in the Egyptian mythology, one of the names of Isis or the moon. The Egyptians bestowed different names on the sun, either to characterize his effects or his relations with respect to the earth; and they followed the same method respecting the moon. Chareremon, a sacred writer of Egypt, leaves no doubt on this subject. "Every thing which is published of Osiris and Isis, all the sacerdotal fables, allude only to the phases of the moon and the course of the sun." Bubastis was one of the principal attributes of Isis. Theology having personified her, formed of her a divinity, in whose honour a city of that name was built, as described by Herodotus, and where the people collected from all parts of Egypt at a certain period of the year. The symbol of this deity was a cat, which the priests fed with sacred food; and when it died they embalmed its body, and carried it in pomp to the tomb prepared for it. The ancients have explained this worship variously. The Greeks pretend that when Typhon declared war against the gods, Apollo transformed himself into a vulture, Mercury into an ibis, and Bubastis into a cat; and that the veneration of the people for the latter animal took its rise from that fable; but they ascribe their own ideas to the Egyptians, who thought very differently. However that may be, the cat was greatly honoured in Egypt; and a Roman soldier having imprudently killed one, was immediately put to death by the populace.

In the language of the priests, Bubastis was deemed the daughter of Isis, and even represented her in certain circumstances. It is for this reason that the Greeks, who honoured the moon by the name of Diana, bestowed it also on this Egyptian divinity. Bubastis, says Herodotus, is called Diana by the Greeks. The Egyptians attributed to her the virtue of assisting pregnant women; while the Greeks and Latins, disciples of the Egyptians, ascribed the same power to Diana.