We also learn (f) that, during the abode of Eudoxus the Aftronomer in Egypt, Apis feemed to lick the hem of his garment, and the priests foretold he would become famous, but that his career would be short. Various hiftorians relate that children, playing round the facred ox, fuddenly felt themselves infpired, forefaw the future, and unveiled its events. Thus powerful is fuperftition over the mind of man, who, yet, is vain of his penetration.

I have spoken of the inftallation of Apis. His birth is annually celebrated, for the fpace of a week (g). The people affemble to offer him facrifices, and, what may feem furprifing, they immolate oxen (b).. This folemnity paffes not without a miracle. Ammianus Marcellinus, who collected the opinions of the ancients, fays, during the feven days when the priests celebrated the birth of Apis, crocodiles, forgetting their natural ferocity, became tame, and did harm to no one (i).

(f) Diog. Laer. lib. 7.

(g) Nicetas.

(b) Herod. lib. 2.

(i) Lib. 22 Solinus too cites this opinion.

Yet

Yet could not this ox, fo honoured, pafs the miraculous term affixed to his days. "Apis cannot live more than a certain num"ber of years; which ended, they drown "him in the fountain of the priests (k)." Ammianus Marcellinus adds, he is not permitted to live beyond the period which the facred books prescribe; and, when this happens, they embalm, and, fecretly, entomb him, in caverns deftined for that purpose. The priests, in this cafe, proclaim he has disappeared; but, when he dies, naturally, before this epocha, they publish his death, and folemnly bear his body to the temple of Serapis. "There was an ancient temple of

66

Serapis, at Memphis, which strangers were "forbidden to approach; the priests them"felves only entering when they entombed

Apis ("At this time, they opened "the gates called Lethe and Cocytus (or for"getfulness and lamentation) which gave a "loud and grating found (m).”

(k) Plin. lib. 8.

(1) Paufanias.

(in) Plut. de Ifide et Ofiride. Thefe gates were those of the temple of Serapis.

Ammianus

Ammianus Marcellinus and Solinus defcribe, with energy, the universal affliction of of the Egyptians, who called on Heaven, with cries and groans, for another Apis. Lucian represents it very pleasantly." Is "there any one, when Apis dies, fufficiently "enamoured of his long hair not immediately to cut it off, and imprefs tokens of "his grief on his shaved pate ?"

It is important to know the term prescribed to the days of Apis, because it will fhew the intention of the priests in establishing this fymbolical deity; and Plutarch, here, affords us fome information. "The “number five, multiplied by itself, is equal "to the letters of the Egyptian alphabet, "and the years of Apis (n)." You know, Sir, the number twenty five indicated a period of the Sun and Moon, to which this ox was confecrated. Syncellus, in his Chronographia, fpeaking of the thirty-fecond Egyptian king, named Afeth, fays, "The folar year "contained only 360 days, before Aseth, "who added five to make it compleat. In "his reign, a calf was raised to the rank of

(n) Plut. de Ifide et Ofiride.

"the

"the gods, and named Apis". The following paffage yields us ftill farther intelligence. "It was customary to inaugurate the Kings of

66

66

Egypt, at Memphis, in the temple of Apis,

where they were first initiated in the mysteries, "and received the religious garb, after which they were permitted to bear the yoke of the

deity, through the town, to a place named "the Sanctuary, which the profane were "forbidden to enter. There they were

66

obliged to fwear they would add neither "month nor day to the year, but that it "should confift of 365 days, according to an"cient establishment (o)."

This will authorise us to fuppofe Apis a tutelary deity of the new form given to the folar year, and of the cycle of twenty five years, difcovered at the fame time; nor may we doubt but that Apis intimately referred to the increase of the Nile, it being attested by many hiftorians. The period of this increase was the new moon after the Summer folftice, on which all eyes were fixed. Pliny fays (p), Apis had a white mark, on the

(0) Fabricius Biblioth. Lat.

(p) Lib. 8.

right

right fide, in the form of a crefcent; which mark, adds Elian (2), fignified the commencement of the inundation; which authorities are confirmed by Ammianus Marcellinus. If Apis poffeffed thefe characteristic figns, which proved his origin divine, fertility and abundance were promised. It, therefore, feems evident this facred ox, the guardian of the folar year, was alfo held to be the prefiding genius of the inundation. The priests, by limiting his life to twenty five years, and making the installation of the new Apis concur with the renewal of this period, probably, had perceived, from long meteorological obfervations, this revolution continually brought years of abundance: no means could be more certain of obtaining refpect from the people, toward this emblematic deity, fince his birth promised a fortunate inundation, and all the treasures of fecundity.

The folemnity of his inauguration was called apparition. That which was annually renewed, about the twelfth or thirteenth of the month Payn, correfponding to the feventeenth or eighteenth of June, was named the (9) Hift. Animal. lib. 11.