Note 277 — TAR, TOR, TARIT.

When towers were situated upon eminences fashioned very round, they were by the Amonians called Tith; which answers to תד in Hebrew, and to [277]τιτθη, and τιτθος, in Greek. They were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman's breast; and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the Deities of light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of Apollo. Hence the summit of Parnassus was [278]named Tithorea, from Tith-Or: and hard by was a city, mentioned by Pausanias, of the same name; which was alike sacred to Orus and Apollo. The same author takes notice of a hill, near Epidaurus, called [279]Τιτθειον ορος Απολλωνος. There was a summit of the like nature at Samos, which, is by Callimachus styled the breast of Parthenia: [280]Διαβροχον ὑδατι μαστον Παρθενιης. Mounds of this nature are often, by Pausanias and Strabo, termed, from their resemblance, [281]μαστοειδεις. Tithonus, whose longevity is so much celebrated, was nothing more than one of these structures, a Pharos, sacred to the sun, as the name plainly shews. Tith-On is μαστος ἑλιου, the mount of the [282]Sun. As he supplied the place of that luminary, he is said to have been beloved by Aurora, and through her favour to have lived many ages. This, indeed, is the reverse of that which is fabled of the [283]Cyclopes, whose history equally relates to edifices. They are said to have raised the jealousy of Apollo, and to have been slain by his arrows: yet it will be found at bottom of the same purport. The Cyclopian turrets upon the Sicilian shore fronted due east: and their lights must necessarily have been extinguished by the rays of the rising Sun. This, I imagine, is the meaning of Apollo's slaying the Cyclopes with his arrows. Tethys, the antient Goddess of the sea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount; of the same shape, and erected for the same purposes, as those above. On this account it was called Tith-Is, μαστος πυρος. Thetis seems to have been a transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or Fire-tower, near the sea.