The Gnostics and Their Remains

at him in a half-human voice, "Come to me; I and my whelps will receive thee gladly." The Hellenic gods, now and then shew themselves under an aspect strangely at variance with their usual benevolent and jovial character. A true Siva was that "Dionysos Omestes" (The Cannibal), unto whom Themistocles, forced by the Diviners, sacrificed the three sons of Sandauce, own sister to Xerxes, when taken prisoners on the eve of the Battle of Salamis. It must be remembered that tradition made Perseus bring back the Gorgon's Head, trophy of his success, from Ethiopia, a synonym at first for the remotest East--it being only in Roman times that "Ethiopia" was restricted to a single province of Africa. The harpe too, the weapon lent to the hero by Hermes, is from its form no other than the ankuşa, elephant-hook, which is carried for attribute by so many of the Hindoo Deities. * Sufficient explanation this why Persephone (Destroying-slayer) was assigned by the earliest Greeks as Consort to Aidoneus; and also why Ulysses, on his visit to her realms, should have been alarmed,

"Lest from deep Hell Persephone the dread
Should send the terror of the Gorgon's Head."

From the influence of this terror upon the otherwise undaunted wanderer, these same two lines came to be considered as endued with a wonderfully strong repellent power, for Marcellus Empiricus prescribes them to be whispered into the ear of any one choking from a bone or other matter sticking in his throat; or else to write them out on a paper to be tied around his throat, "Which will be equally effectual."

Lucian remarks ('Philopatris,') that the reason why the ancient warriors bore the Gorgon's Head upon their shields was because it served for an amulet against dangers of every sort; on the same account, in all likelihood, was it put for device on many archaic coinages; Populonia, Paros, &c. For

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