CHAP. XIV. SNAKE WITH TAIL IN ITS MOUTH. 243 



and sometimes occurring in the mysterious subjects 

 of the tombs, it does not appear to have been sa- 

 cred to any of the great deities of Egypt ; and if it 

 belonged to any, it was probably only to those of 

 an inferior order, in the region of Amenti. It is 

 doubtful if the snake with its tail in its mouth 

 was really adopted by the Egyptians as the em- 

 blem* of Eternity. It occurs on papyri t, encir- 

 cling the figure of Harpocrates ; but there is no 

 evidence of its having that meaning, and I do not 

 remember to have seen it on any monuments of an 

 early Egyptian epoch. 



The snake, in former times, played a conspicuous 

 part in the mysteries of religion ; many of the sub- 

 jects, in the tombs of the Kings at Thebes in par- 

 ticular, show the importance it was thought to en- 

 joy in a future state ; and ^lian t seems to speak of 

 *'a subterraneous chapel and closet at each corner 

 of the Egyptian temples, in which the Thermuthis 

 asp was kept," as if it were the universal custom 

 throughout the country to keep a sacred serpent. 

 That the asp was universally honoured, appears to 

 be highly probable ; but other serpents did not en- 

 joy the same distinction, and one was looked upon 

 by the Egyptians as a type of the Evil Being, under 

 the name of Aphophis, "the giant." It was re- 

 presented to have been killed by Horus ; and in this 

 fable may be traced that of Apollo and Pytho, as 



* Macrobius (Sat. i. 5.) says it was a Phoenician mode of repre- 

 senting the world. 



■f A papyrus in the Berlin museum has this emblem. 

 % iElian, x. 31. 



R 2 



