. It is doubtless such explanations as these
that the Greeks had in view when they praised the wisdom of the ancient
Egyptians; and in the classical period similar semi-philosophical
interpretations altogether supplanted, among the learned at least, the
naive literal beliefs of earlier times. Plutarch in his treatise on Isis
and Osiris well exemplifies this standpoint: for him every god and every
rite is symbolic of some natural or moral truth.

The final stages of the Egyptian religion are marked by a renewed
popularity of all its more barbarous elements. Despairing, as it would
seem, of discovering the higher wisdom that the more philosophic of the
priests supposed that religion to conceal, the simpler-minded sought to
work out their own salvation by restoring the worship of the gods to its
most primitive forms. Hence came the fanatical revival of animal-worship
which led to feud and bloodshed between neighbouring towns--a feature of
Egyptian religion that at once amused and scandalized contemporary Greek
and Latin authors (Plut. De Iside, 72; Juv. xv. 33). Nevertheless
Egyptian cults, and particularly those of Serapis and Isis, found
welcome acceptance on European soil; and the shrines of Egyptian deities
were established in all the great cities of the Roman Empire. Serapis
was a god imported by the first Ptolemy from Sinope on the Black Sea,
who soon lost his own identity by assimilation with Osiris-Apis, the
bull revered in Memphis. Far down into the Roman age the worship of
Serapis persisted and flourished, and it was only when the Serapeum of
Alexandria was razed to the ground by order of Theodosius the Great
(A.D. 391) that the death-blow of the old Egyptian religion was struck.

Notes are here added on some divinities who have received inadequate
or no attention in the preceding pages. For information as to Ammon,
Anubis, Apis, Bes, Bubastis, Buto, Isis and Thoth, reference must be
made to the special articles on these gods.

ARSAPHES, in Egyptian _Harshafe_, "he who is upon his lake," the
ram-headed god of Heracleopolis Magna, gained an ephemeral importance
during the IXth Dynasty, which arose from his town. Outwardly, he
resembles Khnum. Little is known about him, and he is seldom
mentioned. The burial-place of his priests in later times was in 1904
discovered at Abusir el Meleq.

CHONS, "he who travels by boat," perhaps originally a mere epithet of
the moon-god Ioh or Thoth, is chi