Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/171

Memnon. 161 probable explanation of the Egyptian character, which, as Mr Jacobs infers from the report of Diodorus, was visible in the buildings at Susa and Persepolis, but that it also satisfactorily accounts for the legend which had become pre- valent among the Greeks in the time of Herodotus, that Susa was the abode of Memnon. I am therefore strongly inclined to strike both Ecbatana and Susa out of the list of the original Memnonia. This however is but a secondary question. My chief objection to Mr Jacobs's hypothesis is, that it implies either a state of things which is not only attested by no evidence, but at variance with all that we know of ancient history, or else a particular fact equally unattested and intrinsically improbable. If Memnou was an Egyptian god whose worship passed from his own country into Asia, it was undoubtedly spread by human means : and the question is. Who were its carriers ? It is to be regretted that Mr Jacobs has not been so explicit on this point as was necessary to secure the reader from the danger of mis- understanding him. For it is not from a direct assertion, but from rather vague allusions and comparisons, that we collect the precise nature of his opinion. After mentioning that the ancient religions migrated with mankind from the east toward the west, and remarking the connexion between ancient com- merce and devotion, that " the merchant journeyed from one sea to another under the guidance and protection of his gods,^' he proceeds to illustrate his meaning, in the passage above quoted, by the examples of Bacchus and Serapis, Hercules and Astarte, which he immediately applies to the worship of Ameno- phis, but without expressly saying that it was propagated by commerce or by any other means. Since however he alludes to commercial intercourse, and to no other channel of communica- tion, and at the outset combats the opinion that Memnon was a conqueror, and the Memnonia trophies of his victories, we must conclude that he conceives the Egyptian worship to have been diffused over Asia, like that of Hercules and Venus, by a peace- able traffic. But which was the people that took the active part in this traffic ? This is the question on which every thing seems to me to depend, and for which nevertheless I can find no distinct answer in Mr J.'s essay. Still there are only two suppositions that can be made on this subject: and each Vol. I. No. 4. X