IDENTIFIED IN THE MYTH OP ADONIS. 59 



Ovid makes Cinyras the son of Paphos, whom others make his son, 

 and Paphos the son of Pygmalion and the statue. Paphos is a purely 

 Egyptian name, corrupted from Apophis or Epaphus, as Concharis and 

 Cencheres from Acencheres. The city of that name in Cyprus is said 

 to have been founded by Cinyras, son of Apollo, or by Paphos, son of 

 Cinyras, or, according to Tacitus, by ^rias, an old name of Egypt. ^''■^ 

 In addition to the double connection of Adonis with Pygmalion, through 

 his mother Metharme and his father Cinyras, there is a link to bind him 

 in another of his names, which is Pygmseon."" Pygmaeon and Pygma- 

 lion bear a similar relation to one another, to that which exists between 

 Myrsus and Myrsilus, who are united as father and son,^"^ and the longer 

 form doubtless connects with the Egyptian festival of the Paamylia 

 mentioned by Plutarch, which was the occasion of a phallic ceremony.^''"' 

 Stiipped of their contradictions, these various narrations give us in 

 Pygmalion and his statue or daughter Metharme, Thoas and his 

 daughter Smyrna, and Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha, the guilty 

 pair of whom came Adonis or the Pharaoh of the Exodus. In 

 Cinyras, Thoas, Pygmalion or Pygmfeon, Abobus (which no doubt 

 connects with Apophis and Paphos), Gingras and Thammuz, we 

 have some of the many forms in which the titles of the two oppres- 

 sors of Israel have been handed down; and in Metharme, Smyrna 

 and Myrrha, it is not difl&cult to recognize Amersis, Myriua, or Merrhis, 

 the daughter of Pharaoh. While Acencheres and Thothmosis are 

 reproduced in Cinyras and Thammuz, the Mesphres which unites 

 them is not left unaccounted for or unnoticed in the myth. Mesphres 

 or Miphre, literally ''beloved of re or the sun," is a solar designation 

 identical with Mithras, ^""^ a jJ^^ which is the Coptic article, unnecessary 

 inasmuch as Meire answers every purpose, taking the place of a simi- 

 larly useless theta. This opens up a great Persian connection, on which 

 according to my promise, I forbear at present to enter. ^"^ The line of 



159 Anthon's Class. Diet. Art Paphos. 



ICO Guigniaut, ii, 926. 



iGi Vide Rawlinsou, note in Herod, i, 7. 



i°- Delside et Osiride, xii. 



iGs It is not a mere accidental coincidence that appears in Pliny's naming the first Egyptian 

 King who erected an obelisk to the sun Mestres, whom Mr. Sharpe, in his Early History of 

 Egypt, identifies with Mesphres Thothmosis (Pliny Hist. Nat. xxxvi, 13, &c.), and in Belus, 

 II, father of Pygmalion, being surnamed Mestres also (Vide. Baiiier, iii, 492, note ; Notes of 

 Gronovius in Justin, xviii, 4). Neither is it unworthy of attention that the name Agenor' 

 already mentioned as a probable form of Acencheres, occurs in the same family. 



i"^ Vide Guigniaut, i, 375. Mithras is brought from Etiiiopia and Egypt, being identified 

 with the Greek hero Perseus, whom I hope to identify in some future paper with the great 

 Eameses or Thothmosis. In the Assyrian Cann Mithreus precedes Teutamas. 



