3. ™* Ol. Rudeeck: Atlaniica, p. i, c. *»' Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 52. xviii. & XX. p. 854, p. II, c. V. p. 208- "In the sacred hymns of Osiris, they 214, 340, & 451. Edda Snorron. Myth. called upon the One hidden in the iv. embrace of the sun." ^'" Sakoontala. There were two god- -"' Orphic Fragments. " Sun, the desses of the name of Isis worshipped Father of all." in Greece, the one Pelasgian and the Sophocles : CEdiptis Tyrannus, 660 other .(^igyptian, before the Pantheic and 1424. " The god Hallos, chief of Isis of the latter ages. all the gods," "the royal sun which Pausanias : Corinth, iv. 7. " There feedeth all." 93 38 The Symbolical Language of 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 instru- mental cause, through which the powers of reproduction, im- planted 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 re- semblance to each other than is generally imagined. 57. This productive asthereal spirit being expanded through the whole universe, every part was in some degree impreg- nated 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 attain- able, but modestly contented themselves with revering and in- voking 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 '^'i Plutarch : Roman Questions: that " the gods are well pleased with and Orphic Fragments. invocations addressed to them in the ■^'* Orphic Fragments, xxv. Egyptian and Assyrian dialects, as '"'Hesiod: Weeks and Days, \22. being ancient and cognate languages 2" Philemon : Fragments. " Revere of their own." The Oracle of Zoro- and worship God ; seeli not to know aster a.\%o commanded as follows: more ; ^thou needest seek nothing " Never change barbarous names ; further." For there are names in every nation given Menander : Fragments. "Who ,, from God, . . ,, /-, J . J . .. * , .1 1, Having unspeakable erncacv m the Mys- God IS, desire not to learn ; they who teries " desire to know what may not be ^he Orphic hymn also instructs the known are impious. worshipper: '" Homer: Oi/wj-fi', v. 445. "Hear „^,^ ,.-, .u ,, u ,.,., me, oh king, whoever thou art." ^h^^e fllme'; "' ° " A particular merit pertained to the Address each godhead by his mystic name: use of foreign and antique titles of the Full well the Immortals all are pleased to deities. The Samothracians used a ThekTecret names rise in the muttered sacred language. lamblichus declared prayer." 94 Ajicient Art and Mythology. 39 whatever modes of worship they employed to propitiate them,"" concluding that all expressions of gratitude and sub- mission must be pleasing to the Deity; and as for other ex- pressions, he was not acquainted with them, cursing, or in- voking the divine wrath to avenge the quarrels of men, being unknown to the public worship of the ancients. The Atheni- ans, indeed, in the fury of their resentment for the insult offered to the mysteries, commanded the priestess to curse Alcibiades ; but she had the spirit to refuse, saying, that she was the priestess of prayers, and not of airses."'' LIBERALITY AND SAMENESS OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS. 58. The same liberal and humane spirit still prevails among 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 are sood.""' When the ambassador of Louis XIV. asked 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 wholly to our discretion. Had it been agreeable to the Crea- 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 ? " "' 59. The Hindus profess exactly the same opinion. "They 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 ■^'^ Homer : Odyssey, iii. people required her to do it : for she "' Plutarch : Roman Questions, said that she was a priestess for prayer 44. " An execration is a fearful and and not for cursing." grievous thing. Wherefore, the priest- '■"' Journal du Voyage de Siam. ess at Athens was commended for re- '" Voyage de Siam, lib. v. fusing to curse Alkibiades when the 95 40 The Symbolical Language of 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." ''^° 60. The Chinese sacrifice to the spirits of the air, the moun- tains and the rivers ; while the Emperor himself, sacrifices to the sovereign Lord of Heaven, to whom these spirits are sub- ordinate, and from whom they are derived."' The sectaries of Fohi have, indeed, surcharged this primitive elementary wor- ship 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 san- guinary 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 never- theless, 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 Diago- ras, who was obliged to fly for this crime, was accused of re- vealing 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 vio- lating or insulting the Mysteries, the only part of their wor- ship 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 govern- ment 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 Deity.'''''' Hence the Romans made no alterations in the religious institutions of any of the conquered countries ; -"Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. -■'' See the /';ww//;tv« of jEschylus, 274. and the Plains and Frogs of Aris- -■-' Du Halde: vol. i. p. 32. tophanes, which are full of blasphe- •'- lAV^: Histoiy,xxyiix.<). Seethe mies ; the former serious, and the lat- proceedings against the rites and wor- ter comic or rather farcical, shippers of Bacchus at Rome. '" Xenophon: Memorabilia,X\\> i.e. 2'^ Tatian : AdGrcEc. iii. s. i. 06 Ancient Art and Mythology. 41 but allowed the inhabitants to be as absurd and extravagant as they pleased, and even to enforce their absurdities and ex- travagances, wherever they had any pre-existing laws in their favor. An Egyptian magistrate would put one of his fellow- subjects 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 Ritual.'" 62. The principle underlying the system of Emanations was, that all 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 expand- ed.'"" 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." "' WHY 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 re- gression, 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. xxiv. Ocean breeds beneath its marble sur- '" See Acts of the Apostles, v. 40. face. They all possess a fiery potency, '-8 Aristotle : Metaphys. i. 3, c. iii. and in their seed is a celestial piin- Virgil: Aineid, vi. 724-734. " First ciple, — so far as they are not clogged of all, the Inmost Spirit sustains the by noxious bodies, their limbs impeded heaven and Earth and Ocean, the illu- by earthy substance, and all their minated orb of the Moon, and the Ti- members moribund. Hence they fear tanical Stars [planets] ; and the Mind, and desire, grieve and rejoice ; nor diffused through all the members, gives do they, thus enclosed in darkness and emergy to the whole frame and mingles a gloomy prison, behold the heavenly itself intimately with the great body, air." Thence proceed the race of men and See also Plutarch, in Rom. p. 76 beasts, and the living souls of birds, et Cicero: De Divinit. lib. ii. c. 4g. and the monstrous brutes which the ^^' Bhagavat -Gita , ix. 97 42 The Symbolical Language of 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. 64. Such seems to have been the case in ^Egypt ; where va- 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 them- selves 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 conse- quently 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 pos- sessed, 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 an- cient 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. ''^ Diodorus : i. 96 : " Their priests 56, 57. have a secret doctrine concerning **' Herodotus: ii. 65 : " The ani- them." mals which exist in Egypt, whether ^^' Strabo: xvii. p. 806. domesticated or otherwise, are all re- °^'^ See the curious inscription in garded as sacred. If I was to explain honor of Ptolemy V. published by the why they are consecrated to the sev- Society of Antiquaries of London, eral gods, I would be led to speak of 1803. sacred matters, which I particularly '^^' The discovery of the Rosetta shrink from mentioning ; the points on Stone, and the researches of Champol- which I have touched slightly hitherto lion, Bunsen, and other able savaas have all been introduced from sheer have disproved this, and demonstrated necessity." that the concealing of the sacied 9S Ancient Art and Mythology. 43 safely conclude that all which they told of the extensive con- quests and immense empire of Sesostris, etc., was entirely fic- tion ; since 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 emigra- tion 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."" IMPROBABIUTY OF THE NED-PLATONIC INTERPRETATIONS. 65. As early as the second century of Christianity, we find that an entirely new system had been adopted by the iEgyp- tian priesthood, partly drawn from the writings of Plato and 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 meaning of the hieroglyphics was but Deuteronomy vii. 20, and Joshica xxiv. a part of the obligation of those under- 11, 12) the ^y^V tzirah, hornet or standing them. — A. W. plague, that overcame the Amorites, ''^^ Herodotus : ii. 14. The conclu- Hittites, and other populations of sion of Mr. Knight is hardly tenable. Palestine; and the Egyptian records The Egyptian sculptures and papyri term the Hyk-sos or Shepherds " the contain numerous memorials of the scourge" or "plague" who were driv. conquest of Northern Arabia, Pales- en by Aah-mosis and Thoth-mosis into tine, Syria, Lebanon, Hamath, Car- Syria. (See The Nation, New York, chemish, and Naharayn, or Mesopo- for May 13, i86g.) Josephus, in his tamia, and even Ninevah and Media. first treatise against Apion, distinctly Six thousand years ago naval battles asserts that the ancestors of the Israel- occurred between the Egyptians and ites (meaning the Hyk-sos) once had the nations beyond the Mediterranean ; dominion over the Egyptians; and and thirty-six centuries ago an inva- Professor J. P. Lesley, declaring the sion of Egypt by the confederated earlier Jewish legends unhistorical, armies of Libya and Europe was re- adds that " nothing prevents us from pulsed. The recentne.ss of the He- identifying the Hebrews of the Mon- brew manuscripts must weaken their archy as descendants of the Hyk-sos evidence. None of them are a thou- race," Certainly "unhistorical" le- sand years old; and their compilation gends should not be employed, as Mr. hardly antedates the period of the Knight has employed them, against Maccabees, or the Persian conquests, monumental records. — A. W. Yet they mention {Exodus xxiii. 28, 99 44 The Symbolical Language of the many revolutions and calamities, which the country suf- fered 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 de- stroy 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 direc- tions, because they appeared to be impregnated with particu- lar 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 for their tutelar deities, in the same manner as those of mod- ern 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 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 inexplica- ble from any known principles of mental operation, were sup- posed to proceed from the immediate impulse of the Deity. The skill, foresight, and contrivance, which many of them dis- play in placing and constructing their nests, is wholly unac- countable; 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 atmos- phere, preceding a change of weather, long before they are perceptible to us."' The art of interpreting their various "' Du Halde: ii. p. 49. ''^s Virgil : Georgics, i. 415. Am- MIAN. Marcellin. lib. vxi. c. I. 100 Ancient Art and Mythology. 45 flights and actions seems to have been in repute during the Homeric times, but to have given way, by degrees, to the 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, pro- duced Oracles ; for the human soul, as an emanation of the Divine Mind, was thought by many to be in its nature pro- phetic, but to be blunted and obscured by the opaque incum- brance 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 pro- ceeded 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 em- ployed 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 Oracles. of wine set apart to the deity." Euripides : Bacchcs. " The Bac- "' See Coins of Maronea, Soli Nax- chic impulse, and the manias contain us, etc. much of the prophetic power. When ''^^ See Coins of Thebes, Haliartus, the God entereth the body, he causeth Hipponium, etc. the raving ones to speak." ^''^ Virgil : " Cereale papaver." Plato : Phccdrus, 43. " The soul See Coins of Seleucus IV. is in some measure prophetic." °-^ Pausanias : Corinth, x. 4. " He '^^'' Seleucus : from the Deipnoso- made the bust of Aphrodite, sitting phisice: ii. 3 ; also Diogenes Laer- * * having on the head the polos of Tius:iii. 39: " He (Plato) said that it gold and ivory, and in one hand a was becoming for no one to drink to poppy-head, and in the other an apple." T03 46 The Symbolical Langtiage of PROPHETIC ECSTASY. 70. By yielding themselves to the guidance of wild imag- ination, and wholly renouncing common sense, which evi- dently 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 be- lieved themselves successful, by mistaking the disordered wanderings of a distempered mind for the ecstatic effusions of supernatural perception. This sort of prophetic enthusiasm was sometimes produced, or at least supposed to be pro- duced, by certain intoxicating exhalations from the earth ; as was the case at Delphi ; where the design of setting up an ora- cle 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 to have been founded by some Hyperboreans, and principall)- by the bard Olen, a priest and prophet of Apollo : "° but women ofiiciated there as far back as any certain tradi- 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 prophets to preserve the nation was be- hand and the patera in the other, are lieved to have continued from Moses till upon the medals of Tarentum and the later periods, and rules were given Locri, in Italy. for knowing their genuineness {Deute- The laurel was also supposed to ronomy,ii.\\\\. 15-22 and xiii. 1-5, also have a stimulative and intoxicating Hosea, xii. 13). When Balak the king quality, and therefore to be the proper of Moab brought Balaam to the hill of symbol for the god of poetry and Peor and high-places of Baal to curse prophecy. Israel, the changing of the purpose of "' Plutarch : The Failure of the the prophet by the Lord, appears to Oracles. have been regarded as necessaiy to •i46 Pausanias: x. 5. prevent possible calamity. It is very "' The oracles doubtless originat- singular, however, that after Samuel ed from the belief that as the human had been the judge or chief magis- soul was the emanation or offspring of trate till he was old, and might be the deity, it possessed a faculty of supposed to have acquired a wide communication with the higher pow- reputation in that capacity, Saul and ers, capable of being cultivated or de- his servants should seek from him in veloped, to the function of seership. his character of seer or man of God, The JMysteries seem to have been con- with a fee, to learn whether to go in ducted on this hypothesis ; and in all quest of fugitive animals. The de- countries, there have been persons signation amphi or om-phe was ap- reputed to be capable of comprehend- plied to the oracles, whence the ing the purposes of the Deity. Among onipha-el of the temple at Delphi was the Israelites the prayer of Abraham termed by the Greeks who interpreted was supposed to heal the household of by sound rather than sense the Abimelech ; and a succession of omphalos or navel-stone of the world, 104 Rhea. Ceres. AphroditCj Hermes, Herakles, Athena, and Apollo. Ancient Art and Mythology. 47 71. The inspiring exhalation was at first attributed to the Earth only; then to the Earth in conjunction with Neptune or the Sea; and lastly to Apollo or the Sun.'" These were, 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 uni- verse, who had the title of All-prophetic,'" because the other deities presiding over oracular temples were merely personifi- cations 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 spirit, 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 Amphi- anax 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 ora- cle ; and the city of Campania now celebrated for its magnificent ruins, was evidently so designated as a holy city, or place of oracles. The Pom- peian pillars and columns of Hercules are therefore identical. The use of the term nymp/ie, or its deriva- tions to designate young women, brides, the marriage chamber, the lo- tus flower {Nymphcea Nelumbo) the nymphaa or oracular temples (fire- mountains) 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. Ora- cles 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 further illustrated 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 inter- preter of oracles, Peter ; and the names Orpheus, Pompeius, Ampelus, and perhaps Patrick, may have a similar meaning. — A. W. "* Pausanias: lib. x. ''*' Panomphaios. ''° See Pindar : Olymp. viii. 58, Lucan has expressed this ancient my- stic dogma in the language of the Stoics ; and modified it to their sys- tem, 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 antra Exit, et aetherio trahitur connexa Tonanti. Hoc ubi virgineo conceptum est pectore numen, Humanam feriens animam 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 feet, who sleep Upon the ground ! " ^'^ Maximus Tyrius : Dissertation, 107 48 The Symbolical Laiigziage of 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- ism : " The shepherd," says Maximus Tyrius, " honors Pan by consecrating to him the high fir and deep cavern, as the husbandman does Bacchus by sticking up the rude trunk of a tree.""" Art and refinement gradually humanised these primitive emblems, as well as others; but their original mean- ing was still preserved in the crowns of oak and fir, which dis- tinguished 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 trans- mitted from them to the Greeks : for the poets, as Strabo ob- serves, 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 Do- dona, mentioned in the Iliad, had disappeared, and been re- placed 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- viii. 8. The rude trunk was the the story went that one of them was "stock" so often denounced in the sold into Libya, and the other into Old Testament. — A. W. Greece, and these women were the *'^ See ibid. p. 79 ; also Pliny; ii. first founders of the oracles in the two I., and Tacitus : Germany. Even countries.' . . At Dodona the wo- as late as the eighth century of men who deliver the oracles relate the Christianity, it was enacted by Luit- matter as follows : ' Two black doves prand, king of the Lombards, that flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and whoever paid any adoration or per- while one directed its flight to Libya, formed any incantation to a tree, the other came to them. She alighted should be punished by fine. Paul, on an oak, and sitting there began to DiACON.: De Leg. Longohard. speak with a human voice, and told *'* See heads of Jupiter of Dodona them that on the spot where she was, on the coins of Pyrrhus. there should thenceforth be an oracle '^''Strabo: iv. "The poets dig- of Zeus. . . The dove which went nify them, calling all the s.icred enclos- to Libya bade the Libyans to estab- ures groves, even though bare of lish there the oracle of Amun.' " trees." The oak of Dodona indicates the "'Herodotus: ii. 54, 55. "The kinship of Druidism with the ancient following tale is told in Egypt con- Pelasgian worship. R. Payne Knight cevning the oracle of Dodona in suggests that the story of the doves Greece, and that of Amun in Libya, probably arose from the mystic dove My informants on the points were on the head of Dione, as Juno or priests of Zeus (Amun) in Thebes. Aphrodite was anciently denominated They said * that two of the sacred at Dodona. Sir G. Wilkinson remarks women were once carried oft' from that " the two doves appear to connect Thebes by the Phoenicians , and that this tradition with the Phoenician 108 Ancient Art and Mythology. 49 ity of the female sex was more susceptible of enthusiastic emo- tions, and consequently better adapted to the prophetic office, which was to express inspiration rather than convey mean- ing. ENTHUSIASTIC FRENZY AT THE RELIGIOtrS ORGIES. 74. Considering the general state of reserve and restraint in which the Grecian women lived, it is astonishing to what an excess of extravagance their religious enthusiasm was car- ried 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 inter- woven 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."''" 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 founda- tion for the story ; and says that " it may refer to the sending out and es- tablishing an oracle in the newly-dis- covered West (Europe), through the Phoenicians, the merchants and ex- plorers 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. Cle- ment 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, iden- tical with Atys, Adonis, Osiris, and probably with Maha Deva of India ; and in the Grecian pantheon he ap- pears 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 pre- sided over the orgies, was deposed from regal rank by King Asa for mak- ing a mephallitzcth, or phallic manikin, for an ashera, or oviphale (i Kings, XV. 13, and Herodotus, ii. 48). The orgies, works, or nocturnal rites, con- sisted of dances, mystical processions, and searches after the mutilated body of the divine youth. 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 Held at night ; and witli voice disguised, He chanted to the Bacchante a Magian hymn, Making a loud wail." 109 50 TIte Symbolical 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 accom- panied devotion, as tending to exhilarate men's minds, and as- similate 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 reli- gions 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 propitia- tory 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 pa- rent 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 af- forded 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 ''■" Herodotus : ii. 3g. Bible under the designation of " The *" Expiatory sacrifices were occa- Mourning for the Only-Begotten.'* sionally performed by individuals, but They were celebrated in Egypt, Asia seem not to have formed any part of Minor, and Greece. Olympias, the the establislied worship among the mother of Alexander, like Maachah, Greeks ; hence we usually find them was a priestess, or " sacred woman," mentioned with contempt, and used to boast that the god was PLATO : T/ie Republic, ii. 7. " Ped- the father of her son. The funeral of ler-priests (agurlai), also prophets, fre- Jacob at Abel-mizraim (Cf/zfj-w 1. 11), quent the houses of the rich, profes- appears to have been taken for this sing that they have a power from the observance. — A. W. gods of expiating, by sacrifices and ^"* Euripides: Electra, 193. chantings, in the midst of hilarity and '*' Strabo : X. feasting, whatever injustice has been "'* Apuleius : Genius of Socrates, committed by any one or his ances- ^gyptiaca numiiium fana plena plan- tors." goribus, GrjEca plerumque choreis. '''" 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 dis- credit ; 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 Au- gurs, chosen from the most eminent and experienced men in the Republic, it fell into disregard, as the steady light of human science arose to show its fallacy. Another mode, however, of 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 astrol- ogy ^ a most abject species of practical superstition, arising out of something extremely like theoretical atheism. 78. The great active principle of the universe, though per- sonified by the poets, and dressed out with all the variable at- tributes of human nature, was supposed by the mystic theolo- gists 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 ex- istence, gave all the consequences and effects of existence; '" DiODORUS SicuLus; xvi. 37. loving race." See also Herodotus: '*' Sophocles : Antigoni, io6. vi. " The mantian office is of a money- °" Demosthenes : Philippics. Ill 52 The Symbolical Langttage of 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 move- ments of the great luminaries ot heaven, and those of the small- est 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 sup- posed 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 world ; for, as every subsequent event was produced by some preceding one, all were really produced by the first. The mo- ment therefore of every man's birth being supposed to deter- mine 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 mo- ment, in order to discover all that would happen to him after- ward. 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 ca- pricious mutability of human actions, fortunes, and adven- tures : wherefore the astrologers had recourse to the planets ; whose more complicated revolutions offered more varied and more extended combinations. Their different returns to cer- tain points of the Zodiac; their relative positions, and con- junctions 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 '*' The poet Dryden believed in Ju- late Doctor Noah Stone of Guilford, dicial Astrology ; and it is said com- Connecticut, who had learned the art puted the horoscope of his son in in- from books written by Albubater, Ja- fancy,which was actually accomplished, son Pratensis, and Paracelsus. Why iSIr. William L. Stone, in tire Atlantic not accept the declaration of Hamlet Monthly for February, 1871, gives " a to Horatio ? — A. W. Chapter of Modern Astrology," in ^"^ Baillie : Discours sur PAsirol- which are recorded several remarkable ogie. instances of successful divining, 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 mis- chievous 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 supersti- tions 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 Chal- daeans ; "° the general system of whose religion seems to have been the same as that of most other nations of the Nor- thern Hemisphere; and to have taught the existence of an universal pervading Spirit, whose subordinate emanations diffused themselves through the world,"' and presented them- selves 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 sun- by Pompey, it extended over the en- dial, however, and the gnomon with tire Roman empire. The Mithraic the division of the day into twelve rites superseded the Mysteries of parts, were received by the Greeks Bacchus, and became the foundation from the Babylonians." of the Gnostic system, which for many The Chaldaeans, or Magians, first a centuries prevailed in Asia, Egypt, and conquering and civilising nation, ap- even the remote West. Julius Caesar pear to have constituted the learned was assisted by a " Chaldaean " in re- and probably the sacerdotal caste of forming the Calendar. — A. W. Babylonia and the neighboring coun- '"'' See TACITUS : Ann. ii. c. 32, xii. tries. The name Zoroaster, Zerdusht, c. 52, and Hist. i. c. 22 : Genus homi- or Zerathustra, which is applied to num potentibus infidum, sperantibus their traditional leader, appears to fallax ; also Plin. lib. xxx. c. I. have been a designation of the sacred "' Pindar: Olymp. xii. 10. college, or of its president, as Zadok, '"■' Herodotus : ii. 82. or Zedek^ was of the head of the sacer- ^^ Strabo ; lib. xvi. dotal family in Judea, and Rabbi, or "' Brucker: Hist. Crit. Philos.'i. Rab Mag, of the chief of the college c. 2. Fons omnium spirituum, cujus at Babylon. The Jewish Kabala, or essentiam per universum mundum tan- traditions, appear to have been de- quam animam diffusam esse, etc. — non rived from their religious opinions Chaldaea tantum et iEgyptus sed uni- and legends, and were revived in versus fere gentilismus vetustissimus Judea by the Casideans, or Asideans, credidit. See also EusEB. : Prcep, better known afterward as Pharsi (Per- Evang. iv. c. 5. sians or Pharisees). The peculiar ^" Brucker: Ibid. Summum uni- form of this religion, known as versi regem in luce inaccessibile habi- Mithraism, was introduced into Pon- tare, nee adiri posse nisi mediantibus tus by Artabazes, the satrap, from spiritibus mediatoribus, universi fere which country, after its conquest Orientis dogma fuit. "3 54 The Symbolical Langviage of 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, Ga- briel, etc.; which the Jews having adopted during the captiv- ity, 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 pecul- iar 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 to express the precise meaning of those of Assyria. Bel, or, as the Greek write it, Belos, was certainly the same title, dif- ferently 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 condi- tion held it to be an indispensable duty of religion to pro- stitute 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. Num- bers 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."" 84. A similar custom prevailed in Cyprus, Armenia, and '"' Herodotus: i. 199. especially to minister to the pleasures The same custom existed in Ar- of the worshippers, were as common menia, Phiygia, and in Palestine, as in the Holy Land as among the na- well as in Carthage and Italy. It pre- tions around. For such a character vailed also among the Israelites during a " sacred woman," or priestess, Judah the monarchy, and was probably a mistook his daughter-in-law, Tamar feature of the worship of Peor and (Genesis, xxxviii. 15) ; and in the reign the Golden Calf of the Exodus. The of King Rehoboam and his queen Hebrew prophets describe the idol- Maachah, a priestess of the orgies, worship by all the characteristics of they abounded in all parts of the prostitution ; and the kadesliim and country. Josiah found them at the kadeshuth, or men (semi-males) and Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, as women devoted to temple-service, and well as at the " high places " ; and 114 Ganymedes and Eagle. .^•■r-'^-''?-lr>'' Angel Raphael. Ancie7it Art and Mythology. 55 probably in many other countries ; it being, as Herodotus ob- serves, the practice of all mankind, except the Greeks and ^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 im- pulse 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 cele- brated temples of Venus, at Eryx and Corinth ; who, according to all accounts, were extremely expert and assiduous in attend- ing to the duties of their profession ; '"' and it is not likely that the temple, which they served, should be the only place exempted from being the scene of them. Dionysius of Halicarnassus claims the same exception in favor of the Ro- mans, 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 attrac- tive, 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 this peculiar form Nuper enim, ut repeto, fanum Isidis et of Mylitta-worship, declared that p,,,, 'ir,Tf '^f °'= , w • 1 J ^ J ^ Pacis, et advectK secreta palatia mains, Samaria loved a reward at every Et Cererem (nam quo non prostat femina corn-floor. The prophets Jeremiah, templo ?), Ezekiel, Hosea, and Micah are specific Notior Aufidio mcechus celebrare solebaa. and unequivocal in asserting that the ''^^ MAURICE ; Antiq. Ind. vol. i. lewd rites in Palestine were precisely pt. i, p. 341. like those of the nations around them. See Asiatic Researches, vol. I. 166, — A. W. and Inman's Ancient Faiths Em- -™ Herodotus: ii. 64. braced in Ancient Names, vol. ii. p. '■"' StrABO: viii. Diodorus Sicu- 168. An Arabian who travelled in pe- LUS: iv. ninsular India, in the ninth century, Thiswas the Phoenician Astarte, that mentions these women as follows: as Venus Erycina was especially wor- " There are in India (in the Dekkan) shipped by the Roman women, who public women called Devadasi, or vo- every first of April made a phalle- taries of the deity. When a woman phoric procession to her temple. (See has made a vow for the purpose of Ancient Symbol -Worship, p. 26.) having offspring, if she brings into the *32 JuvEN.tL r Satire, 22. world a pretty daughter, she carries the child to Bod {moie properly Maha "9 56 The Symbolical Language of 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 says, that the nights belong to the blessed gods, as it is then that 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 accounted a heinous offense.'" This may seem, indeed, a con- tradiction 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 de- baucheries imputed to the Bacchanalian societies suppressed by the Romans, they were either mere calumnies, or abuses intro- duced by private persons, and never countenanced by public authority in any part of the world. Had the Christian soci- ties 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, in- deed, 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 Ti- berius, which were merel)' tickets of admission to the scenes of his private amusement.'''" Such preposterous appetites, Devd), as they call the divinity whom Israelitish law prohibited the setting they adore, and leaves her with him." apart of men and women to the libid- This divinity is not now worshipped inous rites as was done elsewhere ; but in that region ; but the custom was re- the practice existed in that country, tained by the Brahman conquerors. See Deuterojwmy, xxiii. 17, and I The women are called in the Tamul /ww^j-j, xiv. 24. language Devadasi, which means '** Diodorus Siculus: i. 7. women given lo God. The custom "* Orphic Hymn, ii. 2 : " Night, the existed with the Dravidians of India, genesis of all things, whom we also but with no other race. It is precisely call Cypris " (Venus), the same as that of maintaining almas *"* Jablonski : Egyptian Pantheon, in the temples of Isis and A'rti/i'j'/iipM at i.chap.i.87. Ather, ov Athor ; Coptic, the shrines of Astarte or Venus Ery- Athorb. cina. '^'■' Hesiod : Works and Days, 730. The vow of Hannah, who dedi- '" Hesiod : Works and Days, li"]. cated her son, afterward the prophet '"' LiVY : Histoiy of Rome, xxxix. Samuel, to the service of the Temple, 9. Mosheim. in pursuance of a vow, will be re- "° A writer in Old and New (Bos- membered. He became a Nazir. The 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 un- moved tranquillity prevailing through the infinite variety of un- known darkness, that preceded the Creation, or first emanation of light. Hence she was said to have been the first wife of Ju- piter,"" the mother of Apollo and Diana, or the Sun and Moon, and the nurse of the Earth and the stars."* The.ZEgyptians dif- fered 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 pervad- ing Spirit; whence Priapus is called, by the poets, hlack- cloakedj"^ The vail is often stellated, or marked with asterisks, "° with great ingenuity to vindicate Ti- "* HERODOTUS, ii. 156. berius from these imputations, and to ^^^ Macrobius ; Saturnalia^ i. 23. show that he was remarkable for his " Omnium autem physicorum asser- gentle and austere virtues. — A. W. tione constat calorem humore nutriri." =*' HoiiER : Iliad, V. 265, and xx. '" Plutarch : Symposiacs, iv. An- 230. TON. : Liberal. Fab. xxviii. ^'■^ Plutarch: from Eusebius: '^'s See medals of the Bretii, Sicilotas, PrcEparatio Evangelic, iii. I. " Night King Pyrrhus, etc. was Leto, from letho, to be oblivious, The animal symbol rarely occurs ; as those in a dream." but upon a beautifully engraved gem, Hesychius : " Baubai, sleep ; bau- belonging to R. P. Knight, is the head ban, to sleep." It is the same as of a Boar, the symbol of Mars the de- Iatiei7t in a different dialect. stroyer, joined to the head of a Ram, *" Homer : Odyssey, xi. 579, " Le- the symbol of Bacchus or Amun the to, the illustrious spouse of Zeus." generator ; upon which reposes a Dog, *'^ Hesychijs. The Jews have also the symbol of Mercury, or presiding a tradition of Lilith, the firct wife of Mind ; and upon the back of the dog Ad-im, by whom genii are produced is the Mygale, the symbol of Latona, and children bewitched. or Night. " Baubo, nurse of Demeter," ''' MoscHUS : Epitaph. Bion. 27 Euripides: Electra. "Oh! sable yiEXay xI^<^t-v 01 rs TLpir^icoi. Night, nurse of the golden stars." ^"^ See medals of Syracuse. 58 The Symbolical Language of and 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- 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 pro- duction 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 to deliver from ;^'"' and it is probable that Horus, (or whatever was the Egyptian name of this deity) had a similar meaning, it being manifestly intended to signify a personified mode of action of Osiris ; ^°' in the same manner as Liber, the corresponding title in the Latin tongue, signified a personified mode of action of the generator Bac- chus.'" His statue at Coptos had the symbol of the generative attribute in his hand, said to be taken from Typhon, the de- stroying power ; "" and there are small statues of him now ex- tant, holding the circle and cross, which seems to have been the symbol meant. Typhon is said to have struck out and swal- ^o' See heads of Venus on the gold are from the New-Platonic school, coins of Tarentum, silver of Corinth — and not from Ancient Egypt, of Bacchus on those of Lampsacus.etc. '"* Apoltto, anciently written with the ^"^ See medals of Julius Caesar, Li- digamraa / or v, Apolufo. The en- via, the Queens of Syria and Egypt, deavor to form an etymology for the bust of Marcus Aurelius in the Town- deity-names is not often satisfactory, ley collection, etc. especially in the Greek language. Pla- 303 Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, ^4. to attempted it with remarkably ill suc- " Nature produces the universe [cos- cess. mos] by becoming herself of like form Apollo, the sun-god, is the same as and temper with the mental or interior Abel or Bel the younger, the Assyrian property. The generating of Apollo and Phoenician divinity ; and doubt- [Horus] by Isis and Osiris, while those less, may be identified both with Ho- gods were yet in the womb of Rhea rus of Egypt and Chri^na of India. — hints to us that before this universe A. W became visible {Hebrews xi. 3] and was 3°' Plutarch : Isis and Osiris. completed by the higher Reason, mat- " He (Horus) is the terrcstr'al universe, ter being convinced by Nature that she neither altogether delivering from cor- by herself was incomplete, brought ruption nor generation." forth the first production. This divin- 306 'j-j,g adjective liber is from the ity was not the cosmos, but a kind of Greek luvo; the upsilon being changed phantom or picture of the cosmos or to i and the digamma to b. universe to be afterward." ""Plutarch: Isis and Osiris, ^S. Plutarch's facts are well enough ; " In Coptos the statue of Horus has in but his explanations and etymologies the left hand the aidoia of Typhon." 124 Ancient Art and Mythology. 59 lowed one of his eyes ; "* whence the itinerant priests and priestesses of the Egyptian religion, under the Roman em- perors, always appeared with this deformity ; "° but the mean- ing 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. 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 se- cretly by Pythagoras ; who was rather the founder of a reli- gious order for the purposes of ambition, than of a philosoph- ical sect for the extension of science. After a premature dis- 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. nwise ; they affirm that Fire is at the " They relate that Typhon one while centre, and that the earth and stars smote the eye of Horus, and at an- move round that centre in a circle, other while plucked it out and swal- thus making Day and Night." lowed it, and afterward gave it back The author of the trifling book on to the sun ; denoting by the blow the Tenets of the Philosophers, falsely the monthly diminution of the moon, attributed to Plutarch, understands the and by the blinding of him its eclipse central fire, round which the Earth ■which the sun cures again by shininj and planets were supposed to move, presently upon it as soon as it hath not to be the Sun ; in which he has escaped from the shadow of the earth." been followed by Adam Smith and 309 Juvenal : " Lusca sacerdos " — others ; but Aristotle clearly under- tht one-eyed priest. In Mr. Knight's stands it to be the Sun, or he could not Collection was a bronze head of an suppose it to be the cause of day and Agyrtes having this deformity. night ; neither could the Pythagoreans '^"* Plutarch: /sis and Osiris, 62. have been so ignorant as to attribute " They call the siderite-stone the bone that cause to any other fire. This sys- of Horus, as Manetho asserts." tem is alluded to in an Orphic Frag- ^" Aristotle: Concerning Heaven, ment, and by Galen: Hist. Phil. ii. 13. " The Italian savans, called xiii. the Pythagoreans, declare the contra- "''Dutens: Dilcouvertes Attributes 125 6o The Symbolical Language of of impiet}' ; "° but speculative theories were never thought im- pious by the Greeks, unless they tended to reveal the mystic doctrines, or disprove the existence of a Deity. That of Aris- tarchus 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 rep- resents them attributing the order and variety of the universe to circular motion called Z^Z/z^^y and then humorously intro- duces 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 ex- pressed by this word. 90. The great system to which it alluded was, however, rather believed than known ; it having been derived from an- cient 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 ob- servation 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 account- ing 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 ves- tiges, appear to have been emblems : for they universally con- aux Modemes \ and authorities there ^" Ste'BKiiAAY.: Ifisluire de TAstro- cited. nomie Ancienne. — Wilkinson is very '" Plutarch : Concerning the Face explicit that the Egyptians and in the Orb of the Moon, vi. Chaldeans possessed the knowledge of *'* Clouds, 826. the heliocentric system, and that they '" Epiphanius. taught it to the savans of Greece. See *" See medals of Phliasus, Cyrene, Herodotus : ii. chap. 7 of Appendix. Luceria, Vetulonia, etc. A. W. 126 Coins. Thunderboltj etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 6i sist 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 magni- ficence, 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 '"« Pausanias : vii. 22 and iv. times. At a later period they began 319 .. Xsixevoi xat liooixoi." the worship of Urania which they bor- 32" Herodotus : i.131. "They (the rowed from the Arabians and Assyri- Persians) have no images of the gods, ans. Mylitta is the name by which no temples or altars, and consider the the Assyrians know this goddess, whom use of them a sign of folly. Their the Arabians call Alitta (or Elissa), and wont, however, is to ascend the sum- the Persians, Mitra." mits of the loftiest mountains, and there In this account is no mention of the to offer sacrifice to Zeus, which is the Ormazdean system, which all modem name they give to the whole circuit of scholars consider as the ancient reli- the firmamen t. They likewise offer to gion of Persia. — A. \V. the Sun and Moon, to the Earth, to '" HERODOTUS. Fire, to Water, and the Winds. These **' Strabo : xv. are the only gods whose worship has '-' Appian : The War of Mithrada- come down to them from ancient tes. 120 62 The Symbolical Language of their Astarte, or celestial Venus; and by degrees adopted other superstitions from the Phoenicians and other neig-hbor- ing nations ; who probably furnished them with the symbolical figures observable in the ruins of Persepolis, and the devices of their coins. We must not, however, as Hyde and Anquetil 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 pro- duced as the work of Zoroaster; but which is in reality noth- ing 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 acts of devotion to the sethereal Spirit 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 s" Mr. Knight, as well as Sir Wil- liam Jones, appears to us too skepti- cal. 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 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 this confirmation. Sir Henry C. Rawlinson turned this fact to excellent account, translating a large portion of the inscriptions by means of this lan- guage. The dialect used in the Aves- ta, however, is many centuries older than that of the cuneiform writings. We learn from the portions still in ex- istence, somewhat of the schism that took place between the two great branches of the Aryan family, but not whether the Brahmans or the Mazda- yasnians, were the chief instruments in the separation. We read also of Ahriman, or rather Anra-Mainyas, as the Potentate of Evil, and of the Ser- pent 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- talist, however, we think, will perceive in Ahriman the Kissian or Susianian divinity Harmannu ; and in Dahaka, the ophite dynasty of Zohak the Ara- bian that for a long period held Baby- lonia, extending its sway to Media and Armenia, and eastward to the Indus, and perhaps by way of Cash- mere and the Punjaub, under the mod- ified name of Takshaka, to the coun- tries 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 con- test of the Aryan and Hamitic (Turan- 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 them, made the Hittite god Seth or Satan, and Baal Zebub of Ekron, their ruler of the demon tribes. In short, however, recently the Avesta may have been compiled and arranged, we think its genuineness sustained. The English translation of Prof. Spiegel's German Version, though often difiicult to understand, will sat- isfy most students, so far as it goes. — A. W. ^" Maximus Tyrius: Dissert, vii. '■" Pausanias: viii. c. xxii. and lib, 130 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 in- structions during the first hundred and seventy years of the Republic : ''^° nor had the Germans, even in the age of Tacitus, 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. Anti- quaries 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 Mar- ^™ Maximus Tyrius: xxxviii. tyr. Co/wri. cd Gent. -p. 10. CLEMENT of Alexandria. ^'* Plutarch : Nmna. Pausanias : Achaica, xxii. 3. "' Varro : InAzigustindiCiv.DH, " There stood next the statue square iv. 6. While Mr. Knight denies the stones, thirty in number ; the Pharians genuineness of the Avesta, he is ready worship them, calling each by the name enough to accept the legendary his- of some divinity ; but more anciently, tory of Rome. Yet it appears on its and afterward among the Greeks, white face to be what learned writers have stones received honors as symbols of asserted, a compilation or rather in- the gods." vention of later writers. The tales of Pausanias : ^toVa, xiv. 2. "The Romulus and Rsemus, the Sabine statue of (Aphrodite) was four-square women, and other such stories, are like the Hermaic pillars ; and the probably no more valuable than the inscription declared the Aphrodite- history of King Arthur. Numa, the Urania to be the most ancient of those Pythagorean sovereign is evidently a called The Fates." character borrowed from the Oriental *^' Abbe Barthelemi : Memoiresdt Vv'orld ; and the resemblance of his t Academic des Inscriptions, xxiv. 30. name to Ntun or Kneph, the agatho- D'Ancarville : Recherches sur Ut dcemon of Egypt is probably some- Arts, Book I. iv. thing more than an accident. — A. W. 133 64 The Symbolical Language of 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 Ho- rns™ These titles are both Egyptian ; but the latter is signi- fied 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 compli- cated and inverted, produce at length the celebrated Laby- rinth °" 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 Mino- taur. 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 alle- gory 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, em- ployed them in the service of the Deity."" "' SiMPLlcius : On Aristotle, HooV ^^^ Apollodorus : iii. i. IV. " Wherefore the Egyptians call ^^" Gruter : vol. I. p. x.wiii. 6. the Syrian A'argatis and Isis, 'The " Atlidi Minotauro" — to Atys, the place of the gods,' as containing all Minotaur. the divinities." Plutarch explains that ^^' Modern classical scholars are Osiris was the beginning, Isis the re- disposed to make a distinction be- ceptacle or intermediate, and Horus tween the Roman divinity, " Neptune the ccmplement {Isis atid Osiris). or the Sea," and the eastern god ^" Plutarch. Isis and Osiris, 56. Poseidon: Sir H. C. Rawlinson, Sir. " Isis is also Muth.and again they call Gladstone, and other eminent writers, her Athyri and Methyer. They imply consider that although Poseidon was a by the first of these names, the Mother, Deity connected with the Sea, he was and by the second the mundane house not an actual Sea-God. We learn from of Jlorus." Homer and Herodotus, that he was '''* See small brass or bronze coins the chief god in the pantheon of Libya of Syracuse. and Africa, and accordingly was a '^' See Hunterian Museum. Hamitic rather than an Aryan divin- *^* See Hunterian Museum. ity. He w.n.s also worshipped in Crete. I.i4 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 com- plicated labyrinth is round."' On some of those of Camarina in Sicily, the head of the god, more humanised than the Mino- taur, yet still with the horns and features of the bull, is repre- sented 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 laby- rinth on the coins of Corinth above cited.'" These have been supposed to signify the river Meander: but they more prob- ably 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 Philis- Sidon. The building of the Laby- tine Dagon, whom G. W. Cox consid- rinth is indicative of a similar idea ; ers to be the same as Cannes of Baby- Labyrinths, or winding caverns, gener- lonia and Ana or Ana-melech of Sip- ally underground, weie constructed in para. He is thus allied to the ancient India, Afghanistan, Susiana, Arabia, worship of the East, as the representa- Egypt and other countries occupied tive of wisdom and civilization ; the by the .Ethiopian race ; and it was Building-God, father of the Cyclopean customary among them also to sacrifice shepherds, who revolutionised the their children, selected victims, slaves, countries which they occupied and captives, persons sent for the purpose left behind them the stupendous from tributary provinces, and all monuments of their greatness. strangers not entitled to protection. Mr. Knight is probably right in de- The devouring of human victims by daring the Minotaur to have been the the Cyclopes of Libya, the Seirens, ancient symbol of the Bull, partly hu- Lamise and Lestrygones, as well as manised ; that representation of the the Minotaur, was but a poetical figure Supreme Being as the Sun in Taurus, to denote this custom. — A. W. at the vernal equinox, being a general **" In the cabinet of R. P. Knight, symbol in all the countries on the ^■" In the same. Also in the Brit- Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, ish Museum. Pasiphae, the queen, is identical with '''* Hunterian Museum, tab. 14, No. Venus-Astarte. The sending of the ix. bull by Poseidon only implied that the ^'" lb. tab. 56, No. iii. Libyans or Phoenicians occupied the ^'" li. tab. 35, No. ix. country; as is also signified by the trans- '" See a specimen of them on the portation thither of the maid Europa, reverse of a small coin, Mus. Hunter., the mother of Minos and daughter of tab. 67, No. v, Agenor or Belus, the tutelar god of 139 66 The Symbolical Language of upon coins to signify particular rivers or streams; which be- ing all derived 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 Mino- taur, 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 dif- ferent modifications of the same meaning in symbolical or mystical writing. The female personifications frequently oc- cupy the same place : in which case the male personification is always upon the reverse of the coin, of which numerous in- stances occur in those of Syracuse, Naples, Tarentum, and other cities. 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, 2'" Odyssey, xi. : "And I beheld Gela, Sybaris, etc. Phsdra and Procris, and fair Ariad- ^" See brass coins of Syracuse. ne, the daughter of wise Minos, whom *" Seen on a gold coin of Eretria Theseus once led from Crete to the (Eubaea), owned by Mr. Knight, soil of sacred Athens ; but he did Hence the address made by the Elian not enjoy her, for Artemis (Diana) women in their hymn to Dionysus, slew her before-hand in the island preserved by Plutarch, Greek Ques- Dia, on account of the testimony of lions, 36 : Dionysus." " Come, Dionysus, with thy ox-foot, As Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, was come to thy pure temple by the sea, identical with Venus Astarte and De- and sacrifice with the Graces." meter (§ 96, note 339), so Ariadne, her Then they chant twice the words daughter, is to be regarded as another " Axii Tawri*," worthy is the Bull. form of Kore-Persephoneia. The in. The superstitious notion of mod- terpretation of the legend is as fol- ern witchcraft, ihat the devil has a lows : The Bull sent by Poseidon to cloven foot, was evidently derived Crete, crossing over into Greece, and from this conceit of the ox-foot of there caught by Hercules, implies that Bacchus-Dionysus. the Sidonian influence in that island "" See gold coins of Mgx and Cla- extended to the mainland, but suc- zomenae, in Mr. Knight's collection. cumbed there to the milder cultus 140 Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur. 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 characteristic emblems. Some pious heathen, too, made a 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 in one; and Bacchus, who on other occasions 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 vine or ivy.°" Such were the Phrygian Atys, and Syrian Adonis ; whose history, like that of Bacchus, is disguised by poetical and allegorical fable ; but who, as usually repre- sented in monuments of ancient art, are androgynous person- ifications 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, Hercu- '^' See silver coins of Naxus, and les. Theseus (Theos-Zeus) carrying Plates i6 and 39 of vol. vi. of Select away Ariadne, and her destruction by Specimens. Artemis, or Diana, expresses the fail- "* See Coins of Camarina (Sicily), ure to supersede the bloody rites, etc. Death by the hand of Diana can **^ See Hunterian Museum, gold hardly signify perishing in maiden- coins of Lampsacus, and silver coins hood ; for the Ephesian or Amazonian of Maronea. goddess was not a virgin deity, but ^''' See gold medals of Lampsacus, was identical with the Great Mother, brass medals of Rhodes, and vol. i. Cybele, Isis, or Anaitis, whose wor- pi. 39, of Select Specimens. ship in Armenia and Pontus, like that '" Plutarch : Symposiacs, v. 3. of Mylitta and Venus-Aphrodite in " Both the gods (Poseidon and Diony- Assyria and Cyprus, was accompanied sus) appear to be lords of the moist by the defloration of marriageable or female, and of the male generating women. principle." The marriage of Ariadne to Bac- Phurnutus : De NaturA Deorum, chus is therefore perfectly in harmony iv. " Poseidon is the active principle with the mystical sense, allying the tale in the earth, and the potency of with the loves of Venus-Astarte and moisture around the earth." Adonis, and the wanderings of Dido, Isis, Ceres, and Cybele. — A. W. I4S 68 The Symbolical Language of Eonificntion derived from a more refined and philosophical system of religion, engrafted upon the old elementary wor- ship, to which Neptune belonged."' 101. It is observed by Dionysius the geographer, that Bacchus was worshipped with peculiar zeal and devotion by the ancient inhabitants of some of the smaller British islands,"' ■where the women, crowned with ivy, celebrated his clamorous noctur- 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 upon thtse of the Ganges.'" In Stukeley's Itinerary is the ground-plan of an ancient Celtic or Scandinavian temple, found in Zealand, consisting of a circle of rude stones within a square : 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 his- torian ; who might have collected some vague accounts of the British islands from the Phoenician and Carthaginian mer- chants, who traded there for tin. " The Hyperboreans," said he, " inhabit an island beyond Gaul, in which Apollo is worshipped in a circular temple considerable for its size and riches." This island can be no other than Britain ; in which we know of no traces of any other circular temple, which could have appeared con- siderable to a Greek or Phoenician of that age. That the ac- ''^' Plutarch : Ids and Osins, 35. the tutelar god of Libya, as Herodotus ' The Greeks consider Dionysus not has shown ; he visited the .(Ethiopians, solely as the god of wine, but also as and was worshipped at Philadelphia the lord of every function of nature." and other inland places, as well as in This assertion of Mr. Knight is de- the island of Crete and in Bceotia. nied by later scholars. The Hon. Mr. Mr. Brown accordingly considers him Gladstone declares of Poseidon that as identical with the Dagon of the " Though God of the Sea he is not, so Philistines and Hoa or Cannes of Ba- to speak, the Sea-God, or the Water- bylon, of whom H. C. Rawlinson re- God. He has in him nothing of an marks : " Hoa occupies in the first elemental Deity." The true sea-god Triad the position which in the Clas- is Nereus. He is the building-god, sical Mythology is filled by Poseidon, and stands in close relation to the and in some respects he corresponds giants and other rebellious personages. to him." — A. W. " In the western portion of the Outer ™ Dionysius: i. 170. Sphere, Zeus practically disappears Mr. Knight supposes these islands from the governing office, and Posei- to have been the Hebrides or Orkneys, don becomes the Supreme Ruler." *'* Diodorus Siculus : ii. 13 : Hence Ulysses, in the Odyssey, comes " Hecataeus and others assert that oftenest into collision with him ; and there is an island opposite the Celtic Mr. Gladstone suggests that he was provinces not less in size than Sicily ; " the god or the chief-god of the Phoi- that there was upon the island a mag- nikes." (Juventus Mundi, ch. viii). nificent temenos (or enclosed circle) of Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., going farther, Apollo, and a famous temple of a cir- says : " Poseidaon, sire of gods and cular form, abundantly adorned with men," to the Hamitic East. He was '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 con- cerning 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 Rho- dius, 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 em- blems of light, the primary and essential emanations of the Deity ; whence radiating the head, or surrounding it with a dia- dem of small obelisks, was a mode of consecration or deification, which flattery is often employed in portraits both of the Mace- donian 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 per- sonification 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 Ancient Faith Embodied in Ancient allow Ihat there is any river to which Names, i. 29, 609. — A. W. the barbarians give the name of Eri- ^" ApoLLONitJS Rhodius : Argo- danus (probably the Vistula), emptying nautica, ii. n6o. itself into the northern (IJaltic) sea, ^'^ Pliny: xxxvi. 14. whence, as the tale goes, amber is Plutarch: Roman Questions, 2. procured ; nor do I know of any " Light is the emblem of generation." islands called the Cassiterides (the ^*' See Pliny : Panegyricz, Iii. Tin Islands), whence the tin comes Also Coins of Antiochus IV and VI. which we use." of Syria, Philip IV. of Macedonia, ^^ Macrobius : Saturnalia, i. 18. and of several of the Ptolemies, Oc- It is noticeable that lacchus-Saba- tavius, etc. zins is but a variant reading of the '" Homer : Iliad, iv. loi. Hebrew or Phoenician designation, Mr. W. C. Bryant, not taking such a Jaho-Tzabaoth, a name applied by view, has rendered the term " Lycian." the Tyrians to the Sun-God in autumn, But Jacob Bryant, from another and adopted apparently by King standing-point, derives these terms David from them, as the title of the from El-Uk, a title of the sun among Hebrew tutelar god. See INMAN : the Egyptians and Babylonians ; the 149 70 The Symbolical Language of 103. The titles Lucetius and Diespiter applied to Jupiter are expressive of the same attribute ; the one signifying 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 Si- cyon, 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 sym- bol 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 reli- gious symbols of the savages of North America.^" The most sacred idol, too, of the Hindus in the Great Temple of Jugger- naut, 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 origin- ally 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 vowel being finally elided. — Aguieus: "The conical pillar by A. W. the gates of buildings ; a priest of ^" Macrobius : Saturnalia, \. 15. Apollo, and the god himself." »«» Pausanius ; Corinth, ix. § 6. ^^^ Pausanias : Laconia, xix. 2. " Zeus Meilichios [Moloch] and Ar- " It had a face, feet, and hands ; the temis also named Pairoa (the paternal, rest is like a brazen pillar ; upon the perhaps as being an Amazonian, or head is a helmet, and in the hands, a male-female), are made with no plastic lance and a bow." skill; he is represented by a pyramid, *«' Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica, and she by a pillar." p. n ; v. 277, and xi. p. 261. Attica, yXw.'^-i: "A stone having "^ Lafitau: Matirs des Sauvages, the form of a pyramid, not of large vol. i. pp. 146 and 148. dimensions ; they call it Apollo Ka- 211 Hamilton: Travels in India. I'inas." s« AcosTA : History of the In- ^" SuiDAs: "Agyieus (the tutelar dies. deity, or protector of highways) is rep- '" Pausanias: p. 444: "They de- resented by a pillar running to a point, clare the cock to be sacred to the sun, which is placed by the gates ; some say and the angel (herald) to announce that they belong to Apollo, and others the Coming of the Sun." to Dionysus, or to both alike." 150 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- sive productive power on the reverse ; "° and in other instances it is united with Priapic and other emblems and devices, sig- 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 op- posite powers in the world perpetually acting against each other ; the one generating and the other destroying ; the for- 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, de- rived from 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 sethe- rial fire supposed to be concentrated in the Sun ; but Plutarch 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 and philosophers, it having an original (the Chinese) in representing the sun, fathered upon no one, but having put a cock in a circle." gained a persuasion both strong and *" Hyde : Religion of the Ancient indelible, and being everywhere re- Persians. ceived by both Barbarians and Greeks ^" See Coins of Himera, Same- — and that not only in popular dis- thrace, Suessa, etc. course and public repute, but also in ^" See Coins of Selinus, Himera, their secret Mysteries and public sacri- Samothrace, etc. fices — that the universe is neither "* Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 45. hurried about by blind chance, with- " The harmony of the universe is, ac- out intelligence, discourse, and direc- cording to Herakleitos, like that of tion," etc. a bow or a harp, alternately tightened HIPPOCRATES ; " This to come into and relaxed, and according to Euripi- existence, to cohabit, to die, to dissolve des (/Eolus): away, to be judged." 'Nor good nor bad here's to be found apart, ^'^ PLUTARCH : Isis and Osiris. But both immixed in one, for greater art.' '' Also DiODORUS SicULUS. i. ^" Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 45. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Hero- " Therefore this most ancient opinion dolus, ii. 171, note 4, says : " The has been handed down from the theo- sufferings and death of Osiris were the logians and law-makers to the poets Great Mystery of the Egyptian relig- 153 The Symbolical Language of however, as in other instances, he was seduced, partly by his own prejudices, and partly by the new system of the Jigyptian Platonists ; according to which there was an original evil prin- ciple in nature, co-existing with the good, and acting in perpet- ual 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- ion, and some traces of it are percep- tible among other 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 resurrec- tion, and his office as judge of the dead in a future state, look like the early revelation of a future manifesta- tion 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 di- vine spirit. As Osiris signified ' good,' Typhon (or rather Seth) was ' evil,' and the remarkable notion of good and evil being brothers, is abundantly illustrated with early sculptures ; nor was it till a change was made, appar- ently by foreigners from Asia, who held the doctrine of the Two Prin- ciples [represented by Oromazd and Ahriman, Zoroaster, and ZohakJ , that evil became 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 dis- tinct 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 done it ? ' In like manner the my- thology 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 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 repre- sented pierced by the spear of Horus, or of Atmoo [the hidden one — the Tammuz of Ezekiel, viii. 16] as Re the ' Sun ' recalls the war of 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 serpent^ or dragon^ and whale^ in Gen- esis, i. 21 ; Job, viii. 12 ; Ezekiel, xxvii. 2 ; but which in Genesis might rather apply to the Saurian monsters in the early state of the world. It is singu- lar that the Egyptians even believed that it was inhabited by large mon- sters. The Python evidently corre- sponded 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 re- lated to Tan^ as some might imagine, the / being a teth, and not a tau in the Hebrew ; but Titan may be related to it. " Osiris may be said rather to have presided over the judgment of the dead than to have judged them ; he gave ad- mission to those who were found wor- thy to the abode of happiness. He was not the avenging deity ; he did not pun- ish 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 pres- ence.' " 154 Ancient Art and Mythology. 73 tions dependent upon circumstances, causes, and events : but though entertained by very learned and distinguished individ- uals, it does not appear ever to have formed a part of the re- ligious system of any people or established sect. The beautiful allegory of the tvsro casks in the Iliad, makes Jupiter the dis- tributor 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 fore- head ; 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. Translation. ^" Asiatic Researches, i. p. 248 " The gods ordain " This is Siva, or more anciently. The lot of man to suffer, while themselves Maha Deva, originally the ante-Vedic Are free from care. Beside Jove's thresh- ^ jj f j^e aboriginal Hindus." old stand ^J, -,y B,, Twocasksof gifts for men; one cask con- •'™ HESIOD : Theogony, v. 139. tains More literally the sons of Ouranos Theevil, one the good and he to whom ^nd Gaia, and brothers of Kronos, The Thunderer gwes them mmgled, some- t_- 1. i ^ j- - -^ i_ j, ^ times falls which later divimty hardly appears to Into misfortune, and is sometimes crowned be the same as Chronos, or Time, but With blessings. But the man to whom he rather as Moloch the Fire-God.— A. W. The^evi?only, stands a mark exposed , ''^'^ Scholium on v. 139. "Cyclopes To wrong, and chased by grim calamity, (Kuklopes), the powers of the circle, Wanders the teeming earth, alike unloved or universe. Mr. Knight discards the by gods and men, ' etc. etymology of the scholiast. *'- Hesiod: Works and Days, bo. Modern research, we think, has ''^ Pausanias : Attica, xi. pretty accurately solved the nature "■' Olaus Rudeeckius : Atlantica, and character of the Cyclopean tribes, part ii. v. p. 518. and assigned them to the same race ^'^ Pausanias : Corinth, xxiv. § 5 : as the Berbers and Phoenicians, of " Zeus had two eyes, placed naturally, whom they were probably o£f-shoots. and the third upon the forehead. They are described as inhabitants of They say that Priam had this bust of Libya and Sicily, following a pastoral Zeus from his ancestor, Laoraedon." life, worshipping Poseidon, and eating 157 74 The Symbolical Language of 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 tale. Whether the poet meant him to be a giant of a one-eyed race, or to 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 learned modern writers.*'" ANIMAL SYMBOLS. io8. The .^Egyptians represented Typhon by the Hippopo- tamus, the most fierce and savage animal known to them ; and upon his back they put a hawk fighting with a serpent, to sig- nify the direction of his power ; for the hawk was the emblem of power, as the serpent was of life; whence it was employed as the symbol of Osiris, as well as of Typhon."' Among the or more probably sacrificing, strangers who fell into their power. They are, again, depicted as a giant race, that introduced a massive style of archi- tecture into Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy ; also as being the progenitors of Galatus, lUyrius, and Keltus, or more literally of the Gauls, lUyrians, and Celtic tribes ; as workers in mines, 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 cha- racter with the Cyclopean structures in Greece. There are also the re- mains of similar buildings in Arabia, Assyria, Persia, and even India. Eu- ripides seems to have afforded us the key, when he declares that the walls of Mycenee were built by the Cyclopeans after the Phoenician Canon and method. Phoenician architecture is remarkable for its massiveness and for partaking of the specialities peculiar to the styles both of Assyria and ^gypt. The round Tower-pillars, like those in the Temple of Melkavth-Hercules at Tyre, of Solomon at Jerusalem, of Atargatis, the Syrian Goddess, at Bambyke, or Hierapolis, and the re- markable pillars in Ireland, are evi- dently to be attributed to the same origin. We notice that in the ancient 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, Ara- bians, and Strangers, or Xeni ; and it is not improbable that they were pro- genitors or akin to the shepherd-colo- nists of Libya and Sicily, as well as many of the tribes of Greece and Palestine. They occupied large dis- tricts in Thrace, where the Bacchic rites, as well as numerous sciences, were cultivated, all of which are also ascribed to Egyptian sources by He- rodotus and others. We suspect, therefore, that they owe their designa- tion to their peculiar worship and arts. They were ophites ; and the syllable ops, which is the terminal of so many ancient names, is the contrac- tion of ophis, a serpent. The lemain- der of their appellation is Kuklos, or cycle, which may mean the universe. Yet they do not transmit that designa- tion 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 137- ^" Plutarch : his and Osiris, 50. 15S 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 fertil- ity.'" 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 subor- dinate 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 fig- ure 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 like- wise 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 etc. It was deemed aphrodisiac and was a river horse upon which a hawlc double-sexed. was placed, fighting with a serpent ; '"' OlAUS Rudbeckius : Atlantica, representing by the horse, Typhon, part ii. v. pp. 300, 320, 386. and by the hawk, power, and the ori- '" "Appear, in form, as a bull, as a gin of things." " They also picture many-headed serp'snt, or as a lion in Osiris as a hawlc." flaming fire." ^"^ Aristophanes : Birds, 314. The The invocation to the many-headed cormorant is placed on the coins of serpent shows the probable Hindu ori- Agrigentum, as the symbol of Hercu- gin of this divinity as the Hydra does les ; the eagle is well-known as the of Hercules. — A. W. bird of Jupiter. °" Histoire GMirale des Voyages, 8«3 See coins of Chalais and Euboea, vol. v. p. 458 ; also Embassy to Thibet, of Elis, Agrigentum, Crete, etc. p. 262 ; and HoueTs Voyage en Sidle. "*' See coins of Massena, Rhegium, 161 76 The Symbolical Language of every angle having bells pendent from the lower jaw, though there is no contiguous country that can supply the living 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 modifica- tions of the ancient mystic dogma above mentioned concern- ing 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 naturalists have observed."' Hence came the composition, so frequent on the Carthaginian coins, of the horse with the aste- risk 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 in- stances 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 to Thibet, p. 288. ^^ Aristotle : " The horse, an '"See the coins of Acanthus and animal fond of washing, and of water." Velia, and also those of some un- See also note 422. known city of Phoenicia. HouEL : *>•* See Hunterian Museum, the Voyage en Sidle, pi. xxxv. and vi. coins being *» Le Bruyn : RuiTis of Persefolis. '■"^ Cyrene, Syracuse, Maronea, Ery *" On old brass coins in the cabinet thee in Boeotia, etc. of Mr. R. Payne Knight. On a small *<" It is so on coins of Lampsacus. silver coin of Acanthus, in the same *" Hesiod : Theogony, v. 285. Ly- cabinet ; where there was not room for COPHRON : Alexander, 17. the lion on the back of the bull, as in The history of Bellerophon is re- the larger, the bull has the face of a lated in the Iliad, Book vi. but Homer lion. _ says nothing of the horse. The later ■"" Homer : xxi. Bryant's Transla- writers inform us that he was first (ion : named HipponoOs, and Pindar relates " This river cannot aid you ; this fair stream that he was aided by Athene to be- With silver eddies, to whose deities come the possessor of Pegasus ; and Ye oflter many beeves m sacrifice, • .•. j • j „ „iTn- 4..^ Ua.- And fling into its gulfs your firm-paced '" gratitude raised an altar to her steeds." under the name Hippeia. Virgil : Ceorgics, i. 12, and iii. 122 A\_- ' I 1 1) £^ *%, « I Marsyas and Olympos. Ancient Art and Mythology. 'j'j whence the fable of these fictitious beings having been begot- ten 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- sents the generative or productive attribute. A symbolical figure similar to that of the Centaur occurs among the hiero- glyphical sculptures of the temple of Isis at Tentyra or Dende- ra 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. 112. On the very ancient coins found near the banks of the Strymon in Thrace, 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 is represented in the same action ; namely, that of embracing a large and comely woman. In a small bronze of very ancient sculpture, the same Priapic personage appears, differing a *"' E. Pococke, in his treatise, India Ions " refines upon this by rendering in Greece, makes the Centaurs, or Ken- NephelS (the cloud or female form tauri, an Afghan tribe, and derives mistaken by Ixion for Juno), " a fallen their appellation from Candahar, a woman," from NePheL, to fall; and city and district near the Indus. Bry- makes the Centaurs the progeny of a ant remarks {Analysis of Ancient My- woman debauched after the manner of ikology, iii. p. 315) that they "were re- the Cyprians and Assyrians, in the pe- puted to be of Nephelim race (see culiar rites of Mylitta and Astarte. Genesis, vi. 4). Cheiron was said to Nonnus, as Bryant observes, makes have been the son of the centaur Kro- them the offspring of Zeus in Cy- nos, but the rest were the offspring of prus. Dionysiaca, v., xiv., and xxxii. Ixion and Nepheld (Lycophron, v. " I came with great measure of ardent 1200). They are described by Nonnus passion for Paphia (Venus-Astarte) by as horned, and as inseparable compan- which embrace was engendered the ions of Dionysus. He supposes them Centaurs, casting the spore into the to have been the sons of Zeuth (or secret recesses of earth " (Gaia). Jupiter) and places them for the most The mythical King Erichthonius is part in Cyprus." Ships were called said to have been the offspring of Centaurs, and hence Bryant infers that AthenS and Hephaistos (Vulcan) in a they had a relation to the ark of Noah; similar manner. — A. W. which being of " gopher wood," he *" Denon : pi. cxxvii. 2. supposes was evidence for supposing *'" Denon : pi. cxxxi. 3. that they were built in Cyprus or *" Denon : pi. cxxix. 2. Cupher. Hislop in his " Two Baby- *" Select Specimens : i. pi. 2. 165 78 The Symbolical Language of 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 figures described under the title of Satyrs ; which all other writers speak of as a mixture of the goat and man. These, he 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 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 intro- duced 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 personifi- cation 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 ""s These are probably the person- les Arts de la Grdce : i. pi. 13. There ages represented on the Thracian or is no inaccuracy ; the terminal word Macedonian coins above cited ; but taurus having misled the author into the Saturn of both seems to have an- supposing that the animal parts were swered rather to the Poseidon of the those of a bull. Greeks, than to the personification of •"•' Dionysiacs : xiii. and xiv. See Time, commonly called Kronos or note 40S. Saturn. The figure represented *'" Virgil : Georgics, iii. 92. " Such mounted upon a winged horse termin- Saturn (Kronos) too, himself, swift at ating in a fish, and riding upon the the coming of his wife, spread out a waters, with a bow in his hand, is prob- full mane upon his equine neck, and ably the same personage. See Mi- flying filled Pelion with shrill whinney- dailies Phiniciennes du Dutens, pi. i. f. ing." The etymology proposed is i. The coin is better preserved in the fanciful. cabinet of Mr. Knight. 166 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 of the goat are retained, they are usually called Satyrs ; and 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 Sile- nus is perhaps best explained by the quotation in the mar- gin."' 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 pun on that of the deities. The deities I4Q, note 14. of that worship that were not Grecian ^'* Hippocrates : " They who are originally were called Hippian, and bald {phalakids) are of an inflamma- their priests Hippai, as in the case of tory habit ; and the plasma (phlegm) Diomedes.=-^A. W. in their head being agitated and heated ''*'' Pausanias : Arcadia, xliii. 2, 3. by salacity, coming to the epidermis The Phygalians say that the offspring withers the roots of the hair causing it of Demeter (by Poseidon) was not a to fall off, for which reason castrated mare (Jiippos), but the Despoina (lady, men are never bald." mistress, tutelar goddess) whom the The Zeus Phalakiis of the Argives, Arcadians call Hippia mentioned by Clement (Exhortations, " This cave is regarded as the temple ii.), is supposed to have acquired that of Demeter, and in it is an image designation from the same idea. {agalma), made of wood ; this image ■"" .ffj/OTB. xlviii. " Calling Hippa, was made by them in this style ; it was the nurse of Bacchus." seated on a stone, and was like a wo- Fragment, xliii. (from Proclus). man, except the head ; but it had the " Hippa, the suul of everything." head and mane of a mare, and the like- Hippa is from the Phoenician Hip, nesses of serpents and other animals and signifies the Parent of all. Hesy- grew to the head ; a chemise {chiton) chius renders .ffi^/o» as follows; "Hip- covered her to the extremities of the pon — the sexual parts of a woman or feet ; there was a dolphin upon one of a man; a large fish." The deity hand and a bird on the other." Hippa was therefore " parent of gods *" Pausanias : Arcadia, xxxvii. 6 and men," and represented by phallic " The name of the tutelar goddess it symbols. The horse or hippos was was feared to write for those who had sacred because the Greek name is a not been initiated." 8o The Symbolical Language of 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 attri- butes ; 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 Hip- pia. 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 Mel- pomenos, and also Kissos." This lat- ter 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. Pausanias also declares — Elia. I., XV. 4 : " The mounds to Poseidon as 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 My- thology each deity has a vehan or ve- hicle, generally a bird or animal, that is generally depicted with them, in that manner. But Jacob Bryant {An- alysis of Ancient Mythology , iii.) de- clares Hippos and Hippa, Hippios and Hippia were designations brought from an older language ; Hippa, he re- 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 also refers to them in his Hymn to Apollo. " Those Hippai, misconstrued mares," Bry- ant declares, " were priestesses of the godd;-,s Hippa, who was of old worshipptJ in Thessaly and Thrace, and in many different regions. They chanted hymns in her temples and performed the rites of fire; but the wor- ship 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- pios." Mr. Bryant explains elsewhere the cannibalism of the Lasstrygones and Cyclopes, and the slaughtering of men allured by the Sirens, by the same hy- pothesis of human sacrifices. The 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 de- scription 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. W. ■"^2 Hesychius : Hippia. *''■' Mallet : Introduction a la His- toire de Danemarc. *■" Pausanias : iii. ch. xx. 170 Kentaur and Eros. Ancient Art and Mythology. 8i MEANING OF VARIOUS SYMBOLICAL REPRESENTATIONS 114. In an ancient piece of marble sculpture in relief, Jupi- ter is represented reposing 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 personi- fication 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 innumera- ble 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 ex- tant. 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-ele- phus ; 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 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 beardless head is represented with the horns of the same ani- mal ; ■"" whence we suspect that the metamorphoses of Actaeon,. like many other similar fables, arose from some such symboli- cal composition. SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORIES. 115. It is probable therefore that the lion devouring the horse, represents the diurnal heat of the Sun exhaling the 42« WiNCKELMAN ; Monument, Antic, carried away during the troubles by inedited, No. ii. which Ptolemy XI. was expelled, a ^'" DiODORUS SicuLUS : xxviii. 20. glass one was substituted and exhibited " EfiSgies of goat-elephants were among in its place in the time of Strabo." See the ornaments of the magnificent Geogr. xvii. hearse in which the body of Alexander ■'i'* In the cabinet of Mr. R. Payne the Great was conveyed from Babylon Knight. to Alexandria, where it was deposited See Ionian Antiquities published by in a shrine or coffin of solid gold ; the Society Dilettanti, vol. L c. iii. pL which having been melted down and ix. 173 82 The Symbolical Language of 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 an- other in regular and unceasing progression, and thus consti- tute 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. 1 1 6. This universal harmony is represented, on the frieze 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,"" re- presented 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 personifica- tions of the creative powers. Hence she is called Kore the ■*'' See Ionian Antiquities published " This was the harp which Zeus's beaute- by the Society Dilettanti, vol. i. c. iii. „ o^is son ^1 ;„ Framed by celestial skill to play upon ; l^ '.,„ ■ T ■ , ^ ■ ■ ^^^ for l"s plectrum the sun s beams he 430 Plutarch : Ins and Osms, used, 40. To strike those chords that mortal ears Sophocles : (Edifus Tyr., v. 190. amused." This unarmed Mars is the plague: *''^ Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, ss- wherefore that god must have been "They fable that Hermes (Thoth or considered as the Destroyer in general, Mercury) took out the sinews of Ty • not as the god of War in particular. phon and used them for harp-strings, ^^^ Tlvtarch : I'ytAian Priestess, 16. to denote that when JVous or reason " They presented a golden plectrum arranged the universe it made a con- to Apollo, remembering perhaps those cord out of many discords, and so did verses of Scythinus, who thus wrote of not abolish, but merely curtailed the the harp : scope of the corruptible principle." 174 Ancient Art and Mythology. 83 daughter ; "' as being the universal daughter, or general sec- ondary principle ; for though properly the goddess of Destruc- tion, she is frequently distinguished by the title Soteira"* Preserver, 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 destruc- tion, 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 flames."' 118. The Nephthe or Nephthus of the Egyptians, and the Libitina, or goddess of 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 the same, except that by the later .^Egyptians, the personification was still more generalised, so as to comprehend universal nature ; whence Apuleius invokes her by the names of Eleu- sinian Ceres, Celestial Venus, and Proserpina ; and she an- swers him by a general explanation of these titles. " I am," 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 Isis and Osiris : " Nephthe, whom maiden, and yet she is reputed to have some likewise call Death and Aphro- been the mother of Diouysus-Zagreus dit^ they also name Victory." of the Sabazian mysteries. But in Cicero: Against Verres. "They truth the name is the same as Kura, call her Libera, who is the same as the feminine designation of the Sun, Proserpina." and the title given to Ceres or De- ^'' Apuleius : The Golden Ass. meter at Cnidus. Indeed, the two, " En adsum tuis commota, Luci, pre- Demeter and Kore-Persephoneia, her cibus, rerura natura parens, elemen- reputed daughter, are identical. — A. W. torium omnium domina, sasculorum ■"^ See coins of Agathocles. progenies initialis, summa numinum, '■y- Orphic Hymn, y^Yx.-. " Persepho- regina manium, prima ccelitum, deo-< neia, alike the cause of life and death rum dearumque, facies uniformis : to mortals." quse coeli luminosa culmina, maris sal- ■"' Meleager : Epigram, cxix. ubria flamina, inferorum deplorata si- "' See silver coins of Syracuse, etc. lentia nutibus meis dispenso, cujus 438 Plutarch : Numa. numen unicum, multiformi specie, ritu 17s 84 The Symbolical Language of 119. This universal character of the goddess appears, how- ever, to have 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 gradu- ally over the world. The statues of this Isis are of a composi- tion 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 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 uni- versal 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. 120. The allegorical tales of the loves and misfortunes of Isis and Osiris are an exact counterpart of those of Venus and vario, nomine multijugo totus venera- ■■■" See medals in gold of Alexander tur orbis. Prisca doctrina pol- the Great. lentes ^gyptii, ceremoniis me prorsus *** Bronzi cCErcolano, vol. 2, xxviii. propriis percolentes, appellant vero *** Pausanias : Messen. xxx. 3, 4 ; nomine Reginam Isidem." " The first mention of which I know, ■"" See plate Ixx. of vol. I. The that is made of TycliS or Fortune, Egyptian figures with the horns of the Homer makes in his "Hymn to cow, wrought under the Roman em- Demeter" (line 417). "She is men- pire, are common in all collections of tioned also as the daughter of Ocean- small bronzes. us." . . . . " Nothing further is *" Pausanias : Achates, xxvi. 3. declared than that this goddess is " I am persuaded that in this ode of greatest among the gods in the affairs Pindar, Fortune may be regarded as of men, and exercises great power." one of the Fates and to be strong be- .... "Bupalos, the artist, first yond her sisters." made a statue of Fortune for the Menander : Supplementary Frag- Smyrnseans, of which we know that it ments, i. " Fortune means all things had a polos or hemisphere on the head, we know or do; but we are credited and in the left hand what is termed by with them. Fortune directs all; and it the Greeks the horn of Amalthea." behooves us to call her alone the god, *" Bronzi i'Ercolano, vol. ii. tav mind, and thought, if we would not be xxvi. : also Medals of Leucadia. amused by empty names." 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 alle- gory 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 wor- ship, the sun never continues any one day entirely below the *" SuiDAS : " Osiris being likewise •"» LuciAN : De Dea Syria, xx. 6. the same as Adonis, according to tlie "" Scholiast upon the Idyl of The- the mystical method of blending the ooritus, iii. •' They say concerning various gods." Adonis, that he dying, spent six *" Hesychius upon Macroeius: months in the embraces of AphroditS Saturnalia, i. 20, further remarks, and also in the embraces of Perse- that " Adonis is not considered as a phone." distinct personage, but as Dionysus ■*" Ol-AUS Rudbeckius : Atlantica, or Bacchus himself." No. II. iii. Baillie : De VAstroncmie Plutarch: Symposiacs, iv. 5. "It Ancienm. is said that Adonis was slain by a ^^^ Plutarch : Ids and Osiris, 69. boar. Now Adonis is supposed to be " The Phrygians, believing their god thesame with Bacchus; and many rites to be asleep during the winter and in the worship of each confirm this awake in summer, in celebrating the opinion." orgies of Bacchus commemorate both Ar the boar that slew Adonis was those events. Paphlagonians pray and the symbol or representative of Ares intercede for the winter to break up or Mars, the god of strife and destruc- and terminate." tion. The legend represents the end ■"' Holwell : Part II. p. 125. of stmnner as well as human life by ""^ Am. Marcellin. xix. c. I. Ut the genius of winter and Death. — lacrymare cultrices Veneris sa;pe spec- A. W. tantur in solemnibus Adonidis sacris, "* LuciAN : De Dea Syria. Pau- quod simulacrum aliquod esse frugum sanias : Corinth, xx. 5. Ezekiel, viii. adultarum religiones mysticse decent. 16 "'THEOPHiLUS:orf.,4«fc/)'^.i. p. 75. 181 86 The Symbolical Language of 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 in Macedonia we find a lion killing a boar ;"' and in other monuments a dead boar appears carried in solemn proces- sion ; "* 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 ini- tiation 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 been wholly unknown to the ancient poets, who have celebra- ted 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 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. c. ■"" Aristophanes : Peace, 374. V. p. 153. *" NoNNUS : Dionysiacs. "Ares '" Ol. Rudbeck. : p. ii. c. iii. et v. (Mars) in the form of a boar, with NoNNis : Diotiys. M. 396. savage teeth, bringing death, came to ^"' Pelerin;vo1. I. pi. xxx. No. 17. weave the web of fate about Adonis." *" On a marble fragment in relief in *"' Strabo : x. Julian: Orations, v. the Townley-Collection. "^ Scholiast upon Aratus. 182 .-.Ci^^i-^-f-'g^^'^^^^ Ancient Art and Mythology. 87 tween heaven and earth, and consequently a distinct personi- fication of that attribute of Jupiter, which 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 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 winter- solstice."* 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 sym- bolical destruction of the adverse or inert power. From an 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 in- stances 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 univer- sally 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., not that Ares in the form of a boar, v., viii. and part II., v. sets all evils in commotion." «* Olaus Rudbeckids. "68 gee brass coins of Rome, common «6 Herodotus : ii. 47, and Macro- in all countries. Bius : Saturnalia, i. 20. "s' Strabo : xii. p. 575. ■»■" Plutarch: Of Love, 13. " For ™ ^lian : De Anim. x. xxviii. blind, oh women, is he who perceives 187 88 The Symbolical Language of Italy, and probably the Greeks, this animal appears to have been a symbol of an opposite kind,"' and is therefore per- petually 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 dismember- ment 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 re- joicing.*" PROMETHEUS AND THE VULTURE. 124. The stories of Prometheus were equally allegorical ; for Prometheus was only a title of the Sun, expressing /rw/- dence"" ox foresight, wherefore his being bound in the extremi- ties of the earth, signified originally no more than the restric- tion 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 em- ployed as an emblem of the destroying power. Another em- *" Juvenal : Satires, xi. 96. Colu- mella : X. 344. ■•" Plutarch : " The sufferings re- lated in the chants concerning Diony- sus and the crimes of the Titans against him, etc., the whole related as a fable, is a myth concerning the re- turn to life." Isis and Osiris : 54. " They do not simply propound in the legend that the soul of Osiris is perpetual and in- corruptible, but that his body is re- peatedly torn in pieces and concealed by Typhon." ■"' " The festival of Bromius (Bac- chus) occurring in spring." ^" Demosthenes : The Crown. Julius Firmicius. •"' Pindar : Olympic Odes vi. 81. The story of Prometheus has an oriental aspect, and is older than the Grecian mythology. He is styled by Lycophron, Daimon Promatheos Aithiops, the ^Ethiopian God Prome- theus. It is most improbable there- fore that liis designation expressed "providence or foresight." He be- longed, as even the Greeks acknowl- edge, 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, Brass, iron, silver, gold, their use to man. 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), Prome- theus 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 em- blem 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 designa- tion Pramathas, the servants or vota- ries of Maha Deva, that were de- stroyed by the bird Garuda, the cele- brated enemy of the Serpent-tribes, or Naga- worshippers. — A. W Prometheus and the Vulture. Venus and wounded Adonis- Ancient Art and Mythology. 89 blem of this power, much distinguished in the ancient Scandi- navian mythology, was the wolf, who in the last day was ex- pected to devour the sun ; "" and among the symbolical orna- ments 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/" PUTREFACTION ABHORRED. 125. As putrefaction was the most general means of natu- ral destruction or dissolution, the same spirit of superstition which turned every other operation of nature into an object of devotion, consecrated it to the personification of the de- stroying 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 cir- cumcised 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 putrefac- tion/'" 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. day, that no lice or other impure thing " The Wolf will devour may adhere to them when they are en- The Father of the ages." gaged in the service of the gods. See also Mallet : Introduction a Their dress is entirely of linen, and VHistoire de Danemarc, vi. their shoes of the paper-plant ; it is ■"' Macroeius : Saturnalia, i. xvii. not lawful for them to wear either •"* The wolf is also the device on dress or shoes of any other material." the coins of Argos. ■'*'' See Inman : Ancient Faiths ^"Herodotus : ii. 37. " They Embodied in Ancient Names, \o\. i. -p. drink out of brazen cups, which they 328. " Baalzebub, or Beelzebub, is scour every day ; there is no exception usually said to mean * my Lord of to this practice. They wear linen gar- flies,' but this seems to me to be ab- ments, which they are specially care- surd. The word zabab signifies ' to ful to have always fresh-washed. They murmur,' * hum,' or * buzz,' and when practice circumcision for the sake of we remember the Memnons in Egypt, cleanliness, considering it better to be which gave out a murmur at sunrise, cleanly than comely. The priests I think it more consistent with what shave their whole body every third we know of priestly devices, to con- 191 90 The Symbolical Language of 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. 126. Bacchus frequently appears accompanied by leo- pards,'" which 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 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 accompany- ing 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 andro- gynous 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 compo- sition 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 sider that the word signifies ' My Lord plied the deity -names Seth, or Satan, that murmurs.' " and Baal-Zebub, to the Evil Potency. Ancient clairvoyants or interpreters — A. W. of oracles spoke with a muttering ■"' See WlNKELMANi jI/ok. an/. ;Wa'. voice, as if from the ground. See No. 13; and Hist, dcs Arts, Liv. iii. Isaiah, viii. ig, and xxix. 4. Baal- c. ii. p. 143. Zebub, of Ekron, was consulted as •"* These are frequently called an oracle. But in the New Testa, tigers; but the first tiger seen by the ment, the name is often written Beel- Greeks or Romans was presented by Zebul, the latter term signifying an the ambassadors of India to Augustus, abode or habitation. The combina- while settling the affairs of Asia, in tion may therefore mean Baal of the the year of Rome 734. (DiON. Cass. Temple. After the return of the Hist. liv. s. 9.) Jews from Babylonia, the Asideans, ^'^ In the cabinet of Mr. Knight, or Maccabean party (afterwards known ^'^ See medal of Maronea. Ges- as Pharisees or Parsees), bringing Zo- NER. tab. xliii. fig. 26. roastrian sentiments with them, ap- 192 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 per- sonified THE CHIMjERA. 127. The Chimera, of which so many whimsical interpreta- tions have been given by the commentators on the Iliad, seems to have been 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, de- stroyer, and preserver united and animated by fire, the essen- tial principle of all the three. The old poet had probably 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 concern- ing it. In later times, however, it must have been a well- known sacred symbol, or it would not have been employed as 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 deliv- erer ; 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 fact the destroyer. Hence the verb ATD, or ATMI (Luo or LuMi), from which it is derived, means both to free and to de- stroy^'^ Pliny mentions a statue of Apollo by Praxiteles, much celebrated in his time, called Sauroktonos,"' the lizard- killer, 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, ex- haling the waters. When destroying the serpent, he only sig- nifies a different application of the same power to the extinc- tion of life ; whence he is called Pythias,*'' or the putrefier, <*' See Iliad, i. 20, and i. 25. ^'' Macrobius : Saturnalia, I. xvii. **' Pliny: xxxiv. c. viii. " Pythius, (torn, ftithein, i. e. sepein, to ■"■' See Winkelman: Man. ant. putrefy." ined. pi. xl. 199 92 The Symbolical Language of 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, was, as before observed, the appropriate emblem. Hence he is called ^<5flTnP, 'EKAT02, and 'EKATHB0A02, and also Chrusaor and Chrusaorus, which have a similar significa- tion ; the first syllable expressing the golden color of rays, and the others their erect position : for aor does not signify merely a sword, as a certain writer, upon the authority of com- mon 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 same as Apollo destroying the serpent 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 *" .iElian : History of Animals, tion ot the many-headed Nagas of xii. 10. India, and is the designation of a con- The appellation Smin-iheus would stellation in the sky. As the Phos- seem rather to affiliate Apollo with nician . Hercules is the same as Cro- the Hindu deity Ganesa, who is always nos, or Moloch, the Sun-God, the accompanied by a rat. — A. W. slaying of the Hydra is the poetic or ^^ It was the device upon the coins mythological method of mentioning of Argos (Jul. Poll. Onom. ix. vi. 86), the entering of the sun into the signs probably before the adoption of the of the zodiac which lie near that con- wolf, which is on most of those now stellation. The identity of Hercules extant. A small one, however, in with Apollo, Bacchus, and Mars is gold, with the mouse, is in the cabinet certain enough ; the intelligent among of Mr. R. P. Knight. the ancients did not believe in the ^" Pausanias : Achaica, xx. 2. current polytheism. — A. W. "" Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 50. *™ Herodotus : ii. 44. The Hydra is evidently a reproduc- Herakles between Vice and Vir Ancient Art and Mythology. 93 by the same title that he obtained in Greece, and whose ro- mantic 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 distin- guished, 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 glori- fier 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 repre- sentation 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 monu- ment of remote antiquity."' THE PILLARS ASCRIBED TO SESOSTRIS. 131. Upon the pillars which existed in the time of Hero- dotus in diiferent parts of Asia, and which were attributed by the Egyptians to Sesostris, and by others to Memnon, was en- graved 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 was bom of Leto, and Ares of Hera ; Odyssey, xi. 5oo. The three lines re- but the potency of both is the same, lating to the apotheosis of Hercules, ... So also, Hera and Leto are are interpolated. They declare that two appellations of a single divinity." " he himself is one of the immortal ^™ Mus, Florent. in gemm. t. i. pi. gods, delighting himself at their feasts, xcii. Q. and wedded to fair-limbed Heb6." ""' The earliest coins which we have i9t StrabO: XV. 688- Athen^us: xii. seen with this device, are of Syracuse, It is apparent that as the sun-god of Tarentum, and Heraclea in Italy ; all the Phoenicians, Hercules is identical of the finest time of the art, and little with Apollo, the sun-god of Greece, anterior to the Macedonian conquest. The club was given him by the epic On the more ancient medals of Seli- poets. The name Hercules is evi- nus, Hercules is destroying the bull, dently from the Sanscrit Her'calyus, as the lion or leopard is on those of Lord of the tribe or city. — A. W. Acanthus ; and the destroying a cen *" Varro. See Macrobius : Sa- taur signifies exactly the same as a tumalia, i. 44. lion destroying a horse ; the symbols ^" Plutarch See Eusebius : Pra- being merely humanised. paratio Evangelica, iii. i. "Apollo 203 94 The Symbolical Language of 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-oper- ation and conjunction are signified in so many various ways in the emblematical monuments of ancient art. The figure hold- ing 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 attitude, with the lion's skin upon its head."' This attitude is that of kneeling upon one knee; which is that of the Phoeni- cian Hercules upon the coins of Thasus above cited : where- fore we have no doubt that he was the personage meant to be represented ; as he continued to be afterward upon the Bac- trian and Parthian coins. The Hindus have still a correspond- ing deity, whom they call Rama, and the modern Persians a fabulous hero called Rustam, whose exploits are in many re- spects 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. 132. It was observed, by the founders of the mystic system, that the destructive 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. Hence, when they personified the attributes, they worshipped the one as the diurnal a.n(l the other as the nocturnal sun ; call- ing the one Apollo, and the other Dionysus or Bacchus;"" both of whom were anciently observed to be the same god ; '""'Herodotus: ii. 102, 106. under correspondent titles. Pausani- "" See coins of Mallus in Cilicia, AS: Attica, xl. 5. "This the temple and Soli :n Cyprus in the Hunter Col- of Dionysus of the Night-Orgies." lection. Pausanias : Act. xxvii. 2. " The '»* Macrobius: 53^ c. i8. Insa- sanctuary of Dionysus, called the cris enim hsec religiosi arcani obser- Torch-bearer." Osiris was also lord of vantia tenetur, ut Sol, cum in supero, the Underworld. Herodotus: ii. 123. id est in diurno hemisphierio est, Apol- " The .(Egyptians say that Deraeter lo vocitetur ; cum in infero, id est noc- and Dionysus (Isis and Osiris) preside turno, Dionysus, qui et Liber pater below." Macrobius also declares (Sa- habeatur. Hence Sophocles calls Bac- tumalia, i. 17) ; "Aristoteles, qui theo- chus " Leader of the chori of flame- logumena scripsit, ApoUinem et Li- breathing sta.TS," apuJ Eustath. p. 514, berum patrem unum eundemque deum und he had temples dedicated to him esse, cum multis argumentis asserit." 204 Slllli! Apollon. Meleager Ancient Art and Mythology. 95 whence, in a verse of Euripides, they are addressed as one, the names being used as 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- ity of both.'" 133. This mixed divinity appears to have been represented in the 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 iv. of volume I. of the Select Specimens, and in different com- positions on different coins of the Macedonian kings ; some- times 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 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 fre- quently 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 lat- ter, the result of both is shown by the lyre, the symbol of uni- versal narmony, which is supported between them ; and which is occasionally given to Hercules, as well as to Apollo. The two-faced figure of Janus seems to have been a composite sym- bol of the same kind, and to have derived the name from lao or laon, an ancient mystic title of Bacchus. The earliest spe- cimens of it extant are on the coins of Lampsacus and Tene- "" Macrobius : Saturnalia, i. 17. (generation), and being no other than " Lord, lover of Daphne, Bacchus, Osiris. " Paian, Apollo." '»• See medals of Antigonus, Antio- ™ LucAN. ./'.^arjuA'a, V. 73. "The chus I., Seleucus II. and III., and mount sacred to Phoebus and Bromius ; other kings of Syria ; and also of to whom in joint divinity the Theban Magnesia ad Mseandrum, and ad Si- Bacchse celebrate the triennial fes- pylum. The beautiful figure engraved tival. ' on plates xliii. and iv. of vol. i. of the '"' Plutarch . Isis and Osiris, 3^. Select Specimens is the most exquisite " They (Greeks) call Dionysus also example of this androgynous Apollo. Hyes as jord of the moist nature "" Numm. Pembrok. tab. v. fi?. 12. 207 96 The Symbolical Language of dos ; some of which can not be later than the sixth century before the Christian era ; and in later coins of the former city, heads of Bacchus of the usual form and character occupy its place. 135. The mythological personages Castor and Pollux, who lived 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, con- founded 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 rem- nant of the ancient mystic allegory, upon which the more recent poetical tales have been engrafted ; whilst the two asterisks, and the two human heads, one going upward and the other downward, by which they are occasionally repre- sented, more distinctly point out their symbolical meaning,"" which was the alternate appearance of the sun in the upper and lower hemispheres. This meaning, being a part of 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 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 ex- pedition in the extremities of the East ; and Hercules in the ex- '"' Pausanias: i. and iii. They /wwiJjofthe divinities, Bacchus, Jupiter, were also denominated anakes, from etc., were but these sacred hillocks or the Phoenician term anak^ a prince, steles misnamed. They were general- The Scholiast on Lucian remarks : ly surrounded by temenS or enclosures. "The temple of the Dioscuri was Cities so distinguished were called Ty- ctAXzA. Anakeion : for they were called phonian. See Analysis of Ancient anakes by the Greelcs." Mythology, ii. 167-195. — A. W. "" See medals of Istrus. "* The cistce pertain to the sexual "° Apuleius : The GMen Ass. xi. rather than to the funereal symbolism ; '" The words tophos, tufh, and toph, and the emblems which they contained so common as a part of Egyptian were peculiar to the phallic rites, names, signifies a high place, and, as See Inman : Ancient Faiths Embodiei Bryant declares, were applied to the in Ancient Names, i. ■p. 2?:'i. — A. W. mounds created to the deities. The 20S Ancient Art and Mythology. 97 tremities of the West ; which means no more than that the noc- turnal sun finishes its 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 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 Nile or its overflowings ; and the signs of the zodiac were taken from the mystic symbols ; and not, as some learned 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 dis- covered by the natural operation of the mind : but the collec- tions of stars, named after certain animals, have no resem- blance 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 particu- lar personified attributes, which they respectively represented. That they had only begun to be so named in the time of Ho- mer, and that not on account of any real or supposed resem- blance, 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 there- fore 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 con- veyed, was the gift of the diurnal sun, because separated from the salt of the sea, and distributed over the earth by exhala- tion. 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 : Symposiacs, iv. 5. the constellation Ursus, wagon, was ^'* Iliad, xvii. 487. also regarded as a vehan or wain. — A. The wagon, or more properly vehan W. (Sanscrit), was the vehicle or animal "° Commentary upon the ^neid, which was supposed to carry a deity, viii. line 276. in the Hindu system. It may be that Macrobius : Saturnalia, iii. 12. 209 98 The Symbolical Language of HEAT AND MOISTURE AS SEXUAL SYMBOLS. 138. Humidity in general, and particularly the Nile, was called 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 some of the characteristic features 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 Sun, given to the sacred river Yamuna or Jumna."* The God of Destruction is also mounted on a white bull, the sacred symbol of the opposite attribute, to show the union and co- operation of both."" The same meaning is more distinctly repre- sented in an ancient Greek fragment of bronze, by a lion tramp- ling upon the head of a bull, while a double phallus appears behind them, and shows the result.'" The title 2nTHP K02- MOT, upon the composite Priapic figure, published by La Chausse, is well known ; '" and it is probable that the ithy- phallic 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 fre- quently conferred upon, or assumed by them.™ It was also occasionally applied to most of the deities who had double at- tributes, or were personifications of both powers ; as to Hercu- les, Bacchus, Diana, etc.'" "• Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 36. "« Sir William Jones : Asiatic " The priests of Egypt call not only Researches, vol. i . the Nile, but everything moist (like a '™ Maurice : Indian Antiquities, pitcher of water) the outflowing of vol. i, p. 261. Osiris." '2' On the handle of a vase in Mr. '" Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 33. Knight's Cabinet. " The more learned in arcane matters '^'^ Roman Museum. among the priests, not only term the "^ Athenaeus : vi. 15. " The Nile Osiris, and the Sea Typhon, but Athenians received Demetrius not they also regard Osiris to signify every only offering incense, wearing sacrifi- principle and potency of moisture, cial garlands, and making libations of venerating it as the cause of genera- wine, but likewise with chants, and tion and the substance of the semen, choruses, and Ithyphalli, accompanied But by Typhon they mean everything by the sacred dance and processions," dried, fire-like, and withered, as being as in the celebration of the Mysteries, opposed to moistness." '"Athenaeus: vi. i6. 35. " The Greeks consider ■■*' Pausanias : Arcadia, xxxi. 4. Dionysus not alone as the patron of " The Sun having the surname of So- wine, but also of the entire moist or ter or Saviour, the same as Hercules." generative principle in nature." See also coins of Thasos, Maronea '" Horace : Book iv. Ode xiv. Riv- Agathocles, etc. ers so personified appear on the coins o the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily. iyX^^" Diana drawn by Nymphs. Diana returned from a Hunt. 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 sup- posed to impregnate the air, and scatter the principles of gen- eration 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 pro- ductive powers with which she impregnated the former, to- gether 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 sov- ereign 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 genera- tion: whence she is said to have received her nymphs, or sub- ordinate personifications, from the ocean ; "" and is often re- presented 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 an- other 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, a,'},. EVRltlDSS : PAtenicians, ijS. "Oh " They place the potency of Osiris in Selenaia (Moon), daughter of the the Moon, and say that Isis being the bright-girdled Aelios (Sun) ] " maternal principle of generation, has Scholium upon the foregoing passage: intercourse with him. Whence they " So wrote jEschylus and the more phil- call the Moon the Mother of the cos- osophical authors. But Hesiod de- mical Universe, and to have both the clared that the Moon was the Sister of male and female nature, being first the Sun." filled by the Sun, and so made preg- '"''^ .i^schylus : Prometheus Bound, nant, and then sending forth into the 138. air the generated principles, and so Callimachus : Hymn to Artemis; inseminating them, as a male." also Catullus: In Cell. '" Macrobius : Saturnalia, vii. 10. '^^ Roman Mtcseutn, VII. vol. ii. " The heat of the Sun dries, that of See coins of the Brettii in Italy, the Moon makes moist." Himera in Sicily, etc. Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 41. '5' Schol. Vet. in Horat. Carm. Sec. The Moon, having the light which Duobus his reguntur omnia terrena, makes moist and pregnant, is promo- calore quidem solis per diem, humore live of the generating of living beings vero lunse per noctem. Nam ut and of the fructification of plants." calore solis animantur semina, ita '^' Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 48. lunse humore nutriuntur, penes ipsam " The Egyptian priests style the enira et corporum omnium ratio esse Moon the Mother of the Universe." dictiur et potestas. 213 loo The Symbolical Language of neld to be the boundary that separated the celestial from the terrestrial world,"" she 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 destruc- tion as well as nutrition ; humidity as well as heat contribut- ing to putrefaction : whence sudden death was supposed to pro- ceed from Diana as well as from Apollo ; who was both the send- er 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 obstruc- tion ; 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 sym- bol of a cat, probably on account of that animal's power of see- ing in the night ; and also, perhaps, on account of its fecun- dity ; which seems to have induced the Hindus to adopt the rabbit as the symbol of the same deified planet."' As the LuciL. : apiid Aul. (? Plutarch : Symposiacs, iii. ro. extends through everything to the "For this reason I believe Artemis '"Jjf ""''^ °^ "** earth." (Diana) to have been named Locheia '^Plutarch : On the Face Ap- and Eileithyia, as being no other than peanng in the Orb of the Moon, 15. the Moon." " The Sun having the potency of the 636 Catullus : xxxiv. 3. heat sends and diffuses its warmth " Tu Lucina dolent'lbus and light like blood and breath. The Juno dicta puerperis, land and sea are in the world as the Tu potens Trivia, et nos bowels and bladder in the living ani- D'<='^ '"■"'"^ Luna." mal. The Moon, placed between the '" Maurice : Indian Antiquities Sun and the Earth like the liver or i. p. 513. Also Demetrius Phale- some other viscus between the heart Rius : § 159. 214 A7icie7it Art and Mythology. 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- restrial elements;"' of which there are sometimes four, but more frequently only three in the instances now extant : for the ancient Egyptians, or at least some of them, appear to have known that water and air are but one substance."* DIANA AND ISA. 142. The statues of Diana are always clothed, and she had the attribute of perpetual virginity, to which her common Greek name Artemis seems to allude ; but the Latin name ap- 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 per- sonification of the Divine nature, which the moon was prob- ably held to be in the ancient planetary worship, which pre- ceded the symbolical. As her titles and attributes were in- numerable, 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 con- sisted 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- tive attribute, 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 "'Plutarch: Ids and Osiris, 63. said to have been made by Alcamenes, '^^ Plutarch: Isis and Osiris, 36. about the 84th Olympiad. " The moist principle being the chief Pausanias ; Corinth, xxx. 2. " Alca- and source of all things from the be- menes first made three statues of ginning, produced the first three Hecate adhering together as one, bodies, earth, air, and fire." which the Athenians call turreted." "" Varro : iv. 10. Lanzi : Sopra "' See Duane's Coins of the Selea- le Lingue Morte d Italia, vol. ii. page cidse. 194. "^ De la Chausse: Roman Mu- "' La Chausse : Roman Museum, seum, vol. I. ii. vol. 1. § 2, title 20. These figures arc 215 I02 The Symbolical Language of custom to hang the testicles round the neck of the figure,"* probably for the same purpose as the phallic radii, above men- tioned, were employed to serve. THE BLOODY RITES OF BRIMO. 143. Brimo, the Tauric and Scythic Diana, was the de- troyer; whence 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 attri- bute, 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 sac- rifice, by being a libation of the soul ; the only part of the vic- 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 '•" Olaus RuDBECKius : ^//a«ftV3, "' Pausantas : Arcadia, 22,. "At vol. ii. pp. 212, 277, 291, 292, figs. 30, the festival of Dionysus, near the Ora- 31. cle of Delphi, women are scourged, as "' Lycophron : Cassandra, 1176. also are the young men among the "Brimo tritiiorphos" — Brimo three- Spartans by the Orthia." visaged. '■" Pausanias : Laconia. " The TzETZES : Scholium. " Brimo is practice of sacrificing whomever the said to be the same as Hecate . . . and lot indicated, Lycurgus changed into Persephone as Brimo : and Hecate scourging of the young men." and Persephone are the saiTie." "" PuJTARCH : Themistocles. Also See Johannes Meursius. Parallels between Grecian and Ro- "°" Dionysus Omadius, the cruel." man History, 20. LiVY: History oj See Porphyry. jRome. "' Plutarch : Lycurgus. '" Strabo : xv. 216 0P #' \ \\ Hr^' ' /I 'J ffiS ■^ J " "^.^ rZ- "^ /^ Plouton and Kerberas. 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 occa- sionally represented armed like the former; '" and also distin- guished 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 de- stroying 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 terres- trial 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 modifi- cations of the pervading Spirit concentrated in the earth. "^ LuciAN : De Dea Syria, § 4. standing in Greece, the armed image " The Sidonians have another great of the goddess. temple in Phoenicia, which, as they say, '" Plautus : Curcullo, act i. scene is of Astarte : but I think Astarte to 3. " Noctivigilia, noctiluca " — watch- be Selenaia or the Moon : as some of ing by night, shining by night, the priests assured me it was the temple '" Pausanias : Eleans,\. 19, g i. of Europa, the sister of Cadmus." — "* Strabo : viii. " Artemis borne Europa, Astarte, Venus-Urania, the by a griffin." Syrian, Phrygian, and Babylonian "' See Hunteriart Collection, coins goddesses were but the same divm- ofTelos. ity." "* Homer : Iliad, ix. 158. Bry- "' Pausanias : Corinth, iv. 7. "At ant's Translation : the citadel of Corinth is a temple of " 'TIs Pluto, who is deaf to prayer Aphrodite, and statues, representing And ne'er relents; and he of all the gods the armed goddess, the Sun and Cupid Most hateful is to mortals." with his bow." Pluto and Proserpina are invoked in There was also at Cytherea, in the Iliad ix. and Odyssey x., but only as most ancient temple of Venus-Urania rulers of the Underworld. 219 I04 The Symbolical La7igtiage of Pluto was represented with the polos or disk on his head, like Venus and Isis, — and, in the character of Serapis, with the patera of libation, as distributor of the waters, in one hand and the cornucopise, signifying its result, in the other. His name Pluto or Pliitus signifies the same as this latter symbol, and appears to have arisen from the mystic worship ; his ancient title having been Aides or Afides, signifying the In- visible, 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 drapery reaching to his feet ; wherefore he is probably meant to comprehend the attributes of both sexes ; and to be a gen- eral 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.'" THE LOTUS-SYMBOL. 146. The mystic symbol called a modius or polos, which is upon 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 669 Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 2S. femafe below. Tfiey make her also " They say that Serapis is no other sitting on horseback, or as Hippa." ■ than Pluto." Pausanias: Attica, xviii. 4. " There '™ SumAS : Aphrodite. " They is a sanctuary of Serapis whom the sculpture her (Aphrodite) with a Athenians say was introduced as a beard, and as having both male and deity by Ptolemy (Soter). Of the female organs. They style her the temples of Serapis among the .(Egyp- patroness of generation, and say that tians the most illustrious is at Alexan- from above the hips she is male, and dria, the most ancient at Memphis." '" Ammianus Marcellinus : xxil ^G^gvcjx^'^ ^'J-^^m^l^ 'imi^^iit^: "e^m^'^^ jg^u^qng Coins. Vaga, etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 105 now found in iEgypt.'" It grows in the water, and amidst its 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 produc- tive 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 sitting upon his lotus throne.''" iEGYPTlAN SCULPTURES, THEIR PERFECTION AND PRODIGIOUS ANTIQUITY. 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 to China, vo\, \\. p. 391. ^^^ Embassy to Thibet, 'p. H'i. Sir G, "* Theophrastus : History of Staunton: Embassy to China, vol. ii. Plants, iv. 10. p. 391. See also Discourse on the Worship of ^^® SoNNERAT ; Voyage aux Indes, Priapus, pp. 49, 50, 54, 58, and plate. etc. '"See K^mpfer: D'Auteroche, '■*'' Bhagavat-Cita,-p. 91. See also SoNNERAT and The Asiatic Re- the figure of him by Sir William Jones, searches. in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 243 io6 The Symbolical Language of to give that stability which is requisite to support a roof and entablature. Columns and capitals of the same kind are still existing in great numbers among the ruins of Thebes in ^gypt, and more particularly among those on the island of Philse on the borders of Ethiopia ; which was anciently held so sacred that 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 man- ner deserted. 148. We may therefore reasonably infer that the greatest 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 mag- nitude covered with figures carved out of the hard and brittle granite of the Libyan mountains, instead of the soft and 3'ield- ing 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 of Rameses is as uncertain as all other very "* DiODORUS SICULUS : i. 25. sis who died in the second year of the "' Homer: Iliad, ix. 381. 63d Olympiad, in which Cambyses in- ™ DiODORUS SicuLus : i. pp. 78, vaded Egypt. 79. " He (Psammetichus) first of the ''" Strabo : xvii. " And now ap- kings, opened tlie eraporia of Egypt pear the ruins of enormous magnitudcj to other nations, as another country." extending eighty stadia along." This prhice was the fifth before Ama- 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 Chris- tian 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 re- quire. .(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 de- fined and ascertained ; which they only could be in a regular government, the slow result of the jarring interests and pas- sions 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 or Sethi, and his son Remeses II. sur- Legation of Moses, \v2l?. xwixo^ViC^fi ow^ passed the exploits of their predeces- of these chronologers, who proves that sor, the name of Sesostris became con- William I. the conqueror and William founded with that of Sethos, and the III. of England are the same person. conquests of that king and his still Sir Gardner Wilkinson says: " The greater son were ascribed to the origi- original Sesostris was the first king of nal Sesostris." This was before the the I2th dynasty. Osirtasen, or Ses- Hyk-Sos or Phoenicio-Hellenic Shep- ortasen I., who was the first great herds. — A. W. Egyptian conqueror; but when Osirei, 225 io8 The Symbolical Language of of the mud and sand annually brought down in the waters of the Nile; and slowly transformed, by the regularly progres- sive operation of time and labor, from an uninhabitable salt- marsh 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 unrea- sonable, 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, de- duced 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.'" Neither let it be ima- '" Herodotus : ii. 143. isfactory than those of the Hebrew sa- "■i Herodotus : ii. 142. " Three cred writings. Many of the numbers generations of men make one hundred are peculiar and apparently mystical years." rather than historical ; and it is plain "' Herodotus : ii. 77. " Apart that discrepancies exist of a most in- from any such precautions, they are, I comprehensible character, baffling believe, next to the Libyans, the credulity. There are displayed in pe- healthiest people in the world, — an riods of extraordinary brevity the ex- effect of their climate, In my opinion, tremes of rustic simplicity and mature which has no sudden changes. Dis- civilisation : and petty inaccuracies ease almost always attacks men when denoting either carelessness in tran- they are exposed to a change, and never scribing, or an allegorical sense which more than during changes of the is now lost. Thus King Hezekiah at weather." twenty-five succeeds his father who '" Herodotus : ii. 4. " They died at thirty-six. Ahaziah at the age told me that the first man who ruled of forty-two is placed on the throne of over Egypt was Men, and that in his his father who had just died at forty, time all Egypt except the Thebaic There are no old Hebrew manuscripts nome or canton was a marsh, none of the scriptures in existence ; the of the land below Lake Mceris then books were collected by the Pharisee showing itself above the surface of the Rabbis under the earlier Maccabees water. This is a distance of seven and more or less revised, travestied and days' sail from the sea up the river." amended. But all the early manu- "' Few chronologies are more unsat- scripts have perished; and of those 226 Ancient Art and Mythology. 109 gined that either Herodotus, or the priest who informed him, cctuld have confounded symbolical figures with portraits : for 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 re- mains 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 an- cient .Egyptian temple, near Girjeh, figures have been ob- served exactly resembling those of the Indian deities, Jugger- naut, 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 dif- ferent orders being only different modifications of the symbol- ical columns which the Egyptians formed in imitation of the Nelumbo plant. ARCHITECTURAL PILLARS DEVISED FROM THE LOTUS. 153. The earliest capital seems to have been the bell or seed-vessel, 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 dif- ferent 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 trans- versions that exist there are disagree- "' Denon: pi. Ix. 12; pi. lix. and Ix. ments in the chronology. Ideler has "' See ib. pi. lix. i, 2, and 3, and Ix. demonstrated that the years of the i, 2, 3, &c. ; where the originals from world and the whole present chronolo- which the Greeks took their Corin- gy of the Jews were invented by the thian capitals plainly appear. It Rabbi Hillel Hanassi in the year 344. might have been more properly called None of the present Hebrew manu- the Egyptian order, as far nt least as scripts are nine hundred years old. — relates to the form and decoration.* A. W. of the capitals. 227 no The Symbolical Language of formed by their excessive attention to elegance, that it is difficult to ascertain them. The most usual seems to be the Egyptian Acacia, which was probably adopted as a mys- tic symbol for the same reasons as the olive; it being equally remarkable for its powers of reproduction."" Theophras- tus mentions a large wood of it in the Thebaid, where the olive will not grow ; "' so that we may reasonably suppose it. 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 de- rived from the Nelumbo ; its capital being the same seed-vessel pressed flat, as it appears when withered and dry ; the only state, probably, in which it had been seen in Europe. The 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 col- umn.'" 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 mean- ing. To them is frequently added the ornament which archi- tects call a honeysuckle ; but which seems to be meant for the young petals of the same flower viewed horizontally, be- fore 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. IMPOSSIBLE TO INVENT A NEW ORDER. 156. These are, in reality, all the Greek orders which are '*" Martin : On the Georgia of Vir- attributed, it must be of about the gil, ii. 119. liundredth and eleventh Olympiad, or '*' Theophrastus : Concerning three hundied and thirty years before Plants. the Christian era ; which is earlier '*" If the choragic monument of than any other specimen of Corinthian. Lysicrates was really erected in the architecture known, time of the Lysicrates to whom it is '"Homer: Odyssey, '\.se^t.\^i^|. 2J,S Coins. Alexander II., etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 1 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 combina- tion 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, sur- rounded 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 com- positions of the same kind before cited. A variety of acces- sory 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 entabla- tures, pediments, doors, and pavements. The extremities of the roofs were almost always adorned with a sort of scroll of raised curves,"' the meaning of which would not be easily dis- covered, 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 occa- sionally placed upon it ; and Derceto^ the goddess of the Phoenicians, being represented by the head and body of a woman, terminating below in a fish ; "' but on the Phoenician 584 Orphic Hymn, xlvi. was a strange representation ; half ^"Stuart : Athens, vol. I. iv. was a woman, and from the thighs to plate 3. the extremities of the feet, it appeared '"^ See coins of Tarentum, Cama- as the tail of a fish ; but in the Holy rina, &c. City (Hierapolis, or Bambyke) it was '*' LuciAN : De Dea Syria, 14. entirely woman." " The image of Derceto, in Phoenicia, 231 1 1 2 The Symbolical Language of 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-be- gotten 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 an- cient 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 pro- cured 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 nelumbo, from the other. It therefore holds the place of the male, or active generative attribute ; and accordingly we find 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 '** See coins of Syracuse, Motya, etc. Underworld, who is after all but Isis, '" Hunterian Museum : Tab. xlix. Rhea, and Cybele. — A. W. 6g. 3, etc. '™ R^cueil iT Antiquities : Vol. VII. See Inman . Ancient Faiths Em- pi. Ixiii. figs. i. 2, 3. bodied in Ancient Names, vol. ii. pp. The bull's head here is half human- 611-613. The arcane meaning of the ised, having only the horns and ears pomegranate is evidently sexual. The of the animal ; but in the more goddess Nana ate of one, and became ancient fragment of Caylus, to which pregnant. Women celebrating the Mr. Knight refers, both symbols are Thesmophoria, abstained from the unchanged. fruit rigidly. The Greek name of '" Pausanias : Corinth, xvii. 4. this fruit, rhoia, is a pun for Rhea, " The agalma of Hera is sitting upon the Mother-Goddess. In the phallic a throne, and is of gold and ivory, the symbolism, generation is a part of the work of Polycleitus ; her crown has mystery of death, and therefore its inwrought upon it the Graces and the symbol, the pomegranate, belongs very Hours ; in one hand she holds a appropriately to the Queen of the pomegranate, and in the other, a 23- Ancient Art and Mythology. 113 pine, with 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 em- blems do in those of Juno, Proserpina, and Isis.°" 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 ; '" and therefore employed by the .Egyptians as the symbol of Hermes, Mercury, or Anubis, who was the conductor of the soul from one habitation to another ; and consequently the same, in some respects, as Brimo, Hecate, or Diana, the de- stroyer."' In monuments of Grecian art, the cock is the most frequent symbol ; and in a small figure of brass, we have ob- 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, sceptre ; concerning the pomegranate, I will not speak, for it is a matter per- taining to the arcane learning of the Mysteries." The pomegranate was the symbol of the Female Nature, and was named 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- 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 curiously- shaped 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 recog- nized. The deity to whom the sacri- fice is offered is 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. We see, then, that amongst certain of the ancients, the ass, the pine cone, the basket, and the thyrsus were asso- ciated with Bacchus, or the Solar deity under the male emblem." ^®^ See coins of Syracuse, etc. '" Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 11. "They (the Egyptians) do not say that the dog is the symbol of Her- mes, but of the conservative, watch- ful, 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 in the Collection of the late Earl of Carlile. 235 114 The Symbolical Language of 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 Mer- cury, 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 cadu- ceus ; 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 gen- eral,"' 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 na- tions, was signified; °°* whence, to swear by the shoulder of the '" Pausanias : Messina, xxxiii. 87. " Why do they part the hair of " The approved shape for the Hermaic women with a spear when they are statues among the Athenians was married? Solution. . , Is it that most square, and others copied from these." of these nuptial ceremonies relate to "* Herodotus : ii. 51. "The Juno? For a spear is decreed sacred mode of making the Hermaic statues, to Juno, most of her statues are sup- with the aidoia erect, the Athenians ported by a spear, and she is named did not learn from the Egyptians, but Quiritis ; and a spear of old was called from the Pelasgians," quiris, wherefore they call Mars by the Pausanias : Bliac. ii. 16. " The name Quirinus." Hermaic statue which they venerate "" Plutarch : Romulus. " In in Cyllene above other symbols, is an Rhegiura a spear was set up and «rect phallus on a pedestal." worshipped as Ares, or Mars." '" C^SAR : JVars, vi. '»< JusTiN : History, xliii. 3. " From ""• Ammianus Marcellinus : xvi. the beginning, the ancients have wor- 5. " Occulte Mercurio supplicabat shipped spears as emblems of the im- 0ulianus) quem mundi velociorem mortal gods ; and hence, as a memorial sensum esse, motum mentium susci- of this worship, spears were set up by tantem, theologiae prodidere doctrinae." the busts of the deities." Inman : Ancient Faiths Embodied When Julius Cassar was fighting in Ancient Names, i. p. 403. " Cis (i among the Gauls, he lost his sword, Samuel, ix. i), also spelled KiSH ; which the Gauls, on finding, placed in probably from D'3, chis, ' a purse or a temple. He declined to take it bag,' an euphemism for the scrotum." again after it had thus been conse- '"^ The expression, £t>0vv8iy dopi, crated. In like manner the Philis- thus signifies to govern, and venire sub tines placed the weapons of King hasta, to be sold as a slave. Saul in the temple of Venus-Astarte "" Plutarch : Roman Questions, (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 in- violable of oaths ; "" and the deciding of civil dissensions or per- sonal 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 intro- duces 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 sword of Goliath had also been conse- crated "behind the ephod" by Ahim- elech, the high-priest of the Israelites (l Samuel, xxi. 9). Herodotus also de- clares that the Scythians erect an iron cimiter as the effigy of Mars, and offer to it more sacrifices than to all the other gods of the pantheon. The Getse, Goths, Alans, and Sarmatians also worshipped a sword, as Ammi- anus Marcellinus declares (xxxi. 2) : " Their only idea of religion is to plunge a naked sword into the ground, with barbarous rites, and worship it as Mars." Attila, the King of the Huns, having by chance become pos- sessed of a sword that had been con- secrated, 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 re- ceived 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- rites. Inman suggests that the Kenites, or Cainites, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, worshipped the lance ; one meaning of their tribal name being ]'p, Kain, or the point of a spear. Moses was an adopted member of their tribe ; David lived on amicable rela- tions 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 hiero- phants(l Chronicles, ii. 55); and Jere- miah predicted for them perpetuity of race (ch. xxxv.). — Ancient Faiths Em- bodied in Ancient Names, ii. pp. 1 1 5, 116, and 182-190. Ernest de BtJN- SEN : Keys of St. Peter, or, TJie House of Rechab. HERODOTUS : iv. 62. LuciAN : Scythia. *<" Mallet : Introduction h tffis- toire de Danemarc, ix. *"' Sophocles : Antigonl, 270. Virgil : ^»«V, xi. 785-9. '•^ Summe Deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo, Quern primi coUmus, cui pineus ardor acervo Pascitur ; et medium freti pietate per ignem Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna." '<" 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 High- landers 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 Raj- poot 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 em- bellished his animated account of the adoration of the cimiter, the symbol of Mars."— A. W. 239 1 1 6 The Symbolical Language of of the boundary between life and death, or the guardian of the passage from the upper to the lower hemisphere : to sig- nify 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, surmount- ed 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 distinction of rank, as it was among the Scythians,'" or a symbol of freedom and emancipation, as it was among the Greeks and Romans, is not easily ascertained. BURNING AND EMBALMING OF THE DEAD. 162. The dog was the emblem of destruction as well as vigilance, and sacred to Mars as well as Mercury : "' whence the ancient Northern deity, Garmr, the ^if»(7z^r^r or engulf er, 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 ; 608 Apuleius : The Golden Ass, xi. Saved me, what time my shameless " The dog raising his rough neck, his t,„ "f.'^^I IrTr?"},' • ^» f t 1 r 1 . ^ 1 1. 1 t 1 1 1 J To cast me from her sight, for I was lame, face alternately black and golden, de- Then great had been my misery, had not noted the messenger going hence and Eurynome and Thetis, in their laps, thence between the Higher and Infer- S^'^^'^f'* "f ^.^ fell,-Eurynom8, j p „ ^ Daughter of billowy Ocean.' '"' See small bronze coins of Meta- "" LuciAN : Dialogues of the Gods, pont, silver tetradrachms of yEnos, etc. xxvi. "Like an egg divided and "" See coins of Lipari, ^semia, etc. star above." «" Homer : Iliad, i. Bryant's *'" Sextus : Empirica, xi. 37. Translation. " They placed upon them caps, and " He seized me by the foot, and flung me 0° these, stars, denoting the hemis- o er pheres.' The^Jjattlements of Heaven. All day I ^ similar cap was given to the pic- And with the setting sun I struck the '"■'s of Ulysses, by Nicomachus, a earth, painter of the period of Alexander. — In Lemnos. Little life was left in me PliNY * xxxv 10 What time the Sintians took me from the „id r,*-7 , '-, ■ /^ ., • ground." Filophonkoi, cap-wearers, Scytni- AIso xviii • ^"^ °^ rank. — LuciAN : Seythia. «Ti,. c / \t. jj ■ •»!.• "» Phurnutus : The Nature of the * 1 hen of a truth a goddess is within r ^ ' Whom I must ever honor and revere ; LrOas, xxl. Who from the danger of my terrible fall *" See coins of Phocjea, etc. 240 Ancient Art and Mythology. 117 to 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 com- plete 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 uni- versal 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 monu- ments (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 '" Strabo : iv. " They and others (Celts) declare that the universe and human souls are indestructible ; but to have been formerly overcome by fire 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 ex- isted in its present condition, for an indefinite period. DiODORt;s Sicu- Lus : i. 10. Plutarch : Isis and Osiris, 47. " Theopompus declares as the doctrine of the Magians, that the gods will alternately conquer and again be sub- jected, for three thousand years, and that three thousand years more of con- test, 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. Origen : Against Celsus, iv. 20. " The Greeks alternated the periods in which the earth will be purified by flood or fire." •'' Herodotus : ii. 123. '" Jacob Bryant, whose judgment is followed by later authors, declares that the 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 Pyra- mid 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 de- signed for the holding of water, in which were placed lotos-flowers. Un- doubtedly 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, en- larged by art and cut into numerous apartments. The Egyptians, from the top of the pyramids, observed the heavens, and marked the constella- tions ; and doubtless performed many rites of worship. The structures de- nominated Cyclopean appear to have been devised after the plan of caves, indicating, perhaps, that the early 241 1 1 8 The Symbolical Langiiage of 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 cham- ber 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 time. THE DIVINER HUMAN SOUL, OR NOUS. 163. The soul, that was to be finally emancipated by fire, was the divine emanation, the vital spark of heavenly flame, the principle of reason and perception, which was personified into the familiar dasmon or genius supposed to have the direc- tion 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 un- 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."" As population of those regions were cave- «'" Homer : Iliad, iii. Priam says to dwellers. See Analysis of Ancient Helen [Bryant's translation]: Mythology, vol. v. p. 191, et ultra.— _ " I blame thee not : A. W. The blame is with the immortals who have «™ Savary : Sur rEsrypte. „^ =«■" ., ^ , . _ «'' Menander: "The mind {nous) These pestilent Greeks agamst me." is our divinity." Agamemnon in like manner vindi- "A divinity (demon) is placed with cates his conduct to Achilles, Id.xvL.: every man to be his initiator into the u The Greeks speak often of this feud, and mysteries 01 liie ; he is good ; for no cast divinity thinks ill, setting at nought The blame on me. Yet was I not the the life of excellence ; the god needs n-.f*?"!^?' j c ^ j u ■. n ,, ., . , , J ,; & "V.V.UI. But Jupiter, and Fate, and she who walks all things to be good. in darkness, dread Erynnis. It was they Plutarch, who assigns two demons, Who filled my mind with fury in the hour or genii, to each person, quotes Em- '*^''^° f"^"™ Achilles I bore off his prize." pedocles in opposition to Menander ; Pindar : Pyth. v. 164. " The great but the opinion of the latter is the mind of Zeus, who loveth men, dis- most ancient and generally received. poseth for thee the Demon." Sophocles says, "She called upon her Olympia : xi. 41. " Men are good demon." — Trachineati Women, line and wise as the demon orders." Qio. See Ovid : Fasti, vi. 5. «''>' See Eddas, and Bartholinlts. " A god is in us ; we glow with him ''■' Philolaus : Pythagorica. " The impelling us ; the internal pressure ancient theologists and prophets tes- has the seed of a sacred mind." tify that the soul, by way of penalty 242 Kore. Kybele. Plouton etc. Ancient Art and Mythology. 119 the principles of 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 knowl- edge of their affinity with the Deity; and learned to class themselves with the more exalted emanations, that flowed from the same source. 164. 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 is joined to the body, and is, so to speak, buried in tliis body." Plutarch : Discourse Coiueming the DcEmon of Socrates^ 24. *' Tlie deity converses immediately witii but a very few, and veiy seldom ; but to most he gives signs, from which the art of vaticination is 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 gen- erated existence, and in other respects separated from the body, and free from earthly care, become demons, taking care of other human beings. As ath- letes ceasing their exercises on ac- count 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 : Consolatory Letter. "As for what 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 sym- bols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood." '" Plato : Phadrus. " In the same way it is said, according to what is re- membered, that truly the soul thence- forth is led by the gods." 626 Hippocrates : Diseases, i. 27. " The blood in man contains the great- est part of the mind ; some say, all." Hippocrates: Tie Heart, viii. " 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 luminous ideas evolved from the secre- tions of the blood." Plutarch : Symposiacs, viii. 10. " The blood, the principal thing in the whole body, has both heat and the seminal moisture." Leviticus, xvii. 14. " Ye shall eat 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 con- tradiction, 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 sin, being born from above (1 John, iii. g).— A. W. *" Homer : Odyssey, xi. " I be- hold the soul of my deceased mother, sitting near the blood in silence ; nor does she dare look upon her son, as to speak. ... I remained till my moth- er came and drank of the blood ; then immediately she knew me and lament- ing addressed me." 245 I20 The Symbolical Language of means of which their faculties were replenished by a reunion with that principle of vitality from which they had been sep- arated; 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 cus- tomary, 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 '*' Orphica. " The father of gods tores Verrius, quibus credere sit ne- and men placed us, the mind [nous] cesse, Jovis ipsius simulachri faciem in the soul, and the soul in the sluggish diebus festis minio illini solitam, tri- body." umphantumque corpora : sic Camillum Gesner : J\ri!te on Orphica. " Ac- triumphasse." cording to this philosophy, the fsuche "*' Orph. Hymn., xlv. The XiKVOV, is the soul, or oKJOTa, by which animate however, was the mystic sieve in thingslive, breathe, and are sustained ; which Bacchus was cradled; from the nous is the mind, the something which the title may have been derived, more divine, added or placed in cer- though the form of it implies an active tain souls by deity." rather than a passive sense. See He- 629 Homer : Odyssey, x. 491. " You SYCH. in voc. must come to the abode oi^ Pluto and '^' VlRGH : Georges, i. 166. " Mys- awful Persephoneia, to consult the tica vannus lacchi. " .soul of Theban Tiresias, the blind Osiris has the winnow in one hand, prophet, whose mental powers (p/ire- and the hook of attraction in the nis) are stable; to whom, now dead, other; which are more distinctly ex- Persephoneia has given mind (nous), pressed in the large bronze figure of that he may be truly wise." him engraved in pi. ii. of vol. i. of the '™ PausaniAS : ii. 3, 4. Select Specimens, than in any other we •'' Plutarch : Concerning the Ro- know. Even in the common small fig- mans. " Speedily blossoms the red ures it is strange that it should ever (milthinon) with which they anointed have been taken for a whip ; though it the ancient statues." might reasonably have been taken for WlNKELMAN : History of Arts, i. 2. a flail, had the ancients used such an Puny; xxxiii. 7. " Enumerat auc- instrument in thrashing corn. 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 monu- ments ; 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 ceremo- nies 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 secret offenses.'" A solemn ablution, too, always preceded in- itiation into the .(Egyptian and Eleusinian mysteries;"" and when a Jewish proselyte was admitted, he was immersed in the presence of three witnesses, after being circumcised, but before he was allowed to make the oblation by which he professed "■' Ovid : Fasti, iv. er. Apollodorus : Bibliotheca, i. 5, g Cerle ego transilui positas ter in ordine 2. "Desiring to make the infant im- flamflias, ^ mortal, she placed him in the fire of Virgaquerorataslaureamisit aquas. „;g^j^ ^,,^ ^_^ ^^^^ j^j, ^^^.^^ 636 ATHEN.EUS : ix. flesh." 686 Plutarch : Roman Questions, i. 637 Qvid : Fasti, v. 2. "Is it because fire refines and water "^AruLEius: hu Golden Ass, xi. eleanseth, and a married woman ought Diodorus Siculus : i. to remain pure and chaste ?" 247 122 The Symbolical Language of himself a subject of the true God. As 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 connec- tion of country, relation, or friend."" 167. Purification by fire is still in use among the Hindus, as it was among the earliest Romans,"" and also among the native Irish; men, women, and children, and even cattle, in 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 differ- ent personified attributes."" This rite was probably the abom- ination, 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 sup- pose 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 Heathen- ism ; 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, An, quia cunctarum contraria semina re- ix Iq2 TMra. flirt T-i' TT Sunt duo, discordes iafnis et unda dei : «*> DIONYSIUS OF HalICARNASSUS : Junxerunt elementa patres: aptumque pu- Roman Aiitiquities, Ixxxviii. " Romu- tarunt lus commanded fires to be built by the , Ignibug, et sparsa tangere corpus aqua? *„ . J J .u 1 ^ An, quod in his vitEe caussa est ; haec per- tents and caused tlie people to pass diditexul: >- ^ , m.^., ^^i through the fires for the purification His nova fit conjux : hsec duo magna pu- of their bodies." '^°' ' '■" Collecian. de reb. Hibernic. No. v. This is probably the construction p. 64. that ought usually to be given, Ahaz "' Olaus RUDBECKius: Atlant.'?. and Man.isseh made their sons pass ii. V. p. 140. through the fire to Moloch-Hercules ; «J3 Ayeen Akberry, and Maurice's but the former is also said to have Antiquities of India, vol. v. p, 1075. " burnt his children in the fire," while "* Ovid : Fast. iv. 781. the latter " shed innocent blood very , , . . much, till he had filled Jerusalem »°n5^^„an, '" Macrobius : Saturnalia, i. 22. Themaidensby my porch at night, " Lord of Primal Matter." Welcome with joyftif song." "" Sophocles: Ajax, 694-700. '" Aristotle: Art of Poets, i. "lollo! Pan! Pan! ''" LUCIAN : De Saltatione, 43. Oh Pan, thou ocean-wanderer, " The Imitative Art is a certain knovifl- OfTnow-bou!f/cyl!ln3, edge, an exhibition, a showing of Show thyself. Prince of the Gods, things arcane to the mental powers, Who leadest the dance ! " and the expressing of the things which ''' LuciAN : Concerning the Dance, are occult." 280 Ancient Art and Mythology. 139 in words ; for the truth of which, however, we do not vouch, the attempt being sufficient. Dancing was also a part of the ceremonial in all mystic rites : "' 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 political rank and dignity, condescended to cultivate it as an useful 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 Corin- thian 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 imita- tive 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; 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, how- ever, which held so high a rank among liberal and sacred arts, was entirely imitative, and esteemed honorable or other- "' Athen^US : Deipnosophista, i. old age. The fair-haired Graces also 17. dance, and the Hours, Harmonia, LuciAN : De Saltatione. " No an- Hebe, and Venus-Aphrodite, daughter cient initiation can be found where of Zeus, each holding the other's there is not dancing." hands by the wrist. And with them Judges, xxi. ig. The Israelites had sport Ares and watchful Hermes ; and the same custom. Phcebus Apollo strikes the harp, tak- «8 Athen.«us : Deipnosophista. ing grand and imposing steps. Both ''" Homer : Hymn to Apollo. golden-tressed Leto and deep-planning "The Muses, answering with melo- Zeus are delighted to perceive the dious voice, sing the gifts imperishable mighty Mind, their dear Son, thus of the gods, and the sufferings of men, sporting among the gods." who with all they have received of the '** Athen^us : xix. immortals, are unable, nevertheless, '^^ LuciAN : De Saltatoine. to procure counsel and resources by "" Sophocles : AJax. " Nyssian which to keep off death, and ward off and Knossian Dances alike." 283 140 Tlie Symbolical Langtiage of wise, in proportion to the dignity or indignity of what it was meant to express. The highest was that which exhibited mil- itary 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 Gladi- ator" 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 of history. PAN, THE NYMPHS, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE SEXUAL SYM- BOLISM. 188. Pan, like other mystic deities, was wholly unknown to the first race of poets ; 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 ^gypt. Pan was commonly represented under the symbolical form of the goat half-humanised ; "' from which are derived his 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 an- cient 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 embel- lishment of an idea, that he carried out with him."' M. De- 131 Athen^ub : Deipnosophista, xiv. and Pan is represented in Egypt by 26. the painters and the sculptors, just as he "' Herodotus : ii. 146. " To me is in Greece, with the face and legs of it is quite manifest that the names of a goat. They do not, however, be- these gods became known to the lieve this to be his shape, or consider Greeks after those of their other dei- him in any respect unlike the other ties ; and that they count their birth gods ; but tliey represent him thus for from the time when they first acquired a (mystical) reason which I prefer a knowledge of them." not to relate. ... In Egyptian the ™ Herodotus: ii. 46. "These goat and Pan are both called Men- Egyptians, who are the Mendesians, des." consider Pan to be one of the eight "* See print fewn Mr. Bruce's draw- gods who existed before the twelve ; inq;, in Dr, BuWlO^S History of Music. 284 r Nereid on a Monster, Nereid on a Hippocampus. Ancient Art and Mythology. 141 non, in his more accurate and extensive survey of the same ruins, 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 the 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 more exalted genealogy."' 190. Pan is sometimes represented ready to execute his characteristic ofi&ce, 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 "' Catullus : In Celt. " Oceanus, father of the Nymphs." See also, Callimachus : Hymn to Diana ; and ^EscHYLUS: Prometheus Bound. "' Homer : Iliad, vi. " Mountain Nymphs, Daughters of segis-bearing Jupiter, Came to the spot, and planted it with elms." Odyssey : vi. 123. "A female voice of damsel Nymphs who possess tlie lofty summits of the mountains and the fountains of the rivers, and the grassy marshes, has come' around me." '" Iliad: xxi. " Achelous, Idng Of rivers, cannot viewithliim, nor yet The great and mighty deep nrom wtiich proceed AU streams and seas and founts and wa- tery depths." '^ The term Nymph is evidently more peculiar than Mr. Knight has indicated. In the later Greek writers it is applied to a young woman be- trothed or newly-married. More an- ciently, however, it always related to a race of females, descended from Zeus or Oceanus, who presided over foun- tains and streams of water. Indeed, Suidas has defined nymph to mean : I. a fountain ; 2. a nubile or newly- married woman ; 3. a part of the female sexual organism. It evidently was introduced into Greek usage to denote the female principle, supposed to be expressed by water. Hence the lotos was named Nymphtea, Jacob Bryant (Analysis of Ancient Mythol- ogy, ii. 345, etc.) has derived the term from the "Amonian" words ain, a fountain, and omphe, an oracle ; after- ward contracted into Numpha. It is vt-orthy of note that nympheea or oracle-houses were always by such fountains : and it was doubtless from an idea of peculiar spiritual or mantis- tic qualities supposed to be peculiar to the female sex, that the same de- signation was applied to a part of their body. Suidas informs us that the mother of Zeus or Jupiter was called Nympha by the Athenians ; thus figuring mystically his origin from the Divine Female Principle of the Universe. — A. W. '3» Figures of this character are fre- quent ; and Mr. Knight has preserved copies in his celebrated treatise " On the Worship of Priapus." 287 142 The Symbolical Language of it,"° but more commonly standing near water, and accom- panied 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. 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 ex- actly answers to Priapus, or the generative attribute consid- ered 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 ac- cessory 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, tav. xciii. priests assuming the hereditary sacer '*' Petronius : Satyriacon, 136-7. dotal rank in Egypt, are first initiated Published in the Bohn Library. into the sacred Mysteries of this god." "' See coins of Clazomenae in Pel- "8 Inman : Ancient Faiths Embod- leria, and the Hunterian Museum. ied in Ancient Names, vols. i. ii.; also '■'" Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantica, Ancient Pagan and Modem Christian part II. V. Also Olaus Magnuson : Symbolism. ix. 15. "' Pindar : See Strabo : xvii. "' DIODORUS SICULUS : i "They .. By the Mendesian steep, at the border say that the iLgyptians employed the of the sea, goat as the Priapus was employed by The horn of the Nile where herded goats the Greeks, to signify the sexual mingle with womeQ." parts." Herodotus : ii. " A goat copu- "' R. Payne Knight : " The lated publicly with a woman at a pub- Worship of Priapus:' lie assembly of men." DiODORUs SicuLus : i. Diodorus Siculus : i. " In the "• Worship of Priapus. Also Dl- prescribed forty days the women only ODORUS Siculus. saw him (Apis) standing before his "' Diodorus Siculus . i. " The 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 monu- ments 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 explan- ation 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 ex- actly 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 ani- mals, especially in engravings upon gems, where we often find the forms of the ram, goat, horse, cock, and various others, blended into one, so as to form Pantheic compositions, signi- fying the various attributes and modes of action of the Deity."' hibited their sexual parts ; but the See Tracts on Flagellations, col- rest of the time, it was forbidden them lected by the late Henry Buckle ; also to come into the presence of the divin- The Merry Sisters of St, Bridget, etc. ity." '" Strabo : xvii. " The Mende- Plutarch : Brute Beasts Making sians revere the goat, especially the Use of Reason, 5. Gryllus : " The male." Mendesian goat in ^gypt, which is Herodotus : ii. 46. " The Mende- reported to have been shut up with sians hold all goats in veneration, but several beautiful women, yet never to the male more than the female." have offered copulation with them, "' Cicero : Nature of the Gods, i. but when he was at liberty, with a 29. " With goat-skin, spear, shield, lustful fury flew upon the she-goats." and with open buskins." 160 <■ Lg[ (jjg rough goat approach "* Found in numerous gems copied the Trojan matrons." in Mr. Knight's Treatise upon the '" Ovid: Fasti, ii. "Speedily the Worship of Ptiapus; but never upon man a father, the wife a mother was." coins. 291 144 The Symbolical Language of 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 attri- butes 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 fabu- lous 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 Didy- mseus 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 Gre- cian 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. symbols in the temple of Bel at "• Homer : Iliad, i. [Bijant's Babylon. Translation]: "' Pausanias : Achaia, ii. 4. " The "Thou didst come and loose sanctuary of Apollo in Didymi and the His bonds, and call up to the Olympian oracle are more ancient than any other The huldred-handed, whom the immortal bmlding among the lonians ; much gods older still than the Ephesian Artemis, Have named Briareus, but the sons of among the lonians." men^geon." ik Plutarch : Sympodacs, V. 3. See also Pindar : Pythia, i. and " Thus began the enquiry why the an- viii. cients dedicated the pine to Poseidon Such figures were also employed in and Dionysus. As for my part it did the mythological sculpture and other not seem incongruous to me, for both representations of ancient Egypt. the gods seem to preside over the Berosus notices these composite moist seminal and generative prin- 292 Ancient Art and Mythology. 145 CYBELE COMBINED WITH DEITIES OF OTHER WORSHIPS. 193. A female Pantheistic figure in silver with the borders of the drapery plated with gold, 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 uni- versal 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 liba- tion upon the flames of an altar from a golden patera, with the usual knob in the centre of it, representing, probably, the 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. 194. How the days of the week came to be called by the names of the planets, or why 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 con- jecture. The earliest notice of it in any ancient writing now extant, is in the work of an historian of the beginning of the 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 ciple ; and to the Poseidon Phytalmios ones in silver, found with it, came in- (nourisher of plants) and Dionysus to Mr. Knight's possession. Dendrites (patron of trees) all the "" Olaus Rudbeckius ; Atlantica, Greelcs sacrifice." vols. i. p. go and ii. p. 212, fig. 4, and ™ Vol. VII. pi. Ixxi. pp. 161, 162. The plated parts remain entire. "' The part of Plutarch's Sympo- The picture and several other small siacs. in which it was discussed, is un- fortunately lost. 295 146 The Symbolical Language of scale, beginning with Saturn, the most remote from the cen- tre, and 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 plan- ets ; the ancient nations of the North having consecrated each 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 lan- guages, were applied both to the planets and to the days of the week consecrated to them, the ancient mythological order of the titles was retained, though the ideas expressed by them were no longer religious, but astronomical. Perhaps, too, it may be accounted for from the Ptolemaic system ; 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 Sat- urday be sacred to Saturn, the eighth, fifteenth, and twenty- second, will be so likewise; so that the twenty-third will be- long 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. 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 it, as in the rest, it is terminated in a human head."^ This goddess is unquestionably the Isis whom "' Cass. Dion. : xxxvi. p. 37. '«= Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantica, Hyde's : De Relig. Vet Persar. v. TI. v. page 219. 2q6 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 repre- sented 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, com- posed of an old woman with one male child in her lap and another standing by her, which probably represented Isis and her ofiFspring. They had likewise another idol, called the 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 silver tetradrachm of Lampsacus,"" engraved in pi. Ixii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens. 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 ex- tant, appear to have been composed of one of these cones set into the ground, with another stone placed upon the point of it, and so nicely balanced, that the wind could move it, though so ponderous that no human force, unaided by machinery, can displace it ; whence they are now called logging rocks, and '"Tacitus: Germany, c. i-n. '«' Olaus Rudbeckius: Atlantica. •""•^ Isiac Table; also Olaus Rud- II. vi. pp. 512, 513. BECKlus: .,4^/a«/;V3, V. pp. 209, 210. ""In the cabinet of Mr. Payne "' Olaus Rudbeckius : Atlantica, Knight. II. V. page 280. 299 148 The Symbolical Language of pendre stones™ as they were anciently living stones, and stones of God :'"'' titles, which differ but little in meaning from that on the Tyrian coins. Damascius saw several of them in the 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,'" as it still is by the Hindus, was of this kind."* Such immense 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 ani- mated 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 move- ments 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 be- fore the Christian era : wherefore we are persuaded that it was originally nothing more than one of these baitiilia or symbol- ical 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^. 713; Arnnobius: i. ; Herodian: /?2 '™ " Stones ensouled and Baitulia." Macrino. Pseudo-Sanchon. : Frag, apud Eus- '" Genesis, xxviii. 22. " And this eiium. The last title, Baitulia, seems stone which I have set up for a pillar, to be a corruption of the scriptural shall be God's House (Beth-El)." A name Bethel. teme7ios or enclosure was also made "'Damascius: Vila Isidori. "I there ; and subsequently a sacred Calf saw the Bcetuliiim moving in the air." set up, which was afterward carried '"Norden: G^rMw/a//, page 7g. away and placed in the Museum of KiRCHER: China Illustrated, page the king of Assyria. Hosea,-!L.ii. 270. "5 Homer : Odyssey, xviii. " Be- '" Clem. Alex. : Miscellanies, vii. yond tile city where is a Hermaic 300 Ancient Art and Mythology. 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 con- ductor;"" 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 obelisk with a phallus ; of which several are extant ; as also a female draped figure terminating below in the same square form. These seem to be of the Venus-Architis, or primitive Venus ; of whom there was a statue in wood at Delos, sup- posed to be the work of Daedalus ; '" and another in a temple upon Mount Libanus, of which Macrobius's description ex- actly corresponds with the figures now extant ; of which one is given in pi. Iviii. of vol. i. of the Select Specimens. " Her ap- 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 gratu- lation 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 powers enveloped in gloom and sadness. Some of these 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. cairn " or lophos. The expression is were deposited at the cross-roads." — doubtless an interpolation. The cairns, A. W. pillars, and obelisks, erected at the "^ Anthology, i. Epigramm 12. crossings of streets (Jeremiah, xi. 13) Phurnutus : Nature of the Gods. were regarded as consecrating those ''" Pausanias : Bceotia, xi. 12. places. It is a curious result that the " The Delians have a statue of Aphro- change of religion has rendered the dite (by Da;dalus), which is a four- same spots unhallowed, and that ac- sided figure to the feet." cordingly suicides and criminals that "' Macrobius : Saturnalia, i. 21. might not be buried in "holy ground," "Capite obnupto, specie tristi, faciem manu teva intra amictam sustinens ' 301 I50 The Symbolical Language of 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 Pe- lasgian 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 : ii. 3. "» Herodotus : ii. 51. "The pe- culiarity which the Greeks observe in their statues of Mercury they did not derive from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgi. Whoever has been in- itiated into the Mysteries of the Ca- beiri will understand what I mean. The Samothracians received these Mysteries from the Pelasgi, who be- fore they went to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and imparted their religious ceremonies to the in- habitants. The Athenians, then, who were first of all the Greeks to make their statues of Mercury in this way, learnt the practice from the Pelas- gians ; and by this people a religious account of the matter is given, which is explained in the Samothracian Mys- teries." '*' Hunterian Museum : table xlvi. fig. 21. Also coins belonging to Mr. Knight. '*' Scholiast upon Apollonius Rho- dius ; Book I. v. 917. " They are initiated into the Mysteries of the Ca- beiri in Samothrace, whose names Mnaseas tells us. They are four in number : Axieros, Axiokersa, Axio- kersos. Axieros is Demeter ; Axio- kersa is Persephone, and Axiokersos is Hades or Pluto. The fourth placed in the number, Casmilus, is Hermes as Dionysidorus relates." . " They add also a fourth, Kadmilus (Kadmiel), who is Hermes." '83 Lycophron : v. 162. " Kad- milus, the Boeotian Hermes," or Mer- cury. 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. Cadmil- lus is 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 de- struction, 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 dif- fered ; nevertheless, it appears from the comparing of evidence, the Cabei- rian like other sacred Orgies, were somewhat changed in different coun- tries, but were substantially alike. They involve the leading idea of the Eleusinian and Sabazian Mysteries, and a portion of the mythological his- tory. The same dances upon the sup- posed plan of the planetary system, wailing for the First-Bom, dividing and occupying of the earth, and the introduction of the arts, characterise these rites. We suppose, therefore. 302 Hermes drawn by Cocks. cy^A:> .. « / r Kadmos and Hermic Ancient Art and Mythology. 151 Thebes, were called Cadmeians from the title of their deity than from the name of their chief. THE PALM-TREE SYMBOL. 201. The Egyptian Mercury, or Thoth, carried a branch of palm in his hand, which his priests also wore in their san- dals,'" probably as a badge of their consecration to immortal- ity: for this tree is mentioned in the Orphic Poems as pro- verbial 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 humid- ity.'" The pillars in many ancient .Egyptian temples repre- sent palm-trees with their branches lopped off; and it is prob- able that the palm-trees in the temple of Solomon were pillars that they comprehended the old Asia- dian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 273, and tic Pagan system of Fire and Serpent which represents a Phoenician coin, a worship, which the Phoenicians dif- tree resembling the palm is depicted, fused over Asia, Syria, and Palestine, surrounded by the serpent, and stand- and conveyed to their colonies in ing between two stones ; below is an other regions of the world ; and it is altar apparently to the sacred Triad." probable that the Babylonians had the The Greek term for palm, Phcenix, same. The other Mysteries were im- is also the designation of Phoenicia, itations. — A. W. the land of palm trees ; and one title '** Apuleius : The Golden Ass, ii. of the deity was Baal-Tamar, or Lord xi. of the Palm. The designation appears '"' Plutarch : Symposiacs, viii. 4. to have been originally one of honor. " The palm, never shedding its foliage. The royal shepherds of Egypt were is continually adorned with the same called Phoenicians and Hellenes, and green. This power of the tree men Phoenix is said to have come from think agreeable to and fit for repre- Egypt to Tyre. It was originally a senting victoi-y." title of men of rank, like the Anakim "^ Gesnerius; table Ixxxiv. figs. 40, or Sons of Anak in Palestine, and the 43. Anax andron 'or king of men in the Inman : Ancient Faiths Embodied Iliad. Bacchus is also called Ph-anax ill Ancietit Names, ii. 448, 449. " On or Phoenician, the god of the palm, ancient coins it figured largely alone. The use of the palm at triumphs was orassociated with some female symbol, a testimony to royal, or at least, noble It typified the male Creator, who was rank. — A. W. represented as an upright stone, a pil- ''*'' Plutarch : Pythagorean Dia- lar, a round tower, a tree stump, an logues. " The Creator (Demiurgus) oak-tree, a pine-tree, a maypole, a figuratively derived from the principle spire, an obelisk, a minaret, and the of moisture (or the female principle) like. . . In a curious drawing the nourishment of the sun, generated which is copied from Maurice's In- existence and caloric." 305 152 The Symbolical Language of of the same form ; "° that prince having admitted many pro- fane 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 dis- tinctions 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 indi- vidual 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 per- sons 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. The symbolical meaning of the olive, the fir, and the "* PococKE : Travels in the East, the long-trained lonians are assembled i. p. 217. in honor of thee, with their children '*' Homer : Odyssey, vi. 162. " I and respected wives. They delight saw such a young shoot of a palm thee with boxing, dancing, and song, growing up in Delos near the altar of when they begin the contest. . . . Apollo." The Delian girls, the servants of the 190 Plutarch : Symposiacs, ix. 15, Far-Shooter, after they have first " Dancing is made up of motion and chanted hymns to Apollo, and to Leto manner, as a song is of sounds and and shaft-rejoicing Artemis, calling to sobs. The motions they call phorai mind the heroes and heroines of old, and the gestures and likeness to which sing an ode and charm the crowds of the motions tend, they descriminate men. They ken how to imitate the sebemata ; as for instance, when they voices and modulation of all ; so that represent the figure of Apollo, Pan, or each man could say that he had him- any of the BacchEe." self spoken, so beautiful an imitation See also O'Brien : Round Towers had been made of them." of Ireland, p. 237. " The god had ""' See Aristophanes : Horses, line compassion, and danced ; and the sun, 520. moon and stars danced with him." "' Aristophanes : Frogs, line 209. Also Judges, xxi. ig-z'}. '"■' .iEschylijs : see Strabo, x. p. ■""' Homer: Hymn to Apollo. "There 721. 306 Ancient Art and Mythology, 153 apples, the 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 man- ner 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 accord- ingly find the proud city of Syracuse bribing a citizen of Cau- lonia 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. ' The Psalm resounds, "8 DiODORUS SlCULUS : xiii. 82. The Bull-voiced mimes striking terror with i99Ptttcv' v\\ At their mystic cries: „ ■^.''''" V' • ^ ^ ir .. c^x. With the drum an Echo Boxing, being itself a part ot the As of thunder under ground, is produced, ancient worship, those who perished Making aU things tremble." ;„ the contests were regarded as sacri- '96 Hesychius: "Parsley, the femin- fices to the gods, as probably were ine." those who perished by the gladiators. "° Plato : The Republic, v. chap. All these exhibitions were religious 15. "That most blessed life which rather than for diversion, solely or those live who gain the Olympic principally. It must be remembered prizes." that human victims were offered in See also Sophocles: Electra, one form or another in Rome, Africa, '" Pausanias: vi. 3. Asia, and Greece, till long after the Christian Era.— A. W. 309 154 ^■^^ Symbolical Language of NOBLE QUALITIES CONSIDERED AS THE PRODUCT OF DIVINE EMANATION. 203. This custom of canonising or deifying men seems to have arisen from that general source of ancient rites and opin- ions, 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, accord- ing to this system, from the Deity, the commanding talents and splendid qualities of particular persons were naturally sup- posed to proceed from particular emanations; whence such persons were, even while living, honored with divine titles ex- pressive 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 con- secration to their protection. The founder of the Persian monarchy was called by a name, which in their language signi- fied 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 Egyp- tians, prior to their subjection to the Macedonians, never wor- *<"' Homer : Odyssey, x. 6. Hesychius. " The Persians say »' Plutarch : Sentiments which *^' 5^™' ^^"™S " v f '*'"• '''^fL j.n^ut.j D!,;i„,^j,^, : o " tk^i^ Kawlinson : Herodotus, vi. Appen- dehghted Philosophers, I. Z. ' Thales, ,• Note A 'Tvni^ rOld Persian Pythagoras. Plato and the Stoics, con- Z''- ^°\^ ^■,. ^^^^p ^^^°- Persian sider the demons to be psychical be- ^"™*-) , ^liis word was generally ings ; that the heroes are souls separa- s"P?°=ed by the Greeks to mean he ted from the bodies ; some are good f'' "• .*;%" ^"^ "ifntified with the and some bad : the good, the iood |^"^."" ^^P"^' ^end Hware, modern souls, and the bad. those whose souls f^"ff°' ^/'«% ^\. '^ "°^ suspected are worthless." that this identification was a mistake, as the old Persian A never replaces "" Pindar : Nemea. "^^ Sanscrit S. The name is more " One race of men, one of gods- properly compared with the Sanscrit From one mother we both breathe, Kuru, which was a popular title All power is held separated." among the Aryan race before the se- BD, «„„„,.„ D •