[273]Ωριων τριπατωρ απο μητερος ανθορε γαιης.
These towers, near the sea, were made use of to form a judgment of the weather, and to observe the heavens: and those which belonged to cities were generally in the Acropolis, or higher part of the place. This, by the Amonians, was named Bosrah; and the citadel of Carthage, as well as of other cities, is known to have been so denominated. But the Greeks, by an unavoidable fatality, rendered it uniformly [274]βυρσα, bursa, a skin: and when some of them succeeded to Zancle [275]in Sicily, finding that Orion had some reference to Ouran, or Ouranus, and from the name of the temple (τριπατωρ) judging that he must have had three fathers, they immediately went to work, in order to reconcile these different ideas. They accordingly changed Ouran to ουρειν; and, thinking the misconstrued hide, βυρσα, no improper utensil for their purpose, they made these three fathers co-operate in a most wonderful manner for the production of this imaginary person; inventing the most slovenly legend that ever was devised. [276]Τρεις (θεοι) του σφαγεντος βοος βυρσῃ ενουρησαν, και εξ αυτης Ωριων εγενετο. Tres Dei in bovis mactati pelle minxerunt, et inde natus est Orion.
When towers were situated upon eminences fashioned very round, they were by the Amonians called Tith; which answers to תד in Hebrew, and to [277]τιτθη, and τιτθος, in Greek. They were so denominated from their resemblance to a woman's breast; and were particularly sacred to Orus and Osiris, the Deities of light, who by the Grecians were represented under the title of Apollo. Hence the summit of Parnassus was [278]named Tithorea, from Tith-Or: and hard by was a city, mentioned by Pausanias, of the same name; which was alike sacred to Orus and Apollo. The same author takes notice of a hill, near Epidaurus, called [279]Τιτθειον ορος Απολλωνος. There was a summit of the like nature at Samos, which, is by Callimachus styled _the breast of Parthenia_: [280]Διαβροχον ὑδατι μαστον Παρθενιης. Mounds of this nature are often, by Pausanias and Strabo, termed, from their resemblance, [281]μαστοειδεις. Tithonus, whose longevity is so much celebrated, was nothing more than one of these structures, a Pharos, sacred to the sun, as the name plainly shews. Tith-On is μαστος ἑλιου, _the mount of the [282]Sun_. As he supplied the place of that luminary, he is said to have been beloved by Aurora, and through her favour to have lived many ages. This, indeed, is the reverse of that which is fabled of the [283]Cyclopes, whose history equally relates to edifices. They are said to have raised the jealousy of Apollo, and to have been slain by his arrows: yet it will be found at bottom of the same purport. The Cyclopian turrets upon the Sicilian shore fronted due east: and their lights must necessarily have been extinguished by the rays of the rising Sun. This, I imagine, is the meaning of Apollo's slaying the Cyclopes with his arrows. Tethys, the antient Goddess of the sea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount; of the same shape, and erected for the same purposes, as those above. On this account it was called Tith-Is, μαστος πυρος. Thetis seems to have been a transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or Fire-tower, near the sea.