CHAP. XIV. THE CEPUS OF STRABO. 131 



It was a native of Etliiopia, as Pliny* and other 

 authors state, where it is still common ; and many 

 are brought down to Cairo at the present day, to 

 amuse the crowds in the streets, by exhibiting the 

 antics they are taught, to the sound of drums and 

 other noisy instruments ; but the constant applica- 

 tion of the stick shows the little respect now paid 

 in Egypt to the once revered emblem of Hermes. 



Strabo agrees with other writers t, in stating 

 that the Hermopolitans worshipped the Cynoce- 

 phalus. He afterwards mentions the Cepus, which 

 was sacred in Babylon t, near Memphis ; but from 

 his description of that animal, "with a face like a 

 satyr, and the rest between a dog and a bear," 

 we may suppose he had in view the sacred Ape of 

 Thoth, as no animal worshipped in Egypt answers 

 his description so well as the Cynocephalus. § 



Indeed, it is possible that he mistook the Cy- 

 nocephalus of Hermopolis for one of the smaller 

 kind of monkeys, and applied the name Cepus to 

 the sacred type of the Egyptian Hermes. This is 

 further confirmed by the account given by Pliny || 

 of " the Cepus, whose hind feet resembled human 

 feet and thighs, and the fore feet were like human 

 hands," and by its being " a native of Ethiopia." 

 Some might suppose that he had in view the Ty« 



* Plin. viii. S-l,, and vii. 2. f Strabo, xvii. p. 559. 



J The modern town of Old Cairo stands on the site of Babylon, of 

 which the principal remains are the Roman station mentioned by 

 Strabo (xvii. p. 555.), Vide my Egypt and Thebes, p. 309. 



^ S. Passalacqna mentions a monster resembling a Cynocephalus 

 found at Hermopolis. Vide Pettigrew on Munmiies, p. 184. ; and Pas- 

 salacqua's Catalogue, p. 149. 



II Plin. viii. 19. Vide JEWan. Nat. An. xvii. 8. 



K 2 



