BOOK IV. lost god was sought for in the sea. The notion, that the head of the great diluvian father was peculiarly set afloat, has extended itself very widely: and, as it is of a nature altogether arbitrary, it thence tends to prove the point for which I specially argue; namely the common origination of the various systems of pagan mythology. 1. Thus in Egypt a papyrine vessel was yearly made to represent the head of Osiris; which, being cast into the waves, was thought to be carried in the course of seven days to the shores of Phenicia. When it reached its destination, rejoicings were made over the lost divinity as being found again; just as the votaries of Samana concluded their search for his head with riotous mirth and debauchery." 2. Thus also we meet with a similar legend respecting a head among the Romans; which together with the name of the deity to whom it belonged, they most probably borrowed from that ancient and remarkable people the Tuscans. The god himself was called Summanus or (omitting the Latin termination) Summan: and both his name and his character prove him to be no other than the oriental Suman or Buddha, the Samana or Shamhna of the Irish Celts. The Romans, who, like the Greeks, were fond of resolving foreign words into their own language, fancied, that Summanus was so called from his being Summus Manium or the Prince of the Manes. Such no doubt was his character; for he was certainly the diluvian god of obsequies: but, since we find the principal infernal deity called by the same appellation both among the Hindoos, the Cingalese, the Burmas, and the Celts, the etymology of that appellation cannot be reasonably sought for in the Latin tongue. Ovid says, that the worship of Summan was first introduced among the Romans, when they were threatened by the arms of Pyrrhus; which seems to confirm the opinion, that it was borrowed from their neighbours the Tuscans: yet he expresses himself as being ignorant of the character of the god.' An inscription however, preserved by Gruter, identifies him with Pluto and a curious fable, detailed by Cicero, sufficiently proves his close connection with the Celtic Samana and the Egyptian Osiris. He says, that, when the Luc. de dea Syra. Procop. in Esaiam. c. xviii. apud Selden. See Plate I. Fig. 12. 3 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. c. 52. lib. xxix. c. 4. 3 Ovid. Fast. lib. vi. ver. 731, 732. earthen image of Summan was cast down from heaven, and when his head could no where be found, the soothsayers declared it to have fallen into the Tiber; and, accordingly, it was discovered in the precise place which they pointed out.' XIII. Pursuing to the extreme limits of the west our inquiries after the worship of Buddha, we have been led to pass from the Goths and Celts to the Romans, and to conclude that the Summan of the latter is no other than the Suman, Saman, or Somona, of the orientals. But I am inclined to think, that Summan is by no means the only classical deity, in whose worship we may recognize the old Taautic superstition. One of the names of Buddha is Jain or Jain-Esa: and it has been amply shewn by Sir William Jones, that the mythology of Italy was substantially the same as that of Hindostan. Such being the case, it seems highly probable, that the oriental Jain ought to be identified with the western Janus; whose worship, like that of Suman, the Romans apparently borrowed from the Etruscans or ancient Latins. To this opinion I am equally led by similarity of appellation, and by unity of character. Janus, when tue Latin termination is omitted, is the same word as Jain: and both Jain and Janus are alike the transmigrating great father. But Janus is not only the great father, according to that universal manner, in which all the chief gods of Paganism thus ultimately resolve themselves: like Buddha, he stands insulated as it were from the reigning superstition; and his worship appears rather to have been superadded to it, than to have formed an originally constituent part of it. Of this circumstance Ovid was fully conscious: whence he asks not unnaturally, in what light he ought to consider the god Janus; since the theology of the Greeks, which was radically that of the Romans, acknowledged no such divinity.* Yet, though like Jain or Buddha he stands detached from the great family of classical gods; his history sufficiently proves, that, like that oriental deity, he is the same character as Noah. 1. He was supposed, at a very remote period, to have passed over into • Plutoni Summano, aliisque diis Stygiis, Grut. Inscrip. fol. 1015. Cicer. de div.` lib. i. e. 10. › Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 89, 90. Pag. Idol. VOL. II. SA CHAP. V. BOOK IV. Italy; of which country, in conjunction with the aboriginal Cameses, he obtained the sovereignty. Here he received Saturn; who, after wandering over the whole world, debarked at length from his ship and brought his tedious voyage to a successful termination on the coast of Tuscany. Some say, that Janus received from this god instructions in the art of agriculture, and that through gratitude he admitted him into a copartnership of empire: but, however that may be, precisely the same actions are attributed to him, as the Greeks ascribed to Dionusus, and the Egyptians to Osiris. He was the first institutor of civil polity. He flourished at so distant a period, that it was a matter of doubt, whether he were a demon or a king. He brought mankind from a rude and barbarous mode of life to submit to the laws of order and civilization. He was their instructor in agriculture. He was the first, that built temples to the gods, and ordained the sacred rites of religion. He reigned in those early days, when the deities freely mixed with mortals, and when their presence on the earth was a thing common and familiar; when the frequency of crimes had not yet chased justice from the world; when a decent sense of shame supplied the place of legal restraint; and when war and rapine were yet unknown.' 2 The rest of his history exactly corresponds with this primeval character. In the ancient songs of the Salii he was celebrated, not as some obscure local divinity, but as the god of gods. He was called Consivius, as being the universal parent of mankind.' To him was attributed the beginning and the end of all things. He was invoked as the general father, as the parent of the Universe, as the beginning of the several hero-gods. The charge of the whole world was assigned to him: and, as Osiris is sometimes identified with Typhon or the deluge, and as the ocean is said to be one of the forms of Siva; so we are told by Ovid, that the ancient mythologists designated Janus by the name of Chaos. Under this title they jointly referred him to the era of the creation and the deluge: for, as every part of his character 1 Plut. in vit. Num. Plut. Quæst. Rom. p. 269. Macrob. Saturn. lib. Albric. Philos. de deor. imag. c. xiv. p. 317. Ovid. Fast. lib i. ver. 103, 117–120. 3 Ibid. Versic. Septim. Seren. Falisc. 7. p. 151. abundantly shews, he was the primeval transmigrating great father; that is to say, Noah viewed as a reappearance of Adam. 2. In the mythologic composition, however, of the great father, Noah seems to have predominated. Hence we generally find him in some manner connected with a story of a ship and a voyage. The coins of Janus exhibited on one side the double face of the god, and on the reverse either a ship or the stern or prow of a ship. Macrobius and Ovid say, that this device was adopted to commemorate the arrival of the ship of Saturn: but Plutarch is not satisfied with the solution; and still inquires, why such a symbol should adorn the medals of Janus.' In fact, if Saturn be esteemed a distinct character from Janus, the device of the ship ought rather to have been stamped on the coins of the former than on those of the latter; and this not improbably produced the question, which is asked by Plutarch: but Saturn, and Janus, and Cameses, were all equally and properly that first navigator, who was the king and the instructer of an infant world. The true reason, in short, why the coins of Janus exhibited the impression of a ship, may best be collected from what Athenèus tells us respecting him. He says, that he was the first inventor of barks and ships; a circumstance, which at once accounts for the reverse of his medals, and points out with sufficient clearness his real character. Accordingly, in his aboriginal chapel he had an ancient ark, as we learn from Septimius Serenus; much in the same manner, I apprehend, as Dionusus, Osiris, Adonis, Siva, Hu, or Mexitli. Yet, although Saturn, Janus, and Cameses, be severally Noah; still, when associated together as partners in empire, they 'Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 7. p. 151, 152. Ovid, Fast. lib. i. ver. 229-242. Plut. Quæst. Rom. p. 274. These medals of Janus seem to have been very common: for Macrobius mentions a play among children exactly similar to one, which prevails in this country even to the present day. They threw the coin up into the air; and, before it fell to the ground, cried out after the manner of a wager, Heads or ships. 2 Athen. Deipnos. lib. xv. p. 692. 3 Jane Pater, O cate rerum sator, O principium deorum, Tibi vetus arca caluit in aborigineo sacello. Versic. Septim. Seren. Falisc. ROOK IV. seem further to shadow out that sacred triad, so famous both in the Brahmenical and Buddhic systems of theology. 1 Agreeably to his diluvian character, Janus was called Junonius from the goddess Juno: whose name Mr. Bryant resolves into Junch, which signifies a dove; and who is decidedly pronounced by Mr. Wilford to be the same as the Hindoo female principle Yoni or Yuni, which at the time of the flood successively assumed the forms of the ship Argha and the dove Capoteswari.' Hence he has not only his ship or ark, but he is likewise attended by a dove: for, on the reverse of some of his coins, that bird appears, either holding a branch in its bill, or surrounded with a chaplet of olive leaves.* He was further thought to be the governor of the mystic Hades; and was believed to have the power of opening and shutting the door, by which it was approached. This part of his character relates, I have no doubt, to the door in the side of the Ark, through which Noah and his family issued from the reputed regions of death and darkness to those of light and life. Hence the altars of Janus were placed before the doors of his temples, to shew that he presided, as Macrobius observes, over entrance and exit: hence also he was called Patulcius and Clusius, or the god of opening and shutting and hence, considered as the solar Apollo, he bore the title of Thyrèus or the divinity of the door. Similar to this was a name of the great mother of the hero-gods. She was called Prothyrèa or the goddess before the door: and, from the circumstance of the quitting of the Ark being considered as the birth of the Noëtic divinities, she was esteemed the female president of generation. Prothyrèa was the same as Diana, or Venus, or Juno, or Lucina; each of whom was similarly accounted the goddess of parturition. She was immediately and naturally connected with Janus, the god of the door and she then assumed from him the appellation of Jana. I apprehend, that Jana and Diana are really the same name: for Diana appears to be nothing more than a com Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 9. p. 159. 2 See a plate representing such coins from Gorlæus, Spanheim, and Paruta, in Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 260. 'Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 9. p. 158. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. iii. • Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 9. p. 158, 159. 5 Orph. Hymn. i. |