Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

BOOK V.

of the name Juno is the Hebrew or Babylonic Yoneh or Yunch or Juneh or Jonah; for thus variously may this oriental appellation be expressed in our western characters. It signifies a dove: and it is used by Moses in his account of the deluge. I am the rather led to adopt such an opinion; because I find, both that Isi or Yoni is actually said to assume the form of that bird, and because her name Parvati denotes a dove: and I am the more confirmed in it, because the mythologic history of the western Juna equally shews its propriety in the case of that goddess also.

We learn from Dion Cassius, that at mount Alban in Latium a sacred ship was venerated, which was denominated the ship of Juno'. It appears therefore, that the ship was the symbol of Juno, no less than of Isi Isis, and Cybele: and the nature of the worship may, I think, be collected from the title by which the holy mountain of the Latins was distinguished. Alban is the same name as Albania, Albion, and Albyn. This appellation was bestowed upon the high range of country contiguous to Armenia; and the peak itself, where the Ark was believed to have rested, bore the title of Luban or Laban. Alban however is but a variation of Laban: each word signifies the Moon; and the Moon was originally so called from the whiteness of its aspect. Hence, in the west, the Island of Albyn or Albion is equivalent either to the Island of the Moon or to the White Island: and hence, in the east, mount Ļaban or Alban means the Moon or the mountain of the White Goddess. or arkite mountain the sacred mount Alban of the Latins was a local tran script: and the ship, which was venerated upon its summit, was but a copy of the Ark resting on the top of Laban or Ararat. This sacred ship of Juno was constructed, I apprehend, in the form of the lunar crescent: for such seems to be the natural inference, both from the ship of Isis bearing that shape, from the name of the mountain on which the Latin ship was venerated, and yet more directly from the actual figure of Juno as she was worshipped by the Samians. They represented her standing upon a lunette; the circular part of which dipped into a luminous straight line so as to be partially concealed by it, and the horns of which pointed upwards.

'Dion. Cass. lib. xxxix.

either the mountain of Of the primitive lunar:

[ocr errors]

The line is evidently meant to describe the surface of the ocean; and the CHAP. III lunette is what Dion rightly calls the ship of Juno: for it appears, partly rising above the level of the water, and partly sinking beneath it, just in the same manner as a boat of that form would do '.

Juno then, like Isi, was the Ark: and, although I cannot prove that, like Isi also, she was ever reputed to have transformed herself into a dove, yet we at least find her closely connected with that sacred bird. I would not build too confidently upon the account, which Pausanias gives of her curious statue at Mycenae; because, though I suspect the bird upon the top of her sceptre to have been really a dove, that writer denominates it a cuckoo: I would rather adhere to the more positive testimony, which is afforded by the history of Semiramis and the remarkable image in the temple of Juno at Hierapolis.

8. Lucian, in his treatise on the Syrian goddess, informs us, that this temple was thought to have been built by Deucalion immediately after the deluge, and that it was erected over a chasm, through which the waters were believed to have retired into the great central abyss. In it was the image of a female richly habited, and upon her head was a golden dove. The Syrians gave it no proper name, but merely called it a sign or token: and this, in their own language, they would express by the word Sem or Sema; which Lucian has very happily translated into its Greek derivative Semeion'. Now Semiramis, who was reputed to have been one of the earliest sovereigns of Babylon, was nevertheless greatly venerated at Hierapolis: and her legendary history will throw much light upon this female image, which was call Sema, which bore a golden dove upon its head, and which was closely associated with Juno.

Though it is not impossible, that the name of Semiramis may have been assumed by more than one even literal queen of Babylon, agreeably to a

See Plate I. Fig. 13.

2 Paus. Corinth. p. 114, 115.

Καλείται δε Σημεΐον και ὑπ ̓ αὐλων Ασσυρίων, είδε το ονομα ίδιον αυλῳ εθεντο. Luc. de dea Syr. 33. I doubt, whether the Greek of Lucian will bear Mr. Bryant out in his idea, that Semeion is itself a Syriac word, denoting the token of the Dove: it seems only to be a translation of the corresponding oriental term, which I take to be Sem or Sema; v or

.שמא

Pag. Idol.

VOL. III.

E

:

very common practice of sovereigns taking the appellations of the deities whom they served: yet the earliest Semiramis, who is represented as being the wife of the Assyrian Ninus and who at the same time is immediately connected with the founding of Babylon, is certainly a goddess; and, by the accounts of her which have come down to us, her true character may be easily ascertained. She was feigned to be the daughter of Derceto or Atargatis, and the sister of Icthys or Dagon; for Icthys is described as being the son of Derceto. But Derceto was the piscine ship-goddess of the Syrians, being undoubtedly the same personage as the navicular Venus or Juno or Isis'. Semiramis therefore is the offspring of the Ark. How such a genealogy is to be understood, we are taught very unequivocally by a curious tradition respecting her she is said to have been transformed into a dove; and we are likewise told, that her standard was a dove, which insigne was adopted by all the Assyrian princes after her. Semiramis then was a dove: she was greatly venerated at Hierapolis: and, in the temple of Juno at this very place, there was a figure of a female bearing a golden dove upon its head, which the Syrians denominated Sema or the token. Putting these different circumstances together, I feel persuaded, that the image in question was the statue of the dove-goddess Semiramis; and I think we may further conjecture, that the origin of the name Semiramis is to be sought for in the word Sema. If the simple Sema denote a token, the compound Sema-Rama will denote a lofty token: and this appellation was bestowed upon her whom the Greeks called Semiramis, because, as we learn from her mythological history, she was a symbolical personification of the dove. Hence she is made the daughter of the shipgoddess and the sister of Dagon, whom we have already shewn to be the same character as Noah: hence, like the Indian Isi who successively assumes the form of a ship and a dove, she is sometimes identified with

'Luc. de dea Syr. § 14. Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 44. Athen. Legat. c. xxvi. Xanth. apud Athen. Deipnos. lib. viii. p. 346. Artemid. Oniroc. lib. i. c. 9. Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Glyc. Annal. p. 184.

1 Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 44. Athen. Legat. c. xxvi. David Ganz. Chronol. in ann. 1958 apud Byrant.

the ship-goddess herself: and hence she is occasionally said to have been CHAP. I.. the builder of the first ship '.

Further light will be thrown upon her character by considering the time, to which she is ascribed. She is said to have built the walls of Babylon, and to have been the wife of that earliest Assyrian Ninus who founded Nineveh. But the Ninus thus distinguished can only be Nimrod, whose real name seems to have been Nin, the title Nimrod or the rebel being applied to him by way of reproach; for Nimrod was the only Ninus, who was equally concerned in the founding both of Nineveh and of Babylon: when miraculously driven away from the latter, he went forth, we are told, into the land of Ashur where he built the former. The dove Semiramis then was the consort indeed, but only the mystical consort, of the archapostate Nimrod, with whom originated the whole frame of gentile mytho logy and accordingly, as the Sema-Rama or lofty token of the dove was the peculiar badge of the ancient Assyrian empire, which commenced at Babylon and which afterwards had Nineveh for its capital, I am much inclined to believe, that it was first assumed as a national banner by the daring architects of the tower of Babel, and that it is mentioned even by the sacred historian himself. He represents the primeval Babylonians as encouraging each other to the work by saying, Come now, let us build unto ourselves a city and a tower; and the top thereof shall be for the heavens: and let us make unto ourselves 4 TOKEN, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth'. The word, here used by Moses to describe the name or token which the Babylonians agreed to assume, is Sem; the very word, which enters into the composition of Semiramis, and which the Hierapolitans seem to have applied to their dove-bearing statue: and I interpret it in the same manner, inasmuch as it will thus both produce excellent sense and will accord remarkably well with history. I see not how the merely wishing to acquire renown, as the expression is commonly understood, could at all, in the way of cause and effect, tend to prevent their being scattered: and, whatever it was that they agreed to make for

Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. Chron. Pasch. p. 36. Athen. Legat. c. xxvi.

[blocks in formation]

BOOK V. themselves, it was plainly something which was designed at least to operate as an instrument to keep them together in one body. Now, if we suppose Sem to mean a name in the sense of token or a sign or a banner, we shall immediately perceive its close connection with the avowed purpose of the Babylonians. They agreed to adopt a national badge and to enroll themselves under one particular ensign; in order that, by thus having a rallying point, they might prevent themselves from being dispersed. Accordingly we find from history, not only that they had a national standard; but that that standard was a dove and that they designated it by the word here employed by Moses, calling it uncompoundedly Sema or the token and compoundedly Sema-Rama or the lofty token. Their banner probably exhibited a woman bearing a dove on her head, like the token of the Hierapolitans and, since it was immediately connected with the superstition which originated at Babel, it was deemed sacred; and thence, as was usual among the old military idolaters, was worshipped as a divinity'. By the Greeks, and perhaps even by themselves in process of time, it was mistaken for a deified princess, the supposed: founder of Babylon: but the real diluvian character of the personified Sema-Rama was never thoroughly forgotten. She was still made the daughter of the fish-goddess Derceto: she was still thought to be the sister of the fish-god Dagon: she was still connected with the flood of Deucalion and the first-built ship: she was still fabled either to have been transformed into a dove, or to have been fed by doves in her infancy, or to have been the first that bore a dove for her ensign, or to have been distinguished by a name which some how or other either signified a dove or was connected with one*. In the legend of her being fed by doves we again find the word Sem; by which the dove was called in its capacity of a symbolical ensign, and which Moses (if I mistake not) applies to the banner adopted by the primeval Babylonians. When exposed during her infancy, she is said to have been discovered and pre

'Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 107. The Romans, in a similar manner, worshipped the eagles on their standards; whence Tacitus calls them propria legionum numina. The modern practice of consecrating the banner of a regiment is evidently a relic of this ancient idolatrous custom.

Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 92, 93, 107. Luc. de dea Syra, Hesych. Lex.

« PoprzedniaDalej »