speak the sanction, of the old hostility between the two gods. [Illustration: 289.jpg] Horus had treated his enemy in the same fashion that a victorious Pharaoh treated the barbarians conquered by his arms: he had constructed a fortress to keep his foe in check, and his priests formed a sort of garrison as a precaution against the revolt of the rival priesthood and the followers of the rival deity. In this manner the battles of the gods were changed into human struggles, in which, more than once, Egypt was deluged with blood. The hatred of the followers of Osiris to those of Typhon was perpetuated with such implacability, that the nomes which had persisted in adhering to the worship of Sit, became odious to the rest of the population: the image of their master on the monuments was mutilated, their names were effaced from the geographical lists, they were assailed with insulting epithets, and to pursue and slay their sacred animals was reckoned a pious act. Thus originated those skirmishes which developed into actual civil wars, and were continued down to Roman times. The adherents of Typhon only became more confirmed in their veneration for the accursed god; Christianity alone overcame their obstinate fidelity to him.[*] * This incident in the wars of Horus and Sit is drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bas-relief of the temple of Edfu. On the right, Har-Huditi, standing up in the solar bark, pierces with his lance the head of a crocodile, a partisan of Sit, lying in the water below; Harmakhis, standing behind him, is present at the execution. Facing this divine pair, is the young Horus, who kills a man, another partisan of Sit, while Isis and Har-Huditi hold his chains; behind Horus, Isis and Thot are leading four other captives bound and ready to be sacrificed before Harmakhis.