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Names are no less Janus-faced than the rest of the treatise. Some are Greek only; some Semitic only; others receive Greek glosses (Barr 1974–1975: 41–44; Mras 1952: 180–182). A few have alternatives, as if Philo was striving to find and to fine-tune a Greek approximation to an underlying Semitic form (Agrou Heros or Agrotes, Epigeios or Autochthon, Titanides or Artemides, Dioscuri or Cabeiri or Corybants or Samothracians, Titanides or Artemides). On the other hand, Hermes Trismegistos (1.10.17) must equate to Taautos (Thoth), but Philo has chosen to represent him in Hellenistic Greek guise (cf. the appointment of Hermes as a counsellor by Osiris in the Euhemerist narrative ap. Diod. Sic. 1.16.2, 1.17.3).

In sum, Philo of Byblos is a peculiar hybrid; but if we must make comparisons, I would draw attention to the section of Diodorus Siculus’s first book which is usually taken to draw extensively on Hecataeus of Abdera’s On the Egyptians (Murray 1970).⁶ Diodorus’s account begins with an account of how life first arose in Egypt, and then continues with an account of the promotion to godhead of beneficent individuals; unlike Philo, he continues into the historical period with a long account of Egypt’s historical kings. He, too, repeatedly claims to be drawing on original native sources (priestly anagraphai); he, too, is motivated by the desire to demonstrate the primacy and superiority of Egyptian culture over Greek, claiming, like Philo, that the Greeks added a layer of mystification and travesty to the original native myths (1.23.6–7, 1.23.8, 1.24.8). That Hecataeus was Diodorus’s main source has recently been challenged (Winiarczyk 2002: 69–71), and if the challenge is upheld, a new identity must be found for the voice who uses Greek methods to challenge the dominion of Greek culture. Nevertheless, it is a voice that bears reasonable comparison to Philo, and testifies to the currency in the late Hellenistic period of the broad cultural tradition to which he belongs.