Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



been reckoned as a gift for princes from the 

 grayest dawn of history. As late as in his 

 day the Emperor Adrian presented to the 

 Heraion in the Corinthian district a magnifi- 

 cent peacock in honor of Hera. It was of 

 gold and jewels. But as early as barter ex- 

 isted specimens of the matchless bird must occa- 

 sionally have been brought from India by land 

 and by water. The pristine navigators of the 

 Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Red 

 Sea, whom the Greeks named Phoinikoi and 

 the Latins Punici, must have brought, as well 

 to Europe as to King Solomon, the phaon or 

 phoenix natural, not astronomical ; and we may 

 well assume that they brought it with all its 

 religious honors thick upon it, calling it the 

 bird of their own high god. Otherwise the 

 old peoples of Greece and Italy would hardly 

 have named the bird after their own great god 

 of light and day. 



Doubtless the Phccnicians merely trans- 

 mitted to Europe the fame that the bird en- 

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