CHAP. XIII. EMBLEMS OF RE. 295 



Egypt, a little to the south-east of the Delta ; and 

 those of Heliopolis being dedicated to lie, the 

 Divinity of the place, the Romans were led to con- 

 clude that all others belonged to the same God.* 

 But the Obelisks of Thebes were ascribed to 

 Amun, the presiding Deity of that city ; and though 

 several of those at Rome came from Thebes, and 

 were therefore dedicated to Amun, the first impres- 

 sions were too strong to be removed, and the notion 

 of their exclusive appropriation to the Sun conti- 

 nued and has been repeated to the present day. 



The God Re was usually represented as a man, 

 with a hawk's head surmounted by a globe or disk of 

 the Sun, from which the Uraeus asp issued ; some- 

 times with the head of a man, and the same disk ; 

 and more rarely under the form of a hawk, his em- 

 blem. Porphyry says, " the hawk was dedicated 

 to the Sun, being the symbol of light and spirit," 

 because of the quickness of its motion, and its 

 ascent to the higher regions of the air. Hora- 

 pollo thinks it was chosen as a type of that lumi- 

 nary, " from its being able to look more intently 

 towards its rays than any other bird ; whence, also, 

 under the form of a hawk, they depicted the Sun 

 as the lord of Vision." t Horapollo also sayst that 

 the Scarabffius was an emblem of the Sun, in which 

 he is borne out by the authority of the sculptures, 

 though he is wrong in the reason he assigns for its 

 adoption. He supposes it to be from a certain 



* Pliny (xxxvi. 8.) says the first was raised in Heliopolis, which was 

 the general idea among the Romans. 



t Horapollo, i. 6. J Horapollo, i. 10. 



u 4 



