nected with the bull. And so, again, even the great Dorik and Aryan divinity Apollon becomes not unnaturally somewhat connected with Semitic solar beings, and consequently appears in several Semitic phases, one of the principal of which is Karneios, the Horned-Sun. Thus Kallimachos, after noticing that Apollon had numerous names, calls him Karneios, and states that at his festival in Libye many bulls were sacrificed to him by the Hellenik colonists,2 thus illustrating the continued connection between the sun and the bull.3 He also tells how Apollon constructed an altar with goats' horns; 'with horns he laid the foundations, he built the altar from horns, and horns as walls he placed under it around.' No sailor, he says, ever passed the sacred isle of Asterie, afterwards called Ortygia, and finally Delos, without stopping to be beaten before the altar of Apollon, a penance at once recalling Oriental modes of invoking and propitiating stern and ruthless deities; and which, while exactly corresponding with the Diamastigesis or severe scourging inflicted before the altar of his sister goddess Artemis Orthia, herself another instance of a Semitic phase having been fastened upon an Aryan divinity, is peculiarly opposed to the innocent cult of the bright Aryan sun-god. And how came this phase of Karneios, the Horned-sun, among the Dorians of the Peloponnesos? Observe the answer. 'We have as yet,' says K. O. Müller in his great work, omitted the mention of two national festivals celebrated at Amyclae by the Spartans in honour of the chief deity of this race, viz., the Hyacinthia and the Carnea, from a belief that bovine Minotauros was called Asterios, the Starry, for the explanation of which occult epithet, vide inf. IX. iii. Taurokeros. 7 Cf. Herod. ii. 61. 8 Cf. Mythol. of the Aryan Nations, ii. 144; vide inf. VI. i. 1. 5 they do not properly belong to Apollo,' that is, that they are Semitic grafts upon an Aryan stock. The worship of the Carnean Apollo in which both were included, was derived from Thebes," that is, the Horned Sun-god came, as we should have anticipated, from the place which, as our poet tells us, first among Hellenik cities received the cult of Dionysos Taurokeros. Thus Apollon is called Dikeros, the Two-horned; 2 and Karneios is a male sungod Ashtar Karnaim, corresponding to the ancient Syrian lunar goddess Ashtareth Karnaim, Astarte the Twohorned. Speaking of the ruins of Kenath in Argob, the Rev. J. L. Porter says, 'A colossal head of Ashtaroth, sadly broken, lies before a little temple, of which probably it was once the chief idol. The crescent moon which gave the goddess the name Caruaim is on her brow.' Again, the unanthropomorphic character of a horned god is a circumstance in itself almost negativing an Hellenik origin, for, as I have remarked elsewhere, "Greek art and Greek mythology are essentially anthropomorphic with respect to their divinities." The Greek mind accepts the idea of monsters, numerous and horrible, but never forgets that they are monsters; to the Hamitic mind monsters are often gods.' 8 The instance of the crescent moon, however, a phenomenon necessarily familiar alike to Semite and Aryan, might possibly have caused an exception to this rule, and therefore the cow-horned Io, whose story, moreover, is illustrated with peculiar felicity by the Natural Phenomena Theory, and who, it should be remembered, is not a divinity, is, in the abstract necessarily related to Uasi or Ashtareth 1 Doric Race, i. 373. 5 Cf. 1 Kings, iv. 13. tion, even admitting it to be one, only applies to a particular lunar myth;1 male horned solar gods are certainly unknown to Hellenik Aryan mythology. The Bull-horned god, when brought forth, is 'crowned with crowns of serpents,' which also often appear on Vases and elsewhere in the snakebound locks of the Bakchai.2 The wide field of Ophiolatry, or the 'worship of serpents devoid of wisdom,3 will be subsequently noticed ;* suffice it to observe here that two of the principal aspects of the Serpent in religious-mythology are (1) a deadly venomous beast, a creature hateful and hostile to man and to good divinities, such as the Vedic Ahi, the choking-snake; the Azidahâka, or biting snake of the Persians; and the Giant Apap, or great serpent of Egypt; and (2) a creature 1 As to Iô, whose story is of high antiquity since Homeros constantly calls Hermes Argeiphontes, it is to be observed that she was connected with the Outer-world generally, and with Kam in particular at a very early period. Her son Epaphos (cf. the Phoenician Pappa, Paphos, and the Egyptian Apepi or Apap, the Great Serpent. The Bull-horned god is serpent-crowned, Eur. Bak. 100) in mythic history is discovered by Io in Syria, becomes king of Egypt, and marries Memphis, daughter of Neilos (cf. Ais. Prom. Des.). It has been doubted whether Io and Dionysos appeared on the Hellenik stage as horned, or whether they were merely supposed to be so, but on the whole I think that horns were actually represented (vide Elmsley in Bakchai, v. 920. Speaking of the stage Dionysos he remarks, Cui similem Ioni tribuerat Aeschylus in Prometheo.' Io says, 'Forthwith my form and senses were distorted, and I became horned as ye see,' Prom. Des. 691-1), as on the Vases (British Museum, Nos. 580, a. 1423). It is generally said that the connection between Io and Kam 'seems to be an invention of later times,' but there is no proof of this; and, on the 6 other hand, an early historic inter- 3 Wis. xi. 15. 4 Inf. VIII. ii. Serpent. |