Of the exaltation of minor animals into anthropomorphic gods and
goddesses only a few instances need be given. As is shown by Sir
J. G. Frazer, Demeter and Proserpine probably both represent the
deified pig. [348] "The Greek drama has arisen from the celebrations
of Dionysus. In the beginning the people sacrificed a goat totem-god,
that is to say, Dionysus himself; they wept for his death and then
celebrated his resurrection with transports of joy." [349] And again
M. Reinach states: "There are more than mere vestiges of totemism
in ancient Greece. We may take first the attendant animals of the
gods, the eagle of Zeus, the owl of Athena, the fawn of Artemis,
the dolphin of Poseidon, the dove of Aphrodite and so on; the sacred
animal can develop into the companion of the god, but also into his
enemy or victim; thus Apollo Sauroctonos is, as the epithet shows,
a killer of lizards; but in the beginning it was the lizard itself
which was divine. We have seen that the boar before becoming the
slayer of Adonis had been Adonis himself." [350]
In early Rome "The wolf was the animal most venerated. Its association
with Mars, as the sacrifice most pleasing to him, leaves no doubt
as to the primitive nature of the god. It was a wolf which acted as
guide to the Samnites in their search for a place to settle in, and
these Samnites called themselves Hirpi or Hirpini, that is to say,
wolves. Romulus and Remus, sons of the wolf Mars and the she-wolf
Silvia (the forest-dweller), are suckled by a she-wolf." [351] It seems
possible that Mars as the deified wolf was at first an agricultural
deity, the wolf being worshipped by the shepherd and farmer because he
was their principal enemy, as the sambhar stag and the wild buffalo
are similarly venerated by Indian cultivators. At a later period,
in becoming the god of war, he may have represented the deified horse
as well. Races of war-horses were held at his festivals on 14th March
and 27th February, and a great race on the Ides of October when the
winner was solemnly slain. [352] "In Egypt the baboon was regarded
as the emblem of Tahuti, the god of wisdom; the serious expression
and human ways of the large baboons are an obvious cause for their
being regarded as the wisest of animals. Tahuti is represented as a
baboon from the earliest dynasty down to late times; and four baboons
were sacred in his temple at Heliopolis." [353] "The hippopotamus was
the goddess Ta-urt, 'the great one,' the patroness of pregnancy, who
is never shown in any other form. Rarely this animal appears as the
emblem of the god Set. The jackal haunted the cemeteries on the edge
of the desert, and so came to be taken as the guardian of the dead
and identified with Anubis, the god of departing souls. The vulture
was the emblem of maternity as being supposed to care especially for
her young. Hence she is identified with Mut, the mother-goddess of
Thebes. The cobra serpent was sacred from the earliest times to the
present day. It was never identified with any of the great deities,
but three goddesses appear in serpent form." [354]