(M127) On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in concluding that under a thin veneer of Greek humanity the barbarous native gods of Cilicia continued long to survive, and that among them the great Asiatic goddess retained a place, though not the prominent place which she held in the highlands of the interior down at least to the beginning of our era. The principle that the inspired priest or priestess represents the deity in person appears, if I am right, to have been recognized at Castabala and at Olba, as well as at the sanctuary of Sarpedonian Artemis. There can be no intrinsic improbability, therefore, in the view that at Tarsus also the divine triad of Baal, ’Atheh, and Sandan may also have been personated by priests and priestesses, who, on the analogy of Olba and of the great sanctuaries in the interior of Asia Minor, would originally be at the same time kings and queens, princes and princesses. Further, the burning of Sandan in effigy at Tarsus would, on this hypothesis, answer to the walk of the priestess of Perasia through the furnace at Castabala. Both were perhaps mitigations of a custom of putting the priestly king or queen, or another member of the royal family, to death by fire. Chapter VII. Sardanapalus and Hercules. § 1. The Burning of Sardanapalus. (M128) The theory that kings or princes were formerly burned to death at Tarsus in the character of gods is singularly confirmed by another and wholly independent line of argument. For, according to one account, the city of Tarsus was founded not by Sandan but by Sardanapalus, the famous Assyrian monarch whose death on a great pyre was one of the most famous incidents in Oriental legend. Near the sea, within a day’s march of Tarsus, might be seen in antiquity the ruins of a great ancient city named Anchiale, and outside its walls stood a monument called the monument of Sardanapalus, on which was carved in stone the figure of the monarch. He was represented snapping the fingers of his right hand, and the gesture was explained by an accompanying inscription, engraved in Assyrian characters, to the following effect:—“Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Eat, drink, and play, for everything else is not worth that,” by which was implied that all other human affairs were not worth a snap of the fingers.(499) The gesture may have been misinterpreted and the inscription mistranslated,(500) but there is no reason to doubt the existence of such a monument, though we may conjecture that it was of Hittite rather than Assyrian origin; for, not to speak of the traces of Hittite art and religion which we have found at Tarsus, a group of Hittite monuments has been discovered at Marash, in the upper valley of the Pyramus.(501) The Assyrians may have ruled over Cilicia for a time, but Hittite influence was probably much deeper and more lasting.(502) The story that Tarsus was founded by Sardanapalus may well