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.
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