phant during these
combats (Pliny, XXXIII, 28 and VIII, 12). The dragon had a passion for
elephant's blood. Any thick red earth attributed to such combats was
called _kinnabari_ (Schoff, _op. cit._, p. 137). This is another
illustration of the ancient belief in the identification of blood and
red ochre.]

[379: "Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 101.]

[380: In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt"
(_Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a
series of illustrations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of
the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs
played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon,
it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid
Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's
Figs. 28 and 29) and the classical _keraunos_ (his Fig. 19).]

[381: The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like
the red mineral _didi_ of the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of
birth" and "the plant of life".]

[382: Mueller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche,"
which the divine falcon often carries in place of the _ankh_-symbol of
life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de
l'Egypte pharaonique," _Annales du Musee Guimet_, 1908, p. 111). The
analogous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by
Ward (_op. cit._, p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-god's supremacy," a
"symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".

As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name
"was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried
by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the
controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of
destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird
god _Zu_ stole from Bel and was compelled by the sun-god to restore
again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create, _to speak the
word of command_ and to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and
to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the
word" or _logos_, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon,
could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.

In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of
Marduk) which carries the "rou