CHAP. XIII. FIGURE OF NEITIl. 285 



Plutarch* shows that he misunderstands the 

 character of Neith, when he attributes to Isis the 

 inscription in the temple of Minerva, " I am every 

 thing which has been, which is, and which will be, 

 and no mortal has yet lifted up my veil ; " for 

 though Isis may frequently have taken the attri- 

 butes of Neith and of other Deities, they were al- 

 ways kept distinct in the Egyptian Pantheon. In 

 another placet, he says, *' Isis is frequently called, 

 by the Egyptians, AthenaX, signifying, in their 

 language, I proceeded from myself;" from which 

 the Greeks probably borrowed the idea of that 

 Goddess beins^ born without a mother. But 

 Athena was not her Egyptian name ; and she was 

 not, as already observed, the same as Isis. 



Neith was to Sais, what Amun was to Thebes. 

 The names of several Monarchs of the 26th Dy- 

 nasty contained the legend of the Egyptian Mi- 

 nerva ; and in the sacred precincts of her temple 

 were buried all the Kings of that Saite family. 



Neith was represented as a female wearing the 

 crown of the Lower country, and holding in her 

 hand the hooked staff of the Gods, or the usual 

 flower-headed sceptre of the Goddesses, sometimes 

 with the addition of a bow and arrows ; being, as 

 Proclus § tells us, the Goddess of War, as well as of 

 Philosophy, and bearing some resemblance in her 

 attributes to the Minerva of Greece. She was 

 styled the " Mother of the Gods," or " Goddess 



* Pint, de Is. s. 9. f Pint, de Is. s. G2. 



J This may have been corrupted from one ol'the Egyptian titles of 

 Isis. 



$ Proclus in Tima;um. 



