Note 786 — ANTIENT HEROES.

This is a very curious piece of antient history: and it will be found to be in great measure true, if taken with this allowance, that what is here said to have been achieved by one person, was the work of many. Osiris was a title conferred upon more persons than one; by which means the history of the first ages has been in some degree confounded. In this description the Cuthites are alluded to, who carried on the expeditions here mentioned. They were one branch of the posterity of Ham; who is here spoken of as the eldest son of Cronus. How justly they conferred upon him this rank of primogeniture, I will not determine. By [786]Cronus we are here to understand the same person, as is also represented under the name of Soüs. This would be more truly expressed Σωον, Soön; by which is meant the Sun: All the Amonian families affected to be styled Heliadæ, or the offspring of the Sun: and under this title they alluded to their great ancestor the father of all: as by Osiris they generally meant Ham. Σωον, Soön, is the same as [787]Zoon, and Zoan, the fountain of day. The land of Zoan in Egypt was the nome of Heliopolis: and the city Zoan the place of the Sun. The person then styled here Soüs can be no other than the great Patriarch under a title of the Sun. He is accordingly by Philo Biblius called Ousoüs in an extract from Sanchoniathon. He makes him indeed reside, where Tyre was afterwards built; but supposes him to have lived at a time, when there were great rains and storms; and to have been the first constructor of a ship, and the first who ventured upon the [788]seas. In respect to the travels of Osiris we shall find that the posterity of Ham did traverse at different times the regions above-mentioned: and in many of them took up their abode. They built the city Memphis in Egypt; also Hecatompulos, which they denominated Theba, after the name of their reputed mother. They also built Zoan, the city of the Sun.