Moreover The Naming Of Almost All The Gods Has Come To Hellas From
Egypt:
For that it has come from the Barbarians I find by inquiry is
true, and I am of opinion
That most probably it has come from Egypt,
because, except in the case of Poseidon and the Dioscuroi (in
accordance with that which I have said before), and also of Hera and
Hestia and Themis and the Charites and Nereids, the Egyptians say
themselves: but as for the gods whose names they profess that they do
not know, these I think received their naming from the Pelasgians,
except Poiseidon; but about this god the Hellenes learnt from the
Libyans, for no people except the Libyans have had the name of
Poseidon from the first and have paid honour to this god always. Nor,
it may be added, have the Egyptians any custom of worshipping heroes.
These observances then, and others besides these which I shall
mention, the Hellenes have adopted from the Egyptians; but to make, as
they do the images of Hermes with the /phallos/ they have learnt not
from the Egyptians but from the Pelasgians, the custom having been
received by the Athenians first of all the Hellenes and from these by
the rest; for just at the time when the Athenians were beginning to
rank among the Hellenes, the Pelasgians became dwellers with them in
their land, and from this very cause it was that they began to be
counted as Hellenes. Whosoever has been initiated in the mysteries of
the Cabeiroi, which the Samothrakians perform having received them
from the Pelasgians, that man knows the meaning of my speech; for
these very Pelasgians who became dwellers with the Athenians used to
dwell before that time in Samothrake, and from them the Samothrakians
received their mysteries. So then the Athenians were the first of the
Hellenes who made the images of Hermes with the /phallos/, having
learnt from the Pelasgians; and the Pelasgians told a sacred story
about it, which is set forth in the mysteries in Samothrake. Now the
Pelasgians formerly were wont to make all their sacrifices calling
upon the gods in prayer, as I know from that which I heard at Dodona,
but they gave no title or name to any of them, for they had not yet
heard any, but they called them gods from some such notion as this,
that they had set in order all things and so had the distribution of
everything. Afterwards when much time had elapsed, they learnt from
Egypt the names of the gods, all except Dionysos, for his name they
learnt long afterwards; and after a time the Pelasgians consulted the
Oracle at Dodona about the names, for this prophetic seat is accounted
to be the most ancient of the Oracles which are among the Hellenes,
and at that time it was the only one. So when the Pelasgians asked the
Oracle at Dodona whether they should adopt the names which had come
from the Barbarians, the Oracle in reply bade them make use of the
names. From this time they sacrificed using the names of the gods, and
from the Pelasgians the Hellenes afterwards received them: but when
the several gods had their birth, or whether they all were from the
beginning, and of what form they are, they did not learn till
yesterday, as it were, or the day before: for Hesiod and Homer I
suppose were four hundred years before my time and not more, and these
are they who made a theogony for the Hellenes and gave the titles to
the gods and distributed to them honours and arts, and set forth their
forms: but the poets who are said to have been before these men were
really in my opinion after them. Of these things the first are said by
the priestesses of Dodona, and the latter things, those namely which
have regard to Hesiod and Homer, by myself.
As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in Libya,
the Egyptians tell the following tale. The priests of the Theban Zeus
told me that two women in the service of the temple had been carried
away from Thebes by Phenicians, and that they had heard that one of
them had been sold to go into Libya and the other to the Hellenes; and
these women, they said, were they who first founded the prophetic
seats among the nations which have been named: and when I inquired
whence they knew so perfectly of this tale which they told, they said
in reply that a great search had been made by the priests after these
women, and that they had not been able to find them, but they had
heard afterwards this tale about them which they were telling. This I
heard from the priests at Thebes, and what follows is said by the
prophetesses of Dodona. They say that two black doves flew from Thebes
in Egypt, and came one of them to Libya and the other to their land.
And this latter settled upon an oak-tree and spoke with human voice,
saying that it was necessary that a prophetic seat of Zeus should be
established in that place; and they supposed that that was of the gods
which was announced to them, and made one accordingly: and the dove
which went away to the Libyans, they say, bade the Libyans make an
Oracle of Ammon; and this also is of Zeus. The priestesses of Dodona
told me these things, of whom the eldest was named Promeneia, the next
after her Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra; and the other people of
Dodona who were engaged about the temple gave accounts agreeing with
theirs. I however have an opinion about the matter as follows: - If the
Phenicians did in truth carry away the consecrated women and sold one
of them into Libya and the other into Hellas, I suppose that in the
country now called Hellas, which was formerly called Pelasgia, this
woman was sold into the land of the Thesprotians; and then being a
slave there she set up a sanctuary of Zeus under a real oak-tree; as
indeed it was natural that being an attendant of the sanctuary of Zeus
at Thebes, she should there, in the place to which she had come, have
a memory of him; and after this, when she got understanding of the
Hellenic tongue, she established an Oracle, and she reported, I
suppose, that her sister had been sold in Libya by the same Phenicians
by whom she herself had been sold.
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