1879.] '*'**- [Phillips. 



at some unknown time, but seven of its fragments have been preserved 

 and published by Fulvius Ursinus about A. D 1577." 



"The symbol of the bull plays an important part in many mythoses. 

 This animal was intended to represent power of body and unwearied mas- 

 culine energy, two great attributes especially coveted by ancient kings and 

 great men. The bull seemed to be, in a manner, sacred to Venus, 

 whilst the lion was emblematic of the male creator. The bull and the lion, 

 among the Assyrians, occupied much the same place as the lion and unicorn 

 do in modern heraldry. Lajard (Culle de Venus) has summed up the mat- 

 ter in the following words : 



"Les deux principaux attributes characteristiques de Venus furent en 

 orient com me en Occident le taureau et le lion, l'un symbole du principe 

 de la chaleur et du pouvoir generateur actif, l'autre, symbole du principe 

 humide et du pouvoir generatif passif ; et tous les deux signes du Zodiaque, 

 inais avec cette difference que le taureau etait le premier signe de l'equinox 

 vernal et la domicile de la lune a l'epoque de sa plus grande exaltation, et 

 que le lion place au solstice d'ete etait le domicile du soleil pendant la 

 canicule. Ces deux animaux furent done aussi les hieroglyphes ideograph- 

 ique de l'hermaphroditisme de Venus, divinite a laquelle les anciennes 

 traditions assignent, comme a Mithra, une place entre les equinoxes et les 

 solstices etdonnent pour monture le taureau." In another passage he writes 

 thus: "Premier etre sorti des mains d'un dieu createur du monde, le 

 taureau, symbole de vie, est appelee d'un nom qui signifie a la fois vie et 

 taureau. Par une consequence immediate d'une doctrine qui enseignait 

 que les premiers etres vivants etaient ne dans l'eau, il est, en meme temps, 

 le symbole de principe humide, du pouvoir passif de la generation ou du 

 sexe feminine." (Inman's Ancient Faiths. Vol. 1, p. 876, et seq. ) 



The symbol of the bull also is frequently taken to represent water, or the 

 watery principle in which life takes its beginning* and hence, no doubt, the 

 reverence paid to rivers, as instanced, even at the present day, in India, by the 

 burial of the Hindoo dead in the holy -waters of that region. It may there- 

 fore be considered as a representative of the KTEI2 or the great humid 

 principle of nature. 



Not a trace now remains of Sybaris, this great city which once ruled over 

 twenty -five of its neighboring towns, and sent into the war that resulted in 

 its downfall three hundred thousand fighting men. Nothing is known of 

 its mansions and its palaces, not one stone is left to show the spot where 

 "men slept upon beds of roses and those renowned banquets took place to 

 which women were bidden a year in advance that they might have the 

 whole interval for rendering their beauty more irresistible." Recent ex- 

 plorations have resulted in the finding of a sarcophagus full of carbonized 

 matter, showing that the corpse had been cremated prior to interment. 



Amidst the remains of the funeral pyre, near the head of the corpse, were 

 some golden fragments, the ornamentation of a box, and afterwards the 

 bronze naiis with which it had been fastened were found. Near the breast 



*cf In man, p. 377, note. 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XVIII. 104. 2R. PRINTED DEC. 12, 1879. 



