CHAP. XIV. THE LION. iGQ 



The Lion. 



The worship of the Lion was particularly re- 

 garded in the city of Leontopolis * ; and other cities 

 adored this animal as the emblem of more than one 

 Deity. It was the symbol of strength t, and there- 

 fore typical of the Egyptian Hercules. With this 

 idea the Egyptian sculptors frequently represented 

 a powerful and victorious Monarch accompanied 

 by it in battle ; though, as Diodorus t says of Osy- 

 mandyas, some suppose the King to have been 

 really attended by a tame lion on those occasions. 



Macrobius§, ProclusH, Horapollo^, and others, 

 state that the Lion was typical of the Sun ; an asser- 

 tion apparently borne out by the sculptures, which 

 sometimes figure it borne upon the backs of two 

 lions.** It is also combined with other emblems 

 appertaining to the God Re.tt In the connection 

 between the Lion and Hercules, may be traced the 

 relationship of the Sun and the God of Strength ; 

 Hercules, or the Dom of Egypt, being, as already 

 observed tt, " the power of the Deity, and the force 

 of the Sun." 



I have had occasion to mention a God, and 

 several Goddesses, who bore the head of a lion§§, 

 independent of the Egyptian Diana, Pasht, or Bu- 



* Diodor. i. 84. Strabo, xvii. Porphy. de Abstin. iv. 9. ^lian, 

 Hist. An. xii. 7. Plin. v. 10. 



-f- Clem. Strom, lib. v. J Diodor. i. 48. 



§ Macrob. Saturn, i. 26. 



II Proclus de Sacrific. " Some animals are Solar, as lions and cocks." 

 t Horapollo, i. 17. 



** Vide Plate 29. fig. G. ft Vide Plate 43. a. 



J:j: Vide supra, p. W. §'^ Supra, p. 84:. 



