The Anatomy of Melancholy

The Egyptians claimed such great antiquity—300 kings before Amasis and, as Mela writes, 13,000 years from the beginning of their chronicles. They boasted so much of their ancient learning, for they invented arithmetic, astronomy and geometry; of their wealth and power, vaunting their 20,000 cities. Yet at the same time their idolatry and superstition were of the grossest kind. As Diodorus Siculus records, they worshipped the sun and moon under the names of Isis and Osiris, and later any people who benefited them, or any creature that did them good.

In the city of Bubastis they worshipped a cat, says Herodotus; ibises and storks; an ox, says Pliny; leeks and onions, says Macrobius:

Daring to set leeks and onions in the clouds as gods, These are the gods you worship, Nile. ——

The mocking Lucian, in his True History—which, as he himself admits, was not written to persuade readers of its truth, but as comedy aimed at the monstrous inventions and gross absurdities of writers and nations—undoubtedly means to ridicule this prodigious Egyptian idolatry when he invents this story about himself. After seeing the Elysian Fields, as he was leaving, Rhadamanthus gave him a mallow root and told him to pray to it whenever he was in danger or distress. He did so: when he came to Hydamordia, on the island of treacherous women, he prayed to his root and was instantly delivered.

The Syrians and Chaldeans had just as many gods peculiar to themselves, of their own invention. See the same Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess; Mornay’s On the Truth of Religion, chapter 22; Wilhelm Stucki’s Description of the Rites and Sacrifices of the Gentiles; Peter Faber’s Six-Month Studies, book 3, chapters 1, 2 and 3; Selden’s On the Syrian Gods; Purchas’s Pilgrimage; Rosinus on the Romans; and Lilius Giraldus on the Greeks.

The Romans borrowed from them all, besides having their own gods, of the higher and lower orders, as Varro puts it, known and unknown; some heavenly, select and great gods; others native gods and demigods, household spirits, spirits of the dead, the Dioscuri, saviours and protectors—the Greeks’ tutelary gods. Gods of every kind, for every function: some for the land, some for the sea; some for heaven, some for hell; some for passions and diseases, some for birth, some for weddings, farming, woods, waters, gardens, orchards, and so on.

Every activity and office had its god: Pax, Peace; Quies, Rest; Salus, Health; Libertas, Liberty; Felicitas, Happiness; Strenua, Stimula, Horta, Pan, Sylvanus, Priapus, Flora, Cloacina and Stercutius; Febris, Fever; Pallor, Paleness; Invidia, Envy; Protervia, Impudence; Risus, Laughter; Angerona, Volupia, Vacuna, Viriplaca, Veneranda, Pales, Neptunia and Doris.