her crown of towers, the towns and cities built upon it. There is one fact, however, of great importance respecting the human figure of this goddess, mentioned by Mr. P. Knight,' namely, that no figure of this kind has been seen which was not proved to be either posterior or very little anterior to the Macedonian conquest. Thus have we found five signs and the long figure encircling them, not only wholly exotic in regard to Egypt, but in the instance of several, of a date not much beyond the Macedonian conquest.

In the second place, the high antiquity of the signs is refuted, by the certainty we have of frequent alterations both in the names and figures of the constellations having been made by the ancient astronomers. Hipparchus changed the southern crown into the herald's rod, &c. and Ptolemy in the Almagest, lib. vii. ch. 5. as cited by Dr. Long, says that "he does not always make use of the same figures with those before him, but had, for the sake of giving his figures a truer proportion and adapting them better to the situation of the stars, made many alterations therein, as the astronomers before his time had done in the constellations that were more ancient."

In the face of such strong proofs to the contrary, how could any one assert that the zodiac of Dendera might be a copy from one more ancient?

In the third place, the high antiquity of the zodiac is disproved by the consideration that the figures must have been invented not only after the substitution of animal and image worship, for the pure theism which originally prevailed, and the worship of the heavenly bodies by which it was immediately succeeded, but posterior to the deification of mankind, a species of idolatry which mythologists allow to have been the latest introduced.

2

All the common departments of the deities, says Mr. Bryant, are to be set aside as idle. Pollux will be found a judge; Ceres, a lawgiver; Bacchus, the god of the year; Neptune, a physician; and this not only from the poets, but from the best mythologists of the Grecians, who wrote professedly on the subject.

But as several of the figures are decidedly Grecian symbols, it follows that it must have been composed, not only after the deification of mankind, but also after the formation of the Greek theogony, which was not effected until they had made considerable progress in the art of sculpture. In early times the Grecians represented the Dioscuri by two logs of wood joined together; Cybele by a square or globular stone; and Minerva by the figure of an owl. As they improved in the imitative arts, they gra

• Class. Journ. No. 46.

2

Analysis, Vol. i. p. 221.

dually changed the animal for the human form, still preserving the characteristic features which marked its symbolical meaning.

According to Eusebius the Greeks were not worshippers of images until the time of Cecrops, and on this subject Herodotus has the following remark: "Of the origin of each deity, whether they have all of them always existed, as also of their form, their knowledge is very recent indeed. The invention of the Grecian theogony, the names, the honors, the forms and the functions of the deities may with propriety be ascribed to Hesiod and to Homer, who I believe lived 400 years before myself." It is clear therefore that when this author "there are in Egypt oracles of Hercules, of Apollo, of Minerva and Diana, of Mars and of Jupiter;" and again, "If with Neptune and the Dioscuri, we except Juno, Vesta, Themis, the Graces and the Nereids, the names of all the other deities have always been familiar in Egypt;" he is not to be understood as assigning an unlimited period for their acquaintance with these divinities.

says,

As this is a point of some importance I shall perhaps be excused for adding two other quotations from respectable modern writers. The learned Mr. Bryant informs us that

The ancients, to render their theology plausible and their fables consistent, multiplied gods of the same name and character-there was always one ready upon every chronological emergency:

In Egypt there were two Hermeses, forty heroes are enumerated under the name of Hercules, and there were 300 Jupiters. But Hesiod, Homer, and the authors of the Orphic poetry, knew of no such duplicates, nor is there any hint of the kind among the ancient writers of Greece. It was a refinement of after-ages, introduced to obviate the difficulties which arose from the absurdities in the pagan system.+

And Mr. Payne Knight observes,

There is no mention of any of the mystic deities, nor of any of the rites with which they were worshipped, in any of the genuine parts 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 in the fables which adorn them. We may, therefore, 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 these poems. The Orphic hymns which appear to have been invocations or litanies used in the mysteries, are proved both by the language and the matter, 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 and glorifying the Deity by repeating adulatory titles not being then in use, though afterwards common.

Euterpe, ch. 23.

2 Ibid. ch. 83. + Analysis, Vol. ii.

3 Ibid. ch. 50.

5 Class. Journ. No. 45.

No idol in the most ancient periods of the Chinese empire was to be found in all their temples, but only an unornamented tablet, upon which was engraved in large golden characters, "The Sanctuary of the Spiritual Guardian of the City;" and this pure worship of the Deity continued till after the death of Confucius, 500 years B. C., when the worship of Buddah was introduced from India.

Mr. Colebrooke informs us that the ancient Hindoo religion, as founded upon the Indian scriptures, recognises but one God, and that although in the Veda every line of the prayers is replete with allusions to mythology, there is not throughout any allusion to deified heroes, the worship of such not forming any part of that system.

Mr. Sale mentions that the ancient Arabians when they migrated, used to take some of the stones of their native land with them as memorials, which were originally honored only on that account, but their posterity forgetting the ancient religion, worshipped them as idols.2

"The Persians," says Herodotus, Clio 133, "have among them neither statues, temples, nor altars; the use of which they censure as impious and a gross violation of reason, because in opposition to the Greeks, they do not believe that the Gods partake of human nature."

The Romans before they became acquainted with the Greeks received every thing relating to religion from the Etruscans, but in the earlier ages it was a feature common to the religion of both, to have neither magnificent temples nor images. According to Plutarch, Numa forbade the Romans to represent the Deity under the form of a man or brute, and for 70 years this people had not in their temples any statue or painting of the Deity. From this we learn when the primitive Etruscan theology first became corrupted, for Numa's interdiction must be considered as levelled at an innovation and not at the destruction of an ancient usage.

Some of the German nations appear to have been Sabæans, since we find Boiocalus, chief of the Anisbarians, a people of that country, in a speech addressed to Avitus, the Roman general, appealing to the sun and whole planetary system, as if these luminaries were actually present:3 and we have the express authority of Tacitus for the fact, that "their deities are not immured in temples, nor represented under any human form."4

Asiatic Research, Vol. viii. 3 Tacit. Ann. lib. 13. ch. 55.

2 Prelim. Diss. to the Koran.

+ De Morib. Germ. ch. 9.

From these observations it appears that the more ancient nations were not worshippers of images, and that the Greeks were the first who offered posthumous adoration to mankind, and the first also by whom specific objects of worship were transformed and multiplied.

As, therefore, several of the figures of the zodiac are humanized personifications, and as the whole are merely so many different attributes of the same deity, the Sun, or Bacchus, it follows that these figures must have been invented by the Greeks, subsequently to the time of Homer.

To leave no material proof behind us, it will be necessary on this part of the subject to remark farther, that Egypt for upwards of six centuries B. C. contained two distinct peopleEgyptians proper, and Greeks. The former, from the earliest to the latest period of their authentic history, were obstinately attached to the worship of brutes and the most loathsome reptiles. The texture of their superstition was not of so flexible a nature as that of the Greeks and many other nations. During the dominion of the Pharaohs it was directed by a permanent hierarchy, whose regulations so firmly established the principles and practice of the system, as enabled it to survive all the civil and religious persecutions which afterwards afflicted that country. While the whole nation concurred in the adoration of the ox, dog, cat, and Ibis, each nome or province had its particular or tutelar god, who engrossed the chief share of their veneration; wolves were worshipped at Lycopolis; monkies at Hermopolis; crocodiles at Crocodilopolis, &c. These Greek names of cities attest the prevalence of brute worship after that people had established colonies in Egypt, and Diodorus proves the excessive zeal with which it was maintained after the Romans were connected with that country.1

This long maintenance of an indigenous superstition is, among other testimonies, supported by the Rosetta stone, which proves the existence of their sacred language to almost the same period,

Ptolemy XI. Auletes, father to the celebrated Cleopatra, was restored by Gabinius and M. Antony, and during the last years of his reign, was supported by Roman soldiers. "One of these," says Diodorus, "in practising with some missile weapon shot a cat; the Egyptians were thrown into a tumult by the murder of a god; neither the magistrates, nor the king himself, nor the swords of the legionaries could restrain their rage, they pursued the delinquent to his house, and having dragged him from thence to the public place inflicted on him their fiercest vengeance."-Diodorus, lib. i. sec. 83.

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and which it does not appear was ever known to the Greeks or Romans. Bold as the supposition may be, there yet seems no reason to believe that this singular people, whose idolatry spread far and wide through the ancient world, ever adopted any part of the mythology of their pagan neighbours, or that with foreigners they ever held community of worship. The gods, therefore, together with the religious rites and ceremonies of other countries, mentioned by Herodotus and other ancient authors, as common in Egypt, in their time, must be considered as forming no part of the religious establishments of the native Egyptians. -While all around seem to have derived some portion of the arts and sciences, of religion, of manners and customs from them, there appears not throughout the whole course of their authentic history, any instance of innovation or apostacy on their part.

NOTICE OF

'ANAAEKTA 'EAAHNIKA MEIZONA: sive COLLECTANEA GRECA MAJORA; ad usum Academica Juventutis accommodata. Cum notis Philologicis, quas partim collegit, partim scripsit Andr. DALZELL, A.M. Pluribus in locis emendata, et Notis uberioribus aucta, curavit et edidit GEORGIUS DUNBAR, A. M. Edinb.

PART II. [Concluded from No. LV. p. 10.] WITH regard to the extracts from Xenophon, the Professor informs us in his preface, that he has transferred those from the 'Cyropædia" to the "Analecta Minora." This arrangement must obtain general approbation, since it has enabled him to raise the character of the extracts in this latter work, and to allow room for the introduction of much new matter in the present volume. The extracts from the "Anabasis" he has retained and illustrated by many additional remarks. A few of the more important we subjoin.

111. 3. ἐκέλευσε δὲ τοὺς Ελλήνας κ. τ. λ.) Professor Dalzell had construed εἰς μάχην after ταχθῆναι, as if the Grecian army had been drawn out for actual combat. Mr. Dunbar accurately refers