at Rome. The deified Roman Emperor's waxen image was
burned on a pyre after his death, and an eagle was let loose from the
great pile to carry his soul to heaven.[199] This custom was probably
a relic of seasonal fire worship, which may have been introduced into
Northern and Western Syria and Asia Minor by the mysterious Mitanni
rulers, if it was not an archaic Babylonian custom[200] associated
with fire-and-water magical ceremonies, represented in the British
Isles by May-Day and Midsummer fire-and-water festivals. Sandan, the
mythical founder of Tarsus, was honoured each year at that city by
burning a great bonfire, and he was identified with Hercules. Probably
he was a form of Moloch and Melkarth.[201] Doves were burned to
Adonis. The burning of straw figures, representing gods of fertility,
on May-Day bonfires may have been a fertility rite, and perhaps
explains the use of straw birth-girdles.

According to the commentators of the _Koran_, Nimrod, the Babylonian
king, who cast victims in his annual bonfires at Cuthah, died on the
eighth day of the Tammuz month, which, according to the Syrian
calendar, fell on 13th July.[202] It is related that gnats entered
Nimrod's brain, causing the membrane to grow larger. He suffered great
pain, and to relieve it had his head beaten with a mallet. Although he
lived for several hundred years, like other agricultural patriarchs,
including the Tammuz of Berosus, it is possible that he was ultimately
sacrificed and burned. The beating of Nimrod recalls the beating of
the corn spirit of the agricultural legend utilized by Burns in his
ballad of "John Barleycorn", which gives a jocular account of
widespread ancient customs that are not yet quite extinct even in
Scotland:[203]

They laid him down upon his back
And cudgelled him full sore;
They hung him up before a storm
And turned him o'er and o'er.

They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn--
There let him sink or swim.

They wasted o'er a scorching flame
The marrow of his bones,
But the miller used him worst of all,
For he crushed him between two stones.

Hercules, after performing many mythical exploits, had himself burned
alive on the pyre which he built upon Mount Oeta, and was borne to
Olympus amidst peals of thunder.

Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Hercules, who links with Etana, Nimrod, and
Sandan, is associated with th