A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

MERCURY

(according to History) the most famous of all those that bore the Name of Mercury was he of Egypt, whose Commentaries, Philo Biblos (according to the Relation given us by Eusebius) says, were with utmost Care sought after by Sanchuniathon, that thereby he might be able to compose his Treatise of Pagan Theo∣logy, as knowing well he was the Person that first found out the Use of Letters, and that he was called by different Names as Thoh, Thoyth, Tautes: Porphyry bears the same Testimony of Taautus, and Sanchuniathon forgets not the Ge∣nealogy of Taautus, amongst those of the other profane Deities of the Phoenicians and Egyptians. 'Tis not to be doubted but the Ancientest of all the Mercuries, and he that was the Inventer of Letters, was he of Phoenicia, and he passed from thence to Egypt, and so from Egypt to Greece: Eusebius also proves out of Diodorus Siculus, that the Egyptians presented to their ancient King Osiris a Mercury very like unto him of the Phoe∣nicians: Apud eum summo in bonore Mercurium fuisse; quòd in excogitandis iis quae vitam homi∣num juvarent, ingenii solertiam ostenderes planè sin∣gularem: quippè qui litteras invenerit, Deorum sacrificia ritè instituerit, lyrae cantum invenerit, Graecosque homines 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, hoc est, elo∣cutionem docuerit: quam ob causam 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, id est, Mercurius ab iisdem fuerit appellatus; denique oli∣vae plantam invenerit. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks of this Aegyptian Mercury, as of a Man whom they had deified there after his Death: Cicero would have it, that there were Five di∣stinct Mercuries, of which Three were Greeks, one the Son of Nilus, and the last he of Egypt: The great Glory of the Aegyptian Mercury was, that he was the Inventer of Letters, Sciences and Laws, according to Jamblicus his Testimony of him.

It will be some Difficulty to reconcile what Pliny says with the most received Opinion, That the Invention of Letters was found out in Assyria; Litter as arbitror Assyrias fuisse: sed alii apud Egyp∣tios à Mercurio, ut Gellius, alii apud Syros repertas volunt. But this Contrariety may be accommo∣dated in this manner: That whereas the Begin∣ning of all Things proceeded from Assyria, other Nations affected to have the Honour thereof: Indeed it may be said, that Letters were in Use before the Deluge, and Noah preserved the same in his Family, and to his Posterity, but after the Flood when People began to be scattered in∣to all the Parts of the World, and almost fell in∣to

meer Barbarism; there was as it were a Ne∣cessity for a new Creation of all Arts and Scien∣ces, to bring them back from the said Barbarism, and the profound Ignorance they had plunged themselves into: Wherefore 'tis true, that Let∣ters were originally the Assyrian's Invention, or rather found among them, since Noah and his Family dwelt in Assyria; but in Process of Time and after the Multiplying of divers Colonies in the World, the Phoenicians were the first who re∣ceived the Use of Letters by the Means of Taau∣tus; next to them the Egyptians got them, and had their Taautus or Mercury also; which gave Sanchuniathon Occasion to say, That Mercury was Saturn's Secretary, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. The Egyp∣tians represented their Mercury, with a Dog's Head, and sometimes confounded him with Anu∣bis, because of the Sagacity of a Dog: See how Servius speaks of it: Latrator Anubis, Mercurius capitus anino pingitur, ideò quia nihil est cane sagacius.

But besides this first Mercury, who lived a lit∣tle after the Deluge, there was a second Mercury the Son of Vulcan who reigned in Egypt long af∣ter, and wrote Books (which he deposited in their Temples) concerning the Writings of the first Mercury, which he found graven upon Pil∣lars, and this Manetho said, according to the Ac∣count Syncellus gives us of it. Ex stelis positis in terrâ Syriadicâ, & exaratis sacrâ dialecto & hiero∣glyphicis litteris à Thoth, qui est Mercurius pri∣mus, secundus Mercurius Agathodaemonis filius, Tatipater, libros traduxit, quos in templorum ady∣tis Aegypti reposuit. Ammianus Marcellinus gives a Description of those Subterranean Places, where for Fear of another Deluge those Secrets which they were desirous to transmit to Posterity were writ on the Walls in Hieroglyphicks: It was this second Mercury that was called Trismegistus, ac∣cording to Syncellus and Manetho: Clemens A∣lexandrinus makes mention of 42 Books of Mer∣cury, that were carried in Pomp by the Egyp∣tians when they were solemnizing the Mysteries of their Religion, and wherein were contained all the Divine and Humane Sciences entertained by that Nation, as their Hieroglyphicks, Geo∣metry, Cosmography, Astronomy, Laws of Sacrificing, and all Divine Worship: Its ma∣nifest, that it was from these Two Egyptian Mercuries the Greeks and Romans borrowed all those Accomplishments, wherewith they endued their fabulous Mercury: For the Greeks could not deny but that the Egyptian Mercury was the most famous of all of them, and therefore they made it their Business to give out he was a Greek by Birth; and whereas it is certain, that the Greeks received their Letters from the Phoenicians, as we have already shewed, they endeavoured all they could to perswade the World, that they were originally found out in Greece, from whence they had been carried into Phoenicia: Such a Likeness was found to have been between the Egyptian and Grecian Mercury, that it may be easily judged the One is but a Copy of the O∣ther.

Strabo calls a Child which he saw was born without Arms 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, according to Mercury's Name. Thus Mercury was usually pictured, to let Men understand, says Festus, that Discourse does eve∣ry Thing, without the Assistance of the Arms: Cyllenius dictus, quòd omnem rem sermo sine mani∣bus conficiat; quibus partibus corporis qui carent, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vocantur: But Pausanias says, the Athe∣nians were the first that gave Mercury's Name to such as were lame in their Arms: Primi mutil∣os Hermas vocarunt: For before Daedalus his Time all their Statues had but one Foot, and either no Arms at all, or else they were joined to, or hung by their Bodies: He was the first that made them with Two Feet, and set the Arms a little off from the Body: The Statues of Mer∣cury might be left in the same Posture as an∣ciently.