(M95) In the inscription attached to the colossal figure of the god at Ibreez two scholars have professed to read the name of Sandan or Sanda.(400) Be that as it may, there are independent grounds for thinking that Sandan, Sandon, or Sandes may have been the name of the Cappadocian and Cilician god of fertility. For the god of Ibreez in Cappadocia appears, as we saw, to have been identified by the Greeks with Hercules, and we are told that a Cappadocian and Cilician name of Hercules was Sandan or Sandes.(401) Now this Sandan or Hercules is said to have founded Tarsus, and the people of the city commemorated him at an annual or, at all events, periodical festival by erecting a fine pyre in his honour.(402) Apparently at this festival, as at the festival of Melcarth, the god was burned in effigy on his own pyre. For coins of Tarsus often exhibit the pyre as a conical structure resting on a garlanded altar or basis, with the figure of Sandan himself in the midst of it, while an eagle with spread wings perches on the top of the pyre, as if about to bear the soul of the burning god in the pillar of smoke and fire to heaven.(403) In like manner when a Roman emperor died leaving a son to succeed him on the throne, a waxen effigy was made in the likeness of the deceased and burned on a huge pyramidal pyre, which was reared upon a square basis of wood; and from the summit of the blazing pile an eagle was released for the purpose of carrying to heaven the soul of the dead and deified emperor.(404) The Romans may have borrowed from the East a grandiose custom which savours of Oriental adulation rather than of Roman simplicity.(405) (M96) The type of Sandan or Hercules, as he is portrayed on the coins of Tarsus, is that of an Asiatic deity standing on a lion. It is thus that he is represented on the pyre, and it is thus that he appears as a separate figure without the pyre. From these representations we can form a fairly accurate conception of the form and attributes of the god. They exhibit him as a bearded man standing on a horned and often winged lion. Upon his head he wears a high pointed cap or mitre, and he is clad sometimes in a long robe, sometimes in a short tunic. On at least one coin his feet are shod in high boots with flaps. At his side or over his shoulder are slung a sword, a bow-case, and a quiver, sometimes only one or two of them. His right hand is raised and sometimes holds a flower. His left hand grasps a double-headed axe, and sometimes a wreath either in addition to the axe or instead of it; but the double-headed axe is one of Sandan’s most constant attributes.(406) § 4. The Gods of Boghaz-Keui.