evailed among the Hyperboreans, as we may judge from the names of the
sacred women, who used to come annually to Delos. They were priestesses of
the Tauric Goddess, and were denominated from her titles.

[481][Greek: Oupis te, Loxo te, kai Euaion Hekaerge.]

Hercules was esteemed the chief God, the same as Chronus; and was said to
have produced the Mundane egg. He was represented in the Orphic Theology
under the mixed symbol of a [482]lion and serpent: and sometimes of a
[483]serpent only. I have before mentioned, that the Cuthites under the
title of Heliadae settled at Rhodes: and, as they were Hivites or Ophites,
that the island in consequence of it was of old named Ophiusa. There was
likewise a tradition, that it had once swarmed with [484]serpents. The like
notion prevailed almost in every place, where they settled. They came under
the more general titles of Leleges and Pelasgi: but more particularly of
Elopians, Europians, Oropians, Asopians, Inopians, Ophionians, and
AEthiopes, as appears from the names, which they bequeathed; and in most
places, where they resided, there were handed down traditions, which
alluded to their original title of Ophites. In Phrygia, and upon the
Hellespont, whither they sent out colonies very early, was a people styled
[Greek: Ophiogeneis], or the serpent-breed; who were said to retain an
affinity and correspondence with [485]serpents. And a notion prevailed,
that some hero, who had conducted them, was changed from a serpent to a
man. In Colchis was a river Ophis; and there was another of the same name
in Arcadia. It was so named from a body of people, who settled upon its
banks, and were said to have been conducted by a serpent: [486][Greek: Ton
hegemona genesthai drakonta]. These reptiles are seldom found in islands,
yet Tenos, one of the Cyclades, was supposed to have once swarmed with
them. [487][Greek: En tei Tenoi, miai ton Kukladon nesoi, opheis kai
skorpioi deinoi eginonto.] Thucydides mentions a people of AEtolia called
[488]Ophionians: and the temple of Apollo at Patara in Lycia seems to have
had its first institution from a priestess of the same [489]name. The
island of Cyprus was styled Ophiusa, and Ophiodes, from the serpents, with
which it was supposed to have [490]abounded. Of what species they were is
no where mentioned; excepting only that about Paphos there was said to have
been a [491]kind of serpent with two legs. By this is meant the Ophite
race, who came from Egy