frequently that of the Semitic Sun-god. Can it be supposed for an instant that the Apollon of Klaros, whose oracle declared that the highest of gods is Iao,' was really identical with the Apollon of Delphoi? We might as well expect to find the Delphik oracle declaring that the highest of gods was Dionysos. The matter is perfectly simple: the Sun-god of Klaros in his Pantheon corresponded with the Sun-god of Delphoi in his. No Hellene of the early ages would ever have considered that Dionysos and Apollon were identical; to him all Sun-gods were Apollon. Comparatively late philosophical enquirers considered this question of identity, but were incorrect in their attempted solution of it. Macrobius practically reasons thus: There is only one Sun; Apollon is the Sun; Liber is the Sun; therefore Apollon is Liber (Dionysos): or in numbers, there is but one Four; 2 and 2 are 4: 3 and 1 are 4: ... 2 and 2 are 3 and 1. But they are not; they are only equivalent to 3 and 1; so with respect to solar mythology, the Aryan Apollon is the equivalent of the Semitic Dionysos. These considerations require to be borne in mind, for it may be said: If Dionysos be a solar divinity with widely spread cult, and if coins afford most ancient and truthful representations of Religious-mythology, then we shall naturally meet with numerous numismatic examples of the solar Dionysos. But we do not meet with such; therefore, Dionysos was not solar. The answer to this is, that we should have seen numerous examples of the solar Dionysos had it not been for the brightness of the solar Apollon. However, as already noticed, we have at least one such undoubted example, and one in this case is sufficient; given a few scattered bones, and we can reconstruct the animal. Rhode the Rosy, the warm flush of the sunlight, daughter of Poseidon and Aphrodite, two Phoenician divinities, in the isle of Rhodos, to which she gave her name, bore Helios, the

Sun seven sons, who became the heads of the seven branches of the Heliadai, or Sun-children, its early or earliest inhabitants. Into this portion of the myth it is unnecessary to enter, as the connection between the island and a solar cult is the only point at present under consideration. When Rhodos was overwhelmed with a deluge, Apollon, whom we here first meet with in connection with it, raised it from the waves, and its coins show—

Head of Helios, with flowing locks, generally also with the caput radiatum.

Head of Dionysos, above noticed, with ivy and berries, sometimes radiate.

The infant Herakles, strangling two serpents.-Rev. A pomegranate.

Head of Helios, radiate.-Rev. Female, with stole. Poseidon, at an altar, with trident and dolphin. Head of Helios. Rev. Large and small diota. Head of Helios, with flowing locks.-Rev. Winged sphinx and the special Rhodian flower.

Now all the divinities on these coins, except Poseidon, are solar; and, moreover, are identical and without exception Semitic. The Klarian Oracle declares the identity of the 'one Helios one Dionysos,' and the coins confirm it. Helios is accompanied by the Bakchik kanthar and pomegranate,' and Dionysos has the caput radiatum of the Sun-god. The snake-entangled Herakles is not the Aryan son of Alkmene, but the Rhodian Herakles, Bouzygos or Yoke-of-oxen, in whose cult two sacred oxen were set apart, one of which was offered up with imprecations: a mode of sacrifice, as Lactantius observes, unknown to the Hellenes, but familiar to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Of the Hercules with whom the Greeks are familiar,' says Herodotos, 'I could hear nothing in any Place, iv. 212; Plout. Peri Is. lxxiii.

1 Vide inf. VIII. ii. Pomegranate. 2 Movers, i. 399; Bunsen, Egypt's

part of Egypt.' Because he is a purely Aryan personage, and also has no Kamic counterpart. But the Egyptian Hercules is one of their ancient gods. In the wish to get the best information that I could on these matters, I made a voyage to Tyre in Phoenicia, hearing that there was a temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated.' The priests told him that the temple, like the city, was 2300 years old. In Tyre I remarked another temple where the same god was worshipped as the Thasian Hercules. So I went on to Thasos, where I found a temple of Hercules, which had been built by the Phoenicians who colonised that island when they sailed in search of Europa. Even this was five generations earlier than the time when Hercules, son of Amphitryon, was born in Greece. These researches show plainly that there is an ancient Hercules.'2 We have already had a glimpse of the Tyrian Hercules' in Melikertes, this latter personage, again, being only Dionysos; but in connection with the coins of Rhodos those of Thasos, where, as we have seen, his cult was established, deserve attention. These latter display

Head of bearded Dionysos, as noticed.-Rev. Herakles, clad in the lion's skin.

Head of Herakles.

Ram-horned head of Dionysos, crowned with ivy and

berries.

Here, again, as at Rhodos, we have Herakles and Dionysos together, and the Hellenes have clad the Tyrian divinity in the lion's skin of the son of Alkmene. There is but one god figured on Thasian coins, Dionysos-Melikertes. Eckhel, K. O. Müller, and their followers on the question say that Dionysos is worshipped at a place

because the vine flourishes there, and Eckhel explains the Dionysiak cult of Thasos on this principle, just as he says that bos on a coin laeta pascua indicat.' Unfortunately. for this simple explanation of an obscure matter, the ox appears on the coins of places not remarkable for richness of pasturage; Dionysos is found where the vine is absent; and conversely, pastures and vine-districts exist without numismatic oxen or Dionysoi. I, of course, admit that when Dionysos is firmly established as the Winegod, he is especially reverenced by vine-growers, as at Maroneia; but this circumstance, whilst illustrating his phase as Theoinos, does not interfere with his other manifestations, and but brief consideration will serve to satisfy us that his cult was introduced at Thasos not by vines, but by Phoenicians. On the Rhodian coins, as on the Thasian, there is but one god figured, Helios-DionysosMelikertes. The myth of Herakles strangling the snakes sent to destroy him does not belong to the earlier story of the son of Alkmene, and the snakes which encircle the Sun-god of Rhodos may be the serpents that crown Dionysos. These, according to the Natural Phenomena Theory, are the horrid snakes of darkness which seek to destroy their enemy,'1 the Sun; but this 1 the Sun; but this explanation must be looked upon with great suspicion, for (1) the sun comes to the darkness to destroy it, not the darkness to the sun; but the snakes come to the infant Herakles: and (2) serpents, we find, are the creeping light of morning, not the darkness of night. But if a serpent be a symbol of anything which creeps, darkness does not creep but falls. (I do not think the Vedic Vritra the Cloud-concealer, who is also Ahi the strangling snake who binds up the waters which the thirsty earth requires, is a snake of darkness principally, for the Cloud-concealer is not a snake, and the binding snake acts by day.) The coins 2 Ibid. i. 419, ii. 90.

1 Mythol. of the Aryan Nations, ii.

44.

of Rhodos and Thasos thus prove on examination to belong to the Dionysiak cycle; in the former island the strong Semitic element in its mythic history prevents the intrusion of the Aryan Apollon, although it is pre-eminently a solar locality. In Thasos we find Dionysos, as in the Comedy of Aristophanes, concealed beneath the lion-skin of Herakles; but as the garment does not make the man, he is Dionysos still. But the natural question here arises, May not the coins of other localities which bear Herakles and Apollon or their attributes represent in reality the Tyrian Herakles and Helios, or in other words Dionysos-Melikertes? Far be it from me, however, to attempt to overstrain the point. I have too much respect for Apollon and his Aryan kindred to wittingly infringe upon their rightful dominions.

There is one very conspicuous coin-type, the bull, ox, or cow, which demands special notice on account of the numerous points of connection between Dionysos and this animal.1 Of course, the type might in the abstract appear on coins for reasons unconnected with Dionysos, and each particular instance must therefore be decided on its own merits. The following is a list of some bovine cointypes :

It

Akanthos. Lion tearing a bull. The solar heat drying up humidity; or, more broadly, the apparent contest in the material world between the destructive and renewing principles.2 This is a widely spread type, a circumstance which indicates its highly symbolical nature. appears, for instance, on ancient Phoeniko-Kilikian coins inscribed with Phoenician characters.3 The lion is also said to be a symbol of the diurnal, the bull of the nocturnal, sun.

2

Akarnania. Beardless head, with bull's horns and

1 Vide inf. VIII. ii. Bull; IX. iii. 3 Vide sec. iv.; Gem, No. XX. Inf. VIII. ii. Lion.