36 
THE ANCIENT HIST011Y OF THE OX. 
mestication of the ox took place in Western Asia, by the Cauca- 
sian nations, a people that inhabited a country situated between 
the Caspian and the Black Sea ; and thence, as from a central 
point, the different branches of this variety shot forth like the 
radii of a circle, whence have sprung the most civilized nations 
of the world, and such as have most generally exercised dominion 
over the rest of mankind. 
The immense advantage derived from the domestication of the 
ox, in the beginning of human civilization, may be gathered from 
the conspicuous part which his name and attributes perform in 
the early history of mankind. We find the bull among the signs 
of the zodiac, and it typifies the Sun in more than one system of 
mythology; the supreme power in Jupiter among the Greeks 
and Romans ; the strength of war with Mars; and the sinews of 
commerce with Mercury. He was personally worshipped by the 
Egyptians, and held, therefore, sacred and reverenced as a deity. 
One instance of this was at Memphis, where they worshipped 
the sacred bull Apis ; and another was to be found at Heliopolis, 
where they held the bull Mnevis, or Mneuis, in equal veneration. 
Diodorus speaks of the honour in which these animals were held 
as being equal to that paid to the gods; and they are said to 
have had this regard paid to them as living emblems of Osiris, 
the father of mankind, and designed as memorials of the fruits of 
the earth being propagated by their means, and of the persons 
to whom the world was indebted for those blessings, that the 
remembrance of so great benefactions might last to the latest 
generations. 
But not only was the bull held in reverence by these ancient 
people : the cow and the calf were equally venerated. In the 
book of Tobit, complaint is made against the apostate tribes in 
Israel, who all sacrificed to the goddess Baol, represented by 
an heifer. When the Israelites fell into the idolatry of Egypt, 
they worshipped a calf on Horeb; and when the folly was re- 
newed under Jeroboam, still the object of worship was the same. 
It appears that it was not every bull that was so eminently dis- 
tinguished by the Egyptians ; there was a particular breed of this 
animal, having certain characteristic marks, the principal one 
being the lunar emblem upon the side, which the people in 
Egypt told Plutarch was effected evuQvi TV\q ^eKv\vv\s, by a touch 
of the moon , which he understands by this planet. The particular 
shape of the horns was also another characteristic of the sacred 
Apis : the horns bore some resemblance to a lunette, which was 
very probably an emblem of the ark. We find most of the arkite 
divinities distinguished either with a crescent or with horns. 
The bull of Europa is described as having his horns full budded, 
