The name Kybelé is probably derived from the cymbals (kúμSos, kúμßaλa) used in her worship. Κότυς ἢ Κοτυττὼ καὶ Βενδῖς. (Kotyttó et Bendis.) Kotys or Kotyttó was a goddess worshipped by the Thracians, whose kings were frequently named from her. She was apparently identical with the Phrygian Kybelé.' Her worship was introduced at Athens and at Corinth, where it was celebrated in private with great indecency and licentiousness.2 Bendis, another Thracian goddess, had some analogy with Artemis and Hekaté,3 and she also was probably the same with Kybelé. Her worship was adopted at Athens; her temple named the Bendideion was in the Peiræeus, and a festival named the Bendideia was celebrated in her honour.5 *Αρτεμις ἐν Ἐφέσῳ. (Diana Ephesia.) The Ephesian Artemis was another Asiatic goddess whose worship was adopted by the Greeks. From their confounding her with their own Artemis, it would seem that they regarded her as the Moon-goddess; though her attributes might lead to an identification of her with Kybelé." The most ancient statue of the Artemis of Ephesos was a black stone which had fallen from heaven,-an aërolite of course. Her subsequent ones were a sort of Pantheón, a compound of various attributes. She is covered with breasts and with the heads of animals, and stands an image either of the natural fecundity of the earth, or of that supposed to be induced by the influence of the moon. Nothing can be clearer than that this goddess was originally distinct from the Artemis of the Greeks. Yet in after times we find them so completely identified, that the Ephesians in the reign of Tiberius maintained," "that Apolló and Diana were not born in Délos, as was commonly supposed; but that the river Kenchrios and the grove Ortygia, where the travailing Latona, resting against an olive-tree which still existed, brought forth these deities, were with them." In like manner the people of Tegyra in Bœótia appropriated to themselves the birth of Apolló, calling a hill near his temple Délos, and two springs Palm and 1 Strabo, x. 3, 16, p. 470. 2 See Buttmann, Mythol. ii. 159 seq. Lobeck, 1007 seq. These writers have collected all the passages in the ancients relating to this subject. 3 Palæphat. 32. Eudocia, 418. Hesych. v. díλoyos. 5 Plat. Rep. i. 354. See Müller, Dor. i. 403. 4 Xen. Hell. ii. 4. Olive; they also took to themselves the Delphian legends of Tityos and Pythón.1 We even find the whole mythic cycle of Létó, Apolló, and Artemis, transferred to Egypt,-Létó becoming Butó, Apolló O'ros, and Artemis Bubastés, and an island in the Nile, said (for Hérodotos could not perceive it to move) to be a floating one, Délos.2 "Iois. Isis. Isis was one of the chief deities of Egypt and spouse of Osíris. Her worship was introduced during the Alexandrian period into Greece, and afterwards into Rome. The Isiac mysteries were among the secret ones, and abounded in gross superstition, vile juggling, and scandalous indecency. As the goddess herself is by Hérodotos identified with the Grecian Démétér, we are to suppose that she was one of those personifications of nature, or of the productive power of the earth, which we find among most ancient nations. Egypt is once mentioned in the Ilias. In the Odyssey,5 Egypt, the Egyptians, and the river Egyptos are spoken of; and from these passages we may perhaps collect, that the Greeks, particularly the Krétans, used in those times to make piratical incursions on that country. Hésiod names the Nile. His Homer's Egypt," says Zoega," 7 66 seems to me to be altogether fabulous; it presents nothing local, nothing characteristic. Egyptians are Greeks; the presents which they give to Menelaos are such as a Greek would have given; Egyptian antiquity knows nothing of tripods. The poet had merely picked up some obscure reports of a rich city, Thébes, an island, Pharos, and that the Egyptians were good physicians, and used a kind of opium. The historic circumstances of the voyage of Menelaos, his adventures there, etc., are fictions. Regarded from this point of view many difficulties vanish, and many fine systems fall to pieces. The land of Egypt no longer increases in extent a whole day's journey toward the north, Memphis is no longer founded after the destruction of Troy. The more ancient Greeks named the Delta Egypt, the rest Thébes, for which reason Memphis might very 1 Plut. Pelop. 16. 3 Hérod. ii. 156. Diodór. i. 13, 14. Osíris and Isis were Sun and Moon. Isis fied with Athéna, Plut. de Is. et Os. 9. Nile which fructified the land of Egypt, of a far higher order. 2 Hérod. ii. 155, 156. Elsewhere Diodóros says (i. 11) that was also as the goddess of Saïs identiOsíris was by some regarded as the but we incline to think he was a being 4 Il. ix. 381. 257 seq.; xvii. 426 seq. 5 Od. iv. 351, 355, 477, 483; xiv. 246. 6 Theoy. 338. The passage, however, is probably an interpolation. See above, p. 46. 7 Ap. Völck. Hom. Geog. 129. well be the Thébes of Homer. This poet had no knowledge of the true site of Thebes." From Hérodotos1 we learn, that when (Ol. 27) the Egyptian prince Psammitichos was driven by his competitors for the throne to seek shelter in the marshes of the Delta, he was told by the oracle of Butó that brazen men from the sea would be his avengers. Shortly afterwards some Karians and Iónians, who were out a-pirating, were driven by stress of weather to Egypt, where they landed and began to plunder the country. As, after the Grecian fashion, they wore brass armour (a sight unusual to the Egyptians),2 word was brought to Psammitichos that brazen men had landed and were plundering. Calling to mind the oracle, he sent to invite them to enter his service: they consented, and with their aid he made himself master of Egypt. He assigned them a settlement near the Pélusiac mouth of the Nile, whence their descendants were about eighty years afterwards removed to Memphis by Amasis to serve as his guards. This monarch appointed the town named Naukratis, which he allowed the Greeks to build on the Kanóbic arm of the Nile, to be the emporium of the trade of Greece and Egypt, just as Canton used to be that of the trade between China and Europe. Vessels were allowed to enter that port alone; and if driven into any other by stress of weather, they were obliged to sail for it, or their cargoes, if the wind was still rough, were conveyed thither in barges round the Delta. Amasis, who was a great favourer of the Greeks, permitted them to erect altars and consecrate pieces of land (Teμévea) to their national deities. These religious colonies extended far up the country, and we even find the Samians in one of the Oases.* 3 When the Iónians and Karians settled in Egypt, Psammitichos put some Egyptian children under their care, to be instructed in the Greek language; and, as everything in that country was regarded on the principle of castes, these and their descendants formed the caste of Interpreters, whom Hérodotos found there two centuries afterwards.5 We may thus see at once how in a space of two hundred years, by means of these interpreters, and of the introduction of the worship of the Grecian deities, the artful priesthood of Egypt may have contrived to frame the system above noticed, of the derivation of the religion and civilisation of Greece from the land of the Nile. From this digression we return to the gods of Greece. 1 Hérod. ii. 152, 153. The historian asserts positively, that previous to this time the Greeks knew nothing certain about Egypt. 2 Yet in the Odyssey (xiv. 268; xvii. 437) the Egyptians are armed in brass 3. Hérod. ii. 154. 5 Id. ii. 154. 4 Id. iii. 26. CHAPTER XVI. RURAL DEITIES:-PAN, SATYRS, SILENOS, PRIAPOS, Пáv. Pan. THIS god is unnoticed by Homer and Hésiod, but according to one of the Homérids he was the son of Hermés by an Arkadian nymph.1 Hermés, he says, smitten with love for the daughter of Dryops (Woody), abandoned Olympos and took service as a shepherd in Arkadia. He succeeded in gaining the heart of the 'welltressed nymph,' and a child was the result of their secret interviews. But so monstrous was his appearance, that the nurse on beholding him fled away in affright. Hermés immediately caught him up, wrapped him carefully in a hare-skin, and carried him away to Olympos : then taking his seat with Zeus and the other gods, he produced his babe. All the gods, especially Dionýsos, were delighted with the little stranger; and they named him Pan (i.e. All), because he had charmed them all. Others fabled that Pan was the son of Hermés by Pénelopé, whose love he gained under the form of a goat, as she was tending in her youth the flocks of her father on Mount Taÿgeton. Some even went so far as to say that he was the offspring of the amours of Pénelope with all her suitors. According to Epimenidés,* Pan and Arkas were the children of Zeus and Kallistó. Aristippos made Pan the offspring of Zeus and the nymph Enéis, others again said he was a child of Heaven and Earth." There was also a Pan said to be the son of Zeus and the nymph Thymbris or Hybris, the instructor of Apolló in divination." 5 The worship of Pan seems to have been confined to Arkadia till the time of the battle of Marathón, when Pheidippidés, the courier who was sent from Athens to Sparta to call on the Spartans for aid against the Persians, declared that, as he was passing by Mount Parthenion near Tegea in Arkadia, he heard the voice of Pan calling to him, and desiring him to ask the Athenians why they paid no regard to him, who was always, and still would be, friendly and assisting to them. After the battle the Athenians consecrated a cave to Pan under the Akropolis, and offered him annual sacrifices. 1 Hom. Hymn xviii. 7 Above, p. 110. Sch. Theocr. vii. 109. Eudocia, 323. Tzetz. Lyc. 772. 5 Id. ib. 6 Sch. Theocr. vii. 123. 2 Long before this time the Grecian and Egyptian systems of religion had begun to mingle and combine. The goat-formed Mendés of Egypt was now regarded as identical with the horned and goat-footed god of the Arkadian herdsmen;1 and Pan was elevated to great dignity by priests and philosophers, becoming a symbol of the universe, for his name signified all. Further, as he dwelt in the woods, he was called Lord of the Hyle (ó tŷs vλns Kúpios); and as the word hyle (λŋ) by a lucky ambiguity signified either wood or primitive matter, this was another ground for exalting him. It is amusing to read how all the attributes of the Arkadian god were made to accord with this notion. "Pan," says Servius, "is a rustic god, formed in similitude of nature; whence he is called Pan, i.e. All: for he has horns in similitude of the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon: his face is ruddy, in imitation of the æther: he has a spotted fawn-skin on his breast, in likeness of the stars: his lower parts are shaggy, on account of the trees, shrubs, and wild beasts: he has goat's feet, to denote the stability of the earth: he has a pipe of seven reeds, on account of the harmony of the heaven, in which there are seven sounds: he has a crook, that is a curved staff, on account of the year, which runs back on itself, because he is the god of all nature. It is feigned by the poets, that he struggled with Love and was conquered by him, because, as we read, Love conquers all, omnia vincit amor." In Arkadia, his native country, Pan appears never to have attained to such distinction. So late as the days of the Ptolemies, Theokritos could thus allude to the treatment which he sometimes there experienced from his worshippers: And if thou do so, Pan beloved, may ne'er Seize thee when all thy skin is torn with nails, which the scholiast tells us was the Arkadians' mode of treating the god when they were unsuccessful in hunting.5 1 Hérod. ii. 46. 2 Macrob. Sat. i. 22. 3 On Verg. Buc. ii. 31. See also Sch. Theocr. i. 3. Eudocia, 323. Idyll. vii. 106. 5 The Samoyedes, when successful in hunting, smear their gods with fat; if unsuccessful, they beat them and throw them in the dung. Voss, Myth. Br. i. 84. Comp. Suet. Calig. 5, and Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs in Italy and Sicily, pp. 125, 126. Sailors in the Mediterranean, during a storm, maltreat the image of St. James; and the Franconians, when the vintage failed, used to fling that of St. Urban into the brook or the mire. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 443. |