CHAP. XIII. ISIS \V1T1I MANY NAMES. 367 



Amenti, she corresponded to Proserpine ; where, 

 as the wife of Osh'is, the judge of the dead, the 

 title Thermuthis, "the giver of deatli,'" if it really 

 was applied to her, might serve to indicate her 

 office. And if Philarchus says the latter name was 

 given to the sacred Asp, or basilisk, with which 

 they crowned the statues of Isis *, it may either 

 have been confined to those occasions when so 

 employed, or have been given it in the sense of 

 " deadly,''' from its fatal bite. 



Apuleius t addresses Isis as Ceres, or heavenly 

 Venus, the sister of Phoebus, or Proserpine ; and 

 makes her say, " I am Nature, the parent of all 

 things, mistress of all the Elements, the beginning 

 of ages, Sovereign of the Gods, Queen of the 

 Manes, the first of heavenly beings ; . . . . My 

 divinity, uniform in itself, is honoured under nume- 

 rous forms, various rites, and different names. The 

 Phrygians call me Pessinuntiant, mother God- 

 dess ; the Athenian Autoclithones, the Cecropian 

 Minerva § ; the people of Cyprus, Paphian Venus ; 

 the arrow-armed Cretans, Diana Dictyana ; the 

 Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine ; the Eleusinians, 

 ancient Ceres ; others, Juno, Beilona, Hecate, 

 Rhamnusia ; but the Sun-illumined Ethiopians, 

 and the Egyptians, renowned for ancient lore, 

 worshipping me with due ceremonies, call me by 

 my real name, Queen Isis." 



According to Herodotus ll, "Ceres and Bacchus 



* Vide infra, on the Asp. -|- Apiil. Met. ii. 2i\. 



X The Cybele of Pcssinus. 



$ Diodonis i^avs the Athenians swore by Isis. i. 29. 



II Hcrodot. ii."l-^.'}. I.jfi, 



