36*2 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



statue, brought to Alexandria in consequence of 

 the great concourse of strangers in that city." 



From the foregoing statement of Plutarch, it is 

 evident that tlie Sarapis, wliose worship was intro- 

 duced by the first Ptolemy from Sinope, was a new^ 

 Deity, previously unknown in the Pantheon of 

 Egypt; and Macrobius* affirms, that, though the 

 Egyptians were compelled to receive Sarapis and 

 Saturn into the order of Gods, and to celebrate their 

 rites after the manner of the Alexandrians, their 

 temples were never admitted within the precincts of 

 their towns. We therefore find no mention of Sarapis 

 till the time of the Greeks and Romans ; and that, 

 principally in cities founded or greatly frequented 

 by them, as Alexandria, Canopus, Antinoopolis, 

 and Berenice, in small Roman towns of the Oasis, 

 in the Nitriotist, or in quarries and stations in 

 the deserts, where he was also invoked under the 

 names of Pluto and Sol inferus.t The form of 

 Sarapis, according to the statues found at Rome, 

 is totally different from that assigned to him in 

 the Gneco- Egyptian temples of Egypt ; where he 

 appears to be merely a modification of Osiris 

 himself; and the same character is given him 

 in a statue lately found at Alexandria §, by Mr. 

 Harris, to whom I am indebted for the drawing 

 given in the Plate. Clemens describes the figure 

 of the God to be of an azure colour approaching 

 to black. 



* Macrob. Saturn, i. 4. f Strabo, xvii. p. 552. 



% These inscriptions usually begin Ml HAini IMErAAni 2APAniAI. 



§ VUe Plate 31. Part 3. fig.'2. 



