180 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



ties were emanations from the same source ; and 

 the minor divinities of various grades were the re- 

 presentatives of inferior powers, of physical objects 

 connected with the Creator, and of different ab- 

 stract ideas, whose relative rank depended on the 

 near or distant connection they were deemed to 

 possess with a divine origin. Some, again, were 

 mere deifications of physical objects; and supersti- 

 tion raised to a sacred rank a useful animal, or an 

 unwholesome plant. The same may be observed 

 in the religion of the Greeks and Romans; and to 

 such an extent was this carried by the latter, and 

 so degraded did the office of a deity become, that 

 one was chosen to preside ov'er the common sewers 

 of the city, and a God of coughing* was invented 

 as a suitable pendant to the Goddess Fever, t 



The Egyptians, like the Greeks and Romans, 

 divided their Gods into different classes or grades. 

 Among the latter, they consisted of the 12 great 

 Gods, — the Dii majorum gentium, or Dii consu- 

 entes, and the Dii minorum gentium ; and the 

 Egyptians, in the same manner, distinguished their 

 eight great Gods from those of an inferior rank. 

 The names of the twelve great Gods of the Greeks 

 have been preserved by Ennius in the following 

 couplet : — 



" Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, 

 Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo ; " 



each of whom presided over one of the months 



* It must be allowed that Tussis is not mentioned bj' anj' Latin 

 writer, and rests on mere local tradition, 

 f Cicero, v. 2. " We see a temple to Fever on the Palatine Hill." 



