PRIMITIVE HISTORY OP THE lONIANS. 569 



polis."^ Herodotus identifies the goddess Mitra with Venus Urania, 

 wlio is tlie same as Atliara or Atargatis, tlie name Urania being 

 taken from her husband Jerachmeel."* But Mithras is a male 

 divinity, and is represented, in the position of Kvasu- or Janus, as 

 uniting two races. He was worshipped by the Romans, and especially 

 at Antium,^'^ a place already connected with the Onam line. There 

 is no doubt that he was a solar deity. The keys, which appear in 

 several representations of this god, suggest some I'elation with Janus 

 and other porters. The bull, which the young man in the Phrygian 

 bonnet is engaged in killing, often bears the inscription " Mithras," 

 so that Taurus may be the root of the word, and Mithras may repre- 

 sent Abishur, 7?^ simply taking the place of h, one of the commonest 

 of literal changes in etymology. It would thus resemble the Baby- 

 lonian Misharu. The Persians asserted that Mithras was born of a 

 stone. His mysteries were called Patrica. But more important and 

 definite is the represen1;ation of the wine of Icarius, the mead of 

 Kvasir, and the Vedic Soma, by the blood of the bull, into the neck 

 of which the dagger is thrust. On one of the marbles representing 

 Mithras, at the spot where the blood flows forth, the words " Nama 

 Sebesio" were found inscribed. These words have vexed the minds 

 of many learned antiquarians, and, although no difliculty has been 

 found in rendering them from the Greek into august strecmi or sacred 

 fluid, no one has been able to explain why it should be so called. 

 Abishur as Kvasir, uniting the ^sir and Yanir, is the explanation. 

 The sacred fluid is the Soma that commemorates Shammai, as Mithras 

 does Abishur. We have thus, representing the murdered Abishur 

 or Amchura, Absyrtus, Icarius, Abderus, Kvasir, and the bull of 

 Mithriac worship ; and in the case of three of these, Icarius, and the 

 two latter, the victim furnishes a beverage to his murderers. One 

 soiirce only can explain this legend with its peculiar accompaniments — 

 the Egyptian monuments of Aboo-Seir or elsewhere, that refer to 

 Amchura and his family. 



VIII.— INDIAN CONNECTION. 

 The Yedic and other traditions of the Hindoos furnish a more satis- 

 factory exhibition of the Ime of Onam than any yet afibrded, and 



1" Religions de I'Antiquite, i. 367. 

 Vi Herodotus, i. 131. 



175 Delia Torri, Monument. Vet. Antii. Vide Banier, Mythology and Fables of the Ancients 

 i. 102 se^. 



