I should rather put it that we find the word for the Dove common to the Hebrew and the Greek (Iönah, Hebrew; Οινας, Greek), and, as Bryant seems to imply, among other nations also—e.g. the Babylonians—which is precisely what we should have expected. But if this identity is allowed, we must proceed with Bryant to see in Juno, Venus, and Diana, simply embodiments of the tradition of the Dove. Bryant says that “Juno is the same as Iöna,” and although, as we have seen, the peacock is said to be her bird (with reference to the other symbol, the rainbow), and although Ovid (Bryant, 344) sends her to heaven accompanied by Iris (rainbow), yet in the plate (from Gruter) p. 410, she will be seen with a dove on her wand, and a pomegranate, as symbol of the ark (vide p. 380), in her hand. Bryant, moreover (344), considers Juno to be identical with Venus. There was a statue in Laconia called Venus-Junonia. Of Dione and Venus Bryant says (ii. 341):—“I have mentioned that the name Diona was properly Ad, or Ada, Iöna. Hence came the term Idione; which Idione was an object of idolatry as early as the days of Moses. But there was a similar personage named Deione.... This was a compound of De Iöne, the dove; and Venus Dionœa may sometimes have been formed in the same manner.... Dionusus was likewise called Thyomus.” Vide also Bryant, pp. 316, 317. In Genesis viii. 9, the dove returned to the ark, not having found “where her foot might rest.” “In the hieroglyphical sculptures and paintings where this history was represented, the dove could not well be depicted otherwise than as hovering over the face of the deep. Hence it is that Venus or Dione is said to have risen from the sea. Hence it is, also, that she is said to preside over waters; to appease the troubled ocean; and to cause by her presence an universal calm; that to her were owing [on the retiring of the waters] the fruits of the earth.... She was the Oenas (‘Οινας’) of the Greeks; whence came the Venus of the Latins.” The address of Lucretius to this deity concludes with two lines of remarkable significance—
“Te Dea, te fugiunt venti; te nubila cœli
Adventumque tuum; tibi rident æquora ponti;
Pacatumque nitet diffuso lumine cœlum.”
“In Sicily, upon Mount Eryx, was a celebrated temple of this goddess, which is taken notice of by Cicero and other writers. Doves were here held as sacred as they were in Palestine or Syria [vide also in Cashmere, p. 64]. It is remarkable that there were two days of the year set apart in this place for festivals, called Ἀναγωγια and Καταγωγια, at which time Venus was supposed to depart over the sea, and after a season to return. There were also sacred pigeons, which then took their flight from the island; but one of them was observed on the ninth day to come back from the sea, and to fly to the shrine of the goddess. This was upon the festival of Ἀναγωγια. Upon this day it is said that there were great rejoicings. On what account can we imagine this veneration for the bird to be kept up, ... but for a memorial of the dove sent out of the ark, and of its return from the deep to Noah? The history is recorded upon the ancient coins of Eryx; which have on one side the head of Janus bifrons, and on the other the sacred dove.”—Bryant, ii. 319.
Mr Cox’s (“Mythology,” ii. ch. ii. sec. vii.) counter-explanation, if I rightly gather it, is that “on Aphroditê (Venus), the child of the froth or foam of the sea, was lavished all the wealth of words denoting the loveliness of the morning; and thus the Hesiodic poet goes on at once to say that the grass sprung up under her feet as she moved, that Eros, Love, walked by her side, and Himeros, longing, followed after her.” “This is but saying, in other words, that the morning, the child of the heavens, springs up first from the sea, as Athene is born by the water-side.” But why should the morning spring first from the sea?—more particularly when the effects of her rising is noted in the springing up of flowers on the land? If the rainbow, we see the reason in her connection with the Deluge, and her connection with the subsequent renovation of nature. Mr Cox also says (p. 3):—“In her brilliant beauty she is Argunî, a name which appears again in that of Arguna, the companion of Krishna and the Hellenic Argynius.” Does not this complete the chain of her connection with Juno? Mr Cox (p. 8) says:—“The Latin Venus is, in strictness of speech, a mere name, to which any epithet might be attached according to the conveniences or the needs of the worshipper.... The name itself has been, it would seem, with good reason, connected with the Sanscrit root ‘van,’ to desire love or favour,”—a derivation which equally accords with Bryant’s view. Then there is the striking connection of Venus with Dionusos (vide [p. 395]). Mr Cox (p. 9) says, “The myth of Adonis links the legends of Aphrodite (Venus) with those of Dionusos. Like the Theban wine-god Adonis, born only on the death of his mother; and the two myths are, in one version, so far the same that Dionysos, like Adonis, is placed in a chest, which, being cast into the sea, is carried to Brasiæ, where the body of his mother is buried.” (Comp. Kabiri, Bunsen.) Mr Cox connects Athene with Aphrodite (Venus) (p. 4). Therefore we must ask him to reconsider his explanation of “the Athenian maidens embroidering the sacred peplos for the ship presented to Athêne at the great Dionysiac festival.” Compare evidence, supra, in chap. on Boulanger, &c.; Catlin.
[335] Vide ante, [391]. That the entwined snakes were of late date would appear, I think, from the allusions to the suppliants’ wands in Æschylus, e.g. (vide Plumtre’s Æschylus, “Libation Pourers,” v. 1024) when Orestes puts on the suppliants wreaths, and takes the olive branch in his hand—
“The branch of olive from the topmost growth,
With amplest tufts of white wool meetly wreathed.”
and in the Supplicants (22)—