_Taurione_, is remarkable, for "Taurus was an emblem of the Ark, and by Taurione was signified the arkite _dove_." _Taurus_, and _ione_ from [Greek: Oinas] of the Greeks, and Ionas of the eastern nations = _dove_, and curiously in an inscription in Gruter, Diana is at _the same time_ called "Regina _undarum_," and "decus _nemorum_" (Bryant, ii. 434). The connection of Diana, Juno, and Venus with _the dove_ and _rainbow_ is very striking, but would lead to too long a digression. So, too, would a discussion as to how Noah or the Ark (secondarily) came to be associated with the bull, as a hieroglyphic. Compare the above with the ox-heads and bull dance in the Mandan commemoration of the Deluge, _infra_, ch. xi. "D'après les livres Parsis, le souverain Créateur sut que le mauvais génie se disposait à tenter l'homme. Il ne jugea pas à propos de l'empêcher par lui-même; il se contenta d'envoyer des anges pour veiller sur l'homme. Cependant le mal augmenta; l'homme se perdit; Dieu envoya un Deluge, qui dura dix jours et dix nuits et détruisit le genre humain. L'apparition de Kaioumons (_l'homme-taureau_), le premier homme, y est aussi précédée de la creation d'une grande eau." Here, in a confused tradition, with Adam--just as Nin is confused with Hercules and Saturn--the man-bull is apparently associated with a great flood. In the curious Etruscan monument commemorative of the Deluge--discovered in 1696--and to which Cardinal Wiseman draws attention in his "Conferences" (_vide_ Gainet, i. 190), being a vase supposed to represent the ark, and containing figures of twenty couples of (12) animals, (6) birds, (2) serpents, &c., and several human figures represented in the act of escaping from an inundation, there were also discovered certain signets and amulets. These consisted of hands joined, _heads_ of _oxen_, and olives. Now the olive in connection with the Deluge will speak for itself,--the hands joined are the symbol of Janus (_vide_ next chapter), and heads of oxen--here unmistakably connected with the Deluge--may also be conjectured to have allusion to the man-bull above referred to. Thus Nin, through both his emblems (bull and fish), is brought into contact with the Noachic tradition.[163] It is also said (Rawlinson, i. 174) of Nergal, _vide supra_, who is clearly identified with Nimrod,--"Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the man-bull would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which we so constantly find between him and _Nin_ in the inscriptions."