The peculiar titles given to these deities, and their association with the sun, led to their original Phallic character being somewhat overlooked, and instead of being the Father-Gods of human-kind, they became _Powerful_ Gods, _Lords_ of Heaven. This was not the special attribute taken by other sun-gods. As was before stated, Hermes and his related deities were “gods of the country,” personifying the idea of general natural fecundity. Among the chief gods of this description were the Phœnician _Sabazius_, the Greek _Bacchus-Dionysos_, the Roman _Priapus_, and the Egyptian _Khem_. All these deities agree also in being sun-gods, and as such they were symbolised by animals which were noted either for their fecundity or for their salaciousness. The chief animals thus chosen were the _bull_ and the _goat_ (with which the ram[147] was afterwards confounded), doubtless because they were already sacred. The Sun appears to have been preceded by the Moon as an object of worship, but the moon-god was probably only representative of the primeval Saturn,[148] who finally became the sun-god _El_ or _Il_ of the Syrian and Semites and the _Ra_ of the Babylonians. The latter was the title also of the sun-god of Egypt, who was symbolised by the obelisk, and who, although his name was added to that of other Egyptian gods, is said to have been the tutelary deity of the stranger kings of the eighteenth dynasty,[149] whom Pleyte, however, declares to have been Set (Sutech).[150] We are reminded here of the opposition of Seth and Osiris, which has already been explained as arising from the fact that these deities originally represented two different ideas, _human fecundity_ and the _fruitfulness of nature_. When, however, both of these principles became associated with the solar body, they were expressed by the same symbols, and the distinction between them was in great measure lost sight of. A certain difference was, nevertheless, still observable in the attributes of the deities, depending on the peculiar properties and associations of their solar representatives. Thus the powerful deity of Phœnicia was naturally associated with the strong, scorching, summer sun, whose _heat_ was the most prominent attribute. In countries such as Egypt, where the sun, acting on the moist soil left by inundations, caused the earth to spring into renewed life, the mild but energetic early sun was the chief deity.