The whole island was covered with a thick grove, in the midst of which stood the palace, or perhaps the temple of Circe, guarded by mountain wolves and brindled lions; Hinc exaudiri gemitus iræque leonum Vincla recusantum, et serâ sub nocte rudentum ; Ulysses is preserved from the fate of his companions through the marvellous influence of the herb Moly,† which is presented him by Mercury, who appears to him in the grove under a human form, and is styled by the poet Ερμειας Χρυσορραπις Hermes the golden Branch"bearer." And we may here observe that the same title is bestowed upon Teiresias in Hades, who is called by Homer "the bearer of the golden rod or Branch." It is also remarkable * Eneid vii. 15. The plant called Moly may be considered as another memorial derived from the Tree of Life; it was supposed to preserve the bearer from all peril, especially that, which he might incur within the precincts of the sacred grove. Homer describes it as known only to the immortals. See also a good remark on this point in the Ancient Univers. Hist. vol. P. 126. i. that this prophet of the invisible world had, according to Diodorus, a daughter named Daphne, a priestess at the oracle of Delphi, which we shall notice hereafter. The name of Daphne however, signifies a Branch of laurel, which on some occasions was held in almost equal repute with the Ramus or Branch of the palm tree, and both are often found in mythology confounded together.. Whenever any person was seized with a dangerous distemper which threatened dissolution, it was usual to fix both these over his door: ΡΑΜΝΟΝ τε και κλαδον ΔΑΦΝΗΣ as Laertius* mentions, in his life of Bion the Boristhenite; and it may be here remarked, that the staff of Esculapius, who was looked upon as the renewer or restorer of human life, and on that account the sufferer of divine vengeance for the sake of man; this wonderful staff, connected as it ever was with the serpent, is in fact a traditionary type of the same nature as the Aureus Ramus of Hades, and derived from the same source, namely, the Tree of Life * Cited in Potter's Arch, vol. i. in paradise. The same may be also said of the Thyrsus of Bacchus, the Caduceus of Mercury, and even the Club of Hercules ;* and it is observable that all these deities were often looked upon as connected more or less with Hades. Even Adonis was said to have derived his origin from the Branch of a tree, which grew in the midst of a sacred garden. There There was another Hades besides that of Campania, on the shores of Epirus in Thesprotia, near the Ambracian Gulph, and opposite the island of Corcyra. The same paradisaical features are also here discoverable. was a river "parting into four heads," which seem to have had similar titles conferred upon them. Here was an Acheron; an Avernus, like that in Italy and Spain, exhaling pestilential vapours; a Cocytus; and a Stygian stream. Near a lake Acherusia,† into which the Ache *Palæph. de incred. hist. p. 51. Apul. Metam. ut supra, as to the Caduceus of Mercury being derived from the golden bough in Hades. + The title Acherusia appears as well in this, as in other instances, to have been conferred upon the lake, the cave, and the eminence or high-place which overhung both. Crowning the whole was a solemn grove of plane trees Περι των επ' ακρης αυτης πεφυκυων πλατάνων και του επ' αυτη πεδιου, και δοκει αυτοθι καταβασις εις αδου υπαρχειν. Aret. ron flowed, was an ancient temple called Chimærium, once sacred to the compound figure Chimæra, which represented as well the traditional vestiges of the Cherubim, as also of the revolving fire, or "flaming sword," which served as the defence of paradise. Hard by was a spot called Phoenice,* answering, I apprehend, to the Baiæ in Italy, and formerly consecrated to the worship of the palm or povi Phoenix, the emblem of the Tree of Life. A river Acheron will be found in many other parts of the world ; a fact that evinces how universally these traditions once prevailed, and how far the idolatrous worship had spread, which sprang out of them. There was an Acheront in the country of the Brutii, with several places near it of the same name with those in Thresprotia; and connected with them was the history of Proserpine, who was fabled to have come over thither, and gathered flowers. Her history will be mentioned again hereafter, and shewn to be wholly derived from paradisaical tradition. There Cnid. lib. rer. Maced. secundo. Nat. Comes. lib. iii. p. 59. * Strabo, lib. vii. p. 499. Polybius, lib. i. pp. 94, 95. + Strabo, lib. vi. p. 466. was an Acherontia* also in Apulia, mentioned as a mountain, and probably so called from the river Acheron, which flowed at its foot. There was a sacred cave called Acherusia in the Chersonesus Taurica, through which Hercules was said to have dragged the dog Cerberus from hell; and the same story is connected with other places of the same kind. Now Cerberus, in his compounded figure and other circumstances, presents to our view only another trace of the cherubic exhibition on the east of Eden, which guarded the way to the Tree of Life, as Cerberus is also represented for ever watching over the gates of Hades and the entrance into Elysium. From the last mentioned cave in the Chersonesus, rushed the river Acheron, and the whole place was looked upon as the descent into the invisible world ;— Ενθα μεν εις Αίδαο καταιβατις ἐστι κέλευθος * Hor. lib. iii. od. 4. ver. 146 † Apollon. Rhod. apud Nat. Com. lib. iii. cap. 1. p. 58.7) F |