2 INSECTS. 



By the Phoenicians this worship was introduced into 

 Tyre, Sidon, and Babylon, and from these three great 

 centres of commerce and civilization it spread into other 

 parts of the world. 



In Greece the origin, according to tradition, of this 

 worship was, that Hercules, being tormented during the 

 Olympic rites by hosts of flies, offered a sacrifice to 

 Zeus in order to be rid of them. The sacrifice was 

 accepted, and the flies removed beyond the boundary of 

 the River Alpheus. From this time the great Zeus was 

 known at Olympia by the surname of 'ATTO/UWO^ (Apo- 

 myius) " driving away the flies" and the annual 

 sacrifice of a bull to Zeus Apomyius* at the Olympic 

 games, is said to have been performed with the result of 

 dispersing the hosts of flies, which were the torment of 

 those rites ; whilst the Elians were unremitting in the like 

 worship, by which they deprecated the infliction of those 

 swarms of flies, which they believed to bring with them 

 pestilence and disease. At the festival of Athena at 

 Aliphera, the Hero Myiagrus, or Myioides (juutayjooe, that 

 is, the fly-catcher) was invoked as the protector against 

 flies. 



The Romans also had their Deus Myiagrus, and into 

 the Temple of Hercules, at Rome, flies were not permitted 

 to enter. 



Coming nearer to our own day, we read of the same 

 or a similar worship as prevalent amongst the Hottentots, 

 who adore " as a benign deity, a certain insect, peculiar, 

 it is said, to the Hottentot countries. This animal is of 



* A representation of Zeus Apomyius, or the Deus Myiagrus, on an 

 ancient gem, will be found figured at the head of the chapter on Diptera. 

 The face of the god is given in the figure of the fly. 



