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“ Taautus attributed a certain divine nature to dragons and “* serpents, an opinion which was afterwards adopted both by the -Phoenicians and “ Egyptians. Te teaches that this genus of animals abounds in force and spirit more “ than any other reptiles; that there is something fiery in their nature; and though * possessing neither feet nor any external members for motion common to other ‘““ animals, they are yet more rapid in their motion than any others. Not only has ‘* it the power of .renewing its youth, but in doing so receives an increase of size and “ strength, so that after having run through a certain term of years it is again “ absorbed within itself. For these reasons this class of animals were admitted into “ temples,-and used in sacred mysterics. By the Phoenicians they were called the good * demon, which was the term also applied by the Egyptians to Cneph, who added to ““ him the head of a hawk to symbolize the vivacity of that bird.” '’ After this, Eusebius or Philo go on to quote several other authors to the same effect, ‘among others the Magian Zoroaster, who describes the hawk-headed deity as “ the chief, the best, and most learned of the gods”’; but from the context it appears that there is here some confusion between the Serpent god and the eagle-headed deity of the Assyrians, who is generally supposed to. represent Nisroch,+ and whose image so I frequently occurs in the Sculptures. It scarcely admits of a doubt but that this eagle- headed deity of the Assyrians became the Garuda of the Hindu mythology, who, before the time when Eusebius wrote, had taken so important a position in the Serpent Worship of the Hindus, as we shall afterwards see, but it is still not clear how the confusion between the two objects crept into the passage as we now find it. Eusebius - certainly understood the quotation as applying to the serpent, but the ascription. to the sérpent of these qualities cannot, I fear, be relied upon. It suffices to show, pow ever, what importance the Christian writers of the fourth century were inclined to attribute to the Serpent Worship of the Gentiles. The coins of Tyre represent in some instances a tree with : a serpent coiled round its trunk,-and on either hand two rude stone pillars (Petras Ambrosi P) or an altar with' two serpents rising from the angles of its base. Others represent the serpent coiled around a rude stone obelisk, with the Tyrian Hercules contending with a serpent. Taken in conjunction with the above quotation, these, with others that: might be quoted, suffice to show that the serpent was honoured, perhaps worshipped, in Tyre from an early period down to the time of Alexander. More, probably, might be found if looked for, but they are not necessary for our present purpose. = - . * Euscbins, Pre. Evan. I. 9. (p. 66, Gaisford). See also Miiller’s Fragmenta, III. 572. tT Layard, Nineveh and its remains, abridged edition, p. 46.~ t Maurice, vol. VI. pl. 5. p. 273. MESOPOTAMIA. 11 MESOPOTAMIA. As inca above, the Garden of Eden was supposed to have been situated .some- where on the Lower. Euphrates, and the story of the earlier patriarchs down to Noah (Xisuthrus) being common to the narratives of Berosus and Moses, we naturally twn to Babylonia in the hope of being dble to point out the mythical relations of that strange faith which is first’ mentioned as existing in that country. Unfortunately, long before the Grecks or any foreign travellers visited Babylonia, the great wave of the dominion of the Semitic Assyrian had passed over it, and nearly obliterated all traces of: the earlier Chaldean forms, and as strangers ignorant of the language, it is hardly to be expected that they would have due up the fossil remains of an extinct religion. The ‘earliest native historian (Berosus) lived after the time of Alexander (B.c. 270 ?), so that he too was likely to pass over what had been so long forgotten. The one chance that now remains to us for recovering it is from the cunei- form inscriptions. Serpent Worship, so far as I know, has not yet been Iooked for umong them, and till they are examined with special reference to the inquiry, it is impossible to say where it may or may not be found. In the meanwhile, Sir Henry Rawlinson informs us, that Hea, or Hoa, the third person in the Babylonian trinity of great gods, may be considered as the serpent deity, ‘since there are very strong “ crounds for connecting him with the serpent of Scripture, and the paradisaical * traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.’’* The only direct testimony we have of Serpent Worship in Babylon is in that part of the Book of Danicl which is now printed scparatcly in the Apocrypha,t though it is difficult to understand why this should be so. The story told there of the fraud of the priests and the indignation of the people at the destruction of their god all bear so strong dn impress of probability that it is difficult to doubt their truth. The story as it stands, except in its catastrophe, is not unlike one related by -Elinn,} as oecewring in Egypt, in the days of Ptolemy Evergetes. The description of the serpents of Metele is nearly identical with this of Babylon, but there the only result was that the prying priest went mad, and for all we know the Serpents continued to reecive his daily dois. for long afterwards. Mlerodotus, strange to say, deserts us in this difficulty, and the only indication in Diodorus is in his description of the three statues that adorned the great Temple of Belus; that of Rhea being accompanied by two very large silver images of serpents, each .weighing 30 talents; and that of Juno, standing with her right hand resting on a serpent’s head.§ No mention of Tree Worship has, so far as known, been brought to light in‘Baby- Ionia, byt in Assyria it is among the most common forms of idolatrous veneration. The representations of this on Lord Aberdeen’s black stone has already been alluded to, and it occurs at least twenty times as a principal object in’ Layard’s plates, and very frequently also in Botta. || . * VIerodotus translated, &c., by Geo. Rawlinson, SS Elian, de Animal. XVT. 39. vol. L., p. 600. § Diodorus, IT. 9. 5. + Story of Bel and the Deases, v. 23, et seq. || Monument de Niniye, 5 vols. folio. Paris,1846-50 BQ 12 “INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. It ‘can hardly -be doubted but that this is the Asherah or Grove so frequently mentioned in the Bible, and is a true form of Tree Worship ; but.no thorough investi- gation has yet been made by any one competent to the task, in order to ascertain how and where it arose, or what the exact ideas were which it represented. Judging a priori, I would feel inclined to suggest that the Serpent Worship was a peculiarity of the Turanian’ Babylonians of the old Chaldean Empire—Tree Worship that of the Semitic Assyrians; but a great deal has yet to be done before this can be either positively affirmed or rejected, and the reasons for even suggesting it will be more. easily understood when our present task is further advanced. GREECE. : In attempting to explain the phenomena presented by the architectural history of . Greece, it seems necessary, as a basis for any reasoning on the subject, to assume the existence in that country of two distinct and antagonistic races at one period of the story. The one race is represented by the tombs, or so-called treasuries, of Mycenze and Orchomenos, and the megalithic polygonal masonry of the walls of the most ancient cities. To the other belongs the chaste intellectual refinement of the Doric order, while between the two intervenes the elegant and ornate Ionic as a compromise combining the peculiarities of each. The first class,of buildings have been ascribed to the Pelasgi; and though con- siderable difference of. opinion exists as to the exact ethnological position of those people, and whence they came, there seems no valid objection to assuming that they were a people of a race entirely different to the Hellenes, who afterwards superseded them. If not of purely Turanian: race, they must have been so closely allied to that . family that, till the contrary is shown, they may be considered as belonging to it. The same distinction seems indispensable in treating of the mythology of ancient Greece. Assuming the Veda and the Zend Avesta.to be exponents of the religious feelings of the Aryans, it is impossible to understand—if language is any test in such a matter—howa people speaking a tongue so purely Aryan as the Greck, could so completely have relapsed into a Turanian ancestral worship as we find that of Greece in its great age. Unless a great substratum- of the inhabitants of Greece belonged to the Turanian family, their religion} like their language, ought ‘to have presented a much closer affinity . to the, earlier scriptures of the Aryan race than we find to be the case. The curious anthropic mythology of the Grecian Pantheon seems only explicable on the agsumption of a, potential Turanian element in the population, though the study of the language fails to reveal to us its existence. Such an hypothesis is still more indispensable when we refer to the Tree and Serpent Worship that certainly prevailed to a greater or less extent during the whole period ‘of Grecian history, though of- course more. prominently during the earlier part. Here again it is necessary to make a: ‘further’ distinction. ~All the earlier myths refer to the destruction of: serpents or of serpent races. This continues down to the return of the Heraclidee ; after that' time, when Hellenic sitpreiacy ‘was assured, we meet with a kindlier feeling: ‘The serpent then became the oracle—the guardian of the city, .or the healing god,—the Agathodeemon in short. In. Greece, as everywhege else, when a new faith, oned feels secure in its position, it no longer objects.