Lucian of Samosata De Syria dea 7

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

De Syria dea. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Goddesse of Surrye (English) (Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Περὶ τῆς Συρίης Θεοῦ Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 (printing).) — 7 focus

Notes on the current edition

The Goddesse of Surrye

1.
Byblos was known to the Egyptians from the time of the Old Kingdom, and her goddess impressed them deeply. She was identified with Hathor at least as early as the Middle Kingdom, and her story contributed to the shaping of the Isis-Osiris myth. When the coffin of Osiris was thrown into the Nile by Typhon, it drifted out to sea, and so to Byblos, where Isis sought and found it (Plutarch, Zsis and Osiris, c. 13 sgg.; cf. Frazer, ii. 9 sqg., 12, 127; Baudissin, pp. 193 sqq. ).
2.
The pun signifies that the head was of papyrus, made, no doubt, of a sort of papier m4ché, as in a mummy-case. In the commentary of Cyril on Isaiah 18 (Migne 70, 441) we learn, instead, of an earthen pot that contained a letter from the women of Alexandria to those of Byblos, saying that Aphrodite had found Adonis. There may be something in the tale of its drift, for the Nile current sets over to the Phoenician shore, and it is Nile mud that silts up Phoenician harbours (cf. H. Guthe, Paldstina, p. 27).