[404] The number four was associated with the sun-god. There were four "children of Horus" and four spokes to the wheel of the sun.
[405] "Architecture," p. 24.
[406] See the chapter on "Magic" in Jevons, "Comparative Religion". In his article "Magic (Egyptian)," in Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (p. 266), Dr. Alan Gardiner makes the following statement: "The mystical potency attaching to certain numbers doubtless originated in associations of thought that to us are obscure. The number seven, in Egyptian magic, was regarded as particularly efficacious. Thus we find references to the seven Hathors: cf. αἰ ἑπτὰ Τύχαι τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (A. Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, Leipzig, 1910, p. 71): 'the seven daughters of Re,' who 'stand and weep and make seven knots in their seven tunics'; and similarly 'the seven hawks who are in front of the barque of Re'."
Are the seven daughters of Re the seven days of the week, or the representatives of Hathor corresponding to the seven days?
[407] Chapter II, p. 118.
[408] We have already seen that the primitive aspect of life-giving that played an essential part in the development of the story we are considering was the search for the means by which youth could be restored. It is significant that Hathor's reputed ability to restore youth is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts in association with her functions as the measurer of years: for she is said "to turn back the years from King Teti," so that they pass over him without increasing his age (Breasted, "Thought and Religion in Ancient Egypt," p. 124).
[409] Breasted ("Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 22) states that as the inundation began at the rising of Sothis, the star of Isis, sister of Osiris, they said to him [i.e. Osiris]: "The beloved daughter, Sothis, makes thy fruits (rnpwt) in her name of 'Year' (rnpt)".
[410] The Great Mother was identified with the moon, but when she became specialized, her representative adopted Sothis or Venus as her star.
[411] "At Argos the principal fête of Aphrodite was called ὑστήρια because they offered sacrifices of pigs ("Athen." III, 49, 96; "Clem. Alex. Protr." 33)"—Article "Aphrodisia," Dict. des Antiquités, p. 308. The Greek word for pig had the double significance of "pig" and "female organs of reproduction".
[412] Aphrodite sends Aphrodisiac "mania" (see Tümpel, op. cit., pp. 394 and 395).