tabulæ publicæ, tot singulorum libelli, epistolæ, commentarii in privatis 'domibus asservati, tam pervulgatus et diu sustentatus rumor, argumentum omne historie Tacito suggerere potuisse videantur, credamus tamen, eum ex ista farragine indicia quidem, et externas significationes omnes desumsisse, internam vero hominum naturam, tecta animorum, caussas, modum, quo quæque res gesta esset, videri sibi ipsi finxisse.

Ötium illi, per imperium Domitiani necessario impositum, facul tatem dederat cuneta ista tacite colligendi. Nerva, tum et Trajanus illi concesserant, ut procederet, et homines, quales in rebus civilibus in curia, in aula se manifestant, cognosceret; tum senex se totum in arîtiquum ævum, quod sibi describendum sumserat, retulit; tum ex vestigiis, quæ collecti a se aliorum libelli indicarant, sibi animos hominum, sibi modum et ductum rei quam maxime naturæ convenientes, meditando, colligendo, comparando efformavit: tum denique quemque agentem, loquentem induxit, vim vitamque narrationi addidit.

Sic ratiocinationes, et judicia enascebantur, quæ vel antiquioris Augustani ævi hominibus tribuenda sustineret; "Igitur verso (post Actiacam pugnam) civitatis statu, nihil usquam priscr et integri moris: omnis, exuta æqualitate, jussa principis aspectare: fiulla in præsens formidine, dum Augustus ætate validus, seque, et domum, et pacem sustentavit. Postquam provectá jam senectus, ægro et corpore fatigabatur, aderatque finis, et spes novæ : pauci bona libertatis incassum disserere, plures bellum pavescere, alii cupere : pars multo maxima imminentis dominos variis rumoribus differebant: trucem Agrippam Tiberium Neronem maturum annis, spectatum bello, sed vetere atque insita Claudiæ familiæ superbia. Multus hinc ipso de Augusto sermo, plerisque vana mirantibus, quod idem dies accepti quondam imperii princeps, et vitæ supremus apud prudentes vita ejus varie extollebatur, arguebaturve. tate erga parentem, et necessitudine Reip. in qua nullus tunc legibus locus, ad arma civilia actum. Dicebatur contra, pietatem erga parentem, et tempora reip. obtentui sumta; ceterum cupidine dominandi concitos per largitiones veteranos

At

Hi pie

Sic etiam descriptiones rerum atrocitate sua animos percellentium : 2 Quadraginta armatorum millia irrupere, calonum lixarumque amplior numerus, et in libidinem ac sævitiam corruptior. Non dignitas, non ætas protegebat, quo minus stupra cædibus, cædes stupris miscerentur. Grandævos senes, exacta ætate féminas, viles ad prædam, în ludibrium trahebant. Ubi adulta virgo, aut quis forma conspicuus incidisset, vi manibusque rapientium divulsus, ipsos postremo direptores in mutuam perniciem agebat. Dum pecuniam, vel gravia auro templorum dona, sibi quisque trahunt, maiore aliorum vi truncabantur. Quidam obvia aspernati, verberibus tormentisque dominorum abdita scrutari, defossa eruere.'

Quisque hæc ita accidere potuisse sentit num vero ex anteceden

tis alicujus scriptoris narratione, an ex nostri imaginatione fluxerint, Quinctiliani de amplificatione præceptum, quod sane nemo rerum tahum narrator tum spernendum sibi duxit, præceptoque additum exemplam, dubium reddere videtur. " "Sic urbium captarum crescit miseratio. Sine dubio enim, qui dicit expugnatam esse civitatem, complectitur omnia, quæcunque talis fortuna recipit: sed in affectus minus penetrat brevis hic velut nuntius. At si aperias hæc, quæ verbo uno inclusa erant, apparebunt et fusæ per domos ac templa flammæ, et ruentium tectorum fragor, et ex diversis clamoribus unus qui: dam sonus, aliorum fuga incerta, alii in extremo complexu suorum cohærentes, et infantium feminarumque ploratus, et male in illum dient servati fato senes: tum illa profanorum sacrorumque direptio, efferentium prædas repetentiumque discursus, et acti ante suum quisque prædomem catenati, et conata retinere infantem suum mater, et sicubi majus lucrum est, pugna inter victores. Licet enim hæc omnia complectatur éversio, minus est tamen totum dicere quam omnia. Consequemur autem, ut manifesta sint, si fuerint similia: et licebit etiam falso adfingere, quicquid fieri solet."

Hic scriptores fere æquales eundem campum esse nactos vides, quorsum acris ingenii et imaginandi vis excurrere posset; castiorem tamen rhetore historicum, et magis leges historiæ retinentem non sine judicii et sensus ejus admiratione videre est.

INQUIRY INTO THE ETYMOLOGY OF ‹ PEOR?

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

Ar p. 293. in your No. XIV. Sir W. Drummond has favored your readers with another of those novelties, to which he often arrives by the aid of etymology and ingenious imagination, but which, as I presume, cannot be supported by sufficient evidence or even probability; this is, that the name of the chief God of the Moabites, Baal Peor, together with the worship of that deity, were borrowed by them from the name and respect paid by the Egyptians to their god Horus, whom in their language they would call Pi-or, in which name Pi is only the article the, and even by the Copts at present is often changed into Pe. To this etymologic novelty there seem to be many objections, some of which I will point out. In the first place, neither Philo Judæus in ancient times, nor any of the modern learned Jews, have ever had any suspicion of such an origin to this deity, or

Quinct. instit. L. VIII. c. 3.

that the Moabites had any connexion with the Egyptians. The name also they all derive from the Hebrew language, not the Egyp tian, and consider its sense as being in some degree significant of the character of the Deity and the worship paid to him, by denoting something of filthiness or obscenity, although indeed they do not sufficiently explain what the nature of it was. Why then should we be inclined to conjecture, that instead of a native it had a foreign origin, without any other evidence than merely some similitude between the name Pe-or and a supposed Pi-or as being the Egyptian mode of denoting the God Horus? It appears indeed by the inscription on the Rosetta stone, that they did write that name oor (we) so far as M. Akerblad has been able to decypher the Egyptian letters in it; but the article Pi is never there prefixed to it, although it occurs often; nor, so far as I can discover by Woide's Lexicon, is an article ever prefixed to the proper name of any person whatever in the modern Coptic language. At p. 74 we read of Pachom, at p. 120 of mena, at p. 126, Shenutius, all without any article prefixed; if there be any examples to the contrary in a language of which we know so little, I shall willingly be better instructed.

Thus far, however, there is at most nothing but mere conjecture, from some similitude in the two names, to support the etymology, and this also liable to objection; but Sir W. Drummond proceeds to add written testimony from Suidas and Jerom in the following sentence: "Most certainly this Egyptian God Or was the same with Priapus; thus Suidas says τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦ Πριάπου τοῦ Ὥρου παρ' Αιγυπτίοις κεκλη voy &c.; and Jerom says: Israelitæ educti ex Egypto fornicati sunt cum Madianitis et ingressi sunt ad Baalphegor idolum Moabitarum, quem nos Priapum possumus appellare. This species of idolatry seems to have been borrowed from the Egyptians-it is therefore not improbable, that the name Pe-or was likewise of Egyptian origin." Hence it appears that, like Jerom, Sir W. Drummond adheres to the opinion of the Jews that there is some obscenity in the worship of Baalpeor, and he rejects the opinion of Selden, who maintained that the fornicatio in question included no other meaning, than merely that of Idolatry, this being the word constantly used in scripture for the worship of Idols in general. But how does this account suit with the character of Horus? for he is not described by Plutarch or any others as an obscene Deity, like Priapus or Pan; but quite the contrary, as a noble-spirited, active son of Osiris and Isis, who revenged the death of his father by Typhon, whom Horus afterwards conquered and thus recovered the supreme power in Egypt. "Prælium cum Ty phone per plures dies durasse ac victoriâ Orum potitum.' Why then has Sir William confounded him with Pan and Priapus? If he admits the accounts by Plutarch in other articles, why not in this like wise? By acting otherwise, he has connected together incoherent ac counts, in order to give plausibility to his own etymology. It may be said, however, that Suidas had set him the example; but if Suidas is contradicted by Plutarch, is the testimony of the former to be preferred, although nothing is to be found in other ancient authors to confirm it? In the Isiac table, Horus is represented more than once as

"

a deified youth, but without the least circumstance of obscenity. If then the rites of Baalpeor contained any such obscenity as the Jews, Jerom, and Sir W. Drummond, suppose, how could they be borrowed from the worship paid by the Egyptians to the youthful and pious hero Horus? or the name Pe-or be copied from Pi-or in Egypt? The only evidence to support this is that above-mentioned from Suidas. The very same words are indeed found in Codinus but they must have been copied from Suidas, as Codinus lived later than 1000 years after Christ, which is the latest date of any events found mentioned in Suidas; and shall the testimony of so late a compilation as this be set in opposition to Plutarch? Where Suidas® could find such an account of Horus as his being the Egyptian Pria pus is unknown; yet there is however one sentence in Plutarch which might possibly have been the accidental and erroneous foundation of it, and I know of no other either there or elsewhere. After having described Orus as being finitus et perfectus, and that the object of his exertions was ulcisci patrem et matrem injuria affectos, he adds, that Horus did not kill Typhon after having conquered him, but only vim ejus et efficacitatem abstulit. As a memorial of this (he says) In Copto (ut ferunt) simulachrum Ori alterá manu Typhonis geni talia tenere. This is the only act of indelicacy to be found ascribed to Horus: but this was not in reality any act by Horus himself, but only the arbitrary invention of a painter or sculptor to express by representation the fact of Horus having extinguished all the former powers of Typhon; and this only in that one particular city of Coptos, not throughout all Egypt. It seems to be only just possible then that such a representation as this could have afforded foundation for the obscenities attributed to the rites of Baalpeor, or that this deity should on this account have derived even his name from Horus, who had not actually any concern whatever in that sculpture, and could not on this account be assimilated to Priapus; as it is not any act of a lascivious nature in him, but only a symbolical expression of the consequences of a martial event, by a particular painter. One would have wished therefore to have found an author of novelties, supporting his opinions by some better testimony than the above sentence in Suidas; where it seems very possible, that Orus may, in the reading of some MS. have been a mistake for Osiris, to whom Plu tarch does indeed in one place ascribe some Phallophorian attitudes, as quoted by Sir W. Drummond, yet in that one place only. The name, however, of Osiris would have ruined the etymology. It may moreover be doubted, whether in that objectionable sentence abovementioned, Plutarch did not again mean only to relate such another invention of some particular sculptor, as in the case of Horus; for no where else either in Plutarch, Herodotus, Diodorus, the Isiac table, or in the Egyptian antiquities collected by Caylus, are any obscenities whatever attributed to Osiris himself; all the Phallophorian rites having been introduced after his death by Isis and her pos terity, and never ascribed in any respect to Osiris himself. So that it must have been from the Egyptian practices in later times, and not from Horus, that the Moabites must have borrowed them, in case this was their real origin, and that they were not their own native inventions,

to which mankind in all nations are sufficiently prone of themselves. We must therefore make five or six suppositions, before we can arrive at Sir W. Drummond's etymology, and say, That if the rites of Baalpeor were of a Phallophorian kind, if these were borrowed from Egypt, if the person who first borrowed and instituted them in Moab had seen the above picture in Coptos, if he took more notice of that single picture than of the numerous other phallophorian representations throughout all Egypt, if it was the Egyptian. custom to prefix articles to proper names, if Orus was not mistaken by him for Osiris, if Suidas had any good historic evidence for that sentence, if what Plutarch ascribes to Osiris in one sentence was also frequently the case in Egypt, then it is possible that Pe-or in Moab might be derived from Pi-or in Egypt, though still very improbable, as it is in contradiction to all traditions concerning the etymology of that name by the most ancient Jews and Christians, who agree that it is a Chaldee word expressive of the abominations practised at the rites of Baalpeor or Baalphegor. For this farther if must still be added, whether or not Pe-or was actually the real name of the Idol or Phegor or something like it, yet possibly not sufficiently like it to enable us to discover the name of Orus concealed within it. Lastly, we must not forget the testimony of the author of Psalm 106, who gives an historical relation of the events which happened to the Jews immediately after their exit from Egypt; and if he knew any thing of the subject about which he writes, he certainly ascribes no obscenities whatever to the worship. pers of Baalpeor, like the Phallophorian ones in Egypt, but only that they partook of the sacrifices to that Idol, which was the fact also concerning all other idols. "The Israelites joined themselves unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead." v. 28. However, it must be allowed to be a proof of genius to be able to make something out of nothing, and a plausible etymology by aptly connecting together a mass of incoherent accounts, out of which Leclerc was so little able to extract any certain information, that he dismisses them with these words: "Quæ omnia, cum incertissima sunt, digna non sunt quæ nos morentur," Numer. 25, 3. in which place, however, it appears that the Idol was worshipped in a mountain called Peor or Phegor, from which mountain, therefore, might be derived the name of the Idol itself, and not from Orus and such a distant and unknown country as Egypt. If, then, all these ifs should conspire luckily in favor of the proposed etymology, we may, perhaps, accede to it; otherwise we must seek for some better evidence.'

Now, I perceive no other shadow of evidence adduced by the writer to support this new etymology, except that Chemosh was another name for an Idol in Moab (Numb. 21.) but whether the same Idol, or not, is not determined in scripture. If a different one, no evidence can be drawn from it, but the writer here again takes upon him to suppose that it was the same Deity, and "that this name and worship were also borrowed from Egypt." This, in like manner, he supposes to have been an obscene worship; yet nothing to that purport is intimated here also in Scripture, but rather that it consisted in human