Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/533

Rh nUBASTIS. Joirc. Du Cange has written excellent notes upon it, wliicii form an app«Midix to his edition of Cinnanius, Paris, 170, fol. Cousin (le president) translated it into French in his usuiil extravagant and inac- curate way, which induced Gibbon to say, "did he ever think ?" A new and careful edition has been published by Meineke, together with Cinnamus ("Nicephori Bryennii Coramentarii," Bonn, 1836, 8vo.), which forms part of the Bonn collection of the Byzantines. It contains the notes of Pierre Pous- sines and Du Cange, and the Latin translation of the former revised by the editor. (Anna Comnena, Alexias; Cinnamus, i. 1-10; Fabric. jBi6/. Graec. vii. p. 674; Hankius, de Dyzant. Rer. Script. Graec, pp. 492—507.) [W. P.] BRYSON {Bpv<r(av mentioned by lamblichus ( Vit. Pyili, c. 23) as one of those youths whom Pythagoras instructed in his old age. He was perhaps the same writer that is mentioned in the extract from Theopompus found in Athenaeus (xi. p. 508), where Plato is charged with having bor- rowed from Brj'son, the Heracleot, and others, a great deal that he introduced into his dialogues as his own. A saying of Bryson's is refuted by Aris- totle in his EM. ili. 2, 13. [A. G.] BU'BARES (Bou§c{prjs), the son of Megabazus, a Persian, was sent into Macedonia to make in- quiries after the missing Persian envoys, whom Alexander, the son of Amyntas I., had caused to be murdered at his father's court, about B. c. 507. Alexander induced Bubares to pass the matter over in silence, by giving him great presents and also his sister Gygaea in marriage. By this Gy- gaea Bubares had a son, who was called Amyntas after his grandfather. (Herod, v. 21, viii. 136.) In conjunction with Artachaees, Bubares super- intended the construction of the canal which Xerxes made across the isthmus of Athos. (Herod, vii. 22.) BUB AST IS (Bougao-Tts), an Egyptian divinity whom the Greeks used to identify with their own Artemis, and whose genealogy they explain ac- cordingly. (Herod, ii. 137, 156 ; Steph. Byz, s.v. BougcwTos.) She was a daughter of Osiris and Isis, and sister of Horus (Apollo). Her mother, Isis, entrusted Bubastis and Horus to Buto, to protect them from Typhon. In the town of Buto there was a temple of Bubastis and Horns, but the principal seat of the worship of Bubastis was in the town of Bubastus or Bubastis. Here her sanctuary was surrounded by two canals of the Nile, and it was distinguished for its beautiful situation as well as for the style of the building. (Herod, ii. 137, 138.) An annual festival was celebrated to the goddess here, which was attend- ed by immense crowds of people (Herodotus, ii. 60^, estimates their number at 700,000), and was spent in great merriment. But the particulars, as well as the object of the solemnity, are not known, though the worship of Bubastis continued to a very late time. (Ov. Met. ix. 687 ; Gratius, De Venat. 42.) The animal sacred to Bubastis was the cat ; and according to Stephanus of Byzantium, the name Bubastis itself signified a cat. When cats died they were carefully embalmed and conveyed to Bubastis. (Herod, ii. 67.) The goddess herself was represented in the form of a cat, or of a female Avith the head of a cat, and some specimens of such representations, though not many, are still extant. This is explained in the legend of Bubastis by the Btory, that when the gods fled from Typhon, Bu- bastis (Artemis, Diana) concealed herself by BUBULCTJS. 516 assuming the appearance of a cat. (Ov. Met. v. 329 ; Anton. Lib. 28.) But it seems more natural to suppose here, as in other instances of Egyptian religion, that the worship of Bubastis was originally the worship of the cat itself, which was subsequently refined into a mere symbol of the goddess. The fact that the ancients identify Bubastis with Artemis or Diana is to us a point of great difficulty, since the information which we possess respecting the Egj-ptian goddess presents little or no resemblance between the two divinities. The only point that might seem to account for the identification, is, that Bubastis, like Artemis, was regarded as the goddess of the moon. The cat also was believed by the ancients to stand in some relation to the moon, for Plutarch (De Is. el Os. 63) says, that the cat was the symbol of the moon on account of her different colours, her busy ways at night, and her giving birth to 28 young ones during the course of her life, which is exactly the number of the phases of the moon. (Comp. Phot. Bibl. p. 343, a., ed. Bekker ; Demeter. PhaL Uepl'EpiJLrjv. § 159, ed. Oxford.) It might, there- fore, seem that Bubastis, being the daughter of Osiris (the sun) and Isis (the moon), was con- sidered as the symbol of the new moon. But the interpretation given by Plutarch cannot be regard- ed as decisive, for in another passage {De Is. et Os. 74) he gives a different account of the sym- bolical meaning of the cat. Another point in which some think that Bubastis and Artemis coincide, is the identity of the two with Eileithyia. But although Artemis and Eileithyia may have been the same, it does not follow that Bubastis and Eileithyia were likewise identical, and origi- nally they must have been different, as the mode ot worship ot the latter was incompatible with the religion of the Egyptians. (Manetho, ap. Plut. De Is. et Os. 73 ; Herod, ii. 45 ; Macrob. i. 7.) We must, therefore, be contented with knowing the simple fact, that the Greeks identified the Egyp- tian Bubastis with their own Artemis, and that in later times, when the attributes of different divini- ties were exchanged in various ways, the features peculiar to Eileitliyia were transferred to Bubastis (Anihol. Graec. xi. 81) and Isis. (Ov. Amor. ii. 13.) Josephus (J?^^. c/wrf. xiii. 3. §2) mentions Bubastis with the surname dypia, or the rustic, who had a temple near Leontopolis in the nomos of Heliopolis, which had fallen into decay as early as the reign of Ptolemy Philometor. (Comp. Jablon- sky Panth. Aeg. Jii. 3 ; Pignorius, ErposU. Tab. Isiacae, p. 66, ed. Amstelod.) [L. S.] BUBO'NA. The Romans had tvro divinities whom they believed to be the protectors of stables, viz. Bubona and Epona, the former being the pro- tectress of oxen and cows, and the latter of horses. Small figures of these divinities were placed in niches made in the wall {aediculae), or in the pillar supporting the roof; sometimes, also, they were only painted over the manger. (Augustin. De Civ. Dei, iv. 34 ; Tertull. Apolorj. 16 ; Minuc. Fel. Oct. 28 ; Apul. Met. p. 60 ; Juven. viii. 157.) [L. S.] BUBULCUS, the name of a family of the Junia gens. (Plin. H. N. xviii. 37 ; comp. Plut. Poplic. 11.) There are only two persons of this family mentioned, both of whom bear the name of Brutus also ; of these, one is called in the Fasti Capitolini Bubulcus Brutus, and the other Brutus Bubulcus : thoy may therefore have belonged to the BruU, and not to a distinct family of the Junia gens. 2 I, 2