Osiris. Osiris, in Egyptian mythology, is said to have been the son of Jupiter by Niobe, and to have ruled first over the Argives, and afterwards to have become king of the Egyptians. His wife was Isis, who is by many said to be the same with the Io, daughter of Inachus. Osiris was at length slain by Typhon, and his corpse concealed in a chest and thrown into the Nile. Isis, after much search, by the aid of keen-scented dogs, found the body, and placed it in a monument on an island near Memphis. The Egyptians paid divine honor to his memory, and chose the ox to represent him, because, as some say, a large ox appeared to them after the body of Osiris was interred, or according to others, because Osiris had instructed them in agriculture. Osiris was generally represented with a cap on his head like a mitre, with two horns; he held a stick in his left hand, and in his right a whip with three thongs. Sometimes he appears with the head of a hawk.
