The Greeks had their Jupiter Myiodes, or fly-hunter, to whom a bull was sacrificed in order to propitiate him in driving away the flies which infested the Olympic Games. There was also a Hercules Myiodes, the origin of whose worship Pausanias declares to have been the following:—Hercules, being molested by swarms of flies while he was about to offer sacrifice to Olympian Jupiter in the temple, offered a victim to that god under the name of Myagron, upon which all the flies flew away beyond the river Alpheus. Pausanias further refers to the festival of Athena at Aliphera in Arcadia, which was opened with a sacrifice and prayer to the Fly-catcher, and states that after the sacrifice, the flies gave no further trouble. Ælian (_Nat. An._, xi. 8) affirms that at the festival of Apollo in the island of Leucas, an ox was sacrificed; the flies, glutted with the blood, gave no further trouble. The same author states that the flies of Pisa (Olympia) were more virtuous, because they did their duty, not for a consideration, but out of pure regard for the god.[18] Scaliger derives the name of Beel-zebub, the false god, from Baalim-Zebabim, which signifies _lord of sacrifices_. This deity was worshipped during the time of our Saviour, who is accused by the Pharisees of casting out devils by Beel-zebub, the prince of the devils. So Holman Hunt, in his picture of the finding of the Saviour in the Temple, with fine perception, places a fly-whisk in the hand of a child.[19] A child is here propounding to his elders a purer and loftier system of ethics than had heretofore been dreamed of; a child, likewise, banishes the servants of Belial. With the Jewish writers of the Middle Ages the worship of Baal frequently signified the practising of the rites of the Christian religion; thus Rabbi Joseph Ben Meir in his _Chronicles_ states that Clovis forsook his God and worshipped Baal, and that a high place was built at Paris for Baal Dionysius, _i.e._ the Cathedral of St. Denis.[20] The Assyrians employed the tall standard and sceptral fans in a precisely similar way to the Egyptians. In the restoration of the palace of Sargon (Khorsabad), compiled by Felix Thomas, given by Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria_, vol. ii. p. 24, two enormous frond standards are placed at the entrance to the Harem Court, these being circular, formed of palm fronds in bronze gilt. ‘In India, as in Japan,’ to quote again Sir George Birdwood, ‘the standard is often blazoned with some totemistic, symbolical, or heraldic device, and it was probably so blazoned in Assyria, for from Assyria the practice spread to Greece and Rome of using such devices on both standards and shields. Later this ritual was revived by the Saracens, and was spread over mediæval Europe by the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land.’