Connected with this question is that of the origin of the name of the Greek god _Ares_ (the Latin _Mars_). Among other grounds for inferring the Asiatic origin of this deity is his connection with Herakles. The Latin myth of Hercules and Cacus would seem, moreover, to require the identification of the former with Mars. Such would appear to be the case also in Chaldean mythology. The Babylonian Mars was called _Nergal_, which is probably the same name as “Hercules,” and Sir Henry Rawlinson suggests that the only distinction to be made between that deity and _Nin_, or Hercules, as gods of war and hunting, is that the former is more addicted to the chase of animals and the latter to that of mankind. That Hercules, or Herakles, was of Phœnician or Assyrian origin has been fully established by the learned researches of M. Raoul-Rochette, who has shown, moreover, that the proper name of that deity was _Sandan_ or _Adanos_ (_Adan_), a name which not only reminds us of Aduni, supposed by Professor Rawlinson to be a primeval Chaldean deity, but also recalls that of the Median _Ad_, and even of the Hebrew _Adam_. A remark made by Lajard strongly confirms the idea that the Latin war-god was derived from a similar source. This learned French writer accounts for the rapidity with which _Mazdëism_, better known as the worship of Mithra, spread among the Romans, by supposing that it was in some way connected with their national worship. Probably a key to this connection may be found in the curious figures of Mithra which appear to have been peculiar to the Roman phase of Mazdëism. These figures, which are encircled by a serpent, unite to the human body and limbs, the head of the lion, and they might well be taken to represent Mars himself, since the title _Már_, which was distinctive of the Medes, not only conveyed the idea of a serpent, but was also, and more intimately, associated with the lion symbol of the Sun-god.