O. THOTH, lYtenth, or Taoist, one of the most ce lebrated of the Egyptian deities, is sufficiently iden tified with Hermes or Mercury, by the testimony of a variety of authors. Diodorus mentions him as the scribe, or secretary, and privy counsellor of Osiris. He is generally considered as the inventor of letters, and of the fine arts. Plutarch and H ob serve, that he was typified by the ibis, was sa cred to him. Plutarch also says, that he had one arm shorter than the other.
16 Ostars, properly Oninu, mewing in Co energetic, or active, which is precisely one of lu tarch's interpretations of the name, was the deity most universally adored throughout Egypt, and pos sessing the principal attributes of Bacchus, Adonis, and Pluto; besides being often compared to the Nile, and sometimes to the Sun. He was genealogically considered as the son of the Sun and of Rhea : at his birth, on the first of the supplementary days of the calendar, a voice was heard, proclaiming that he was Lord of all. He married his sister Isis, and, ac cording to Diodorus, left her to govern his kingdom during his military expeditions, resembling those of Bacchus; being accompanied by Pan, Hercules, and Macedo, having a ship which was the prototype of the Argo of the Greeks, with Canopus far his pilot.
He was at last treacherously shut up alive in a coffin by Typhon, aided by seventy-two conspirators, to with an Ethiopian queen Aso. The coffin, being thrown into the Nile, was carried to one of its mouths, and there left on shore; it became after wards inclosed in the trunk of an erica, which grew round it, and which constituted one of the columns of King Malcander's palace : but the body escaped from its confinement, and was found by Typhon as he was hunting: he divided it into fourteen parts, which were afterwards found, scattered in different places, by Isis, and buried separately. Otitis, how ever, returned from the dead, to console his wife, and to conduct the education of his eon Horns. There was a mystery in his identification with Pluto, of which the old authors affect to speak with reve rence. His dress was generally white, but some times black. He is represented as carrying a whip, which is supposed to be intended for the punishment of Typhon. Plutarch says, that he is typified by a hawk, and denoted hieroglyphically by an eye and asceptre.