530 This view was maintained long ago by Raoul-Rochette in regard to the deaths both of Sardanapalus and of Croesus. He supposed that “the Assyrian monarch, reduced to the last extremity, wished, by the mode of death which he chose, to give to his sacrifice the form of an apotheosis and to identify himself with the national god of his country by allowing himself to be consumed, like him, on a pyre.... Thus mythology and history would be combined in a legend in which the god and the monarch would finally be confused. There is nothing in this which is not conformable to the ideas and habits of Asiatic civilization.” See his memoir, “Sur l’Hercule Assyrien et Phénicien,” _Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, xvii. Deuxième Partie (Paris, 1848), pp. 247 _sq._, 271 _sqq._ The notion of regeneration by fire was fully recognized by Raoul-Rochette (_op. cit._ pp. 30 _sq._). It deserves to be noted that Croesus burned on a huge pyre the great and costly offerings which he dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. He thought, says Herodotus (i. 50), that in this way the god would get possession of the offerings. 531 As to Isis see Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 16. As to Demeter see Homer, _Hymn to Demeter_, 231-262; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, i. 5. 1; Ovid, _Fasti_, iv. 547-560. As to Thetis see Apollonius Rhodius, _Argon_, iv. 865-879; Apollodorus, _Bibl._ iii. 13. 6. Most of these writers express clearly the thought that the fire consumed the mortal element, leaving the immortal. Thus Plutarch says, περικαίειν τὰ θνητὰ τοῦ σώματος. Apollodorus says (i. 5. 1), εἰς πῦρ κατετίθει τὸ βρέφος καὶ περιῄρει τὰς θνητὰς σάρκας αὐτοῦ, and again (iii. 13. 6), εἰς τὸ πῦρ ἐγκρυβοῦσα τῆς νυκτὸς ἔφθειρεν ὂ ἦν αὐτῷ θνητὸν πατρῷον. Apollonius Rhodius says, ἡ μὲν γὰρ βροτέας αἰεὶ περὶ σάρκας ἔδαιεν νύκτα διὰ μέσσην φλογμῷ πυρός. And Ovid has, “_Inque foco pueri corpus vivente favilla Obruit, humanum purget ut ignis onus._” On the custom of passing children over a fire as a purification, see my note, “The Youth of Achilles,” _Classical Review_, vii. (1893) pp. 293 sq. On the purificatory virtue which the Greeks ascribed to fire see also Erwin Rohde, _Psyche_3 (Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903), ii. 101, note 2. The Warramunga of Central Australia have a tradition of a great man who “used to burn children in the fire so as to make them grow strong” (B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _The Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, London, 1904, p. 429).