Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

FOREIGN NAMES IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 267
to account for the similarity of myths suggested by the CHAP,
horns of the new moon. The mischief began with the > ,_—
notion that the whole Greek mythology not merely ex-
hibited certain points of likeness or contact with that of
Semitic or other alien tribes, but was directly borrowed
from it; and when for this portentous fact no evidence
was demanded or furnished beyond the impudent assertions
of Egyptian priests, there was obviously no limit and no
difficulty in making any one Greek god the counterpart of a
deity in the mythology of Egypt. Hence, speaking gene-
rally, we are fully justified in sweeping away all such state-
ments as groundless fabrications. Nay more, when Hero-
dotos tells us that Danaos and Lynkeus were natives of
Chemmis, and that the Egyptians trace from them the
genealogy of Perseus, the periodical appearance of whose
gio-antic slipper caused infinite joy in Egypt, we can not
be sure that his informers even knew the names which the
historian puts into their mouths. In all probability, the
points of likeness were supplied by Herodotos himself,
although doubtless the Egyptians said all that they could
to strengthen his fixed idea that Egypt was the source of
the mythology and religion, the art and science of Greece;
nor does the appearance of a solitary sandal lead us necessarily
to suppose that the being who wore it was in any way
akin to the Argive hero who receives two sandals from the
Ocean nymphs.
Hence it is possible or likely that the names Belos and Their ... ,
x sons anc*
Aigyptos may have been late importations into a purely daughters,
native myth, while the wanderings of Danaos and Aigyptos
with their sons and daughters have just as much and as little
value as the pilgrimage of 16. In the form thus assigned to
it, the legend runs that Libya, the daughter of Epaphos the
calf-child of 16, became the bride of Poseidon and the
mother of Agenor and Belos. Of these the former is placed
in Phoinikia, and takes his place in the purely solar myth
of Telephassa, Kadmos, and Europe : the latter remains in
Libya, and marrying Anchirrhoe (the mighty stream), a
daughter of the Nile, becomes the father of the twins
Danaos and Aigyptos, whose lives exhibit not much more