230 Gleanings from the 



Phoenician failors and merchants brought into 

 Greece a flock of marvels which they may have 

 gathered from fuch ftory-tellers as may yet be 

 heard in Bagdad, and read of in the pages of 

 the " Arabian Nights." Many of the mipwrecks 

 of Odyfleus, the marvels of Circe's ifland, the 

 prodigies vifible to the hero in the Necyia, are of 

 a diftinctly Eaftern dye. The Orontes did not 

 flow alone into the Tiber ; and tales of travellers, 

 always acceptable to ftay-at-home folk, came with 

 a natural fitnefs from the fertile lands of the Eaft 

 to the Weftern World. How greatly the Greeks 

 were indebted to the Egyptians for much of their 

 fyftem of divinities, and efpecially for fo many of 

 their conceptions of the future ftate, may be feen 

 in Herodotus. The fables of Charon and his 

 obole, of Cerberus, of the ftern Rhadamanthus, 

 and the like, are fpecimens of this mythology of 

 Hades. The worfhip of Aphrodite and Hercules 

 came to Greece from the Phoenician cult of 

 Aftarte and Melkarth. The revels connected 

 with the worfhip of Dionyfus were due to Egypt. 

 Over and above the fyftems of the greater 

 divinities which were elaborated by the Greeks 

 and Romans, they were exceedingly hofpitable to 

 the gods of conquered lands. Thefe were intro- 

 duced with much of the flrange ritual connected 

 with them, and large numbers of the vulgar were 

 carried away with their worfhip. Many ftrange 

 and grotefque conceptions of what may be termed 

 popular mythology alfo fucceeded in entering the 

 clailical lands feme from one caufe, fome from 



