Harmonia, the wife of Cadmus, who has been esteemed a mere woman, seems to have been an emblem of nature, and the fostering nurse of all things. In some of the Orphic verses she is represented not only as a deity, but as the light of the world. She was supposed to have been a personage from whom all knowledge was derived. On this account the books of science were styled the books of Harmonia: as well as the books of Hermes. These were four in number; of which Nonnus gives a curious account, and says that they contained matter of wonderful antiquity. The first of them is said to be coeval with the world. Hence we find that Hermon or Harmonia was a deity to whom the first writing is ascribed. The same is said of Hermes. The invention is also attributed to Thoth. Cadmus is said not only to have brought letters into Greece, but to have been the inventor of them. Whence we may fairly conclude, that under the characters of Hermon, Hermes, Thoth, and Cadmus, one person is alluded to. The story of Cadmus, and of the serpent with which he engaged upon his arrival in Bœotia, relates to the Ophite worship which was there instituted by the Cadmians. So Jason in Colchis, Apollo in Phocis, Hercules at Lerna, engaged with serpents: all of which are histories of the same purport, but mistaken by the latter Grecians. It is said of Cadmus that, at the close of his life, he was, together with his wife Harmonia, changed into a serpent of stone. This wonderful metamorphosis is supposed to have happened at Encheliæ, a town of Illyria. The true history is this. These two personages were here enshrined in a temple, and worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. BRYANT. [243] _The glorious Hermes, herald of the gods._] The Ægyptians acknowledged two personages under the title of Hermes and Thoth. The first was the same as Osiris; the most ancient of all the gods, and the head of all. The other was called the second Hermes; and likewise, for excellence, styled Trismegistus. This person is said to have been a great adept in mysterious knowledge, and an interpreter of the will of the gods. He was a great prophet; and on that account was looked upon as a divinity. To him they ascribed the reformation of the Ægyptian year: and there were many books, either written by him, or concerning him, which were preserved by the Ægyptians in the most sacred recesses of their temples. As he had been the cause of great riches to their nation, they styled him the dispenser of wealth, and esteemed him the god of gain. We are told that the true name of this Hermes was Siphoas. What is Siphoas but Aosiph misplaced? and is not Aosiph the Ægyptian name of the patriarch Joseph, as he was called by the Hebrews? BRYANT. [244] _Semele._] The amour of Jupiter with Semele is described with brilliant luxuriancy of fancy and diction by Nonnus in his Dionysiacs.