182 THE SHEPHERD KINGS OF EGYPT. 



Mizraites, but the representatives of the Philistines -W^ho also caine 

 out of Egypt. There were eight of them according to the Chronicle, 

 and these are the seven Cabiri with Eshmoon. The Old Chronicle is 

 not far from the truth. Whoever Eshmoon, the eighth, may be, the 

 seven who preceded him are the seven sons of Ashchur, the father of 

 Tekoa, the name Mestraei coming from that of Ahashtari, the fourth 

 son of the family of Naarah . 



The name of Ashchur could hardly be better preserved than it is in 

 Egyptian story. He is Osochor, or Hercules.® As the god of 

 Hermopolis, he occurs under a form similar to that presented in 

 Zereth-Shahar. He is Sahor, and with him are there united Thoth, 

 whose name we will yet find to connect with Achuzam, and Timan-hor, 

 his son Temeni.^" Let me premise so far for the sake of explaining 

 another name of this famous hero. The Cabiri, of whom he is the 

 head, are also the Dioscuri and Tyndaridse, and these names find 

 their Egyptian equivalents in Dashour (Sakkarah with the feminine 

 pronoun) and Tentyra. Peschir Teuthur is accordingly the protecting 

 deity of the latter city, the masculine article changing Ashchur to 

 Peschir. ^^ Maceris, another name for the Egyptian Hercules, ^^ may 

 have come from a form like Moscheris, the seventeenth of the 

 Theban Kings of Eratosthenes, and is useful as exhibiting the prefix 

 M which we find in the designation Mestrsean and in the Misor of 

 Sanchoniatho, who is the father of Taaut. It likewise connects with 

 Mysara, a name of Egypt, and is perhaps some such word as the Am 

 of Amalek, meaning " people," I have no hesitation in referring the 

 Isaiacus whom Plutarch gives as the father of Typhon to Ashchur. -^^ 

 The form Peschir and tlie Bushur Ashurs of Assyria lead at once to 

 the well known classical name Busiris. Osiris, we are told, made 

 him king of the maritime region bordering on Phoenicia. To him in 

 a time of national danger the prophet Phrasius, from Cyprus, 

 recommended- the slaughter of strangers, and for this he was slain 

 by Hercules together with his son Amphidamas and his herald 

 Chalbes." He is connected with Antaeus, who is the Hechaoth of 



8 This name was known to the ancients. Banter's Mythology and Fables of the Ancients. 

 London, 1740, Vol. iv. p. 123. 



10 Osburn's Monumental History of Egypt, ii. 22, 24. 



11 Lepsius' Letters from Egypt, 124. 



12 Guigniaut, Religions da I'Antiquite, ii. 248. 



13 De Isid. et Osirid. xxix. 



1* For particulars regarding Busiris see Died. Sic.j ApoUodorus, Kutarchj Isocratea, or tlh« 

 collected facts in Guigniaut, i. pt. ii. : 



