the ship-goddess herself: and hence she is occasionally said to have been CHAR. III. the builder of the first ship'. Further light will be thrown upon her character by considering the time, to which she is ascribed. She is said to have built the walls of Babylon, and to have been the wife of that earliest Assyrian Ninus who founded Nineveh. But the Ninus thus distinguished can only be Nimrod, whose real name seems to have been Nin, the title Nimrod or the rebel being applied to him by way of reproach; for Nimrod was the only Ninus, who was equally concerned in the founding both of Nineveh and of Babylon : when miraculously driven away from the latter, he went forth, we are told, into the land of Ashur where he built the former. The dove Semiramis then was the consort indeed, but only the mystical consort, of the archapostate Nimrod, with whom originated the whole frame of gentile mythology: and accordingly, as the Sema-Rama or lofty token of the dove was the peculiar badge of the ancient Assyrian empire, which commenced at Babylon and which afterwards had Nineveh for its capital, I am much inclined to believe, that it was first assumed as a national banner by the daring architects of the tower of Babel, and that it is mentioned even by the sacred historian himself. He represents the primeval Babylonians as encouraging each other to the work by saying, Come now, let us build unto ourselves a city and a tower; and the top thereof shall be for the heavens :! and let us make unto ourselves 4 TOKEN, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth'. The word, here used by Moses to describe the name or token which the Babylonians agreed to assume, is Sem; the very word, which enters into the composition of Semiramis, and which the Hierapolitans seem to have applied to their dove-bearing statue: and I interpret it in the same manner, inasmuch as it will thus both produce excellent sense and will accord remarkably well with history. I see not how the merely wishing to acquire renown, as the expression is commonly understood, could at all, in the way of cause and effect, tend to prevent their being scattered: and, whatever it was that they agreed to make for Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. Chron. Pasch. p. 36. Athen. Legat. c. xxvi. 2 Vide infra book vi. c. 2. § 1. : BOOK V. themselves, it was plainly something which was designed at least to operate as an instrument to keep them together in one body. Now, if we suppose Sem to mean a name in the sense of token or a sign or a banner, we shall immediately perceive its close connection with the avowed purpose of the Babylonians. They agreed to adopt a national badge and to enroll themselves under one particular ensign; in order that, by thus having a rallying point, they might prevent themselves from being dispersed. Accordingly we find from history, not only that they had a national standard; but that that standard was a dove and that they designated it by the word here employed by Moses, calling it uncompoundedly Sema or the token and compoundedly. Sema-Rama or the lofty token. Their banner probably exhibited a woman bearing a dove on her head, like the token of the Hierapolitans and, since it was immediately connected with the superstition which originated at Babel, it was deemed sacred; and thence, as was usual among the old military idolaters, was worshipped as a divinity'. By the Greeks, and perhaps even by themselves in process of time, it was mistaken for a deified princess, the supposed founder of Babylon: but the real diluvian character of the personified Sema-Rama was never thoroughly forgotten. She was still made the daughter of the fish-goddess Derceto: she was still thought to be the sister of the fish-god Dagon: she was still connected with the flood of Deucalion and the first-built ship: she was still fabled either to have been transformed into a dove, or to have been fed by doves in her infancy, or to have been the first that bore a dove for her ensign, or to have been distinguished by a name which some how or other either signified a dove or was connected with one*. In the legend of her being fed by doves we again find the word Sem; by which the dove was called in its capacity of a symbolical ensign, and which Moses (if I mistake not) applies to the banner adopted by the primeval Babylonians. When exposed during her infancy, she is said to have been discovered and pre Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 107. The Romans, in a similar manner, worshipped the eagles on their standards; whence Tacitus calls them propria legionum numina. The modern practice of consecrating the banner of a regiment is evidently a relic of this ancient idolatrous custom. * Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 92, 93, 107. Luc. de dea Syra. Hesych. Lex. served by a shepherd named Simma; and she is feigned to have been after- CHAP. III. wards espoused to Menon'. The story of her exposure and preservation is but the incessantly repeated fable of the exposure of the great father or the great mother on the summit of a lofty mountain: and both the shepherd Simma or Sema, and her reputed consort Menon or Menu, are alike the diluvian patriarch; of whom the shepherd Nimrod, so called as the prince of the Scythic Palli or Shepherds, probably claimed to be a manifestation or Avatar. It is not unworthy of observation, that both the name of Sami or SamiRama, and some broken legends of her connection with doves, have been preserved in the western parts of Hindostan. She is there imagined to be a tree with a human countenance, called the Sami tree; and she is feigned to be the goddess of fire. We may easily trace the origin of both these notions. The Sema, or token of the dove, having been assumed as a national insigne, was elevated, like the Roman eagle, on a standard-pole : and this token, if we may judge from the form in which it was exhibited at Hierapolis, was a female figure, sometimes probably a mere female head, surmounted by a dove. Now, in the east, any long upright piece of wood was called a tree. The tree of Sami therefore will prove to be nothing more than the ensign of her votaries; that is to say, a pole sur mounted by a dove which perches on the head of a female. Such was the form of the Indian Sami: and, with respect to her character, she was deemed, I apprehend, the goddess of fire, because the Sabian worship of the solar fire commenced with Nimrod at Babylon, and because, as is frequently the case with the great mother, she was esteemed the female regent of the Sun s 'Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 93. * See Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 257. The passage here referred to appears to be authentic: but Mr. Wilford's pundit had shamefully corrupted the legend, whence his former account of Semiramis was drawn. He seems to have learned her western history, and to have adopted his interpolations accordingly. 3 Thus, according to Euthymius Zegabenus, the ancient Arabs adored a simple head of Venus. Seld. de diis Syr. sýnt. ii. c. 4. p. 216. ✦ By this appellation the cross is frequently designated in Scripture. 3 Respecting the female Sun and the male Moon more will be said hereafter. Vide infra book v. c. 4. § I. 3. BOOK V. 9. The ship-goddess Juno being thus connected with the mystic dove, we shall perceive the reason, why the rainbow also, under the name of Iris, is constantly assigned to her as a handmaid and attendant, This beautiful phenomenon was another Sema or sacred token: and it is a curious circumstance, that, in a hymn to Selene or the lunar boat, ascribed to Homer, the very title of Sema is given to it. The word was borrowed by the Greeks from the oriental dialects, and it was used by them precisely in the same sense. Thus Homer, both in the hymn to Selene and elsewhere in the Iliad, calls the rainbow, almost in the very words of Moses, a token or sign to mortals placed in the clouds by Jupiter. It is not improbable, that the Sema-Rama of the Assyrians, when complete, exhibited the appearance of a woman bearing on her head a dove surrounded by the rainbow, thus uniting together the pagan Juno and Iris : at least, I think it abundantly clear, that the peacock was consecrated to the queen of the gods, because in its gaudy plumage it exhibits the various tints of the rainbow. 10. The Astartè or Astoreth of the Phenicians, who was worshipped in conjunction with Adonis in the same manner as Isis was venerated in conjunction with Osiris, was equally the goddess of the sacred lunar ship. According to Sanchoniatho, her head, like that of Isis or Io, was decorated with horns which exhibited the figure of the navicular crescent: and coins are yet extant, in which she is represented standing on the prow of a galley, with a spear in her left hand and a head in her right3. The head is doubtless that of Osiris, which was thought to float supernaturally every year from Egypt to Byblos: and the ship is clearly the same as the Argo or Argha, the sacred vessel of Isis or Isi. II. Hitherto I have considered the great mother, as openly and unreservedly either identified or connected with a mysterious ship; in which, the great father is described, as having floated upon the surface of the Texpwg de Bgorois xai onμa rituxlai. Hom. Hymn. in Lun. ver. 13. Ιρισσιν εοικότες, άστε Κρονίων Εν νεφεϊ στηριξε, τερας μερόπων ανθρωπων. Iliad. lib. xi. ver. 27. Ηΰτε πορφυρέην Τριν θνητοισι τανυσση · Ζευς εξ ερανόθεν τερας εμμέναι. Iliad. lib. xvii. ver. 547. 3 Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Vaillant. Num. Imperat. p. 374. ocean, when the whole habitable globe was inundated: I shall next proceed CHAP. II. to point out, how the same idea is still covertly set forth under the veil of symbols or hieroglyphics. The sacred Ship of the deluge was typified very commonly by the ceto or large sea-fish, by the mundane egg, by the lunar crescent, by the floating island, by the aquatic lotos, and by any circular vessel such as a shell or a cup. As I have already had occasion to establish the import of these symbols, I shall at present only observe, that the Hindoo mythologists expressly tell us, that by the fish, within the belly of which the sovereign prince was inclosed, they mean the ark, within which Menu and his seven companions were preserved during the flood; and that the lotos floating on the top of the water, and the consecrated dish or cup or shell, are to be considered as mysterious representations of the ship Argha, in which the great father was safely wafted over the streams of the deluge. Hence it is evident, that, when the chief goddess of the Gentiles is either symbolized by or connected with any of these hieroglyphics; the purport is the same, as if we were literally told, that she was symbolized by or connected with a ship. 1. In the mythology of the west, Astartè or Derceto or the Syrian goddess bears the name of Venus or Aphroditè: and accordingly the eastern legends, which are told of the former, are applied without hesitation by the Greek and Roman poets to the latter. Thus we are informed, that Venus assumed the shape of a fish, when she was pursued by Typhon or the ocean; and that the form of Derceto was that of a mermaid or a woman terminating in the tail of a fish'. Thus also we are taught, that, when this same goddess fell into the sacred lake Bambycè, a large fish safely conveyed her to the shore; and that, as she was herself metamorphosed into a fish, so her fabled daughter Semiramis flew away under the figure of a dove*. Another fable introduces the additional symbol of the egg. Thus, as we learn from Hyginus and Ampelius, an egg of wonderful magnitude was Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii. c. 30. Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 44. Luc. de dea Syra. * Schol. in Arat. Phæn. p. 32. Erat. Catast. 1xlus. |