CHAP. XIV. THE MYGALE SACRED TO BUTO. 135 



Of this system an idea may be obtained from many 

 parts of the Mosaic account of the creation; and 

 the second verse of Genesis might present to an 

 Egyptian at least six members of liis Pantlieon, in 

 the Earth, Chaos, Darkness, the Deep, the Spirit 

 of God, and the Waters. 



But a similar abstruse notion was beyond the 

 reach of the uninstructed. They were contented 

 to see in Latona the nurse of Horus*; and the 

 Mygale was said to be the animal, whose form she 

 assumed to elude the pursuit of Typhon, when he 

 sought to destroy the son of Osiris, who had been 

 committed to her charge. 



I have already shown that the Mygale is found 

 embalmed at Thebes, and that the burying-place 

 of this animal was not confined to Butos. Strabo, 

 indeed, would lead us to infer that Athribis t vied 

 with that city in the honours it bestowed upon 

 the emblem of Latona ; and if he is correct in this 

 assertion, the relationship, or perhaps the identity, 

 of Buto and the lion-headed Goddess Thriphis 

 ma}^ be established. 1^ The Athribis mentioned by 

 the geographer was the capital of a nome of the 

 same name, lying between Bubastis and the Nile. 

 Another Athribis stood in Upper Egypt, in the 

 nome of Aphroditopolis, close to the Libyan range 

 of hills, where extensive mounds and ruins of a 

 temple still mark its site. It was also called Cro- 

 codilopolis ; but tradition lias retained the name 

 of Athribis in the Coptic Athrebi. The inmates of 



* Hcrodot. ii. 156. f Strabo, xvii. 559. 



% Vide supra. Vol. I. (2d Scries) p. 265. and 273. 



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