Arpocrates

ARPOCRATE. – One of the numerous forms under which the Egyptian god Horus was worshipped, specifically Horus the child: A. is in fact the Hellenized form of the Egyptian name Har-pe-krat, meaning precisely Horus the child. As such, the Egyptian monuments, and later the Greek and Roman ones, represent him with a finger in his mouth, a gesture interpreted by Plutarch as a symbol of silence and associated with the mysteries. Together with Isis, A. became very popular in the final period of independent Egypt and even more so when Greek influence began to be felt, because he spoke to the heart, as the symbol of the third constituent element of the family, far more than the ancient forms of Horus, which had arisen in spiritual and cultural milieus by then too remote. For the same reason, A. was the only form of Horus whose cult spread beyond the confines of Egypt.