sented by the vase. This idea may be illustrated from Plutarch, who, in his tract de Iside et Osiride, furnishes a very probable account of the manner in which these scenic shows originated, and for the custom of depositing vases in tombs: I may therefore properly conclude this portion of my disquisition by adducing it. It seems that the veils or sacred garments, with which the statues of the Egyptian Deity Isis were apparelled, were partly black and partly white, for which Plutarch gives the following reason: καὶ περιστέλλοντες, τὰ μὲν, μέλανα καὶ σκίωδη, τὰ δὲ, φανερὰ* καὶ λαμπρὰς τῆς περὶ θεῶν ὑποδηλοῦντα οἰήσεως, οἷα καὶ περὶ τὴν ἐσθῆτα τὴν ἱερὰν ἀποφαίνεται. διὸ καὶ τὸ κοσμεῖσθαι τούτοις τοὺς ἀποθανόντας Ἰσιακούς, σύμβολόν ἐστι τοῦτον τὸν λόγον εἶναι μετ ̓ αὐτῶν, καὶ τοῦτον ἔχοντας, ἄλλο δὲ μηδὲν, ἐκεῖ βαδίζειν. — Sect. iii. "Moreover, by clothing the statues with apparel, partly "black or shady, partly light and brilliant, they indicate their "notions of the Deity, and profess to think of his nature, as of "this sacred clothing; and the dressing the votaries of Isis, "when dead, in the same apparel, is a sign that these opinions are "still with them, and that they departed from life in the full "persuasion of this, rejecting every other doctrine." * The first scene ever used was, perhaps, the sacred peplus. The mere display of this to the people by torch-light, would have produced the effect of a transparency. CHAP. II. Origin of these Vases considered, from an Examination of the Paintings upon them. An early Sicilian Cup illustrated by a Phoenician Coin. Origin of the Statues and Symbols of Minerva, and the Meaning of the latter explained. IT may now be interesting to consider, what information respecting the origin of these vases may be derived from the paintings upon them. Of the purple-figured vessels, supposed to be the earliest in point of antiquity, and of Carthaginian manufacture, I have very little to observe, except that I have met with one of these of oblate spheroidal form*, which exhibited, in purple lines round the orifice at top, an allusion to the eight petals of the Nymphæa Lotus of Egypt. The painted ornaments upon them, in general, present no great variety of objects beyond animals and flowers, and occasionally armed figures with their circular * The consideration of the forms of these vessels, and the origin of them from the fruits of the different kinds of water-lily, is fully stated in my Appendix. shields. Upon a vessel approaching to the urceolate shape, one of a pair in the collection of Thomas Hope, Esq., seven of these warriors surround the bulb of the vase. We dare not term them the seven chiefs before Thebes, because their shields are deficient of the necessary symbols, and I venture to assert, that attempts to illustrate history by the paintings upon Greek pottery will generally be labour misapplied. The large Sicilian lachrymatories, evidently of somewhat later manufacture than the preceding, are of a more interesting class, but the paintings upon them are very difficult to explain. The grim military characters represented on them, remind us of the axπnvάda, “The bearded-spear-and-trumpet-men" of Æschylus *, and they cannot be much later than his time. Among the allegories they exhibit, we sometimes observe Minerva with her arms extended, separating four fighting warriors, which may perhaps denote mind, putting asunder and composing the four other first conflicting elements. Sometimes Hercules, or Divine Power, is destroying the bull-man Minos, who is probably the representative of terrestrial beings in general. I shall venture to select the allegory of the sea-horse, as I find it expressed on a vessel in the collection of Thomas Hope, Esq.; believing that it admits of more particular illustration, and that it may serve to direct us to the quarter from whence the doctrine it records was transmitted to the Mystagogues in Sicily. The vase to which I allude is a large two-handled cup with a painting on the front (and the same device is repeated on the reverse of it), representing a bearded figure with a trident, borne on a marine monster, and emerging from the ocean.† The hinder part of the composite figure that bears him is fashioned as a fish, which has been assisted in its passage through the water by a pair of ponderous * Aristophanis Ranæ, v. 997. + See the Vignette prefixed to this chapter. wings; the head and fore quarters are those of a horse: a swan, standing on the front ground, and drying its extended wings, shows that the chimæra is on the point of setting its hoofs upon firm land. The painting further bears an inscription, but in characters not easy to decipher *; and I regret to be debarred the information, which a perfect knowledge of them might have thrown upon the subject of the painting. The latter seems to prove the introduction of religious information into Magna Græcia, through the medium of a people not usually resorted to for that purpose in enquiries of this nature. Upon a Phoenician coin ascribed by the late Mr. Dutens to Gaza in Palestine, and engraved in his work on the coins of that country, a figure armed with a bow is mounted on a sea-horse; while the reverse exhibits an owl, between the Egyptian emblems-the pastoral crook and the winnowing fan of Osiris. Now it is to be remembered, that the 'An of the Greeks was the same as the Neith of Egypt, and the latter was an emblem of their fifth element (their quinta essentia), Spirit; and hence Athene among the Greeks became the goddess of wisdom. This subject is so interesting, that I shall venture to discuss it more at large. When Danaus emigrated from Egypt to Greece, which seems to have happened soon after the Exodus, statues were not known in the latter country, nor, as we may presume, in Egypt. † It is credible that living animals were at that time adopted in Egypt, 66 go * The characters seem to express the word ouro, forth," from a verb much used by Æschylus; but in this I may very probably be mistaken. † The use of idol images in Egypt at that time is not necessarily to be inferred from the fashioning of the golden calf. The graving tool had been used for cutting names and not figures upon signets. Exodus xxviii. v. 11. The skill of Bezaleel was divinely imparted. Exodus xxxi. v. 2, 3. 6, 7, and the second commandment gave a warning against the misapplication of such skill. as symbols of the elements worshipped there. The ox, from its having directed the founders of colonies to streams and pastures, was viewed as a symbol of the earth, and especially of the soil of Egypt: for it was this which the Israelites longed for, when, parched in the sultry desert, they called for leading gods to go before them, or in other words, when they wished for the glad sight of oxen, streams, and fertile pastures. These were the Osol ddnyol, which pointed out to Cadmus the future site of Thebes* and which appear on coins as oxen with human heads, as on those of Gela, Neapolis, and others; nay, perhaps the representations, on Sicilian vases, of Theseus slaying the Minotaur may partially refer to the successes of Greek colonists, who overpowered the aborigines, and planted themselves in their room, as premises that led to certain mystic conclusions. Crocodiles and fishes were adopted as symbols of water, from which the family of the great ancestor of the Egyptian colony had been preserved during the flood. The ibis represented air, and the hawk, as we may collect from Porphyry, denoted fire. But the elements reverenced in Egypt were five in number, and Neith was a representative of the last of them. By an incident in the history of Danaus, we are informed how Neith must have been symbolised in Egypt. Eusebius in his elaborate work, "A Preparation for the Gospel," lib. iii. c. 8., has adduced a fragment of an epigram ascribed to Callimachus. It requires some emendations, which an experienced critic might easily supply, but the sense of it is sufficiently clear: — "No images were yet,—but on its base, A fresh hewn plank supplied the statue's place, * See the Chorus to the Phoenissæ of Euripides, v. 651. et seq.:Κάδμος ἔμολε τάνδε γᾶν, |