2o8 The Common Cat. [Sess. 



was also venerated as a god. Doubtless the worship of this 

 and of other animals was due to their superior power, courage, 

 or cunning over those qualities in man. They believed that it 

 possessed a soul similar to their own, which persisted after its 

 bodily death, and which was still powerful for good or harm. 

 Certain temples were dedicated to the worship of the cat, and 

 the goddess Bast, Pasht, or Bubastis was the cat deified. She 

 is always represented as having a cat's head. Charms in the 

 shape of the cat were very universally worn. Thebes was an 

 enormous and opulent city, indeed one of the greatest cities of 

 the then world, and could send out as many as 40,000 war 

 chariots. It, as well as Heliopolis, were cities sacred to the 

 cat, and annual festivals were held in these cities in honour 

 of the goddess Pasht, and of her cats. Long processions of 

 young men and maids wended their ways from outlying dis- 

 tricts towards the temples sacred to this goddess. 



To the Egyptians the cat was an emblem of the sun. This 

 arose from the varying appearance of the eye — the pupil being 

 now large and again small. For the same reason the cat was 

 also held sacred to the moon — the waxing and the waning 

 being represented by the size of the cat's pupil. Again the cat 

 was typical of fertility, and in these various aspects it was 

 held worthy of adoration. Herodotus tells us that the cat was 

 held in such veneration in Egypt, that when one of these 

 animals died in a house the occupants shaved off their eye- 

 brows and mourned many days. He also states that when a 

 dwelling was consumed by fire, the first interest of the owner 

 was to save the cat, while the other members of the family 

 had to shift for themselves. The penalty for killing a cat was 

 death. 



Cambyses, King of Persia and son of the great Cyrus, in- 

 vaded Egypt about 550 B.C., and lost whole armies in the 

 desert. It is affirmed that he gained the victory at the battle 

 of Pelusium because he caused each soldier in the front rank 

 to carry a cat, and the Egyptians would not advance against 

 his army lest they should inadvertently kill the cats. 



If cats were loved and worshipped when alive, their bodies 

 were treated with the greatest reverence when dead. They 

 were preserved as mummies, and costly wrappings were em- 

 ployed for this purpose, and finally bronze or marble sar- 



