102 ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



even of the animals which are noxious, for procuring the 

 means of preservation from the evils which they cause : 

 hence the practice, established from the most remote times, 

 of extracting from serpents remedies against their bites ; 

 while, on the other hand, man sought to appease their fury 

 by revering them as divinities. The ancients, employing 

 often the most prominent characteristics of animals in their 

 allegories, discovered in the habits of serpents, in their qua- 

 lities, or even in their form, an inexliaustible fund for set- 

 tmg to work their own fertile imagination, which heated 

 itself invariably in embellishing the observations they had 

 made from nature. It is to these various causes, and to 

 circumstances ])erha])s little kno^^Tl at this time, that we 

 should attribute the fear, mingled with hatred and venera- 

 tion, with which the serpent has inspired the human race. 



In the mythology of most ancient nations, there are traces 

 which attest that the idea of the serpent as the evil principle 

 prevailed from the most remote antiquity. The serpent is 

 represented as the cause of the first transgression and fall 

 of man ; and Arimanes, assuming the form of a serpent, 

 seeks in vain to overcome his antagonist Orosmandes, who 

 represents the good principle in the idealism of the ancient 

 Persians. 



It is believed tliat the ancient Greeks made choice of 

 the allegory of the great serpent killed by the arrows of 

 Apollo to represent the pestilential vapours, emanating from 

 the marshy slime which covered the earth after the deluge, 

 or after annual inundations, and which could only be dissi- 

 pated by the rays of the sun ; afterwards, this Python be- 

 came the attribute of Apollo and his priestesses at Delphi, 

 and it subsequently served for the emblem of Foretelling and 

 Di^dnation. Analogous circumstances probably gave rise 

 to the fable of the Lernsean Hydra, exterminated by the la- 

 bours of Hercules and his companion lolas. Among the 

 ancient Eg^^Dtians, the serpent was the symbol of Fertility. 

 They represented under the form of a serpent, inclosed by 

 a circle, or ent^vined around a globe, the Cneph of their 

 cosmogony, who is the same as Ammon, or the Agathode- 

 mon, the spirit or soul of creation, the principle of all that 



