Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/251

 On the Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 241 ity than my own. I have said that the "replicata cervix" of Pliny points at once to the so-called Mithraic remains. It is a pity that Pliny did not tell us the sex of the owner. I suspect the knee to have been the property of a female deity. I might here press into my service the well-known words of Herodotus : KaXeouo-i 5e y A<r<rvpioi rrjv <ppobirr)V MvXirra' 'A/3a/3ioi 8e Wirra- Ilepcrai Se Mlrpav. But then it is not at all clear what or whom Herodo- tus meant by Mlrpav. Was there such a thing as a she Mithras, a Mithra? Wesseling in I. and Crenzer point to Ambrosius contra Symmach. n. p. 840. But this is reasoning in a circle. Ambrosius, I have no doubt, copied his statement from Herodo- tus*. It would be more to the purpose to turn to the Yacna or Zend liturgy, where the following phrase occurs: "nivaexl- hayemi haukairyemi Ahuraeibya Mithraeibya." The words in italics are datives dual of ahura and Mithra respectively. As ahura probably comes from the Zend ahu, "lord" (with suffix ra), these words may mean : " I invoke and celebrate the two right noble Mithras." See Burnouf in I. But Zend scholars (much less Zend dabblers like myself), do not appear to have made up their minds as to whether Ahura be not a separate deity. In this case the use of the dual form would only be an instance in Zend of that kind of copulative which in Sanscrit is known by the name of Dwandwa. See Bopp, Krit. Gramm. 557, Vergleich. Gramm. 214. The dual has here very much the same force as the sign + in Algebra. " Those two, Mithra, Ahura" not : " the two Mithras and the two Ahuras." At any rate this one passage can scarcely be set against the otherwise total absence of any allusion in the Zend-Avesta to the existence of a female Mithra. This absence is, I apprehend, conclusive against Creuzer's interpretation of Mlrpav in the passage of Herodotus, as a female deity. I could almost think the text had been tampered with by some one who was perplexed unnecessarily perplexed at finding a male deity in juxtaposition with deities female. But such an hypothesis is a measure only to be resorted to in the last extremity. As to the analogy in- stituted by Herodotus between the Venus Urania, the Mylitta, worthy that he adopts the form Mithram. rily imply a female deity : neither does The only form, I may ohserve, of which the context, the Zend language would admit. The I Vol. I. June, 1854. 16
 * Not so his spelling. It is note- Mlrpav of Herodotus does not necessa-