ORUS, or HORUS, an Egyptian deity, the son of Isis and Osiris, corresponds, according to Herodotus, to the Apollo of the Greeks, and was the last of the gods who reigned in Egypt. (Herod., ii. 144; Died.,1. 44.) Typhon, after the murder of his brother Osiris, sought to kill Orus ; but his mother Isis, according to Ilerodotus (ii. 156), committed him to the care of Leto, who hrought him up in the moving island of Chemmis, which was in the lake Buto. The Egyptian priests, however, in this instance, as well as in many others, appear to have been anxious to assimilate the history of their deities as much as possible to that of the Greeks. Orus, from the death of Osiris stood forth as the avenger of his father; and when he had grown up, he made war upon Typhon, whom he defeated in several battles, deprived of the kingdom of Egypt, and, according to some accounts, put to death. (Thod., i. 25; Herod., ii 144; Plutarch, De Is. et OaLr.,' p. 358, Francfort, 1620.) According to Diodorus (i. 25), Orus was killed by the Titans, and restored to life by his mother Isis, who conferred upon him immortality, and taught him divination and the healing art ; a fable which Wilkinson thinks " explained by the historical fact of the priesthood of different gods having ruled Egypt before the monarchical form of government was established in the person of Menes and his successors." (Wilkin
son, 'Ancient Egyptians,' iv. 897.) Little reliance, however, as he adds, is to bo placed on 'what the Greeks relate of the deities of Egypt.
Orus is frequently represented as sitting in the lap of Isis, hut more commonly standing in a boat along with other deities, and piercing the evil being, Typhon, who is in the water, either in the form of a man, or of a long serpent. Orus appears also to be represented in some bronzes in the British Museum, which depict a man trampling on the crocodile, since we know that the crocodile was one of the symbols of Typhon. The symbol of Grua is a hawk, who, sometimes in later works, is figured perched on an oryx : and the god himself is represented with the head of a hawk crowned with the pshent, or double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. (Wilkinson, iv. c. 13; Egyptian Anti quities,' voL ii. p. 306.)