primary meaning. Brugsch, who proclaims the fact (_Egypt
Under the Pharaohs_, ii. 117), suggests that it can also mean "the
river bank of Moses." It is very obvious, however, that the
Egyptians would not have named a place by a real incident in
the life of a successful enemy, as Moses is represented in Exodus.
Name and story are alike mythological and pre-Hebraic, though
possibly Semitic. The Assyrian myth of Sargon, which is,
indeed, very close to the Hebrew, may be the oldest form of all;
but the very fact that the Hebrews located their story in Egypt
shows that they knew it to have a home there in some fashion.
The name Moses, whether it mean "the water-child" (so Deutsch)
or "the hero" (Sayce, _Hib. Lect._ p. 46), was in all likelihood
an epithet of Horos. The basket, in the latter form, was
doubtless an adaptation from the ritual of the basket-born
God-Child, as was the birth story of Jesus. In Diodorus Siculus
(i. 25) the myth runs that Isis found Horos _dead_ "on the water,"
and brought him to life again; but even in that form the clue
to the Moses birth-myth is obvious. And there are yet other
Egyptian connections for the Moses saga, since the Egyptians
had a myth of Thoth (their Logos) having slain Argus (as did
Hermes), and having had to fly for it to Egypt, where he gave
laws and learning to the Egyptians. Yet, curiously enough, this
myth probably means that the Sun God, who has in the other
story escaped the "massacre of the innocents" (the morning
stars), now plays the slayer on his own account, since the slaying
of many-eyed Argus probably means the extinction of the stars
by the morning sun (cp. Emeric-David, _Introduction_, end).
Another "Hermes" was the son of Nilus, and his name was sacred
(Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ iii. 22, Cp. 16). The story of the
floating child, finally, becomes part of the lore of Greece.