CH.XIV. HIPPOPOTAMUS A TYPHONIAN ANIMAL. 179 



to it was far from being general in the country ; 

 and figures of a Typlionian character in religious 

 subjects on the monuments are frequently por- 

 trayed with the head of a hippopotamus.*' Even 

 the Cerberus, or monster of Amenti, is sometimes 

 represented under the form of this animal. I have 

 nowhere found a male Deity with the head of a 

 hippopotamus, or accompanied by it as an emblem, 

 in any of the sculptures of Egypt ; and the only 

 instances of a hippopotamus-headed God are in 

 some figures of blue pottery, probably from the 

 vicinity of Papremis, to which, as Herodotus ob- 

 serves, its worship was confined. 



According to Plutarch, the *' river-horse '* was 

 the emblem of " impudence." t This he endea- 

 vours to show by a hieroglyphic sentence in the 

 porch of the temple of Sais, composed of an infant^ 

 an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a hippopotamus, 

 which he thus interprets, "Oh! you who are 

 coming into the world, and vi'ho are going out 

 of it (that is, young or old), God hateth impu- 

 dence." And, indeed, if the reason he gives X 

 for its having been chosen as this symbol were 

 true, or even believed by the Egyptians, we ought 

 not to be surprised that he was considered suf- 

 ficiently unamiable to be a Typhonian animal. 

 Clemens substitutes the crocodile for the hippo- 

 potamus in this sentence, which he gives § from 



* Vide supra, 88. ; and Vol. I. (2cl Series) p. 429, 430. 

 t Pint, de Is. s. 32. | Conf. iElian. An. vii. 19. 



() Clem. Strom. V. p. 139. 



N 2 



