and exclusively appropriated to her, is a cap or crown surmounted by several feathers placed in a circular form.

THMEI, TRUTH OR JUSTICE.

This Deity had a two-fold character, as Goddess of Truth and of Justice. Her figure is frequently represented in the hands of the Kings, who present it as a fit offering to the Gods; and many, in their regal titles, are said to love, or to be loved by, Thmei. A small image of this Goddess was also worn by the chief judge while engaged in listening to the cases brought before him in court; and when the depositions of the two parties and their witnesses had been heard, he touched the successful litigant with the image, in token of the justness of his cause. A similar emblem was used by the high priest of the Jews; and it is a remarkable fact, that the word Thummim is not only translated "truth‡," but, being a plural or dual word, corresponds to the Egyptian notion of the "two Truths," or the double capacity of this Goddess.

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According to some, the Urim and Thummim signify "lights and perfections §," or light and truth," which last present a striking analogy to the figures of Re and Thmei. two figures of Rê and Thmei, in the breast-plate worn by the Egyptians. And

No. 458. A breast-plate, with the

* Conf. the title paλnons of the Obelisk translated by Hermapion. + Vide suprà, Vol. II. p. 30. + Vide suprà, Vol. II. p. 27. $ Vide Exod. xxxix. 8. 10.; and Levit. viii. 8.

though the resemblance of the Urim and the Uræus (or basilisk), the symbol of majesty, suggested by Lord Prudhoe, is very remarkable, I am disposed to think the "lights," Aorim or Urim, more nearly related to the Sun, which is seated in the breastplate with the figure of Truth.

This Goddess was sometimes represented by two similar figures placed close to each other; or by one figure wearing two ostrich feathers, her emblem; and sometimes by the two feathers alone, as in the scales of the final judgment. It is to these figures that Plutarch alludes, when he speaks of the two Muses at Hermopolis, under the names of Isis and Justice. Diodorus describes the chief judge in the sculptures of the tomb of Osymandyast, with the figure of Truth suspended to his neck, with her eyes closed; and it is worthy of remark, that the same mode of representing the Goddess occurs in the paintings of Thebes‡, confirming the account of the historian, and establishing her claims to the character I have given her. §

Her principal occupations were in the lower regions, and she was on earth the great cardinal virtue. For the Ancients considered, that as Truth or Justice influenced men's conduct towards their neighbours, and tended to maintain that harmony and good will which were most essential for the welfare of society, it was of far greater importance than the other three, — Prudence, Temperance, and Forti

*Plut. de Is. s. 3.

Plate 49. Part 1. fig. 2.

† Diodor. i. 48. § Vide Mater. Hierog. p. 46.

tude. These were reflective qualities; and more immediately beneficial to the individual who possessed them, than to those with whom he was in the habit of associating.

As the dead, after the final judgment and admission into the regions of the blessed, bore her emblem (either the ostrich feather, or the vase which indicated their good deeds, taken from the scales of Truth), and were considered approved or justified by their works, the hieroglyphics of her name were adopted to signify "deceased," or, in other words, "judged" or "justified."

The same idea may be traced in an expression of Plato's Gorgias, where, in speaking of the judgments of the dead, Socrates says, "Sometimes Rhadamanthus, beholding the soul of one who has passed through life with Truth, whether it be of a private man, or any other, is filled with admiration, and dismisses that soul to the Islands of the Blessed. The same is also done by Eacus." Indeed, the modern Persian or Arabic expression in relation to the dead is not very dissimilar, which styles them "pardoned," or "to whom the mercy of God has been shown," answering to our more simple and matter-of-fact "the late," or "the departed."

Diodorust mentions a figure of Justice without a head, standing in the lower regions, "at the gates of Truth," which I have found in the judg

* Plato, Taylor's Trans. vol. iv. p. 458.

f

Diodor. i. 96.

This calls to mind "the good woman" of modern times.

ment scenes attached to the funereal rituals on the papyri of Thebes. In one of the subjects of a mummy case in the British Museum, the Goddess occurs under the form of a sceptre (surmounted by an ostrich feather), from which proceed her two arms, supporting the body of the deceased. Another figure of the same Goddess, issuing from a mountain, presents him at the same time two emblems, supposed to represent water, or the drink of Heaven.

Thmei was always styled the daughter of the Sun, and sometimes "chief" or "Directress of the Gods."

From her name the Greeks evidently borrowed their Themis, who was supposed to be the mother of Diké (Ax), or Justice; but the name of the Egyptian city Thmuis does not appear to have been called from the Goddess of Truth.

MANDOO (MENDES?), MARS ULTOR?.

The name of this Deity was probably the origin of Mendes, whose character and attributes have been strangely perverted by Greek writers.

Herodotus considers Mendes the Egyptian Pan; but I have already shown the Deity of Panopolis to be Khem, and it is evident that he has mistaken the characters of both those Deities.

"The Mendesians," says the father of history "abstain from sacrificing goats for these reasons:

they place Pan among the number of the eight Gods, who were supposed to have preceded the twelve; and this Deity is represented by their painters and sculptors in the same manner as in Greece, with the head and legs of a goat. It is not that they believe he really had that form; they think him like the other Gods; but the reason being connected with religion, I am not at liberty to explain it. The Mendesians have a great respect for goats, particularly the males; the same feeling is extended to those who have the care of them; and when a he-goat dies, the whole of the Mendesian nome goes into mourning." "This animal," he adds, "and the God Pan are both called in Egyptian Mendes ;" and Plutarch asserts that "the Mendesian goat had the name of Apis," like the Sacred Bull of Memphis. Diodorus t says it was chosen as an emblem of the God of Generation; who, as I have already shown, was Khem, the Egyptian Pan; but this is not confirmed by the monuments: and though numerous representations occur of the God Khem, we find no instance of the goat introduced as his emblem.

The fact of Herodotus admitting Pan to be one of the eight great Gods leaves no doubt respecting his identity with Khem, who too is shown by the authority of a Greek dedication at Chemmis, or Panopolis, to be the Pan of Egypt. But the description he gives of this Deity, with the head and legs of a goat, is so inconsistent with the Egyptian + Diodor. i. 88.

*Plut. de Is. s. 73.