39 



the Greeks considered her as the Goddess of hunting, and an 

 huntress. Witli Mercury also they were made acquainted by 

 the Phenicians ; the planet so called they adored, and called 

 Hermes or the Interpreter, for the Chaldeans called all the 

 planets interpreters, 1 Diodor. 143 ; but this name was 

 specially given to Mercury, as that planet performs its 

 revolution in the shortest time. 



Though Athene or Minerva is mentioned by Sanchoniatho ; 

 yet, the passage in which she is mentioned, Euseb. 38, has 

 to me the air of an interpolation, and the Athenians had a 

 statue of her long before the arrival of the Phenicians, 

 though they did not worship it until some ages after, when 

 they fell into idolatry. 



Ares or Mars was the name of ^a planet so called by the 

 Chaldeans ; the Being that governed it was esteemed a 

 God, and, for some astrological reasons, was by the Greeks 

 thought to be the God of war ; he Avas worshipped as such 

 by the Assyrians.* 



The Phenician Baal, or the sun, the Greeks called Apollo, 

 either from the perpetual emission of his rays, as Plato 

 thought, or from its being single and not many, as Chrysippus 

 supposed ;-f- and hence, perhaps, the Latins called him or it 

 Sol, quasi Solus. 



As to the planet Saturn, whom the Greeks called Kronos, 

 the Chaldeans and Phenicians supposed it governed by a 



malevolent 



* Sextus Empyricus adversiis Mathem. Chron. Akxandr. quoted by Stanley, 

 787. 



t SeeMacrob. Lib. 1. Saturnal. chap. U, p. 2.%- 



