discussed, and the surviving artistic evidence described and
illustrated, but from the anthropological side attention has been
forcibly directed to its importance as a factor in the elucidation of
certain widespread Folk-beliefs and practices.[12]

We know now that the worship of Adonis, which enjoyed among the Greeks
a popularity extending to our own day, was originally of Phoenician
origin, its principal centres being the cities of Byblos, and Aphaka.
From Phoenicia it spread to the Greek islands, the earliest evidence
of the worship being found in Cyprus, and from thence to the mainland,
where it established itself firmly. The records of the cult go back
to 700 B.C., but it may quite possibly be of much earlier date. Mr
Langdon suggests that the worship of the divinity we know as Adonis,
may, under another name, reach back to an antiquity equal with that we
can now ascribe to the cult of Tammuz. In its fully evolved classical
form the cult of Adonis offers, as it were, a halfway house, between
the fragmentary relics of Aryan and Babylonian antiquity, and the
wealth of Medieval and Modern survivals to which the ingenuity and
patience of contemporary scholars have directed our attention.

We all know the mythological tale popularly attached to the name of
Adonis; that he was a fair youth, beloved of Aphrodite, who, wounded
in the thigh by a wild boar, died of his wound. The goddess, in
despair at his death, by her prayers won from Zeus the boon that
Adonis be allowed to return to earth for a portion of each year, and
henceforward the youthful god divides his time between the goddess of
Hades, Persephone, and Aphrodite. But the importance assumed by the
story, the elaborate ceremonial with which the death of Adonis was
mourned, and his restoration to life feted, the date and character of
the celebrations, all leave no doubt that the personage with whom we