The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

VI ISIS, ARTEMIS, DIANA 187
the gods sung by Orpheus, are " one and the same "
—mere names representing various attributes of one
great divinity—our oft-recurring difficulty in explaining
the strange combination of charms in one com-
plex amulet, vanishes, and that which was obscure
becomes quite clear. ^"^
The remarkable inscription found by Lanciani
(see p. 129) does but confirm what we are trying to
make plain, that one and the same deity appears
over and over again under different names, repre-
senting diverse attributes.
To return to Isis : she "sometimes signifies the
Moon when she is represented by a crescent ; some-
times the Earth, as fecundated by the waters of the
Nile, Hence water, as the issue of Osiris, is carried
in a vase in her processions. Osiris is signified by
an eye, also by an eye and a sceptre combined :
his name being compounded of Os, many ; and Iris,
eye." ^^^ We have seen how completely Isis, Artemis,
and Diana were identical, and hence all three are
habitually represented with the horned crescent, as
their particular accompaniment or symbol : and
further by the cow's head or cow's horns so often
seen. When we speak of Diana the chaste huntress,
it is manifestly under a very different aspect from
that of the Ephesian Diana, whose typical statues
are to be seen at Naples and elsewhere. Fig. 69 is
from Menetrius,^^'' and represents one of the Roman
ideas of the Ephesian goddess. In these statues
the great feature is the numerous mammae which
^"^ On this subject see La Migration des Symboles, par le Comte Goblet
d'Alviella, Paris, 1892.
^^ King, Gnostics, p. 42.
3*''' SymboHca DiancB Ephesice Statua, a Claudio Menetrio. Romae. Typis
Mascardi, MDCLVII. The loan of this rare book, with permission to copy,
has cleared up the Siren question in Chap. X.