Volume 1
A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
62/1140 (page 40)
![nomis, a little to the north of the castle and toll-house ('Ep/t07ToA.tTonj Strab. p. 813), where the portage was levied on all craft coming from the Upper Country. 6. The Cynopolite, the seat of the worship of the hound and dog-headed deity Anubis. Its capital was Cynopolis, which must however be distinguished from the Deltaic city and other towns of the same name. (Strab. p. 812; Ptol.; Pint. Is. et Osir. c. 72.) The Greater Oasis (Ammonium) and the Lesser were reckoned among the Heptanomite Cantons; but both were considered as one nome only. [Oases.] C. Nomes of Upper Egypt. The most im- portant were: — 1. The Lycopolite, dedicated to the worship of the wolf. Its chief town was Lycopolis. 2. The Antaeopolite, probably worsliipped Typhon (Diod. i. 21); its capital was Antaeopolis (Pint. de Solert. Anim. 23.) 3. The Aphroditopolite [Comp. Nome (2), Hep- tanomis.] In cases where a southern and a northern canton possessed similar objects of worship, the latter was probably an offset or colony of the former, as the Thebaid was the original cradle of Egyptian civilisation, which advanced northward. 4. The Pauopolite or, as it was aftemards called, the Chemmite, offered hero-worship to an apotheosized man, whom the Greeks compared to the Minyan hero Perseus. (Herod, ii. 91.) This canton, whose chief town was Panopolis or Chemmis (Diod. i. 18), was principally inhabited by linen-weavers and stone- masons. 5. The Thinite, probably one of the most ancient, as it was originally the leading nome of the Thebaid, and the nome or kingdom of Menes of This, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy. The Thinite nome worshipped Osiris, contained a Memnonium, and, in Roman times at least (Amm. Marc. xix. 12; Spartian. Hadrian. 14), an oracle of Besa. Its ca- pital was Abydus, or, as it was called earlier, This. [Abydus.] 6. The Tentyrite worshipped Athor (Aphrodite), Isis, and Typhon. Its inhabitants hunted the crocodile, and were accordingly at feud with the Ombite nome. (Juv. xv.) Its chief town was Tentyra. 7. The Coptite, whose inhabitants were principally occupied in the caravan trade between Berenice, Myos Hormos, and the interior of Arabia and Libya. Its capital was Coptos. [Coptos.] 8. The Hermonthite, worshipped Osiris and his son Orus: its chief town was Hermonthis. 9. The Apollonite, like the Tentyrite nome, de- stroyed the crocodile (Strab. p. 817; Plin. v. 9 ; Aelian, H. An. x. 21 ; Pint. Is. et Os. 50), and reverenced the sun. Its capital was ApoUinopolis Iklasna. This nome is sometimes annexed to the O preceding. 10. The Ombite (Ombites praefectura, Plin. H. N. V. 9), worshipped the croco^le as the emblem of Sebak (comp, supra (6) and (9), and the Arsinoite (3), Heptanomite nomes). Ombos was its capital. The quarries of sandstone, so much employed in Egyptian architecture, were principally seated in this canton. V. Animal Worship. Animal worship is so intimately connected with the division of the country into nomes, and, in some degree, with the institution of castes, that we must briefly allude to it, although the subject is much too extensive for more than allusion. The worship ! of animals was either general or particular, common to the whole nation, or several to the nome. Thus I throughout Egypt, the ox, the dog, and the cat, the i ibis and the hawk, and the fishes lepidotus and * oxyrrynchus, were objec.ts of veneration. The sheep ' was worshipped only in the Saitic and Thebaid nomes: the goat at Mendes; the wolf at Lycopolis; the cepus (a kind of ape) at Babylon, near Mem- phis; the lion at Leontopolis, the eagle at Thebes, the shrewmouse at Athribis, and others elsewhere, as will be particularly noticed when we speak of their respective temples. As we have already seen, the object of reverence in one nome was ac- counted common and xmclean, if not, indeed, the object of persecution hi another. Animal worship has been in all ages the opprobrium of Egypt (comp. Clem. Alex. iii. 2, p. 253, Potter; Diod. i. 84). The Hebrew prophets denounced, the anthropo- morphic religionists of Hellas derided it. To the extent to which the Egyptians carried it, especially in the decline of the nation, it certainly approached to the fetish superstitions of the neighbouring Libya. But we must bear in mind, that our vergers to the Coptic temples are Greeks who, being igno- rant of the language, misunderstood much that they heard, and being preoccupied by their own ritual or philosophy, misinterpreted much that they saw. One good effect may he ascribed to this form of superstition. In no country was humanity to the brute creation so systematically practised. The origin of animal worship has been variously, but never satisfactorily, accounted for. If they were worshipped as the auxiliaries of the husbandman in producing food or destroying vermin, how can we account for the omission of swine and asses, or for the adoption of lions and wolves among the objects of veneration? The Greeks, as was their wont, found many idle solutions of an enigma which pro- bably veiled a feeling originally earnest and pious. They imagined that animals were worshipped be- cause their efligies were the standards in war, like the Roman Dii Castrorum. This is evidently a substitution of cause for effect. The repi'esentations of animals on martial ensigns were the standards of the various nomes (Diod. i. 85). Lucian (^Astrolog. V. p. 215, seq. Bipont) suggested that the bull, the lion, the fish, the ram, and the goat, &c. were correlates to the zodiacal emblems; but this surmise leaves the crocodile, the cat, and the ibis, &c. of the temples unexplained. It is much more probable that, among a contemplative and serious race, as the Egyptians certainly wiue, animal-worship arose out of the detection of certain analogies between in- stinct and reason, and that to tbe initiated the reve- rence paid to bea.sts was a primitive expression of pantheism, or the recognition of the Creator in eveiy type of his work. The Egyptians are not the only people who have converted type into substance, or adopted in a literal sense the metaphorical symbols of faith. VI. Castes and Political Institutions. The number of the Egyptian castes is very va- riously stated. Herodotus (ii. 164) says that they were seven — the sacerdotal and the military, herds- men, swineherds, shopkeepers, interpreters, and boatmen. Plato (^Timaeus, iii. p. 24) reckons six; Diodorus, in one passage (i. 28) represents them as three — priests and husbandmen, from whom the army was levied, and artisans. 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