farther denominated from some title of the Deity, to whose honour they were
erected. But as it was usual, in antient times, to bury persons of
distinction under heaps of earth formed in this fashion; these Tapha came
to signify tombs: and almost all the sacred mounds, raised for religious
purposes, were looked upon as monuments of deceased heroes. Hence
[390]Taph-Osiris was rendered [Greek: taphos], or the burying place of the
God Osiris: and as there were many such places in Egypt and Arabia, sacred
to Osiris and Dionusus; they were all by the Greeks esteemed places of
sepulture. Through this mistake many different nations had the honour
attributed to them of these Deities being interred in their country. The
tumulus of the Latines was mistaken in the same manner. It was originally a
sacred hillock; and was often raised before temples, as an altar; such as I
have before described. It is represented in this light by Virgil:

[391]Est urbe egressis tumulus, templumque vetustum
Desertae Cereris; juxtaque antiqua cupressus.

In process of time the word tumulus was in great measure looked upon as a
tomb; and tumulo signified to bury. The Greeks speak of numberless
sepulchral monuments, which they have thus misinterpreted. They pretended
to shew the tomb of [392]Dionusus at Delphi; also of Deucalion, Pyrrha,
Orion, in other places. They imagined that Jupiter was buried in Crete:
which Callimachus supposes to have been a forgery of the natives.

[393][Greek: Kretes aei pseustai; kai gar taphon, o Ana, seio]
[Greek: Kretes etekteinanto, su d' ou thanes, essi gar aiei.]

I make no doubt, but that there was some high place in Crete, which the
later Greeks, and especially those who were not of the country, mistook for
a tomb. But it certainly must have been otherwise esteemed by those who
raised it: for it is not credible, however blind idolatry may have been,
that people should enshrine persons as immortal, where they had the
plainest evidences of their mortality. An inscription _Viro Immortali_ was
in a style of flattery too refined for the simplicity of those ages. If
divine honours were conferred, they were the effects of time, and paid at
some distance; not upon the spot, at the vestibule of the charnel-house.
Besides, it is evident, that most of the deified personages never existed:
but were mere titles of the Deity, the Sun; as has been, in great measure,
proved by Macrobius. Nor was there ever any thing of such