TAB. XXXV.
P. 68.
Stukeley f.
A Roman Urn found at Newington
Chyndonax a Druids tomb found in France.
Celtic Urns found at Sunbury.
To conclude this chapter, this labour of Phut’s is told in many places. Some say it was in Mysia, in Phrygia others, again in Cilicia, in Pithecusa, in Bœotia; Strabo xiii. writes, that it was in Syria; and there seems to have been a serpentine temple on the river Orontes of Antioch, for it was call’d originally Typhon and Οφιτης, as Strabo writes, xvi. and Eustathius in Iliad, p. 262. Basil. and in Dionysium. The story is of Typhon a huge serpent slain there by a thunderbolt from Jupiter, near a sacred cave called Nymphæum.
The meaning of all this, seems to be, that Phut in person, or his people built them in all these places. Ææas a son of Phut’s, built the serpentine temple at Colchis.
Perseus was a son of Demaroon, born in Egypt, Euseb. p. e. II. 1. he was coæval with Phut, and bore in his shield the sacred hierogram, and he probably built of these Dracontia. From this the poets made their fable of Medusa’s head, and that it turn’d men into snakes. Hesiod in the description of Hercules’s shield, thus paints him in English.
“As he went, his adamantine shield sounded, and tinkled with a loud noise. In a circle two dragons were suspended, lifting up their heads.” Johannes Malala makes Perseus institutor of the Magi, who were the patriarchal priests of the east. He calls the river of Antioch abovementioned Dracon.