Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/245

 Recent Excavations at Carthage. 215 the Cappadocian goddess whose worship, according to Plutarch, was introduced into Rome about the time of Sylla, and who appeared in a dream to that general, Plutarch's account enables us to identify her with the Moon, Minerva, and Bellona/ Some writers have derived the name of Tanith from that of the Egyptian goddess Neith, by prefixing to it the feminine article ra. In a papyrus published by Champollion, Venus is described as Neith in the East country. b Mr. Birch remarks that Neith appears from her titles to be a secondary manifestation of Maut, the Juno of the Egyptian Pantheon, and was probably the same as the goddess called in hieroglyphics the female Amoun or Amoun-ti. c She is also entitled Mother of the Sun, and the Great Mother. The Greeks identified Neith with their Athene or Minerva, which would agree very well with the title Pen-Baal (Face or Manifestation of BaaJ) given to Tanais ; for Minerva was said to have sprung from the head of Jupiter. d There would not be much difficulty in identifying Tanith with all the prin- cipal goddesses of the Greeks and Romans. She was, in fact, that early object of superstition, the Moon. The description of the latter by Apuleius in his Golden Ass e agrees remarkably with her multifarious attributes; and his state- ments, though savouring of the Pantheistic syncretism of later times, are well deserving of consideration as coming from an African who had been educated at Carthage, where he received the honour of having a statue erected to him. In the romance of the Golden Ass the hero, Lucius, towards the close of his numerous adventures under the form of an ass, escapes to the sea-shore and lies down on the sands to sleep. In the midst of the night he wakes in sudden terror, and sees the full moon rising in unusual splendour. On being aware of the presence of this great goddess ( summatem Dram), he determines to address her. "Regina Coeli," he begins, and, after invoking her under various titles, he begs her to free him from the brute form in which he is inclosed. The goddess, in answer, appears to him in full majesty, and thus speaks : " En adsum," she begins, "tuis commota prccibus, rerum Natura parens, elementorum omnium domina, sa3culorum progenies initialis, summa numinum, regina Manium, prima coelitum, Deorum Dearumque facies uniformis ; quae coeli SeXf/vt/v olaav e'ire 'AOqvdv c'ire 'Evvu. Plut. Sylla, ix. 6. b Sir Gardner Wilkinson, notes to Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 537. c Arundale and Bonomi, Gallery of Antiquities selected from the British Museum, with descriptions by S. Birch, p. 12. d The title Pen-Baal seems similar in form to the Hebrew name Penuel (^KWD), Face of God. It agree* very well with the passage from Apuleius, " Deorum Dearumque facies uniformis." e Metamorph. lib. xi. 238.