d been Greek for at least
twelve hundred years. But Mr. Brown goes on to quote that one of the
languages of which we know next to nothing, Hittite, was 'probably allied
to Proto-Armenian, and perhaps Lykian, and was above all not Semitic.' In
any case 'the cuneiform mode of writing was used in Cappadocia at an
early period.' As even Professor Sayce declines to give more than a
tentative reading of a Cappadocian cuneiform inscription, it seems highly
rash to seek in this direction for an interpretation of a Homeric word
'moly,' used in Cappadocia very many centuries after the tablets were
scratched. But, on the evidence of the Babylonian character of the
cuneiform writing on Cappadocian tablets, Mr. Brown establishes a
connection between the people of Accadia (who probably introduced the
cuneiform style) and the people of Cappadocia. The connection amounts to
this. Twelve hundred years after Homer, the inhabitants of Cappadocia
are said to have called rue 'moly.' At some unknown period, the
Accadians appear to have influenced the art of writing in Cappadocia.
Apparently Mr. Brown thinks it not too rash to infer that the Cappadocian
use of the word 'moly' is not derived from the Greeks, but from the
Accadians. Now in Accadian, according to Mr. Brown, mul means 'star.'
'Hence ulu or mulu = [Greek], the mysterious Homerik counter-charm to the
charms of Kirke' (p. 60). Mr. Brown's theory, therefore, is that moly
originally meant 'star.' Circe is the moon, Odysseus is the sun, and
'what _watches over_ the solar hero at night when exposed to the hostile
lunar power, but the stars?' especially the dog-star.

The truth is, that Homer's moly, whatever plant he meant by the name, is
only one of the magical herbs in which most peoples believe or have
believed. Like the Scottish rowan, or like St. John's wort, it is potent
against evil influences. People have their own simple reasons for
believing in these plants, and have not needed to bring down their
humble, early botany from the clouds and stars. We have to imagine, on
the other hand (if we follow Mr. Brown), that in some unknown past the
Cappadocians turned the Accadian word for a star into a local name of a
plant, that this word reached Homer, that the supposed old Accadian myth
of the star which watches over the solar hero retained its vitality in
Greek, and leaving the star clung to the herb, that Homer used an 'Akkado-
Kappadokian' myth, and that, many ages afte