Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Bull and the Sun in Egypt 431

date more or less assimilated by the Greeks. As before, we shall
end by showing that the Greeks themselves had inherited from
their own Indo-Europaean ancestors ideas so similar that they
were readily fused with those of surrounding foreigners.

We begin, then, with Egypt. Here from a remote past bulls
and cows had been regarded as objects of peculiar veneration.
Evidence of their divinity is forthcoming even in the predynastic
age1. The two most famous bulls of Egypt were Ur-mer at
Heliopolis and Hap at Memphis. The Greeks, who transliterated
these names as Mneuis and Apis respectively, describe the former
as sacred to the Sun, the latter as sacred to the Moon2. . Mnevis
was the biggest of bulls : he was jet-black, for exposure to the sun
blackens the body: the hairs of his tail and of his whole body
stood erect, unlike those of other bulls, just as the sun runs counter
to the sky: his testicles were very large, since desire is aroused
by heat, and the sun is said to engender nature3. His cult was
established by king Kaiechos of the second dynasty, according to
Manethon4, and lasted on into Ptolemaic times, as appears from
the Rosetta stone5. After death he was identified with Osiris as
Osiri-Ur-mer, the Greek Osoromneuis or Osdrmneuis*. Egyptian
monuments represent him as a bull with the solar disk and the
uraeus between his horns7, or as a human figure with a bull's head8.
Of myths connected with him we know little. Indeed, Ammianus
Marcellinus remarks that ' nothing worth mentioning is said of
him9.' Aelian, however, relates that a certain Bokchoris, king of
Lower Egypt, who had a reputation for justice and piety that he
did not deserve, being minded to annoy the Egyptians, brought
in a wild bull to fight with Mnevis. Both bellowed, and the wild
bull charged, but, missing his aim, struck his horn into the trunk
of a persea-tree, where Mnevis gored him to death. Bokchoris

1 E. A. Wallis Budge The Gods of the Egyptians London 1904 i. 24 f., A History of
Egypt London 1902 i. 84 no. 32124 flint cow's head, id. i. 185, 187 Hathor-heads on
green slate relief, Man 1902 p. 17 pi. B, 8—16 bull-heads as amulets.

2 Ail. de nat. an. 11. u, Porphyrios ap. Eus. praep. ev. 3. 13. 1 f., Souid. s.v. "A7rt<5es,
Amm. Marc. 22. 14. 7.

3 Porphyrios ap. Eus. praep. ev. 3. 13. 1, Plout. de Is. et Os. 33.

4 Maneth. frag. 8, cp. 9 f. [Frag. hist. Gr. ii. 542 ff. Miiller).

6 Corp. inscr. Gr. iii no. 4697, 31 f. = Dittenberger 0rie7tt. Gr. inscr. sel. no. 90, 31 f.
Cp. Dittenberger id. 56, 9.

6 Corp. inscr. Gr. iii. 304. See further W. Drexler in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 3081 f.
Plout. de Is. et Os. 33 describes Mnevis as ' sacred to Osiris.'

7 Lanzone Dizion. di Mitol. Egiz. pi. 55, 2.

8 Id. id. pi. 55, 3. On Greek and Roman representations of Mnevis see W. Drexler
loc. cit.

9 Amm. Marc. 22. 14. 7.