Hermopolis

“ Heliopolis, the city On of the Bible (Gen. xli. 45) , was near the present Cairo; followers of Abraham were held to have settled there. Athos has been identified as Pithom. More probably it was Pa-kesem, the chief city of Goshen. The word Hermiouthian indicates moon-worshippers, as Hermes, the Greek god, was reckoned by the classic writers the equivalent of the Egyptian moon-god Thoth, as is shown by the place-name Hermopolis, (i.e. the city of Thoth) , in Lower Egypt. ”

“ Thus, Thot of Hermopolis possessed himself of a harem consisting of Seshaît-Safk-hîtâbûi and Hahmâûît. Tûmû divided the homage of the inhabitants of Helio-polis with Nebthôtpît and with Iûsasît. Khnûmû seduced and married the two fairies of the neighbouring cataract—Anûkît the constrainer, who compresses the Nile between its rocks at Philse and at Syene, and Satît the archeress, who shoots forth the current straight and swift as an arrow. [*] Where a goddess reigned over a nome, the triad was completed by two male deities, a divine consort and a divine son. ”

“ The event first took place at Hermopolis, and certain legends added that in order to get high enough the god had been obliged to make use of a staircase or mound situate in this city, and which was famous throughout Egypt. ”

“ Kheops and his successors drew their alabaster from Hâtnûbû, in the neighbourhood of Hermopolis, their granite from Syene, their diorite and other hard rocks, the favourite material for their sarcophagi, from the volcanic valleys which separate the Nile from the Red Sea—especially from the Wady Hammamât. ”

“ In the temple there of this goddess, is the tomb of Psammitichus. Near Butus is Hermopolis, situated in an island, and at Butus is an oracle of Latona.
[Pg 240]
[CAS. 802] 19. In the interior above the Sebennytic and Phatnitic mouths is Xoïs, both an island and a city in the Sebennytic Nome. There are also Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, where Pan834 is worshipped, and of animals a goat. Here, according to Pindar, goats have intercourse with women. ”

“ I have come, being the envoy of Rā, to stablish Maāt upon the arm at the shining of Neith in the city of Mentchat and to adjudge the eye to him that shall scrutinize it. I have come as a power through the knowledge of the Souls of Khemennu (Hermopolis) who love to know what ye love. I know Maāt, which hath germinated, and hath become strong, and hath been judged, and I have joy in passing judgment upon the things which are to be judged. Homage to you, O ye Souls of Khemennu, I, even I, know the things which are unknown on the festivals of the month and half month. ”

“ Memphis, Heliopolis, Tanis, Saïs, Mendes, Bubastis, Heracleopolis, Hermopolis; Crocodilopolis, had been taken and retaken repeatedly; the old buildings and monuments had been allowed to fall into decay; no king had been firmly enough established on his throne to undertake the erection of any but insignificant new ones. Egypt was "fallen, fallen, fallen—fallen from her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. ”

“ Apparently they could have done without goddesses had marriage not been imposed upon them by their identification with the corresponding gods of the Heliopolitan Ennead; at any rate, their wives had but a show of life, almost destitute of reality. As these four gods worked after the manner of their master, Thot, so they also bore his form and reigned along with him as so many baboons. When associated with the lord of Hermopolis, the eight divinities of Heliopolis assumed the character and the appearance of the four Hermopolitan gods in whom they were merged. ”

“ Thus only Antinoopolis, the city of the “new Hellenes,” has a Boule; Alexandria appears without this, but as a Greek city in the aggregate. Moreover there take part in this dedication the Greeks living in the Delta and those living in Thebes, but of the Egyptian towns Great-Hermopolis alone, on which probably the immediate vicinity of Antinoopolis has exercised an influence. To Ptolemais Strabo (xvii. 1, 42, p. 813) attributes a σύστημα πολιτικὸν ἐν τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ τρόπῳ ”

“ The troops were recruited partly from the domains of military fiefs, partly from tribes of the desert or Nubia, and by their aid the feudal princes maintained the virtual independence which they had acquired for themselves under the last kings of the Memphite line. Here and there, at Hermopolis, Shit, and Thebes, they founded actual dynasties, closely connected with the Pharaonic dynasty, and even occasionally on an equality with it, though they assumed neither the crown nor the double cartouche. Thebes was admirably adapted for becoming the capital of an important state. ”

“ Glorious deeds hath he wrought by his mighty arm; many shall be turned back by a few, one man shall put a thousand to flight. Prostrate yourselves before him, and say: “Cover for us the path of war with the shadow of thy scimitar, grant strength unto the young men whom thou hast appointed, that they may cast down many ten thousands.”‘ The army of Piankhi encountered the enemy, and defeated them. King Nimrod, [84] ruler of Hermopolis, one of the confederated princes, hearing of their victorious advance, hastened to shut himself up in his city, and prepared to stand a siege. ”

“ Epiphan. Hær. LXX.; Walch, Histor. der Ketzereien, Vol. III. p. 300; also Iselin, Audios und die Audianer, in Jahrbücher für Protestant. Theologie, April, 1890; p. 298 seq. ↑ On the dispute concerning Origen’s views, see below, chap. 13. ↑ There were two cities named Hermopolis in Egypt ”

“ We may conclude the chapter with a short reference to that most remarkable transaction, the mutilation of the Hermæ, which occurred B.C. 415, just before the Sicilian expedition, and in its consequences bears a striking analogy to the passage in history which we have just related. The Hermæ were square pillars, surmounted by a head of the god, Hermes, or Mercury, which, in compliance with an ancient custom, were placed at the entrances of temples and houses. Most of these throughout Athens were defaced in the course of one night. ”

“ They worshipped a multitude of divinities, and their city was thronged with the temples and statues of heroes and gods. Conspicuous among the objects of popular adoration was the god Hermes, who is exhibited by ancient poets and artists as a gracious and lovely youth, the special patron of eloquence and wit, the guardian spirit of travellers and merchants, and the giver of good luck. A familiar feature in the streets and public places of Athens was the bust of Hermes, surmounting a quadrangular stone pillar. ”

“ Some of them built Hermione, one of the most antient cities in Greece. The tradition was, that it was built by [576] Hermion the son of Europs, or Europis, a descendant of Phoroneus, and Niobe; and was inhabited by Dorians, who came from Argos: in which history is more than at first appears. The city stood near a stagnant lake, and a deep cavern; where was supposed to be the most compendious passage to the shades below: [577] την εις ἁδου καταβασιν συντομον. The lake was called the pool of Acherusia; near to which and the yawning cavern the Cyclopians chose to take up their habitation. ”

“ The modern city is just about four stades distant from the headland, upon which is the sanctuary of Poseidon, and it lies on a site which is level at first, gently rising up a slope, which presently merges into Pron, for so they name this mountain. A wall stands all round Hermione, a city which I found afforded much to write about, and among the things which I thought I myself must certainly mention are a temple of Aphrodite, surnamed both Pontia (of the Deep Sea) and Limenia (of the Harbor) , and a white-marble image of huge size, and worth seeing for its artistic excellence. ”

“ But to the homeliness of her common thoroughfares and private mansions, the magnificence of her public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis, that towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men—a spot too sacred for human habitation—became, to use a proverbial phrase, "a city of the gods." The citizen was everywhere to be reminded of the majesty of the STATE—his patriotism was to be increased by the pride in her beauty—his taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her splendour. Thus flocked to Athens all who throughout Greece were eminent in art. ”

“ You are surrounded by what appear for an instant to be the myriad fragments of some mighty whole—but the gloom has deceived you—you are in the midst of a Nekropolis—a City of the Dead. Those chisselled blocks of stone that lie prostrate at your feet, or lean heavily on one side as if about to fall, and which at the first glance have seemed to you to be the shivered portions of some mighty column—those turban-crowned shafts which rise on all sides—those gilt and lettered slabs erected beside them—are memorials of the departed—the first are of ancient date ”

“ And first, while the generals were yet in the city, they despatched a herald to Sparta, one Phidippides, an Athenian, a courier by profession, who arrived in Sparta on the following day after his departure from the city of the Athenians, and on coming in presence of the magistrates, said: "Lacedæmonians, the Athenians {255} entreat you to assist them, and not to suffer the most ancient city among the Greeks to fall into bondage to barbarians; for Eretria is already reduced to slavery, and Greece has become weaker by the loss of a renowned city." ”

“ With ardour follow where their leader flies: Redoubling clamours thunder in the skies. Jove breathes a whirlwind from the hills of Ide, And drifts of dust the clouded navy hide; He fills the Greeks with terror and dismay, And gives great Hector the predestined day. Strong in themselves, but stronger in his aid, Close to the works their rigid siege they laid. In vain the mounds and massy beams defend, While these they undermine, and those they rend; Upheaved the piles that prop the solid wall; And heaps on heaps the smoky ruins fall. Greece on her ramparts stands the fierce alarms ”

“ The Acropolis itself was, we know, a fortified sanctuary within a larger walled city. This city lay, as the oracle in Herodotus [1] said, ‘wheel-shaped’ about the axle of the sacred hill. Portions of this outside wall have come to light here and there, and the foundations of the great Dipylon Gate are clearly made out, and are marked in every guide-book. Inside the circuit of these walls, in the inner Kerameikos, whose boundary-stone still remains, lay the agora. Outside is still to be seen, with its street of tombs, the ancient cemetery. ”

“ Pliny [297] gives the ten cities as Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa, and Kanatha. Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, in the second century A. D. enumerated eighteen cities as belonging to it. In the time of Christ it probably consisted of but ten. The Decapolis apparently was created by the Roman General Pompey, when he conquered this region for Rome in 65-63 B. C. These cities with Greek populations appear to have appealed to him and he granted them certain privileges, including a degree of autonomy. ”

“ For a thousand years it was believed that the legends of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were myths: they were spoken of as "the fabulous cities." For a thousand years the educated world did not credit the accounts given by Herodotus of the wonders of the ancient civilizations of the Nile and of Chaldea. ”

“ Hippocles and Hermione urged all the arguments that they knew to persuade the young man to think of his own safety, but they urged in vain.
“No!” said the young man, as he rose to take his leave, “no, I thank you for your care for me, but your advice I may not follow. I refuse to believe that the Athenian people can keep the the base and ungrateful temper which they showed the other day. It was the madness of an hour, and they must have repented of it long ago. If they have not, then an honest man who happens to be born into this citizenship had best die. Athens is no place for him. ”

“ Apollo properly plays on the cithara, or Northern harp. The popularity of Hermes persisted throughout because he became identified with Luck, and Luck is the one god we all worship. He is also associated with commerce; he it is who drives a sharp bargain; and, as we saw, the aboriginal stratum of Greece provided the trading element in the Hellenic races. This attribute the trade-despising warriors of the dominant race turned to his discredit, for poor Hermes in Homer, and generally in literature, becomes a sharper of the worst description. ”

“ The sun-god Rē‛ (see Egypt: Religion) was especially the royal god, the ancestor of all the Pharaohs, who therefore held the temple of Heliopolis in great honour. Each dynasty might give the first place to the god of its residence—Ptah of Memphis, Ammon of Thebes, Neith of Sais, Bubastis of Bubastis, but all alike honoured Rē‛. His temple became in a special degree a depository for royal records, and Herodotus states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. ”

“ Hercules, thou art the good pine-tree in the legend of the Princess Elsa!
The 17 th. Visit to Pompeii. That which appeared more striking to me in this monument—alone of its kind; this city lay buried for centuries under the ashes of Vesuvius, and which but lately, as it were, was produced thence to bear witness of the everyday life of former times—was the smallness of all its proportions. Every thing—from the forum of the city, temples and private dwellings—is ornamental, decorative, but small. One seems to be looking at the prettiest miniature city, of a sort of miniature humanity. ”