Forlong - Rivers of Life

Fire Worship.
city only, as many writers have too hastily assumed. In the case of an Akra, Arka
or Ar, we see mere names of Sol and an Ark, and in the case of a Polis or Opolis, we
expect to find a place of Ophel or Op-el the sun-god, knowing that “Tar-oph-el
was a temple sacred to the solo-serpent god Osiris,” for Tauropolon, says Strabo.
stands for Osiris, Mithras, and Apollo, as managers of bulls. The bull was worshipped
in, under, or in connection with, Tors, Towers, or Ta-uri, as we see in the case of the
Mino-Taurus of Crete, an after-type of the Apis of Mneusis in Egypt. In like manner
the principle promontory of Sicily was called Tauro-Menium, which is only the Cretan
name reversed, and signifies the bull-man or fertile man, for the figure had the body
of a man and only the head of a bull, to denote probably the prominent zodiacal sign,
when nature is most fertile.
In Macedonia we have Tor-one or sun-tower, 1 and the city of the great Roman
family Tarquin, was so-called, says Lykophron, 2 from Tursenos. Ain, Aines, Inis, Agnes,
Nees, and Nesos, were all Amonian terms for light and fire, and the ancients built mounds
or towers on all promontories for this god. Omphi-tirit or Amphitirite was an
oracular tower; and therefore the wife of the god of waters, whose son was Taras.
The priests of these temples were notorious for violence and for molesting women.
AN, the ancient name of Sicily, was Tor-An-ak, which would signify that she was
devoted to the worship of Tors, and to the solar deity An-ak, both of which syllables
signify the Sun, and in Kaldi would be translated the Sun-An or An-at, the wife of
Anoo. Homer changes Tor-Anak into Trinakis and Trinakia, which finally became
Trinakria; in the same way the Greeks made “Tor-chun—turris sacra vel regia—
Trach, 3 which giVeg u..sthe Tarkon of Etrurin.
From what I have elsewhere said as to Ain being a font, heart, or seat of heat,
my readers will understand that a Tar-Ain is not only a tower of light and fire, but of
heat, and would probably have an Ain or sacred well beside it. Tarne was a fountain
in Lydia, Tar-On meant the same in Mauritauia, and we call the pool into which water
falls, Tarna in Keltic parts of these Islands. If it meant specially a Tor for fire, it was
denominated by Greeks a Pur-Tor, or Prutar. We have towers called “Tor-Is, Is-Tor,
Ish-Tor, or Ishter,” which were not feminine, but forms of Ash-ter 4 or Asher, the
Asyrian Lingam-god. Thus, near Cicero’s villa was a stream called Astura flowing from a -
hot spring where was an As-ter (Ash-tor?) or pillar, but with all due deference to Greeks
and the learned men from whom I gather the facts, I think writers ignorant of the
subject have here unwittingly fallen into error. Ish-tor may indeed be a Tor which
was specially loved by the goddess, but I suspect, as her name comes from star or
Tāra, tha.t we have no Tor named “Ish-tar,” but one Ash-tar.
From the earliest accounts we have of Italy, the serpent was there connected with
all that is royal and noble, and those of “blue blood” traced back their lineage to him;
1 Holwell, p. 413. 2 Quoted by do., v. 124-8.
3 Holwell, p. 414. Homer Od. l. 4 Bryant i. 94-415, with whom the Rev. W. Holwell agrees.
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