CHAP. XVI. VARIOUS PERSONS OF HADES. 435 



the Sibyl obtained an entrance into the lower re- 

 gions. 



The judge of the dead is recognized in Osiris; 

 the office of Mercury Psychopompos is the same 

 as that of Anubis; the figure of Justice without a 

 head, and the scales of Truth or Justice at the 

 gate of Amenti, occur in the funereal subjects of 

 the Egyptian tombs; and the hideous animal who 

 there seems to guard the approach to the mansion 

 of Osiris is a worthy prototype of the Greek Cer- 

 berus. 



It was not ordinary individuals alone who were 

 subjected to a public ordeal at their death, — the 

 character of the king himself was doomed to undergo 

 the same test ; and if any one could establish proofs 

 of his impiety or injustice, he was denied the usual 

 funeral obsequies* when in the presence of the 

 assembled multitude his body was brought to the 

 sacred lake, or, as Diodorust states, to the vesti- 

 bule of the tomb. " The customary trial having 

 commenced, any one was permitted to present 

 himself as an accuser. The pontiffs first passed 

 an encomium upon his character, enumerating all 

 his noble actions, and pointing out the merit of 

 each ; to which the people, who were assembled 

 to the number of several thousands, if they felt 

 those praises to be just, responded with favourable 

 acclamations. If, on tiie contrary, his life had 

 been stained with vice or injustice, they showed 

 their dissent by loud murmurs : and several in- 

 stances are recorded of Egyptian monarchs having 



* Vide supra, Vol. I. p. 2o7. f Diodor. i. 72. 



F F 2 



