in Astronomy, a star of the first magnitude in the rudder of Argo, a constellation of the southern hemisphere.

Pagan mythology, one of the deities of the ancient Egyptians, and, according to some, the god of water. It is said, that the Chaldeans, who worshipped fire, carried their fancied deity through other countries to try its powers, in order that, if it obtained the victory over the other gods, it might be acknowledged as the true object of worship; and it having easily subdued the gods of wood, stone, brass, silver, and gold, its priests declared that all gods did it homage. This the priest of Canopus hearing, and finding that the Chaldeans had brought their god to contend with Canopus, they took a large earthen vessel, in which they bored several holes, which they afterwards stopped with wax, and having filled the vessel with water, painted it of several colours, and fitting the head of an idol to it, brought it out, in order to contend with the Chaldean deity. The Chaldeans accordingly kindled their fire all around it; but the heat having melted the wax, the water gushed out through the holes, and extinguished the fire; and thus Canopus conquered the god of the Chaldeans.

Canobus, according to Strabo, had been Menelaus's pilot, and had a temple erected to him in a town called Canopus, near one of the mouths of the Nile. Dionysius mentions it:

καὶ τοῖς πιστεύοντι Ἀμυκλαῖ ὑπὸ Κανόπου. There stands Canobus' temple known to fame: The pilot who from fair Amycla came.

Vossius remarks, on this occasion, the vanity of the Greeks, who, as he conjectures, hearing of an Egyptian deity named Canopus, took from thence an opportunity of deifying the pilot of Menelaus who bore the same name, and giving out that the Egyptian god Canopus had been a Greek. F. Montfaucon gives several representations of this deity. One, in allusion to the victory above-mentioned, throws out water on every side through little holes.

Canobus, in Ancient Geography, a town of the Lower Egypt, on the Mediterranean, a hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen miles, to the east of Alexandria; as old as the war of Troy, Canopus, or Canobus, Menelaus's steersman, being there buried. Canopei the gentilious name; famous for their luxury and debauchery, (Strabo, Juvenal.) See Aboukir.