4a 



preceded that of Cadmus ninety-one years, and the reign of 

 Cecrops twenty-nine years ; but was posterior to the birth 

 -of Moses by sixty-six years. He certainly came from Egypt, 

 most probably, in a Phenician vessel.; but we have no reason 

 to think he Avas educated in the Egyptian religion, but, 

 on the contrary, his mother being a Pelasgian, and he 

 himself expecting the throne of Argos, the religion of 

 -Argos, that is, the Pelasgian, must have been that in which 

 he was educated and professed. Had he embraced the 

 Egyptian superstition, he could not even eat with those 

 he expected to govern. Accordingly, Herodotus does not 

 ascribe the Grecian polytheism, or names of the Gods, to 

 Danaus, but to the oracle of Dodona, Lib. 2, § 52. They 

 adopted the Phenician Deities probably at the same time 

 ithat they did the Hellenic language.* 



■D.f the Greek cosmogony, on which a great part of 

 their mythology was founded, there appears to have been 

 two sources, one Phenician, of which we have already given 

 an extract, p. 14. (this was followed by Hesiod in his 

 thcogony,) and another much more conformable to the 

 Mosaic account, and adopted by Ovid,-}- but of which only 

 a very few traces can be found in any Greek writer that 



has 



* Diodorus it is true relates that Danaus erected a temple to Minei'va at 

 Rhodes, Lib. 5. p. 311; but this was probably the Phenician Minerva mentioned 

 by Sanchoniatho, and not the Egyptian, who had a temple at Sais ; for, accord- 

 ing to Apollodonis, Danaus and Cadmus were related. 

 fOvid, Lib. 1. Metamorph. 



