1 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The conquerors sometimes relentlessly stamped out the worship of the 

 conquered. Often, out of policy or pity, they gave it a quasi-recogni- 

 tion ; and then came about an amalgamation of beliefs. 



These international religions tended to subdue the ethnic distinc- 

 tions and local worships, and to give prominence to the hio-her and 

 more universal deities. Thus, the great monarchies of antiquity, 

 through their very tyranny and the absoluteness of the royal power in 

 them, broke the path for the universal religions. The Roman Empire 

 was the forerunner that made straight the way for Christianity. Sar- 

 gon of Assyria is no more famous for his conquests than for his sys- 

 tematization of the Mesopotamian religion. And in Egypt we find its 

 religion unified step by step with the government. The rival cycles 

 of gods and goddesses, the varied triads of its different epochs, the 

 confusing medley of divinities, great and small, of whom, now one, 

 now another, is said to be the supreme, can never be comprehended 

 until we recognize that the political unity of Egypt was not original 

 or constant, but a growth, through the consolidation of the forty-two 

 distinct nomes or districts which occupied the length of the valley. 



Each of these little kingdoms, or duchies, as we may call them (re- 

 sembling, in their relations to one another, the little duchies of Ger- 

 many before Prussia swallowed them up so effectually), had its capi- 

 tal, its hereditary duke, its special deity or deities, and its shrine or 

 great temple. We find the names of the Egyptian gods followed by 

 the name of their special home, as Neith of Sais ; Aman-Ra, chief in 

 Aptu, i. e., Thebes. When gods of the same name or origin were wor- 

 shiped in different places, they were regarded as more or less differ- 

 ent deities, and often had different characteristics or symbols. 



Thus we find four Sets mentioned in one inscription and six Anu- 

 bises in another. Though originating from the same natural object, 

 different aspects of the divine power were deified in each. When at 

 length these independent districts were united in a single empire and 

 a close social unity, the deities were naturally consolidated more or 

 less. 



Out of political comity and national sympathy, the people of each 

 nome would admit the deities of other sections as also venerable and 

 worshipful ; but, in their own grading of the comparative dignity of 

 the various gods, each would put its own local deities in the chief seats, 

 and make the deities of other districts subordinate to them. Hence 

 would arise distinctions among the gods, as, some of the first order, 

 others of the second, others of the third. Those that in one nome, 

 say, that of Thebes, were placed at the head, in another, such as that 

 of Memphis, always jealous of its rival for the dignity of the metro- 

 politanship of Egypt, would be likely to be put down into the second 

 or third class, to make room for the ancient hereditary favorites of the 

 worshipers of that locality. 



As, in the political struggles of the country, one nome after another 



