Homer affords us little or no direct evidence of a connection between the religion of Greece and an Egyptian origin, to which Herodotus conceived it to be referable; but yet it may very well be the case, that Egypt was the fountain-head of many traditions which were carried by the Phœnicians into Greece. In Homer, for example, we find marks that seem to connect Dionysus with Phœnicia: but the Phœnicians may have become acquainted with him in Egypt, where Diodorus[243] reports that Osiris was held to be his original. There are two marks, however, of Egyptian influence, which seem to be more deeply traced. One is the extraordinary sacredness attached to the oxen of the Sun. The other, the apparent relation between the Egyptian Neith and the Athene of Attica, taken in conjunction with the Pelasgian character of the district[244]. But certainly our positive information from Homer respecting the Egyptians may be summed up in very brief compass. They would appear to have been peaceful, rich, and prosperous: highly skilled in agriculture, and also in medicine, if we are not rather to understand by this that they knew the use of opium, which might readily draw fervid eulogiums from a race not instructed in its properties. But the testimony to their agricultural excellence cannot be mistaken. Twice their fields are mentioned, and both times as περικάλλεες ἀγροί: in exact correspondence with the tradition which we find subsisting in Attica respecting those fields which were tilled by the Pelasgians[245]. And this case of the Egyptians is the only one throughout the Poems in which Homer bestows commendation upon tillage. Again, they fought bravely when attacked[246]. We find also the name Ægyptius naturalized in Ithaca. Lastly, they appear to have been hospitable to strangers, and placable to enemies[247]. This is a faint outline: but all its features appear to be in harmony with those of the Pelasgian race. It is worthy of remark, that the Lotophagi visited by Ulysses correspond very much with the Egyptians, such as Homer conceived them. Locally, they belonged to the Egyptian quarter of the globe: they received the companions of Ulysses with kindness[248]; and they gave them to eat of the lotus, which appears in its essential and remarkable properties exactly to correspond with the νήπενθες[249] that Helen had obtained from Egypt. As every figure of the Phœnician traditions, except perhaps Æolus, is essentially either hard, or cruel, or deceitful, even so, whether on account of neighbourhood or otherwise, it seems to have been the poet’s intention to impress the less energetic but more kindly character of the Egyptians on this particular people, which perhaps he conceived to be allied to them.