Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/hornsofhonourothOOelwo HORNS OF HONOUR LANCEA MINUTULUS. 1289. FROM THE CAPELLA MINUTOLO. NAPLES. HORNS OF HONOUR AND OTHER STUDIES IN THE BY-WAYS OF ARCHAEOLOGY By FREDERICK THOMAS ELWORTHY AUTHOR OF “THE EVIL EYE ” } “ THE DIALECT ” J “ THE GRAMMAR ” j AND “THE WORD BOOK OF WEST SOMERSET,” ETC. WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1900 • • PREFACE T HE very kind reception accorded to my book on The Evil Eye has emboldened me, and must be taken as my excuse for appearing again, probably for the last time, before the public. Although I have now scarcely touched upon the v former subject, yet its presence is so manifest in O every phase of ancient and uncultured life of to-day, 09 that j ust as roads lead to Rome, so every study of manners or beliefs seems inevitably to lead up * to, or at least to be closely influenced by, that all- prevailing fear. J As before, I have no theories to propound or to support, and wherever in these pages anything of the - nature of a thesis may appear, I have only to say that it is simply put forward as the result of a con- clusion from purely inductive processes. I presume to be no more than an observer and noter of such facts as from time to time come in my way ; consequently, as before, inconsistencies will VI PREFACE be found, but with these I am not concerned ; nature, as viewed by us, is most inconsistent, and my business is with facts, whether they tell for or against the conclusions at which personally I have arrived. In whatever direction of study one may set out, it is utterly impossible to pursue a definitely circum- scribed line — the historian must branch into geo- graphy, the geologist into zoology, and hence arise many paradoxes. Without comprehending a word of it, I have lately been asked if I knew anything of “Geometrical Chemistry,” and without a blush confessed my ignorance ; so in my first chapter I have to bring the reader face to face, even on the Frontispiece, with “ Pictorial Etymology,” and yet I hope that the curious facts, to be verified by anybody, will be so evident as to dissolve that paradox. So too I hope it may become as evident to the reader as it has to the writer, that the crown of royalty has for one of its elements the horns of Egyptian deities. One object I have kept steadily in view, especially in the final chapters — that of placing the evidence, whether for or against, in juxtaposition, and par- ticularly when the facts dealt with depend upon pictorial illustration ; and I venture to hope that by so marshalling the objects side by side, not only PREFACE Vll will the interest of the reader be better served, but he will thereby have the opportunity of judging the conclusions I have come to from the like com- parison. An apology is needed for the quality of some of the sketches. They were made at different times, often at long intervals, and frequently under very adverse circumstances. Moreover, I do not pretend to any skill, and only use my own productions when no better are obtainable. The subject of the Dischi Sacri , the antitypes of the Mano Pantea , is of considerable interest and importance to the classical mythologist, for the reason that the objects themselves, though very common and clearly belonging to the everyday life of the ages to which they belonged, are unnoticed in any contemporary literature, while the great number of the Dischi Sacri , as well as of the symbolic hands, seems to open a new field for the study of archaeo- logists. If, then, the true function of archaeology be that of enabling us to realise more truly the life of the past, I submit with all diffidence that this little book will not have failed if it suggests to other and abler students a fresh branch of interesting research. I have only further to express my obligation and cordial thanks to Mr. G. E. Marindin for several Vlll PREFACE corrections in Latinity, which after fifty years of neglect had naturally become well-nigh a reminiscence. For several valuable suggestions in mythology I am further deeply indebted to him. While writing these lines, a curious comment upon my remarks upon the persistent charges of ritual murder against early Christians and Templars appears in the trial at Nameszto in Hungary, noticed in this week’s Spectator , where the J ews are alleged to have murdered a boy to obtain his blood for ritual purposes. FRED. T. ELWORTHY. Foxdown, January 1st 1900. CONTENTS Horns of Honour CHAPTER I. PAGE Horns of the Devil CHAPTER II. . 81 The Hand CHAPTER III. • 145 CHAPTER IV. The “Mano Pantea,” or Symbolic Hand • 194 “Dischi Sacri” CHAPTER V. 272 Italian Watermark on a MS. of the Fourteenth Century. Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE “ Lancea Minutulus ” Frontispiece I. Greek Head-dress from Asia Minor 5 2. Crest of a Roman Cavalry Soldier 6 3 - Head of Jupiter 17 4 - Crowns by Andrea di Salerno 18 5 - Epiphany, by Lorenzo Monaco 18 6. Virgin and Child, by Mino Senese 19 7 - Mahtawopah 20 8. Petoh-peekiss 20 9 - Greek Coin of Agrina . 23 10. Greek Coin of Gela 23 11. Horned Soldiers, from a My- cenaean Vase . 24 12. Salii, Priests of Mars 25 1 2 a. Druse Woman 29 13 - 16. Greek Horned Helmets . 32 17 . Ancient British Helmet . 33 18. Homeric Greek Warrior 34 19 . Greek Helmet with Panache . 35 20. Camillus and Brennus . 40 21. Rayed Crown, by Raphael 41 22. Crown, by Giotto 41 22 a. Kaiser Wilhelm 42 23 - Epiphany, by Bonifazio 43 24, 25. Neapolitan Horned Knights 47 26- 29. House Amulets 56 30 . Horns and Horse-shoe . 58 3 i- Medusa 61 32 . Greco-Roman Pre-affix . 62 33 - Horned Medusa 63 34 - do. do. 64 35 - do. do. 65 36 . do. do. 66 FIG. PAGE 37. Bronze Boss, from Pompeii . 69 38. Etruscan Hut-shaped Urn . 71 39. Door of Greek Tomb in Lycia 72 39 a. Cinerary Urn with Horned Medusa . • • 73 40. Garden Gate in Southern Italy 74 41. Mitre of High Priest . . 76 42. Primitive Trephining in Peru 96 43. Modern typical idea of the Devil . . .112 44. Devil, from Luini’s Crucifixion 113 45. Griffin from Trajan’s Column 1 16 46. Winged Griffin from Scala . 1 1 7 47. 48. Horus slaying the Dragon 120 49, 50. Horus slaying the Serpent 121 51. Pan upon a bronze lamp . 124 52. Lamp, from Liceto De Lu- cernis . . .124 53. Head of Pan, Villa Ludovisi 125 54. Mask of Pan, from the Capitol 126 55. Head of Pan, Naples Museum 127 56. Horned Hermae, St. John Lateran . . .128 57. Baphomet . . .129 58, 59. Devils of Notre Dame . 132 60. Florentine Diavolino . . 133 61. Devil, by Simone Memmi . 134 62. Devil, by Francesco Martini 135 63. Devil, by Liberale da Verona 135 64. Japanese Mask . .138 65. The Dorset Ooser . 139 66. Hand Gesture — Stupidity . 147 67-71. Assyrian and Hindoo Hands 149 72. Dagon’s and Laksmi’s Hand 150 73. Gesture of Brahma prescribed in Roman Rubric . . 15 1 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. PAGE 74. Sun’s Rays at Tel-el-Amarna 156 75-77. Rays of the Sun from the Dexter a Dei . . 157 78. Moses, from San Vitale, Ra- venna . . .158 79,80. The Dextera Dei . .158 81,82. Hand of Adoration, Sar- dinian statuettes . . 16 1 83. Puerto del Perdon, Alhambra 162 84, 85. The “ Place ” set up by Saul . . . 163 86, 87. Phoenician Hands of Vic- tory . . . 164 88, 89. Roman Standards . .165 90. TheQuadrans — Roman weight 167 9 1 . Christ and Angels at Ravenna 1 68 92. Abraham’s sacrifice . .169 93-95. Open Hand-amulets . 171 96. Hand, House-amulet, Naples Museum . . .172 97. Indian Goddess . 174 98. St. Luke at Ravenna . 1 75 99. 100. Mano in fica . .176 101, 102. The Hand of Glory . 183 1 03- 1 05. La Main de la Justice . 195 106. Baal, from Nimroud . . 196 107. Insignia of Roman Legions 197 108. The Wheel-cross Nimbus . 198 109. “ The Sun of Righteousness ” 199 1 10. Seal of Wells Chapter . 200 hi. St. Michael and the Dragon 201 1 12. Gesture of Benediction . 201 1 1 3- 1 1 5. Manual Sign of the Pope alone . . . 203 1 16. Crescent, House-amulet . 206 117,118. Hand, from Payne Knight’s collection . . 212 119,120. Roman ex votos . . 215 1 21, 122. Mano pantea now at Berlin . . . 216 123. Mercurius Triceps . . 226 124. Symbol at Bologna . . 228 125. Symbolic Hand found at Herculaneum 229 do. found at Pompeii 232 FIG. PAGE 127, 128. Symbolic Hand, at Brescia 237 129, 130. do. do. 238 I 3 I * 132. do. in the Louvre . 239 1 33» 134. do. in Kirscherian Museum 242 i35» 136. do. found at Avenches 244 137, 138. do. from Caylus (Tubieres) 249 139, 140. do. found at Tournay (Brit. Mus.) . 251 141, 142. do. from Gori (Flor- ence) . 253 I43> 144. do. found on the Isola Farnese 255 145, 146. do. found at Valeria in Cagli 256 147, 148. do. in Kirscherian Museum 258 149, 150. do. in Leyden Mus. 259 I5L 152. do. found at Sion, Valais 260 153, 154- do. from Londes- borough’s col- lection . 262 155, U6. do. in British Mus. 263 157, 158. do. at Naples, found at Pompeii . 264 159, 160. do. in Cortona Mus. 265 161. do. in Naples Mus. 265 162. Terra-cotta Disc in Brit. Mus. 274 163. Disco sacro in Naples Mus. 275 164. do. in the Louvre . 277 165. Fragment found at Meta- ponto . . . 278 1 66. Terra-cotta mould in Ash- molean Museum . . 279 167. Cast from Taranto, in author’s collection . 286 168. do. do. do. . 287 169. do. do. do. . 289 170. do. do. do. . 291 171 , 172. Ladders from Apulian vases 295 l 73 ‘ Cast from Disco sacro mould, in author’s collection 297 174. do. do. do. . 300 !75- Lamp with many symbols . 302 126. HORNS OF HONOUR CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY I N the following pages it is assumed that all attempts at decoration, whether of the person in the way of dress, or of pattern, shown by curved lines or other evidence of design, however crude, upon inanimate objects, had in their origin some definite idea or fact which it was intended to illus- trate. In other words, no pictorial device of primitive man beyond the simplest straight strokes upon his pottery was simply arbitrary ; but however rude in execution, every stroke or figure had a meaning of its own. In fact we believe that generally all attempts at decoration were more or less ideographic, and in support of this belief, it is only necessary here to refer to the familiar example in the writing of Egypt — the wavy line denoting water — and to point out that it is practically the same line so often seen upon a variety of archaic vessels for holding liquid. Thus when untutored man wished to indicate the sun he drew a circle, and often improved on it by 2 HORNS OF HONOUR adding radiating strokes like a wheel. When he wanted to indicate the moon he drew or scratched something like a crescent. In these days, however, when the original idea has been long forgotten, and the decorative item has developed into a very remote likeness to its prototype, it is extremely difficult to trace back the elaborate productions of modern civilisation to their progenitors in the rude devices of our remote fore- fathers. The books on Art and its origin are legion, and no attempt will here be made even to touch the fringe of those great subjects. Instead of doing so, and in support of the assumption above made, the reader is referred to The Evolution of Decorative Art , by Henry Balfour, 1893, an d t0 Evolution in Art , by A. C. Haddon (Contemporary Science Series, 1895). On this subject we specially recom- mend a valuable article in Good Words for September, 1896, by A. E. Farman and G. Clarke Nuttall, entitled “The Lost Soul of Patterns.” Many familiar devices are illustrated and accounted for in a most ingenious manner. All these modern writers deal exhaustively and convincingly with this branch of the question, with abundant illustration. We shall hope to show, however, that difficult as is the task of general identification of modern designs with their proto- types among primaeval ones, yet in the vast majority of cases which can certainly be proved to be the ORNAMENTS AND DECORATIONS 3 survivals of ancient forms, the original picture or object had a very distinctive use, and was worn, or depicted, or sculptured, so as continually to act as a preventive of the ever-dreaded evil against which all magic was primarily directed. Reasoning then from the known to the unknown, it may, without presumption, be maintained that in their incidence all ornament and all decoration had their ultimate purpose in the supposed prophylactic power of the subject delineated, or perhaps of the object on which the decoration was placed. The ornamentation itself in the first place was intended to help in attracting the eye, and so to divert the first glance from the wearer of the decoration — for the danger was past after that. All ornament and all disfigurement naturally appeal to the eye alone, and so far as personal decoration is concerned experience convinces us that in every age, whether ancient or modern, the head has among mankind ever been the object of both honour and dishonour ; the part on which his taste for ornament has been first displayed. The crown, the distinctive sign of glory, of honour, and of kingly power, or the wreath of victory, just as much as the ashes of mourning and the fools cap, are placed upon the head, the recognised seat of both intelligence and folly. Besides its manifold use in a literal sense, the head is constantly taken to represent the entire indi- vidual. Not only was succour of an enemy declared 4 HORNS OF HONOUR to be heaping coals of fire on his head, but in many other ways the head is used figuratively in Scripture ; while in modern literature its use has grown and developed to a degree quite extraordinary to those who have not examined the recent marshalling of evidence . 1 Nature has adorned the head of the most familiar of our domestic birds with the crista , that dis- tinguishing excrescence which surely first impressed its form upon the head-gear of ancient Greek heroes ; 2 while in later times it gave its name to the figure or device worn upon the helmet of a knight in the days of chivalry, and has thence come down to us as a well - known term in heraldry. The various objects we now call crests were, in the Middle Ages, very differently regarded by those who wore them as compared with what they are to-day. Then they were worn as ensigns of high distinction and honour, and especially of personal prowess, so that their use was restricted to a comparatively few persons of eminence and of martial renown ; but in these later times “crests” have become just as common and just 1 The immense importance it has acquired as an expressive prefix, and the endless uses in which the word head enters into our everyday speech, can best be understood by a study of the many pages devoted to it in the new Historical English Dictionary. 2 The question as to whether the domestic cock existed in Europe in very early times is beyond the range of our subject. The fact, however, that a store of legend and tradition had grown up around it in Pliny’s time, proves it to have been familiar in ages quite remote enough for our purpose. CRESTS ON HELMETS 5 as valueless as the paper on which they are stamped ; while they are of as little real significance as the modern term “esquire”; until at last they have often sunk to be the mere fanciful and fantastic ornaments of the vulgar, the ignorant, and the nouveati riche. The origin of crests, however, takes us far behind their name, far behind even the beginnings of the Latin tongue which gave rise to it. The crest usually depicted upon the head of Greek heroes, we see at a glance, is but a conventionalised imitation of the Crista Galli , showing that the idea in their day was precisely the same as that which survived until the Middle Ages, an idea which grew and became so modified, or developed by widespread use and fancy, that at last any distinctive ornament on a knight’s head took the name of that appendage, and became his crest. The head-dress here depicted (Fig. i) is only one of several similar upon a sarc- ophagus in the British Museum, recently brought from Clazo- menae , 3 in Asia Minor, and represents a Greek warrior of the seventh century b.c. The crest is here so exaggerated as to be even more important and conspicuous than the helmet itself, but we see in it the same type 3 Mr. Gardner writes in Authority and Archeology , 1899, p. 268, that this magnificent sarcophagus is “ the finest of all examples of early Ionic painting.” 6 HORNS OF HONOUR which we recognise as the well-known, conventional one for heroes upon Greek vases . 4 Other special points in this illustration will be referred to later on. We have here also a rough sketch (Fig. 2) of a Roman cavalry soldier from the engravings of Montfaucon, showing the conventional as well as the composite character of the crest. In the much later classic times to which this crest belongs, we note that it is mounted high over all, even above a protective amulet in the shape of a bird, but we cannot fail to see in it the general form of the same con- ventional cock’s comb which, often so much exaggerated by the Greeks, still continues to ornament the helmet of the modern dragoon, no less than that of the civilian fireman, and is even found somewhat belittled on the less civil policeman. This crest still perpetuates, in the shape of a concrete ornament, the old idea of victory, so graphically expressed in the slang of to-day, ‘‘Cock county,” “Cock of the walk,” “ Cock of the school ” ; and more figuratively also in the literary cockscomb. We see it, too, in him who by his rank or profession wears a cockade, or a cocked hat, or in one who struts and assumes the 4 Excellent examples of this exaggerated crest, though without the horns, will be found in O. Jahn’s JJber Darst. Griech. Dicht . auf Vasen- bildern; in Ab. d. Koji. Sachs. Ges. d. Wis ., 8r B., Leipzig, 1861 ; also in Sittl’s Gebardett d. Gr. u. Rom ., Leipzig, 1890, p. 321. SAVAGE COCKSCOMBS 7 victorious air of the ideal cockscomb. We all know the attitude of many a bird during his song, par- ticularly the lark, which has been so well described 5 as the “raising of the ornamental plumes during court- ship.” The fact that natural instinct prompts birds to erect their crest as a sign of conquest, or at least of challenge, seems to point curiously to the same instinct in mankind, whether savage or cultured — he mounts a plume of feathers or a bunch of hair on his head in token of triumph. For example, in New Guinea a tuft of white feathers is mounted upon the head of the warrior who has killed a man . 6 (While in the press Mr. Seligman has kindly furnished the following interesting details as to Papuan head-gear : — “ Distinctions worn for killing a person : Sepe — White shell forehead-band. Karai — White cockatoo plumes worn in the hair. Bina — Upper mandible of Toucan worn on the head. This is only worn by a man who has taken life in single combat. ( Toucan should be hornbill. — C. G. S.) Tiabe — Plumes of Paradisea Raggiona worn on the head. Representations of the head of a murdered man or woman, or of their private parts, are often carved on clubs by the murderer.”) 5 Darwin, Expression of the Emotions , 1872, chap. iv. 6 C. G. Seligman at British Association at Dover, 1899, member of the “ Expedition under A. C. Haddon to Torres Straits.” 8 HORNS OF HONOUR The reader is asked here to note the bird’s beak to imitate a horn on the head of the victor at Bina. Compare with the above the cockades, plumes, and other ornaments worn on their heads by all soldiers in full “war paint,” whether officers or privates. Long before the Romans, or even the Greeks, of history, we have shown, elsewhere, a more or less elaborate head adornment to have been the distin- guishing mark of the Egyptian gods and godesses . 7 Just as the kind of crest worn by an armoured knight in days of chivalry was usually intended to denote some trait in his character, some ideal he was pursu- ing, or to symbolise some event in his career ; so in the earlier days of Egyptian history the devices placed upon the heads of deities were the symbols of what were believed to be their distinctive attri- butes ; and we submit with all confidence that it was certainly the survival of the same notion that crested the gods, which caused, in crusading days, the device to be mounted upon a knight’s helmet. The notion had of course come down to chivalry, through a long succession of ages, and of peoples, all mounting “ crests ” upon their fighting men. Certain ornamental devices worn upon the head, became in course of time identified with certain great offices, civil as well as military, and, without waiting to dwell upon the several steps of the development, it is easy to see how various caps of office or dignity, such, 7 See Evil Eye , p. 180 et seq. SUN AND MOON AS LIVING BEINGS 9 for instance, as the mitre, and, still more, that very composite head-dress we now call a crown, came to be the distinguishing mark of the chief priest, of the victor, and so of the king (the man who can, and the man who kens). In later times, when feudal lords arose, who were really little kings, there was devised for them an inferior badge, a head-dress of similar type and intent, but denoting their lesser rule — the coronet. The greatest of the gods in every mythology have been personifications of the most conspicuous heavenly bodies — the sun and moon . 8 These were the visible sources of life and heat, and, even in the face of Sir Norman Lockyer, we venture to maintain that to them, and not to Sirius, was the highest worship accorded by all nations. One and all looked upon them as living ; and, in their chief attributes, they were both regarded mainly as beneficent beings. For our immediate purpose it will be most convenient to confine ourselves to the gods of Egypt and to those of later ages which we can identify with them, for, without going further back, we must start with the premiss that so much of the religious systems now existing in Europe as cannot be clearly shown to be 8 If this statement be challenged, we will leave experts to decide the question as to whether animals and the forces of nature upon earth were not the first to be worshipped. Probably they were, for primitive man was always more inclined to propitiate the powers he knew best, and most dreaded, by his worship or sacrifice, than to show gratitude to those from whence he believed his good things to come. 10 HORNS OF HONOUR primaeval, indigenous (if we may use the word) in the genus homo , has, in a very large measure, descended to us from Egypt, thence passing through the various modifications of Greek and Roman paganism, yet at the same time deeply influenced by much Oriental belief and practice, brought to bear upon and through the Jews. From this point of view, with all reverence, we look upon Christianity as a great reform, in fact a mighty revolution. What was true or valuable in the ancient systems was retained, adapted, and purified ; while the grosser part was cast aside. The sun was considered by the ancients as the father, the giver and protector of life. And we cannot fail to see that this notion of generation and protection is well symbolised by the psalmist when he declares “ The Lord God is a sun and shield.” (Psalm lxxxiv. n.) In all ages and by all people we find the sun, however rudely pictured, to be the symbol of the highest divinity ; later on we shall show how, in the special device known as the wheel-cross, it has been preserved through long ages of paganism down to the Christianity of to-day, as a sign to denote the might and Godhead of each person of the Blessed Trinity. The moon having been looked upon, at least by the Aryan stock, as the mother of the gods and men, was naturally regarded as the great and beneficent protector of her progeny ; consequently, as we should expect, so do we find, that the symbol of her personi- THE CRESCENT 1 1 fication is distinguished by the most remarkable of her visible forms, the crescent. This well-known symbol, being placed as a cognisance or crest upon her head, has in all ages denoted the universal, the Celestial Mother, or perhaps rather the type of motherhood, whether known of old as Ishtar, Isis, Artemis, Diana, or, as at present, Madonna. The crescent upon it, when viewed from the front, gives to the head an appearance of having the horns of a short-horned cow, and from its being so placed upon all moon gods and goddesses, 9 the crescent has got the name of the horned moon. Upon this point enough has been said elsewhere in connection with Hera- 1 6, who gave her name to the Bosporus — the passage of the cow. Later on we see that this notion had taken such hold that, instead of the points of a crescent being placed upon the head, we find a natural, realistic treatment : the horns of animals, mostly cows, were placed upon the head, and at last bovine horns themselves, in the concrete (not merely the crescent), became the badge or crest of the moon goddess. Thence it has survived in these Christian days as the symbol of the most compassionate and loving, as well as the most powerful of female beings, of her who in these latter days bears the old-world title Mater Dei. 10 We shall also show that this badge 9 On this see Evil Eye , p. 182. 10 Compare especially all Murillo’s pictures of the Assumption at Madrid, of which the Louvre example is a fair type. 12 HORNS OF HONOUR was by no means confined to goddesses in pagan times, but that it distinguished gods as well, and thus explains the expression “Moon gods and goddesses” used above. Hence, bearing in mind that this godlike crest, at first the emblem only of a powerful deity, came to be looked upon as something in itself that would be effectual, and thus the crescent was considered to be, and was used by men as a protective amulet, thereby becoming a constant appeal for safety to the gods it represented, we submit that in course of time bovine horns, the outcome of the crescent, developed into a special mark of honour and dignity, which men adopted for their own distinction, as well as the symbol of the most potent protectors. No less a writer than Coleridge [Literary Remains , vol. i. p. 1 20) says, “No one has yet discovered even a plausible origin for this symbolism as to horns ” ; but with all deference to so distinguished an author, it is at least suggested that what we have shown to be the distinguishing badge of the highest of the gods, may well have been adopted in times past as the peculiar sign applicable to mark those among men entitled to great distinction. Reflecting, too, that even Roman emperors were deified after their death, it is going but little further to maintain that godlike symbols were applied to them while still living. The real difficulty, which we cannot get over with certainty, is how a badge, which at first appears to have denoted HORNS ADORNING THE HEAD *3 a female, came to be applied to males as well ; more- over, as time went on, we find in later Roman days, the symbol when applied to a female, reverted to the primitive crescent, while the development of the horned moon, which had grown into the resemblance of the natural horns of various animals, became applied exclusively to males. It may be remarked, however, that inasmuch as very many of the symbols of classic times came from Egypt, and that the cow had become that of Isis in her form Hathor, so we know that the bulls Apis and Mnevis represented her consort, the supreme god Osiris ; and therefore we may take it that on male personages horns typify Osiris, or the sun, while on females they refer to Isis, or the moon. Allowing, too, for the confusion which seems to be inseparable from all mythologies, we see how at least the idea came to Greece and Rome which led to their placing horns upon the head of Zeus- Jupiter, as well as the thunderbolt in his hand. In The Dawn of Civilisation , pp. 662-3,“ we see first Ramman, the great god of the Chaldeans, depicted as holding an axe in his hand, while over his head are his symbols, the sun and moon, which seem to have both been attributed to him, inasmuch as we are told that he had acquired in popular belief the powers of both the gods, whom they once separably repre- sented. (p. 661.) Next we see Ramman with the axe in one hand, 11 Maspero and Sayce, 1894. S.P.C.K. 14 HORNS OF HONOUR and the thunderbolt, evidently the same as the classic,” in the other, while on his head are two pairs of horns, which again we will conclude to represent the double powers assumed, just as in later times the typical double crown represented rule over upper and lower Egypt. We venture to pursue the analogy further, and to point out that the triple crown always given to the Pope is but the outcome of the self-same idea. Isis was commonly depicted with the long horns of an Egyptian cow, so also was she in her Greek form Hera ; 13 and while the Roman Diana had gone back to the undeveloped crescent, so has her direct descendant still regnant. Hermes (Mercury) is said to have placed cows horns upon the head of Isis, 14 and thereby we can see the close connection between her and the sacred cow of the East, which having swum across the Bosporus (the passage of the cow) became Io or Hera, the moon goddess of the Greeks. We learn from good authorities, both ancient and modern, that the cow horns of 1 6- Hera were derived from the symbolic horns of the crescent moon, 15 and left her badge upon Byzantium, the same crescent which still distinguishes the conquering Turk. 16 The 12 On p. 541 is Bel Merodach, with a thunderbolt in each hand, fighting with a griffin, i.e., the power of evil. Professor Driver, in Authority and Archceology , writes this god as Marduk (p. 122 et at.). 13 See Schliemann, Myce?ice and Tiryns , p. 216, etc. 14 Pignorius, Vet. Tab., p. 16. 15 See Evil Eye, p. 183. 16 On “The Cow-shaped Hera 5 ' see Schliemann, Ilios , p. 284 etseq. GENDER OF THE SUN AND MOON i5 unchallenged assumption among all the Latin races that the moon is feminine and the sun masculine, has not been always so. Among Teutonic people we find a trace of their descent from a different stock by their usance in this particular. Modern Germans, it must be remembered, speak of die Sonne and der Mond } while curiously we find the same genders ascribed to each among the Australian aborigines. We may remark in passing, that a coincidence in people so far separated may fairly be said to be one of those minor facts which go to support the evidence of a common ancestry. In any case it proves that in primitive days people did not all think the moon a woman, or that the crescent was suitable only for female wear . 17 Even among the Egyptians this was certainly the case, for we find several male deities, such as Thoth and Chonsn, wearing the crescent as a crest. Further, one of the very oldest of the gods, Chnemu , the “ Moulder,” is represented with the head of a ram, having very distinct rams horns on the side of his head, while besides these he has wide-spreading cow’s horns as part of his very elaborate crest. Thus we repeat as to horns in very early days, that those of the moon developed into cows’ upon females and the horns of the bull Apis upon males ; while those of the ram, the symbol of prolific paternity, were placed in addition as distinctive 17 In all the Scandinavian tongues, like the Teutonic, the moon is masculine and sun feminine. i6 HORNS OF HONOUR marks upon the heads of the greatest and most powerful of the deities. In support of this contention, as against the suggestion that the converse may have been the case and that the bull’s horns may first have been placed on man’s head as in the Minotaur, we would point to the very archaic figures discovered at Mycenae, two of which are given elsewhere 18 from the writer’s own drawings, made from the originals in the Athens Museum. Several others are given in Schliemann’s book . 19 These are undoubtedly female figures, and the crescent instead of being on the head is the body itself, from which the neck and head rise up, thus indicating that the entire figure is a personification of the moon. Other figures of the same kind (of which the writer possesses one found in Cyprus) have the body circular, thus representing the moon, still unmistakably female, at the full. Whether the moon’s horns were first placed on male or female gods, very little affects the main question under discussion. The confusions in mythology are infinite. It seems, then, easy to understand how, as before suggested, that horns, the symbols which we have shown to denote the highest power and dignity in the gods, came in course of time to be looked upon as suitable for a mark of honour also upon victorious 18 See Evil Eye , p. 183. 19 Mycence and Tiryns , Plates A., B., C. man. JUPITER AMMON *7 Our head of Jupiter (Fig. 3) is from an ancient gem, and may be fairly taken as a typical repre- Many examples exist of Roman engraving, which, though slightly differing, are almost identical in general design, and although we might begin much earlier, yet for our purpose this will be a convenient start- ing-point. Every object on the head has its distinct and well-known meaning. The corn measure of Serapis, the horn of Ammon, the rays of Phoebus, show him to combine in his own person the powers of all three. Each of these attributes represent the sun god at a different season of the year. The corn measure or modius is often called the Calathus or flower - basket, but the idea of ripe vegetation is the same in both. It is placed on his head as the type of the highest of his benefits, and is said by Macrdbius 20 to represent “the height of the planet above us and his all-powerful capacious- ness, since unto him all things earthly return, being drawn up by the heat that he emits.” The god’s own description of himself to Nitocreon, king of Cyprus, was — 20 King, Handbook of Gems , p. 366. sentation of the god. Fig. 3. 3 i8 HORNS OF HONOUR “ A god I am, such as I show to thee, The starry heavens my head, my trunk the sea ; Earth forms my feet, mine ears the air supplies, The sun’s far-darting brilliant rays mine eyes.” 21 The darting rays are nearly always present in these portraits of the king of the gods ; and in them we cannot fail to see not merely the germ but the fact, and hence the signi- ficance of the many up- right points always shown on the typical crown upon the head of King David in Scripture story books. What we mean is Andrea di Salerno, 1480. Rosini, v. 24. Fig. 4. well marked in the simple crowns given to the Magi at the Epiphany. Of these we reproduce two illustrations by two old masters (Figs. 4, 5), from Rosini, Storia della Pittura Italiana. Arain we see the o same simple crown made up of spear-shaped rays upon the head of the Virgin Mother in a lovely 21 King, Gnostics , p. 65. Cf also account of the introduction of the worship of Serapis and Isis from Alexandria, Evil Eye> p. 302. Lorenzo Monaco, Rosini, ii. p. 160. Fig. 5. SUN’S RAYS on every crown tg picture of the older Umbrian school. (Fig. 6.) We have to refer again to this illustration later on. The rays and horn combined on Jupiter (Fig. 3) explain to us like- wise the meaning of the erect panache 22 upon the knight and Indian chief, of whom we have yet to speak. Jupiter Serapis is nearly always repre- sented on coins and ere ms with the curled o horns of Ammon, reminding us very much of the spiral gold ornaments worn to-day by Dutch peasant women, and obviously showing by their conventional curl whence the common fossil “ammonites” take their name. As upon the gods of Egypt, so in many Roman statues we find horns upon the head of both male and female figures. Juno Sospita is twice represented by statues in the Vatican Museum with the skin and horns of a goat on her head, 23 precisely in the same position as those of a bison, to be seen on many North American chiefs, such as Mahtawopah, or the Blackfoot Petoh- Mino Senese, 1287, from Rosini, Storia della Pittura Italiana, vol. i. p. 153. Fig. 6 . 22 On panache, see post , p. 35. 33 Also in Montfaucon, Vol. i., PI. 13, Nos. 16-19. 20 HORNS OF HONOUR peekiss. (Figs. 7, 8.) Who will ven- ture to deny that the same idea is typified in these examples of the goat and bison’s horns worn as a head-dress, taken \ m from two different hemispheres, sepa- !fj rated by so many centuries in time, and still more by so great a differ- ence in civilisation ? At Durban the Kaffir rickshaw men wear horns upon their heads. 24 Montfaucon gives two Muses horned. 25 Mer- cury is frequent- ly shown with wings like horns on his head, 26 but about these there is more to be said. On the one hand in - Mahtawopah, Catlin, vol. i. p. 146. Fig. 7. Petoh-peekiss, Blackfoot, Catlin, vol. i. p. 14. Fig. 8. 24 H. Balfour, lately returned, September, 1899. 25 Vol. i. PI. 31, Nos. 4, 5. 26 Vol. i. PI. 36, 37. CLASSIC GODS WEARING HORNS 21 Chapter IV., Mercury is shown distinctly horned. In another case he is shown with a crescent on his head between the wings, thus forming a sort of complex panoply reminding us much of Egyptian combinations. Diana appears repeatedly in the pages of Montfaucon with the crescent so posed as to appear like the horns of a cow . 27 Bacchus (Dionysos) is commonly shown with horns ; 28 indeed, Horace calls him ‘ Bicorniger.’ The writer possesses a terra-cotta head of Dionysos found at Taranto : on this may be seen two horns as of a young bull, very similar to those on Michael Angelo’s Moses. This head was a pre-affix to the beam projecting from a Greek house, on which we have more to say later. The cult of Dionysos was practised and held in the highest esteem at ancient Tarentum. The principal temple there was dedicated to him. In Chapter V., wherein we deal with a remarkable find at Taranto, Dionysos is very largely represented. These facts are mentioned to prove the familiarity of people in classic times with the notion of human heads having, or seeming to have, horns growing on them. The very frequent references in Scripture to the lifting up or to the cutting off of horns have, so far as the present writer is aware, been dealt with slightly and unsatisfactorily ; while the very number of allu- 87 Vol. i. PI. 44, 45, etc. b8 Montfaucon, Vol. i. PI. 75. 22 HORNS OF HONOUR sions to horns in the Scriptures, whether figurative or literal, testify to the importance of the subject. Much has been written upon the horns which tradi- tion gives to Moses. A very learned commentator 29 gives a long list of authorities Mo sent cornutum ex- hibentes , i.e., showing him as actually horned ; and upon the passage Deuteronomy xxxiii. 17, “His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, 30 and his horns like the horns of unicorns,” 31 he remarks, “ Cornu enim potentice symbolum fuisse norunt omnesP i.e., all people have understood the horn to be the symbol of power. The Israelites were, of course, quite familiar with horns upon the heads of the gods of Egypt, and fresh from the land of bondage they would readily believe that their great law-giver had become divine, that he had miraculously received the mark of divinity and of kingly power. The belief that Moses actually descended with solid horns upon his head was devoutly held, and has continued to be believed down to the Middle Ages. Even later, the learned Grotius says that the god Mnevis (always represented with horns), 32 who was worshipped among the Egyptians, is 29 ZORNIUS, Biblioth. Antiq. i., p. 121. 30 “ Tauri primogeniti.” 31 Vulgate, “ Rhinocerotis.” 32 The frontispiece to the writer’s copy of Delrio’s De Magia , 1603, shows Moses with conspicuous horns, when with Aaron he is standing before the Almighty, and also in eight other of the scenes representing the plagues of Egypt ; in every case before the Exodus, and long before his descent from the Mount. Torreblanca’s De Magia has a frontispiece showing the same scenes though differently treated. In each, Moses has horns distinctly portrayed. These curious anachronisms do but support the evidence of the belief in actual concrete horns. HUMAN HEADS BEARING HORNS 23 g horned believed to be no other than Moses himself. Mnevis was the sacred bull of Heliopolis, as Apis was that of Memphis. Spannheim lends his great authority to this by quoting Grotius, and supports it by adding that Aben Esdra himself believed the same. He says, too, that St. Jerome held fast the belief in actual horns on the head of Moses, and he (Spannheim) makes his remarks seem all the more probable, in establishing what was the belief of the Israelites, by the production of numerous coins bearin heads both bearded and beardless. A Greek one of Agrina in Sicily has a horned head, here produced (Fig. 9), which may be either male or female, but looks most like a woman ; another of Gela (Fig. 10) has an undoubted female face. On the reverse of both these coins is a minotaur, in each case almost pre- cisely like a large relief from Nimroud, called a “man-headed bull,” to be seen in the British Museum, on the wall opposite to the great winged bulls. Another coin, almost identical, is given by Montfaucon (iii. 120). Yet Fig. 10. another of Megara, alike in character, Spannheim. Fig. 9. 24 HORNS OF HONOUR is given by Spannheim , 33 and still another of Catania, by Mr. A. J. Evans, in Freemans Sicily , vol. iv. Besides these we have abundant evidence of horned heads amongst the Greeks and Romans. Fig. ii represents two out of a procession of ancient Greek soldiers upon a fragment of a vase found at Mycenae. On these Schliemann remarks: “From the fore part of the helmet rises a long and very curious ob- ject, which forms a curve, and is much like a horn. It is altogether inexplic- able to me what it can have been used for, and there is no record in Homer which might be in- terpreted so as to indicate its existence on the Homeric helmet .” 34 With all deference to so great an authority, it is submitted that we have abundant evidence of what it was. These figures are crudely drawn in profile, and except that 33 Dissert.^ viii. p. 392. 34 Mycenae and Tiryns , p. 133. HORNED PRIESTS OF MARS 25 the shield is smaller and differently shaped, we see almost the same soldier reproduced in Fig. 18, p. 34, from Mr. Leafs Homer. The single horn in profile is intended to represent the pair of horns shown on the front view. Probably this is indicated by the two lines by which each is depicted. This Salii from Montfaucon. Fig. 12 . explanation is confirmed by a golden ornament found at the same place, representing two men (? soldiers), full-face, each having two horns on his head. 35 The Salii (Fig. 1 2), called also “ Flamines martiales,” priests of Mars, in ancient Rome, wore a very re- markable spike or horn upon their heads, which was called apex. It is suggestive of, and in some respects like, the favourite picket upon the helmet of German 33 SCHLIEMANN, Op. tit p. 200. 4 26 HORNS OF HONOUR and our own soldiers of to-day ; and thus we prove the very self-same idea to have prevailed in both ancient and modern times. To show how very important this apex was con- sidered, we are told that the Salii took great care lest by any chance their cap should fall from their head, and thereby their horn of office should be brought low, and so dishonoured. A certain Sulpitius was deprived of his priesthood because his apex fell from his head while performing his service. 36 The cap of the Flamines was called albogalerus ; they always wore it, and were not permitted to leave the house without it. We note this single horn, though it seems to tell against the explanation of the single one shown on the Greek soldiers on the Mycenaean vase. We are, however, only concerned with facts, and must not omit those we cannot explain. Returning to Moses, it has been said by various modern writers that it is absurd and ridiculous to represent him as in the famous statue by Michael Angelo (of which a copy is to be seen at South Kensington). We are told that the idea arose from the error of the Vulgate translators of Exodus xxxiv. 29, where it is stated : “ Quod cor- mita esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Domini The A.V. is quite silent on this, but the R.V. has 36 “ Hi, ut firmius consisteret, ilium sub mento duabus hinc et inde vittis constringebant. Sulpitio, inquit Valerius Maximus, Sacerdotiiim abrogatum fuit, quia sacrificanti apex de capite deciderat.” Montfaucon, ii. p. 39. HORNS OF MOSES 27 “ horns ” in the margin, and these are distinctly named in the Hebrew. “It came to pass . . . when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him .” 37 R.V. notes “ shone = sent forth beams (Heb. horns).” Thus it is clear the Vulgate translation is not erroneous, but literal. Pignorius (a well-known mediaeval writer) says dis- tinctly of Moses : “ Qui a congressu Domini Dei Exercituum faciem cornutam referebat .” 38 There is thus considerable variation between the A.V. and the Vulgate, but whether or not the translation given in the latter be right or wrong, the words used are the strongest possible evidence that the Latin translators were perfectly familiar with the tradition ; while the abundance of statues and coins in their day, which they must have known full well, would prevent the notion appearing at all strange to them, even supposing they did not them- selves devoutly believe it. The whole question turns upon whether the horns were supposed to be a miraculous growth, or a decorative ornament of honour and of glory. Later 39 we show how the horns of Moses grew upon the mediaeval mitre, and how they remain there in modern ritual to this day. Calmet distinctly asserts that the horn, so often mentioned in the Scriptures, was the symbol of 37 A.V., Exodus xxxiv. 29. 38 PIGNORIUS, Vet. Tab., p. 16. 39 See post , p. 76. 28 HORNS OF HONOUR strength or power ; and we can scarcely doubt but that the Jews so adopted it, and of course brought it with them from Egypt, where they had seen it upon the gods, both male and female. The ex- pression : “ All the horns of the wicked will I cut off ; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted,” can hardly be called figurative in the light of our present knowledge as to the ancient notions of Eastern and Egyptian people. The many passages relating to exalting, cutting off, or breaking the horn refer to the same notion — that of doing honour or of degrading. Nor has the practice of exalting the horn by any means been confined to the Jews. Bishop Taylor, writing about 1796, says that he saw Sepoys in India wearing helmets of stout leather ; they were oval, and nearly flat, like the trencher caps worn at our universities. In the centre rose a headpiece ornamented with feathers, etc., and on the front directly over the forehead was a steel horn, rising as it were from a short stem, and then assuming the form of one of our extinguishers. Remembering how ancient, how conservative are all Indian customs, we may well compare this with the horns of iron 40 made by Zedekiah. We seem also to have a very near approach in this description to the spike worn upon their leather cap by the Salii and Flamines of old, but still more is the pattern preserved in the pickelhwibe of the German soldier. 40 Vulg. “cornua ferrea,’ 5 1 Kings xxii. 11. ORIENTAL HEAD-DRESSES 29 Again Prince, the African traveller, speaking of a cavalcade of the governors of provinces, says that each one, upon a broad fillet on the forehead, wore a horn or conical piece of silver gilt about four inches long, much in the shape of a candle extinguisher. This was called the kirn, or horn, and is only worn in reviews or parades after victory, doubtless as a symbol of honour or triumph. Both of these de- scriptions as to extinguishers very strikingly remind one of the horned head-dress still worn, as the writer can testify, by the Jewesses of Tunis, much higher exalted on the matron than on the maid. So, too, the Druses of Lebanon, until recently, placed a horn upon the head of their women, longer or shorter, to mark the mar- ried who have borne children from the single or childless. Fig. 12 a is from a photograph of one of these Druse women, bought by the writer in Beirut ; illustrations are also given of them in Smiths Dictionary of the Druse woman. Bible , ed. 1863, p. 827, s.v. FlG * I2a - “ Horn.” These are mentioned by Thompson, Land and the Book , pp. 73, 74 ; but his remarks are 30 HORNS OF HONOUR not such as to add to our knowledge or to impress the reader with the author’s accuracy. Judging from this book, one of the chief efforts of the missionary is to uproot ancient customs of all kinds, and to level up (?) all converts to their ideas of modern civilisation. “Tu spem reducis mentibus anxiis, Viresque et addis cornua pauperi.” Horace, Odes III. xxi. 17. This was precisely the intention of Hannah, when she gave thanks for her son, and said : “ Mine horn is exalted in the Lord.” 41 In considering the whole context of this remarkable passage we cannot fail to be struck with what follows : “ My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in Thy salva- tion.” The conjunction of “horn exalted,” of “enemies” whom I dared not mock by the wide mouth when childless, and therefore unprotected, but “because I rejoice in (Thy) salvation” “I have no fear,” is most marked. Only a certain kind of com- mentators would attempt to spiritualise this very literal thanksgiving of an Oriental mother for the greatest of honours proclaimed by the “horn exalted,” and by the safety (salvation), for her and her offspring, against dreaded enemies, which its presence was devoutly believed to ensure. Alexander the Great (b.c. 330) was called the “ Two -horned,” 42 and we are told that “the most 41 1 Samuel ii. 1. 42 E. Wallis-Budge, Life of Alexander the Greats 1896, p. 46. ALEXANDER THE GREAT 3i natural explanation of this title is obtained by- assuming that one of the attributes of Amen-Ra has been applied to Alexander. As the legend makes Amen-Ra his father this assumption is a fair one. Darius III. addressed Alexander: “Behold it has reached me that thou, the Two-horned, hast assumed the sovereignty over Greece without my order ... I will march out against thee,” etc., etc . 43 Among the Arabs various opinions as to the meaning of the epithet exist. Some say that Alexander was called “Two-horned” because of his expeditions to the East and West, and others because he had two curls of hair like horns on his forehead. Others again have supposed that the title has nothing to do with Alexander, and say that it belongs by right to a very ancient king of Yaman. We venture to think that neither of these explana- tions is the correct one, but that it is to be looked for much nearer home and in a much simpler method. We show later that part of the regular panoply of a Greek warrior in the Homeric age, long before Alexander, was a helmet with two tall horns, and we shall show later that these horns continued to be borne by Greeks, Romans, Celts, Saxons, and Italians, down to a comparatively recent period, at least as late as the fourteenth century ; there- fore calling Alexander the “ Two - horned,” we suggest, was merely the equivalent of “ Greek 43 E. Wallis- Budge, op. tit., p. 65. 32 HORNS OF HONOUR soldier/’ 44 for we may well assume that he would bear the distinctive national uniform, and the name there- fore becomes just as simple as to call a modern English soldier a “redcoat.” Throughout the legendary history above quoted, Alexander is spoken of as the “ Two- horned.” The helmets shown in the accompanying illustrations may well support the contention here advanced. Figs. 13, 14 are from the originals in the British Museum. They are Greco-Roman from Apulia, pronounced to be of the fourth century b.c. Fig. 15 is from the Naples Museum, and Fig. 16 from the Louvre. In both places are more of the same sort, and all are probably of about the same age or a little later. As a military adornment the nations of old, Etruscans, Greeks, Belgi, Saxons, all placed horns upon their helms, in token of victory or defiance. Not only do we know this from pic- tures and traditions, but we have the very helmets 44 It has been objected that there is no evidence of the Macedonians wearing horned helmets. The famous portrait of Alexander at the battle of Issus in the great mosaic at Naples shows him without helmet ; but inasmuch as we have plenty of horned Greek helmets in the concrete bronze of about the date of the Macedonian, and have besides the legend above cited, we must leave the question to be settled by experts. Greek Helmets of Bronze. Naples Museum and Louvre. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. HORNED HELMETS 33 themselves, and they may be seen to-day in the museums of the Louvre, of Naples, and of London, from whence our sketches were respectively made. The small fork on some of these helmets reminds us that the an- cients, like their modern descen- dants, were fond of piling up their adornments ; these doubtless Fig. 17. were to support the plume, the panache of heraldry, as shown on Figs. 18, 19. Even in England the horned helmet was worn. Fig. 17 is from the original in the British Museum. It is of copper, and said to be ancient British, found in the Thames. Not only did the gods Chnemu and Osiris wear horns on their heads, but they are depicted with plumes upon them as well ; the plume of Osiris is well known. It may be here remarked that perhaps the plume rather than the horn in these modern days, and over a wider area, has become the badge of triumph, of honour, and of defiance upon the head of a warrior, whether he belongs to the Bersaglieri of Italy, the cavalry of Germany or France, the Highlanders 5 34 HORNS OF HONOUR of Scotland, or the field officers of England ; but we have more to say on that point later on. The ancient feathers, indeed, are gone, but as may still be seen, upon these helmets of the old Greeks, the metal attachment for them remains. (See Figs. 13, 15.) We give here a representation (Fig. 18), according to Mr. Leaf, of a Greek soldier of the Homeric period, in complete panoply of war, with the famous “round shield,” which would be round if it were flattened out. 45 Here we see horns and plume as well. Comparison of this drawing with that of Matawopah (< ante , Fig. 7) cannot but strike one with the strange analogy. Of a later date than this is the warrior from a sarcophagus (see Fig. 1) in the British Museum, from Clazo- mense 46 in Asia Minor of about 650 b.c. In addition to the horns, which are quite distinct — here, and on many of the figures depicted, we see the exaggerated crest or cockscomb before alluded to. The three lofty plumes forming the heraldic crest of our Prince of Wales are but a mere modern survival of an ancient object, 43 For this suggestion I am indebted to Mr. J. L. Myres, in an address at the British Association (Section H) at Liverpool, 1897. 46 Clazomense means “the screaming swans.”— Fraser, Pausanias , iv. p. 1 2 1. Greek Warrior, from Leaf’s Homer. Fig. 18. COCKADES 35 and in the light of what we have yet to say on the subject of panache we submit that the modern plumes above the motto Ich Dien are a distinct survival of what is illustrated by Fig. 19. Almost every nation upon earth mounts a cockade of some kind upon the head of its fighting men. The soldiers of Magna Graecia, who wore the helmets depic- ted in Figs. 13-16 many centuries later than Homer, show us exactly what we would wish to describe, by merely supposing that each helmet had a central feather between the horns. In Fig. 19 we have another of them fully equipped — the horns in a very pronounced shape upon the helmet, while between them rises what we now understand by a cockade — a stiff, upright panache. Even the most savage warriors, everywhere from Bul, x tv?xi Nap " Klondike eastward to Kamtschatka, do up Fig - * 9 - their hair into a sort of shock, erect upon the head, sometimes mixed with feathers like our old friend Matawopah (Fig. 7), sometimes without ; but we know the object itself to be but the complement, or the alternative of the horn of exaltation and of honour. The very cannibals, we were told by a traveller, 47 place an object on their heads like a cockscomb. The well-known panache of heraldry is but a name for a particular kind of crest, and curiously we find 47 Ward, Five Years with the Co7igo Camiibals. 36 HORNS OF HONOUR that in the days of chivalry panache got to be an alternative name for horns worn on the head, in fact a synonym. Cotgrave translates pennache de bceuf as “a goodly pair of horns”; while Henry VI. cried out at Ivry, “Si vos cornettes vous manquent, raliez- vous a mon panache blanc, vous le trouverez au chemin de la victoire, et de l’honneur.” Again, a French apothegm says, “ Quand l’hypocrisie a perdu le masque de la honte, elle arbore le panache de l’orgueil.” All will readily admit the orgueil dis- played in the elaborate plumes of heraldic blazonry, but what has here been adduced sufficiently proves that horns and the panache are really one and the same, in fact are synonymous both in idea, in origin, and in purpose, whether borne by knights, common soldiers, or by savages. Abundant evidence on this point is to be found in Gatlins North American Indians , where we see many portraits of chiefs, some with horns, as in our illustrations, some with a crown-shaped panache of feathers, and some with a combination of both. In support of this contention it should be here noted that in Italian tromba (trumpet) is but another name for a horn, when used in the sense of a musical wind instrument. It means also a cornucopia, and a ram’s horn ; hence, by a little extension, we can under- stand how the ear of Jupiter, as we are told, supplies the air ; and thus a horn placed on the side of the MODERN CROWNS 37 head becomes a conventional symbol of his power over that element. At the same time it denotes his chief attributes — the sun in his might, as Aries the progenitor, and also as the bull Apis. We must never forget that his very surname, Serapis , per- petuates this Egyptian faith in a triune god, first brought to Rome by the Ptolemies , 48 for it is but the contraction of the compound Osiris-Apis. Having thus proved clearly that rays of the sun, horns, and the calathus, or corn measure, are distinc- tive symbols of the greatest and highest of pagan divinities, we now venture to maintain that in them we have the elements from which has been developed all the superstructure of that singular adornment, the modern crown of our kings — the distinguishing badge of regal power — and we hope to prove that it takes but little imagination to trace out each of these objects in that very remarkable head-dress. We do not here pretend either of these components to be the founda- tion, but that they are simply added symbols, piled up, as is commonly done, upon other objects, such as the Cimaruta of Naples, or the Mano Pantea and Dischi Sacri dealt with in Chapters IV. and V. However much it may vary in design, in general shape, or in material, we always find in the modern crown certain conventional peculiarities which pre- serve its main features. Whether, as it is said , 49 48 King, Gnostics , p. 64. 49 Montfaucon, iv. 105. 38 HORNS OF HONOUR crowns were invented by Janus or by Bacchus, there are remarkable family likenesses among them all. In every example we have first a fillet or band by which it is made to fit the head, more or less orna- mental according to fancy. This may fairly be said to represent the wreath or chaplet , 50 found alike upon statues of Diana of Ephesus, upon the winner of athletic games, upon the victorious general, and upon the eminent in civil worth. Indeed, corona (o-recpavos) in itself signifies a circular band of metal, as well as a wreath of leaves or flowers ; and thus we shall see that the name crown, which at first was merely that of the foundation , 51 has developed at last into the term for the entire structure. In classic days the chaplet, the crown proper, had various names, shapes, and materials, but all preserv- ing the main idea of a circular adornment for the head. We venture here to summarise them. Among the Romans, the highest in dignity, the richest in honour, the most coveted, was the corona obsidionalis , made from the poorest of materials, such as grass, weeds, or wild flowers, and reserved for the general who had successfully relieved a beleaguered city. The corona civica , of oak leaves, was next in honour, and was the reward of the soldier who had saved the life of a Roman citizen in battle. Next were the corona 5°. See H. E. D., s.v. “ Chaplet.” 51 On this subject consult the article “Diadem” in Smith’s Did. of Antiq . THE CHAPLET 39 rostrata and corona navalis , for him who had first boarded a hostile ship, and for the commander who destroyed a fleet, hence the corona rostrata was ornamented with a rostrum. The corona muralis belonged to him who first scaled the wall of a be- sieged city, and so the chaplet was battlemented ; the corona castrensis to him who first forced entrance into the enemy’s camp. Corona triumphalis was that of the triumphant general, while corona ovalis , of myrtle, was the reward of a merely successful commander. There was also the corona oleagina , of olive, for brave soldiers, which we may take to be the prototype of modern military decoration . 52 Besides all these, the priests wore the corona sacer - dotalis peculiar to their office. Corona funebris was a wreath placed upon the bier, not worn at all ; whence, of course, our modern fashion, now at last so over- done as to become a nuisance, and hence a new fashion has arisen of advertising “no flowers” along with the notice of the death. The corona nuptialis> convivialis , natalicia , each denote their own object, and each had its own special materials, though all retain- ing the original wreath-like form. These latter, like the corona funebris , were not for personal wear, but were suspended over the doors as signs of mourning or festivity . 53 The extravagance to which the corona 52 See Smith’s Diet ., cit. s.v., “ Phalerae,” for further information on this subject. 53 Examples of all are given in MONTFAUCON, iv. p. 103, and in Seyffert’s Dictionary of Antiquities. 4 o HORNS OF HONOUR funebris may be carried is to be seen to-day in modern Italy. Huge structures in the shape of a horse-collar, made of palm branches, with flowers and other greenery, of eight or nine feet high, are borne along the streets, requiring always two, sometimes three men to carry them. One of these is hung up in front of the house for the very short time, before the dead is brought out ; then, if not too enormous, it is laid on the top of an empty car- riage following the hearse. In royal crowns rising from the diadem or chap- let, that is the corona proper, we find many de- vices, all more or less as typical in meaning as they are various in design, but here again bearing evidence of inspiration from classic cor ones. In older crowns, such as are usually seen on the heads of kings of Israel (see Figs. 4, 5), there is a fringe of upright spikes, rising from the chaplet, which any candid witness will admit to perpetuate the rays on the head of Serapis. (See Fig. 3.) In Camillus and Brennus. Perino del Vaga, Genoese School, c. 1525. Fig. 20. ROYAL CROWNS 4i Rosini’s Storm della Pittura Italiana , Pisa, 1848, may be found a great variety of these crowns, as displayed in Art by the great masters of Italy, showing distinctly the features to which we refer. In one especially, (vol. v. p. 192), in a picture by Perino del Vaga (Fig. 20), the king is represented wearing a crown composed of a simple band of metal, from which long spikes curve over the head. En passant , we call attention to the helmet of the general, which anyone can recognise as very like that now adorning P.-C. X. 248. Again, in vol. iv. p. 234, a picture by Raphael (Fig. 21), of “Joseph before Pharaoh,” shows the king with a simple Raphael, crown of the same kind, but with a ring of straight rays or spikes rising from the metal chaplet. The difference is that del Vaga makes his rays curve inwards so as surely to indicate not only rays but also horns, as we shall prove immediately. Compare these with the Virgin’s crown in Fig. 6 and with the crown by Giotto (Fig. 22). The plain spear-shaped rays upon her head, in the picture by Mino Senese, have been conventionalised by Giotto and other masters into fleurs de lis, crosses, and similar fancies, but each of these fancy devices we can trace to its antetype in one or other of the various crowns of Rome .Fig, 22. 4 * HORNS OF HONOUR that we have described, while yet preserving the general contour, and above all conserving the original idea of the sun’s rays. Next we find the curving, arching, bending objects in the conventional modern crown typified by del Vaga in the bending of the spikes (see Fig. 20), which can have no meaning at all in the form so familiar to us, unless they are a survival, and so represent the horns with which we are now dealing. In support of this contention, we produce an example that clearly shows what we mean, and is, moreover, modern of the modern. Fig. 22 a is taken from Tenniel’s famous cartoon, “ Dropping the Pilot,” pub- lished in Punch , March 29th, 1890, and reproduced in the Pall Mall Magazine for August, 1899. From Kaiser Wilhelm’s crown proper rise six bent bands of metal, any pair of which fairly represents the pair of horns upon the Greek soldier (Fig. 19), or the helmet (Fig. 14). The rays on the chaplet are in their usual place, while each pair of horns is merely lengthened so as to meet in the centre to form a support for the supreme ornament, the ball and cross. Other good examples may be seen in the large cartoon by Sambourne, “The Roll of Fame, 1800- 1900,” published with Punch s Almanack for 1900. We submit, then, that these curving bands rising from the chaplet in our regal crown of to-day are proved MODERN CROWNS 43 to be horns, and therefore may be taken to signify the power and dignity of the wearer. Lastly, we have the central ornament, of which there appears no sign in the previous illustrations until this last. It was often reduced to a mere button upon the velvet cap, especially in the crowns of the Middle Ages, like that shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 23). Even here, however, we shall notice an indi- cation of the horns. This central ornament, however, in later days grew, and assumed a new and more conspicuous form ; it was the meeting-point of the arching horns, and it has at last, in our modern royal crown, grown and blossomed out from a bud or button into a full-blown orb and cross, like that on the head of the Kaiser (Fig. 22#), certainly a very suitable crest for the adornment of the royal head. In another place 54 we have proved that this orb and cross are none other than the ancient crux ansata , the symbol of life to Egyptian kings, the astronomical sign of Venus Aphrodite, and a very potent protector against evil. The button finial of the sixteenth cen- tury, now in these latter days developed into the elaborate orb and cross, is, we maintain, no other than a survival of the calathus upon the head of 54 Evil Eye , p. 288. Rosini, v. 240 — Bonifazio. Fig. 23. 44 HORNS OF HONOUR Jupiter-Serapis, on which we have already remarked. Hence, reduced to its component elements, we repeat, a modern kingly crown is but the symbolic representa- tive (possibly unintentional) of the ancient attributes of the king of gods. We even venture to go further and at least to suggest a reason for the development of the calathus into the more ornamental ball sur- mounted by the Maltese cross. In itself, the crux - anzata is par excellence the cross of Ammon or Serapis ; and thus its own proper place, as an attribute of his power, can surely be nowhere so fitting as to be set up for a terminal ornament on the modern crown of our ancient kings. A signet of Francis I., Duke of Brittany, 56 about 1444, bearing his effigy, represents him with a crown, above which two long ears project so as to give the appearance of horns, and yet these are by no means asses’ ears. On the contrary, we shall produce evidence to show that they are curious links in the chain preserving the idea of the horn-like ears of Serapis, through the late Roman Mercury before mentioned, down to a quite comparatively recent period of chivalry, as the badge of a victorious ruler. We have seen other instances of ears so prolonged upon distinguished heads as to look like horns. So, too, we see plumes almost conventionalised into horns upon the head of Osiris and on the crest of the Prince of Wales ; and further, we would point to 56 King, Handbook of Gems , p. 128. CHAPEL OF THE MINUTOLI 45 the strange indentations in the bronze horns on Fig. 13, and suggest that therein we see an attempt to indicate feathers, and if this be so the identity of horns and panache , even in ancient days, is amply demonstrated. To Italians, however, as the successors of the old Serapis worshippers, we must go for examples of the continued use of the horn of honour and exaltation in unmistakable plainness. It is curious to find that among the many thou- sands of tourists who have visited the cathedral of San Gennaro at Naples, all have been so apparently wrapped up in the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood as never to have noticed what, to this writer, is by far the most interesting object in the whole building. No doubt it is thus neglected, because neither the Murrays, the Baedekers, the Hares, nor any other of the compilers of guide books have, so far as we know, ever had eyes to see it, for the reason that it is to them overshadowed by more attractive and popular objects. One of the side chapels — that on the right of the high altar — belongs to the Minutoli family, and contains two pictures, said to be by Giotto in the guide books. There, of course, tourists flock to worship Giotto and Simone (Memmi) Senese, but no one has writ that the walls of the chapel are of far more historical value and interest than can be derived from two black little altar pictures, even 4 6 HORNS OF HONOUR though they may possibly be by Giotto himself. These walls are a history in themselves of Naples in the Middle Ages. On two sides the lower part of the walls of this chapel are covered “on the line ” by a kind of procession of painted knights, nearly life-size and nearly full length. They end at about the knees. The mural frescoes in this chapel which really lend to it its chief interest are said by the priest in charge, Padre Ruffo, to be by Tommaso degli Stefani, 57 who was born in 1230. Of the knights, which at once attracted our atten- tion, there are no less than twenty-one, all wearing approximately similar costumes, with flat, rounded helms, and all much of the same pattern, but with this difference, twelve out of the twenty-one bear a pair of horns such as are here depicted. The two figures here sketched (Figs. 24, 25) are consecutive, and may be taken as quite typical of the whole ; they were selected simply because they were in the best light. No photographs are to be procured, and even the rough sketch by the writer was obtained with some difficulty and after a little silver diplomacy. The chapel is badly lighted, and it is probable that a vast majority of the visitors who enter it do not remain long enough to become accustomed to 57 This cannot be true, though all are apparently by the same hand, probably painted in the fifteenth century, for the reason that some are portraits of men who lived long after Tommaso degli Stefani. But for our purpose, the later the painting the better for our contention. HORNED KNIGHTS 47 the gloom, and so never observe these remarkable wall frescoes on which the guide books are silent. These twenty-one figures are described by the priest in charge of the chapel as personages of the very ancient family of the Minutoli, who had dis- tinguished themselves in arms and in other virtues, of which the chief in this family was considered to be piety, and “hence each one is painted with his hands folded in the attitude of prayer.” How ancient is the pose of hands in prayer may be read in Homer. “ Loud prayed for them Chryses, lifting up his hands .” 58 58 Iliad , i. 1. 450. Frontispiece badly copied by lithographer. 48 HORNS OF HONOUR At another visit to Naples the writer was able to make a fresh drawing. (See frontispiece.) The chromo scarcely reproduces the richness, but it fairly indicates the general colouring, since compared with the original : the sketch was made from the same knight as Fig. 25. In the days of the Angevin and Aragonese lords of Naples, during the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies, tournaments used to be held in the streets Incoronata, Carbonara, and Costantinopli, when each knight in turn presented himself at the sound of the tromba ; 59 and the herald, after having examined his title of nobility, proclaimed it to the assembled people, likewise by the sound of the trumpet, and thus introduced the jousters to the tournament. A living historian 60 remarks, “ Neapolitans were not the morally and physically enfeebled race they now appear, until after the fatal admixture of the Spanish blood, or rather the Bourbon degradation. . . . Under their Angevin rulers they were a martial not a debased people.” Again he says, “The tournament and the troubadour flourished in Naples, though not in Rome or Florence. . . . More virile surely were the warlike people who built St. Elmo and Castel Nuovo . . . and the first stages of the tower of Santa Chiara than their modern posterity.” These were all built before 1300. 59 See ante , p. 36. 60 St. Clair Baddeley, Robert the Wise and his Heirs , 1270-1352, pp. 70, 7 i» THE “ GREAT SCHISM ” 49 Upon the causes of the decline we can but offer a diffident opinion, but there is surely some ground for believing it to have had its beginning in the contests within the Church, which led to the “Great Schism” of the rival Popes Urban VI. and Clement VII. in 1 377. We read 61 that “all ecclesiastical powers and privileges were incorporated with the jurisprudence of the Kingdom of Naples, which, especially after the accession of the Angevin line, stood in a peculiar relation of dependence upon the Holy See.” The Holy See itself had been removed to Avignon in 1305, and naturally its remoteness had exercised somewhat of a blight upon Naples during the seventy years of its undisputed reign in a foreign country; but when in 1377 Italy was divided in allegiance, and Naples with Sicily joined France, Spain, and Scotland 62 in supporting Clement at Avignon, the loss of stimulant from the Papal court would be still more* felt. : l V is therefore to f be expected that the martial 'spirit * of the Neapolitans would evaporate with - the emigration of their leaders ; while on the return of- thsrKoly See in' 1447 a new current had already set in, manners, spirit, and circumstances had changed. The wearing on the head of the trombe , as in our illustrations Figs. 24, 25, in the form of horns is said by Padre Ruffo to represent that the knight had 61 Hallam, Middle Ages> ii. p. 226 (Eleventh Edition, 1855). 62 Op. cit p. 242. 7 50 HORNS OF HONOUR been victorious. All the Minutoli knights are repre- sented with two horns or none, it is therefore to be presumed that those who do not bear them were vanquished in the tournament or were noncombatant knights. Each one bears the same escutcheon with the spotted leopard on his left arm. The remarkable part which this painted chapel plays is that it pictorially interprets the very common Italian adage, “Tornare con le trombe nel sacco, o scornato,” that is, “To come back with the horns in a bag, or deprived of horns.” This phrase is trans- lated in Baretti’s dictionary “To come home with empty hands,” in other words, unsuccessful, van- quished. Here we find a most conclusive proof of the way in which habits or customs, long become obsolete and forgotten, have yet preserved a record of their ancient importance, wrapped up in the history of the words once used to describe them. In these latter days,, however,; these special, words have acquired a force and a meaning altogether foreign to chat in which they were first applied; while rif used now in their original sense c they *wQu]d. e&tiveyl no meaning at all to those who know nothing of the customs which gave rise to them. At first sight, and without context, our English word scorn seems to have no sort of connection with the wearing of horns on the helmet as a badge of victory, yet in the light thrown upon it by the portraits of these old Italian knights we see clearly what our own common word really PICTORIAL ETYMOLOGY 5 * means. Scornare in Italian still signifies to deprive of horns, but at the same time the modern Italian noun scorno has to-day acquired precisely the same significance as its synonym scorn has with us, that is, disgrace, infamy, shame ; hence ignominy, extreme contempt. In the old French, also, we find that Cotgrave gives “ Escorne — shame, disgrace, con- tempt, scorn ” ; and also “ Escorne — ruined, defaced, disgraced, scorned.” In modern French, however, although we have heard the word dcornd in the sense of disgraced, it would appear from Littre that in losing the s y the word has dropped out of literature in the sense of general contempt ; while, strangely, it has adopted and kept alive in France the same reference to contempt in respect of conjugal infidelity and marital disgrace, that from the Middle Ages on- wards seems to have been associated with the wearing of horns by husbands in England, as well as in many other countries. Frequent allusions to this are found in Shakespeare, but still more so in the coarser dramatists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who made breaches of the seventh commandment their principal stock-in-trade for the construction of their plots. In modern French it seems that the survival of the s is only found in the word when alluding to this subject, for Littres single notice of this specially disgraceful meaning under the heading d corner is, that those who receive “ dscorne ” dans la marriage are called cornards . HORNS OF HONOUR S* It is a curious lesson in the development of verbal significance to find such an absolute reversal of mean- ing as the present use of the word scorn displays. Not only is the object of the ancient custom of wearing horns completely changed from honour to dishonour, but the word by which it was denoted has become entirely revolutionised. Further, we see that the sense of the word itself has completely passed over from the object to the subject. Scorn now signifies not simply disgrace or contempt, but the contempt felt by another for him who is disgraced or scornato — i.e., dishorned — and by no means implies disgrace to him who feels the scorn. That which we have shown to be part of the components of our royal crown, and even so late as the fourteenth century (the wearing of the horns on the head) to be the sign of honour, pride, and victory to all wearers, had become at the end of the sixteenth century, at least figuratively a sign of the utmost disgrace, and a mark of the grossest form of ignominy upon him who wore them. So entirely had this notion of turpitude supplanted all ideas of honour, that cornutes and the allusions conveyed by the word, became the staple commodity on which the Jacobean drama, and that of the Restoration, as we have said, was chiefly composed. The transition of meaning both in word and custom took place (probably late) in the sixteenth century, and is plainly exhibited by Shakespeare, who in his HORNS OF DISHONOUR 53 day evidently understood both the honour and dis- honour. Jacques . Which is he that killed the deer ? i st Lord. Sir, it was I. Jacques. Let ’s present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror ; and it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose ? 2nd Lord. Yes, sir. Jacques. Sing it; ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. “ What shall he have that killed the deer ? His leather skin, and horns to wear. Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn ; It was a crest ere thou wast born : Thy father’s father wore it, And thy father bore it. All. The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh and scorn.” As You Like Lt , act iv. sc. 2. “ Let ’s write good angell on the devill’s home ; ’Tis not the devill’s crest.” Measure Jor Measure , act ii. sc. 4, 1 . 16. The turpitude attaching to the wearing of horns was perpetuated long into the present century ; indeed among certain classes it may be said still to survive. A fair held at Charlton in Kent on St. Luke’s day (October 18th) was called the Horn Fair so late at least as 1825. On that day a procession, of which we have accounts dating back to 1598, used to start from Cuckold’s point near Deptford, and march through Greenwich to Charlton. The riotous mob composing it used to wear horns of different kinds upon their heads ; while, at the fair, 54 HORNS OF HONOUR rams’ horns, gilded toys, and even gingerbread in the shape of horns were sold. All kinds of licence and indecency used to be practised on Blackheath, whence the proverb, “all is fair at Horn Fair.” The custom is said to have arisen from the symbol of St. Luke — a bull (see Chapter III.) ; and possibly the disgraceful notions connected with horns, which seem to have arisen in the Elizabethan period, may have led to or have been an excuse for the orgies practised. The custom is also said to have arisen from a grant made in atonement for an adulterous wrong by King John. Even to-day we see now and again in fairly respect- able prints that the allusion to horns in this sense is by no means forgotten, while, of course among the lower classes, the whole notion remains in full force and is daily expressed in the coarsest vernacular. In France, as we should expect, it appears more fre- quently and openly as the basis of a joke than in English prints ; for instance, the coloured frontispiece of a well-known comic paper 63 represented two smart young ladies, with a cattle show in the background. The dialogue was : — “ Qa n’a pas Fair de l’interesser ? De betes a cornes ? Oh ! la la . . . J’ai deja mon mari toute la journee a la maison.” Going back to Italy, so completely has the notion of marital disgrace, implied by the wearing of horns, 63 Petit Journal pour rire> No. 10 (March 6th, 1897). WEARING HORNS DISGRACEFUL 55 supplanted the old one of chivalrous victory and honour, that even the mere gesture called the mano cornuta , when made in a particular and well-known manner, is considered to be the deepest insult one man can offer to another ; no less than the implication that he wears horns. It is this insulting gesture, explained later, that is expressed in the common phrase Far le coma a uno. The same is understood by like expressions in French, English, Spanish, and German ; but inasmuch as gesture plays so much larger a part in speech with Italians, and with Neapolitans especially, than it does with other people, so the phrase and what it describes has a more deadly meaning to them than it retains elsewhere. Even with us, “to make horns at one ” is an expression still to be found in old dictionaries, and in society some- what less than polite it would be well understood, though obsolete, fortunately, in literature . 64 Whatever significance may attach to horns as 64 Grose, in Dictionary of Buckish Slang , 1811, has “Actaeon, a cuckold ; from the horns placed upon the head of Actseon by Diana.” In a seventeenth century book ( Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Proble? 7 is , by R.H., 1659) is a chapter headed “Why are cuckolds said to wear horns?” The author says, “Is it not because the abused cuckold becomes lunatick at the affront, and so every moon at least, being either changeable, jealous, or horn mad, or all three, he wears horns by assimulation ? ” Captain Bourke says ( Scatologic Rites of all Nations , p. 408), “The horns of honor of the deities worshipped by women who were ordered by their husbands to become religious prostitutes were transferred to the husband : what had been the outward sign of extreme devotion and self-abnegation was turned into ridicule and opprobrium.” 56 HORNS OF HONOUR Figs decorative ornaments, expressive first of honour and later, as we have shown, of the utmost dishonour, yet another aspect was not only the earliest in point of time but by far the most important in the place they occupied. It was as potent protectors against the ever dreaded evil glance that in all cases their great importance consisted ; not only were horns worn upon the head as objects intended to terrify the enemy and to protect the wearer, but they were placed for the like pur- pose upon buildings and various inanimate objects. 26-29 represent what the writer saw and sketched over the doors of four con- secutive houses on the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, near theGradini Grandi at Naples no lon- ger ago than 1895. These must have been seen by thou- sands of English, for the steam tram passes along within Corso, Naples. Fig. 29. a f ew f eet> and he can testify to their having been there many years. In 1896, however, the houses had all changed occupants, and only the marks of the objects remained. Fig. 26. Fig. 27. Fig. 28. THE HORSE-SHOE 57 We have shown elsewhere that the horse-shoe here in England to be seen nailed on stable and other doors is no other than the crescent, now usually- inverted, i.e. with the horns downwards, a position sometimes to be seen in the moon itself, and con- sidered a rain sign. The Quarterly Reviewer of July, 1895, p. 212, throws some doubt upon the horse-shoe being the crescent, but only two days before reading that article the writer was told the following : “ I knowed a farmer not very var herevrom, an’ he ad terr’ble bad luck wi’ ’is stock. He knowed they must be over- looked. Well, a neighbour told’n he could’n expect no other, zo long as he did keep the ’oss-shoe wrong zide up ; ’n if he did mind to save his beast (plural sic) he must put’n upright, wi’ the heels o’ un up on end. Well, zo he tookt and he turned the ’oss-shoe t’other way up, and he never had’n a-got no bad luck arterwards.” This was said in all seriousness, but though it does not absolutely prove the identity of the crescent with the horse-shoe, it does show that there is a belief current as to the latter being most potent when fixed with the horns upwards. The writer possesses Neapolitan charms which might pass for either a Turkish horse-shoe, or the conventional Turkish crescent, which is much more circular, with the points or horns brought more together than in the way usual in Murillo’s pictures, 8 58 HORNS OF HONOUR as it is generally represented in Art, or as an astro- nomical sign. We take it that the horse-shoe was once habitually fixed heels up, but that as time went on the position came to be considered immaterial, and so it got to be hung, as it now is, in the way most easily contrived. It will be noticed in Fig. 27 that both hand and shoe are pointing downwards, while St. Luke (Chap. III.) is making the same gesture with the hand pointing upwards. On the other hand the Dextera Dei in this position (called the memo cornuta ), above the altar in the tomb of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, is pointing downwards. We submit that these facts establish the conclusion that the horns themselves and not their direction, were of the first importance, and that their position, whether pointing up or down, was secondary, though not to be dis- regarded. Fig. 30 represents what in February, 1899, was to be seen over the doors of a grocers and a butchers shop in same neighbourhood. Nearly ^ every butcher in the unfashionable parts has a pair of horns over his door, usually painted red, blue, and white. Passengers by steam tram to Pozzuoli may see a fine assortment of these things at Fuori- grotta. Fig. 30. HORNS FOR PROTECTION 59 The following advertisement from a Neapolitan paper is instructive : — “ CONTRO LA JETTATURA. “Corni, porta fortuna, elegante e grazioso articolo in ceramica fantasia, da appendere in salotti, ecc. Chi rimettera cartolina vaglia di Li,20 ne ricevera due bene imballati in apposita Casetta. Trasporto a carico dei committenti. Commissioni e vaglia. “C. Lopes e C., fuori Barriera Aretina. N. 62 — Firenze.” 65 It should be noted that corno in Italian argot means phallus , and hence is the most powerful of prophylac- tics, especially la come torse. 6 * We have remarked elsewhere that in modern Italy charms of all sorts and descriptions are called un corno 67 How extremely ancient is the practice of setting up horns or other amulets for protection upon various buildings, particularly on dwelling-houses, or in rooms, as in the above advertisement, can be inferred with certainty, although perhaps few, except at Pompeii, are now actually remaining upon ancient edifices. From the nature of the material used, this must necessarily be the case ; yet we occasionally come upon objects which certainly bear out our contention. In ancient Greece so much was this the custom, that although none of these protecting amulets can have survived in situ , because the wood to which they 65 C or riere da Napoli, September 1 8th, 1896. 66 See Tuchmann in Melusine , September, 1896, p. 106. 67 Evil Eye , p. 186. 6o HORNS OF HONOUR were attached has perished, yet we have abundant evidence in the great number of terra-cotta amulets, of a special kind, still existing. These, indeed, are so numerous as to have acquired a technical name of their own, well understood by all archaeologists — the pre-affix. They were all of a somewhat conventional horse-shoe shape, having a rounded socket at the back by which they were fixed to the ends of the horizontal beams or poles, supporting the flat roofs of Greek houses. These poles rested on the walls, and their ends projected so that the pre-affix formed a sort of finial. We call attention to the close analogy between these pre-affixes and the cross-finials de- scribed elsewhere, p. 74, upon the roof poles of the Dubus in New Guinea. Nearly all the Greek affixes had a face of some deity or other in relief upon them, and so far remind us of the faces carved upon the ends of “labels” of fifteenth century Gothic windows. Plenty of them are to be seen in any museum of Greek antiquities. The present writer possesses several, one especially has the head of the Medusa of the early, hideous, split - tongued kind ; another is an unmis- takable Gorgoneion of the transition period (Fig. 31). It is of much interest to find this later type of face in the same place, and apparently of the same age, together with the archaic. The mode of dressing the hair is the only thing in common with the early and well-known conventional head. But for the snakes this face might pass for any of the goddesses. Another THE GREEK PRE-AFFIX 61 of the writer’s specimens is an unmistakable Dionysos — with two budding horns, like a young bull — the “ Bacchus Bicorniger ” to which we have before alluded. Another of these pre-affixes (Fig. 32) is evidently a goddess, perhaps Hera or Demeter, with Fig. 31. a face of an altogether different type, and showing considerable artistic beauty and taste. These two may be taken as very fair samples of the Greek pre-affix to be seen in most museums, and in themselves throw a bright light upon the original intention of faces we see carved over doors and on the outsides of buildings of all ages down to this present. Four others, however, in the writer’s possession are of 62 HORNS OF HONOUR a totally different kind — a kind that if not quite new to most readers has not yet been adequately studied or defined. There is a single specimen of pre-affix in the British Museum of the same type, and we have noted two others in the Louvre, bearing distinctly female faces with horns something like these ; but with these exceptions we have seen none others at all like them elsewhere. There are certainly none in the museums of Rome, Naples, Florence, or Athens, and we sincerely hope the beautiful drawings here repro- duced may lead to discussion and ultimate decision as to whom they represent and under what attribute. HORNED MEDUSA 63 Fig- 33 is on the whole the most perfect of our specimens, indeed the most perfect we have ever yet seen, and shows more of the typical shape of the pre- affix than either of the others. At first we took it Fig. 33. for granted that one and all of them must be Medusse, with horns mounted by way of reinforcement to the power of the head itself, particularly as we bore in mind many undoubted gorgons’ heads with horns 6 4 HORNS OF HONOUR upon them, with which we have dealt elsewhere, and of which we give a specimen, though of much later date, in Fig. 39 a. Another of these heads is here given (Fig. 34), having much the same type of face as the last, yet of course quite distinct and bearing its own in- dividuality. A third example is shown in Fig. 35, again alike, and yet again quite different. The points in common are the horns on each, and the remarkable ex- pression of terror or fright which all three seem to THE GREEK PRE-AFFIX 65 have, and which is perhaps still more striking in the originals than in the drawings. The fourth of these strange countenances is alto- gether different. Fig. 36 is quite another kind of face, Fig. 35. and is almost negro in type. Moreover, it does not by any means show that expression of extreme nervous tension so noticeable in the other three. Who can they represent? One other point beside the horns is common to them all — every one has distinctly pointed ears. That is a feature certainly not found upon the usual gorgon’s head ; neither is 9 66 HORNS OF HONOUR there on these heads very distinctly marked the usual snake-like hair, though we suggest it may be said to be indicated. Two of these heads (Figs. 33, 34) the writer exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries, where he Taranto. Fig. 36. hoped to obtain some expert opinion upon them, but was disappointed. Recently he has shown all four heads to the authorities at the British Museum, and there he heard the opinion that they all represented Pan, proved by the pointed ears and by the hair, etc. Without venturing to question so expert and POINTED EARS 67 decided a verdict, we venture to point out that only one of the four faces bears an expression at all consistent with that of the jovial, mirthful Pan, and that, except the ears, there is nothing to suggest that he is thereby portrayed. That the Medusa was often depicted with horns we have stated elsewhere, and especially is this proved by an antique bust of one of the Roman emperors in the Doria Gallery, Rome. Of the head on this bust we gave a rough sketch in The Evil Eye , p. 198, which is unmistakably a Gorgoneion. Further, this very Medusa has distinctly pointed ears. We also pointed out in dealing with this question how horns and wings seemed to have become almost identical upon Medusae, just as we have shown them to have been upon Mercury, and later upon the head of Francis I., Duke of Brittany (p. 44). The same notion came down into mediaeval heraldry, when the panache was either horns or plumes indifferently. We also refer the reader to the Medusa on the cog- nisance of Trinacria (Sicily) in the Evil Eye , p. 292. It will be seen that wings are substituted for ears, while two snakes are so arranged on the head as to have the appearance and to prove the intention of horns. Again, it seems to us that each face is distinctly female in feature, whereas we cannot recall Pan with any but a decidedly masculine face, however goat-like it may have been. 68 HORNS OF HONOUR Moreover, it was quite usual to ornament other female heads with distinct horns. For example, Montfaucon, Vol. I., PI. 31, Nos. 4, 5, shows two Muses with conspicuous horns on their heads. Again, in the same volume (PI. 44, 45, etc.), Diana is shown with the crescent on her head, so drawn as evidently to make plain the artists intention to indicate horns. Also, in the same volume (PI. 13), Juno is twice re- presented with horns on her head. On the whole, we cannot give up our first belief that, after all, the horror of the countenance denotes the Medusa ; while as to the pointed ears and the horns, we have proved that she has been adorned with both. Moreover, both snakes and the snaky hair are often omitted, and we suggest that in ancient Tarentum, where alone these pre-affix heads have been found, the artists gave the faces pointed ears as appropriate to the horn-bearing heads they were moulding, and so perhaps set a fashion that came down to Roman times. Our contention that these are Medusae has the support of a very high authority. Mr. Marindin writes : “ I certainly agree with you that the type of face suggests Medusa, not Pan. If you know undoubted Medusae with horns, that would suffice.” We have therefore called attention to what we stated long before these heads came to light, and think we may venture to say Q.E.D. We show later how, in course of time, terra-cotta HOUSE AMULETS 69 objects were supplanted by bronze, so now we point to Fig. 37, which is a sketch of a bronze boss found at Pompeii. It was once, like many others to be seen to-day at Naples, affixed to the outer door of one of the grander houses, and one cannot fail to notice what a very com- posite design is here also em- bodied. We may surmise that the owner had seen service in Africa, typified by the elephan- tine trunk and ears. At the same time it ex- presses the owner’s worship of Isis (so prevalent at Pompeii) by the disposition of the elephant’s tusks, so as to appear like the horns appropriate to that deity, raised above the female head, which we may take to represent that goddess. Besides this, the leaves and corn on the brow betoken the cult of Ceres also, or perhaps of more than one other divinity. The 70 HORNS OF HONOUR prominence, however, given to the horns in the device seems unquestionably to denote that they had been “ raised up ” on the house for horns of safety or protection. Of much earlier date, is to be seen in the Museum at Taranto, a solid terra-cotta horn, life size, with a hole at the root-end for suspension. The horn in Fig. 30, to be seen to-day in many parts of modern Naples, is a very fair representation of its artificial prototype, known to be of Greco- Roman origin, dated not later than 300 b.c. The Etruscans, said to be the most ancient people of whom we have any preserved records in Europe, were evidently, like most primaeval races, strong believers in a future state, and took great pains to protect their dead ; we may even suggest that precaution, lest the dread fascination should injure the bodies of their help- less departed, may have led to burning them, and thus we arrive at the ultimate origin of cremation, certainly not the earliest method of disposal of the dead. But we find that along with the burning, infinite care was always taken to preserve and to protect the ashes, in fact it equalled that taken by Egyptians to preserve and protect the entire body. Lest even these ashes should fall under the malignant spell of fascinators, they placed them in little urns of pottery, made doubtless in imitation of the hut dwellings in which they lived when alive, and there can be no doubt but that they were specially “designed to keep HORNED CINERARY URNS 7i Fig. 38. a ghostly evil eye from the dead.” 68 post , Fig. 39a.) On these they placed the powerful protecting horns. There are many of these little cinerary hut-urns to be seen in the Etruscan Museum at Florence, and of these Fig. 38 represents a typical speci- men, sketched from the original ; and it will be noted that it bears no less than four pairs. There is no means of fixing any actual chronology with reference to these hut-urns, but we may at least form some idea. First, they all belong to the early Bronze Age, 69 which in Italy implies an exceedingly remote period, inasmuch as from the intimate connection between those countries it must be judged from an Egyptian standpoint ; and consequently the Bronze Age of Italy is indefinitely earlier than works of the same stage of civilisation found in northern countries such as our own. In the Vatican Museum there are also several of these hut-urns, which were found on Monte Cavo, near Albano, under three distinct and separate lava streams. Now when we reflect that the summit of Monte Cavo was the goal of the Roman triumphs from their very beginnings, we may be certain that 68 F. L. Griffith in Authority and Archceology , p. 236. 69 Montelius, La Civilisation primitive en Italie , 1895. 72 HORNS OF HONOUR its history goes back very long before the foundation of Rome. It is in itself an extinct volcano, and must have been such for ages before then ; for no account, even traditional, of an eruption remains. Yet it is evident that at some time or other there must have been three separate eruptions since they were de- posited, so as to have spread three distinct layers of lava above the Etruscan ashes, once contained in the hut-urns now in the Vatican ; and thus we are brought face to face with an extraordinarily remote antiquity. Much later we find a Greek tomb in Lycia (Fig. 39) over the door of which were placed the protecting horns to guard in this case the bodies, not the ashes, of the dead. Still later, when cremation had again become the fashion, we find many urns and other receptacles for the ashes, to Gr/ci m guuTkoLt be decorated with objects which were Trad, di C. Guissani, 1 • 1 1 r 1 p- 99. surely intended as protectors of that " 0 which they contained. In the Vatican and other museums of Italy are numbers of little marble house-like boxes bearing sepulchral inscriptions, and at the same time ornamented with erect serpents, a gorgoneion, or some other well-recognised symbol. We have not, however, sketched any other than that shown in Fig. 39#, which is the front of one of them ; this besides the Medusas head, shows the head rein- HORNED MEDUSA 73 forced by the protective horns. Thus we see after an interval of unknown ages, from the time of the horned urns of the Etruscans (see Fig. 38), how, along with the revival of cremation, the same protective horns were placed over the ashes in the late Roman period, to which this belongs. In Naples to-day most of the butchers’ shops, as before remarked, have a pair of bullock’s or ram’s horns over the door, usually painted red and white. The fruiterers and grocers, indeed nearly all provision shops, as the present writer can testify, have some- where or other the potent single horn suspended. This fact is remarked on by Canon Jorio, 7 ° who speaks of them as being so placed. Even in this present year, 1899, we have seen many pairs of cows’ horns fastened upon^the top of garden gates, as in Fig. 40. 70 Mimica degli Antichi , ix. 89. See also Evil Eye , p. 259. 10 74 HORNS OF HONOUR Moreover, a polished horn, or a pair mounted upright on a polished stand, is to-day a very common orna- ment in the hotels and in the halls of Neapolitan palaces. In the Museum at Zurich is a remarkable amulet, said to be Pre- Roman. It was found “am Elersberg bei Andelfingen,” and consists of a pair of artificial horns made of stone, and set up in crescent form, so as to be mounted upon a doorway or arch — precisely as is done to-day in various parts of Italy. We have remarked elsewhere (p. 70) on an ancient Greek cows horn, of natural size, now in the Museum at Taranto, and it is of great interest to find the self- same amulets, though not artificial ones, still in use, after a lapse of at least two thousand years. Professor H addon exhibited at the British Asso- ciation at Dover some pictures of the Dubus, or large houses in New Guinea. At the end of each horizontal pole forming the main timbers of the roof were large branching roots, having the exact appearance of horns, and serving no purpose whatever, unless such as belongs to similar objects elsewhere. Although so striking to the present writer, he could not obtain any special information about them. These things curiously call to mind the Greek pre- affixes to their beams, on which we have before remarked, and to which we again refer later. HORNS AND ENSIGNS 75 We confidently submit that the fact is now suffi- ciently established that horns upon houses and tombs have existed for unknown ages, and that they still exist as protectors against unseen though not the less dreaded influences. Thus far we have dealt with them as the symbols of powerful protecting deities ; such they were con- sidered to be, and they were used as a sort of silent and perpetual prayer for defence against the ever- present threatening danger. They continue to be so used, though the special gods once symbolised by them may be unknown or forgotten. In the case of the Jewish phylacteries, originally amulets for the protection of the wearers, we know how they got to be " enlarged ” so as to become a mark of Pharisaic honour and distinction. It is con- tended to be the same with regard to horns. First they were used as protective amulets, symbolical of the highest of the gods ; and, bearing that aspect, they became in course of time badges of honour and distinc- tion to their wearers. At the same time dishonour and disgrace were marked by the treatment accorded to them, whether that treatment took the form of exalta- tion or degradation in a literal or a figurative sense. Precisely the same feeling of honour or disgrace which used to belong to the wearing or deprivation of horns by an individual, is now transferred to and connected with the ensign of all nations ; it is a badge of honour to be supported when flying defiantly, it is a badge of ?6 HORNS OF HONOUR disgrace and of insult when trailing in the mud : hence treatment of the flag is either honourable or the re- verse, both literally and figuratively. The intimate connection between the protective and the dignifying quality of horns as a decoration is well illustrated by a piece of ritual which has lasted from early times down to these scientific, matter-of-fact days. In the Naples Museum is a great Assyrian bas-relief of a priest wearing a mitre, on which the two points are shaped into unmistakable horns, and it is of course well known that the two points of a Christian bishops mitre, taken from the traditional head-dress of the Jewish high priest (see Fig. 41), typify horns, and thereby convert that head- dress into a badge of power and dignity. In a Missal at Bologna of 1517 is another bearded bishop wearing a mitre, on which a very distinct white horn, painted upon a darker ground, springs from the forehead to the top of the mitre, where it forms the point. Perhaps not everybody is aware that the words still used in setting the mitre upon the head of a newly- consecrated bishop in the Roman Church are, “We set on the head of this Bishop, O Lord, Thy champion, the helmet of defence and of salvation, that with comely face and with his head armed with the horns of either Testament he may appear terrible to the Andrea Sirani, c. 1600. Presentation. Rosini, vi. 75. Fig. 41. HORNS OF THE MITRE 77 gainsayers of the truth, and may become their vigor- ous assailant, through the abundant gift of Thy grace, who didst make the face of Thy servant Moses to shine after familiar converse with Thee, and didst adorn it with the resplendent horns of Thy brightness and Thy truth, and commandedst the mitre to be set on the head of Aaron, Thy high priest. Through,” etc., etc. 71 In the light of this modern rendering who shall doubt the verity of the mediaeval belief in the solid horns upon the head of Moses ? Here, then, we have both the scriptural ideas con- cerning a twofold significance of horns worn on the head, expressed in the plainest language and in the precise order in which we believe they arose. First, defence or protection, and hence their assurance of salvation or safety ; next in their power and terror to the foe. When we compare this picture of solemn Christian ritual with that of the North American chiefs (Figs. 7, 8) in their war-paint and feathers, we cannot fail once more to be impressed with the perfect identity of idea underlying them all. “ His head armed with the horns .... he may appear terrible.” Surely this is more than a coincidence, and will scarcely be claimed as missionary influence in abo- riginal America. 71 Order of Consecration of a Bishop Elect ( imprimatur H. Card. Vaughan), p. 14. Burns and Oates, 1893. Copies of this can be obtained in the original Latin as well as in the translation as above. 7 « HORNS OF HONOUR Having dealt elsewhere 72 at sufficient length on the protective power believed to belong to horns in them- selves, as amulets against fascination, it is unnecessary here to do more than allude to the use of them in con- nection with salvation taken in its true sense. In this connection we prefer to understand the word salvation in its more expressive form — safety. We find in 2 Samuel xxii. 3, “He is my shield, and the horn of my salva- tion ” ; in Psalm xviii. 2, “ My buckler, and the horn of my salvation.” Again, Zacharias said, “ And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us.” (Luke i. 69.) It is quite clear that these passages all contain one and the same idea — that of safety through the pro- tective power of the horn. The words of Zacharias, too, are curiously instructive by the addition of “ raised up,” thereby signifying the fixing up of the horn in the house of his servant David. Whether this means literally that a prophylactic amulet was set up over the door, as in modern Naples, or like a horse-shoe upon our own, we need not stop to discuss, for the object is immediately explained with the utmost clear- ness, “ That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of those that hate us.” We have selected the above quotations from the Scriptures because they are so accessible, and the most easily verified, and because they are obvious ; but there are many other expressions to be obtained 78 Evil Eye , chap. vi. HORN OF SALVATION 79 from the same source which show clearly, though less obviously, how strong was the belief in the horn as means of protection against danger. The expressions in Isaiah lix. 17, “For he put an helmet of salvation upon his head ” ; in Ephesians vi. 17, “Take the helmet of salvation”; and in 1 Thes- salonians v. 8, “And for an helmet, the hope of salvation,” although figurative are none the less con- clusive as to the current belief that safety from unseen and intangible danger, as distinguished from actual and violent attack, was to be obtained by wearing a particular head-dress called here a helmet. This is proved by the fact that the shield is in most cases mentioned as well as the helmet, e.g. in Ephesians vi. 17. The shield would guard against the fiery darts or the open attacks of the enemy, but against the unseen, insidious, more dreaded, fatal glance, safety could be found only in the wearing of the helmet. This of course leads us to inquire what sort of helmet, and in answering this question we must again refer to the close connection between the symbol of honour and of safety. We have seen that ancient helmets were very com- monly adorned with one or more horns standing up upon them, sometimes without other ornament, some- times accompanied with wings, sometimes with the panache , which is really the same thing, being merely feathers in another form. Further, we have seen that the panache and horns were synonymous. 8o HORNS OF HONOUR In Figs. 1 8, 19 we have shown the entire panoply of a Greek soldier of the Greco- Roman period, and in Figs. 13-16 the very same kind of helmet with which St. Paul must have been perfectly acquainted, and so used it to illustrate his discourse. It was, of course, that most familiar to the Ephesians, to whom he was speaking. We therefore assert with all confi- dence that the “helmet of salvation,” or the “helmet, the hope of salvation,” meant not merely the leather or metal cap, but more particularly the protective horns — the “ horns of safety ” — mounted upon it. This, we maintain, was the original meaning and intention of the horns upon helmets. They were first used as symbols of gods for protective amulets, then they grew to be badges of dignity, power, and victory, and thus their threefold significance is to be under- stood, whether worn throughout the ages as an apex by Salii, a mitre by high priests and bishops, upon the helmet of a Greek soldier of Ephesus in the time of St. Paul, upon the head of Neapolitan knights in the Middle Ages, or upon American Indian chiefs in our own day. CHAPTER II. HORNS OF THE DEVIL H ITHERTO we have dealt with horns as symbols of honour, of dishonour, and of safety, but no study of this subject could pretend to be inclusive which failed to notice the popular notions of the personal appearance of the devil, in his special aspect of “ Old Horny himself.” It of course goes without saying that we have nothing to do with Satan or his sorrows, which have been of late the subject of a popular novel and play. This latter is the ideal personage created by the fertile brain of Milton, and belongs to quite a different sphere from him whom the people call the Devil. Our purpose is simply to inquire how the popular idea shapes him and how the image has grown up ; particularly are we concerned with the prevalent vulgar belief as to his bodily appearance, so well described in the following : — “ Note, that the climax and the crown of things Invariably is, the devil appears himself, Armed and accoutred, horns and hoofs and tail .” 72 73 Browning, The Ring and the Book , iv. 1. 129. 11 81 82 HORNS OF THE DEVIL It seems to be quite a modern development of scepticism that has led to so much controversy about the existence of a personal devil, and hence we find several books of recent date, written specially to maintain his individuality, against those who argue that he is a mere principle of evil personified, like Siva, the destroyer. Of these latter writers, unquestionably the ablest and the most consistent is Gustav Roskoff, whose Geschichte des Teufels (Leipzig, 1869) treats the subject in the exhaustive German method, tracing the belief in a personal devil to the primaeval dualism existing in the minds of all primitive people. 74 He produces evidence of this from the Mexican Tetz Katlipoka and his brother Huitzilopotchli. The former is Lord of heaven and earth, above all the other creators, the sustainer of the world. The other is the negative principle — the destructive, hideous ( schrechlich ) war-god. The same notion prevails 75 amonsf several North American tribes. The Esquimaux have a good god Ukuma, and an evil one Uikan — the raiser of storms and doer of all mischief. Roskoff goes in much detail through all the old world tribes — Tungusen, Buraten, Ostiaken, nomads from the Black and Caspian Seas to the Siberian 74 See also Theodor Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvolker , Leipzig, 1869. Also Awakening of Nattire, Lanning, 1898. 75 Roskoff, op. tit., i. p. 32. EPITOME OF ROSKOFF *3 coast and the frontiers of China (p. 43) ; also Beduinen, tropical nomads, and all the black races, showing the same belief ; and all this with much learning and many references. He then follows up the same reasoning, and produces evidences of the like belief from ancient civilisation, discusses Satan of the Old Testament, points out that he is first spoken of as p. 40. 9 o HORNS OF THE DEVIL himself was also said to have been so begotten. Tor- quemada, in the Hexamerone , relates that a girl of Cagliari fell in love with a young noble, but owing to her inferior rank was unable to meet and confide her secret to him. The devil, however, assumed the likeness of her lover, and thus possessed himself of her. On the other hand we read of a convent of Cistercian nuns, amongst whom was one whose blandishments seduced the conversi (lay-brethren), and who was declared to be a succuba, or ddmone deguisde. Our old friend Delrio, from whom many of these stories are derived, maintains 83 that sorcerers and witches habitually consort with demons, and that sometimes there is issue between them. He quotes Plato, Philo, Josephus, Cyprian, Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and others, in support of his statements. He further contends that Genesis vi. 2 fully supports their assertions. It was the universal belief in the Middle Ages that all sorcerers and witches were the offspring of these unhallowed connections, and also that monstrous births were produced from like causes. It is seriously al- leged that one of these occurred at Schinin, and that 83 Disquisitionum Magicarum , lib. ii. p. 14 1 : “Solent Malefici et Lamiae cum demonibus, illi quidem succubis ; hae vero incubis ; actum Venerium exercere.” Delrio sums up his argument with “Dicimus ergo. Ex concubitu incubi cum muliere aliquando prolem nasci posse ; et turn prolis verum patrem non fore daemonem, sed ilium hominem cujus femine daemon abusus Eterit.” THE BLACK GOAT 9i the monster was about to be destroyed when the mother confessed to having been visited by un lutin incube.** Cecco d’Ascoli was burnt in 132 7, 85 on the Campo dei Fiori at Rome (where later Giordano Bruno also was burnt) for having had illicit intercourse with a succuba, or she-devil. We learn, too, from Froissart 86 that in 1386 a duel was fought between Jacques le Gris and Jean de Caroube, in consequence of the allegation that Caroubes wife had been visited by an incubus. Hedelin 37 asserts the existence of satyrs and other semi-bestial beings, and that there is aptitude gdndra- trice between human beings and demons. He treats much of the qualities ( propridtds ) of the he-goat. He regards him as an animal infect. He calls special attention to the fact that it was a black goat which appeared to Count Cornoube, bearing on his back the soul of William Rufus aux enfers. In this we get a piece of evidence which shows that popular imagination made the devil black as early as the death of Rufus in 1 100. There appears to be in actual existence even now a tribe in the interior of Africa, called Wito, whose faces are of a type very similar to the satyrs of classic Art, 84 Martin, op. tit., p. 50. 85 Scie?ices Occultes du Moycn Age, par Ferd. Denis. 86 Chroniques , p. 345. 87 Traite des Demons et des Monstres , Paris, 1617, p. 59. 92 HORNS OF THE DEVIL but we do not perceive any mention of any growth that can be called horns. “ Their foreheads are extra- ordinarily retreating, and the outer corners of their eyes and eyebrows slope upwards like those of the typical Mephistopheles ; their sharp, aquiline noses curve over the upper lip like a beak, and their chins are prodigiously long. Their ears end in a point, like those of the ancient satyrs, and their hair, which they wear unplaited, is short and woolly. A more diabolical cast of countenance it would be hard to imagine .” 88 Curiously too, much light is thrown upon the question of what are now called gargoyles, by these investigations . 89 We find that even the Chaldeans and Assyrians made use of images of monsters, i.e ., bestial men, to counteract the influence of evil spirits who were driven off by their hideous aspect . 90 Here we have the ancient form of the same belief which led to the carving in the Middle Ages of the “Devils of Notre Dame,” and of the endless mon- strosities upon our churches and towers, so that whenever we see a grinning goblin, like “the devil that looks over Lincoln,” we are reminded of the days when our forefathers firmly believed in the things we have been discussing ; so firmly, that numberless poor wretches were put to death after 88 E. A. de Cosson, The Cradle of the Blue Nile , 1877, vol. ii. p. 73. 89 See Evil Eye , p. 229 et seq. 90 Martin, op. cit. y p. 53. ORIGIN OF THE WEATHERCOCK 93 conviction by the testimony of their accusers, that they were guilty of the crimes implied by the term witchcraft, compared with which incantation, fascina- tion, and enchantment were considered as but venial offences. In all ages one of the prevalent ideas of the devil has been that of the “ roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,” and he was believed especially to be lurking round churches ; ever planning to destroy their towers or belfries with his lightnings and his tempests. From the earliest times the belief has existed of the antipathy of the lion for the cock, and while goblins in stone were carved and set up on the angles to scare off the rank and file, the arch fiend, the roaring lion, had to be met by the one creature he dreaded — the cock . 91 Hence grew the practice of putting a cock upon the highest point of sacred and other buildings, so that when the bells were silent, the devil might always see his enemy on guard. To make the cock more conspicuous, he was first made to turn every way with the wind, so as to present his full form in every direction. Then, still further to make him so conspicuous that his enemy should not possibly elude him, he was gilded, and made to shine out brightly and defiantly. Hence the cock upon the steeple, always pointing in the direction of the wind, set the fashion of setting vanes on high places, while the 91 PROCLUS, Dissertation on Theurgy , trans. by Taylor in Iamblicus on the Mysteries , 1895, p. 343. See also remarks later on the cock. 94 HORNS OF THE DEVIL preponderance of one special form adopted, gave the technical name to vanes of all sorts, the weathercock. Who shall say that the hideous creations of savages, such as those of Sitka Sound, of the South Sea Islands, and the Eastern Archipelago, which we are pleased to call idols, are not really the outcome of this very belief ; and that the worship paid to them may not truly represent the faith of the poor savage, that their terrible aspect will drive off the evil spirits whom he fears so much ? He loves indeed the good ones, but he takes no pains to propitiate them, for he knows them to be always trying to help him. We do not hesitate to assert this belief to exist in all countries in both hemispheres, whether savage or civilised; in China and Japan we know this to be so ; in Shinto temples are abundance of monstrous images, avowedly for the sake of frightening off evil spirits . 92 This is but once more reiterating the old story of how much more uncivilised (even perhaps civilised) man is moved by fear of what he dreads, than by love or gratitude to his benefactors. Of course all the ideas and beliefs as to the genesis of demons on which we have been dwelling, cannot be separated from the kindred notion of possession, a form of belief which was firmly rooted at the time of our Lord, and has continued down to this day. 98 Martin, op . cit., p. 53. CASTING OUT THE DEVIL 95 Even in the writer’s own recollection, a certain non- conformist divine, well known, whom he often used to see, professed to “ cast out devils,” moreover he was firmly believed in and was looked upon as a recog- nised exorcist. We have already referred to the assertion that St. Augustine was accustomed to perform the same miracle. It has been generally held that the “possessed” were epileptics, and it is a curious fact in the history of surgery that the operation of trepanning was appa- rently first practised in Europe with the intention, and for the purpose of causing or permitting the demon, which was believed to inhabit the head, to come out. Professor Broca 93 says that a certain SehanTaxil pub- lished in 1603 a treatise on epilepsy, and in a chapter proving that demoniacs were epileptics he advocates the opening (la trepanation) of the skull, to cause the demon to come out. This notion was clearly both ancient and widespread, for the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru practised trepanning extensively. Numerous skulls have been discovered, on which the operation had been performed in a terribly rough manner, as may be seen by the accompanying illustrations (Fig. 42). The skulls here sketched were found in Cuzco, and are of unknown antiquity, except that they belonged to people living long before the discovery of America. The two sketches here produced are taken from 93 “La Trepanation Prehistorique,” Revue d’ Anthropologic, t. vi. 1877. 9 6 HORNS OF THE DEVIL photographs published in Primitive Trephining in Peru; 16th Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington (about 1896) n.d., Plates I., X., where a large number of similar skulls are to be seen. The operations on these, and indeed upon all, were ap- parently performed with flint knives, and were Plate I. Plate X. Primitive Trephining in Peru. Fig. 42. evidently fatal to the patient in these and most other cases. The cuts on one skull show a barbarous wantonness of hacking. On some of the skulls the bone seems to have grown at the edges of the orifice, proving that even this frightful treatment was occasionally survived. Popular belief in the personality of demons could THE SATAN OF MILTON 97 not but formulate some typical shape in which they ordinarily appeared to man, as they were believed to do, and our purpose is to ascertain what this shape was, and how it became established in the mind of the people. The popular imagination from the dark ages on- wards, has pictured the devil, i.e. the arch fiend, as a naked figure, half man and half goat, with a long tail, and always black ; for this latter belief certainly still exists, and may well be said to survive in the common proverb : “ The devil is not half so black as he is painted/' The stories are endless wherein he shows himself in various disguises ; but in nearly all cases where he appears in clothing, the horns, tail, or cloven foot are made to disclose themselves. On the other hand there must have existed in the public mind among the educated, long before Milton wrote his Paradise Lost (1652-3), a quite different conception of Satan, such as that to which he gave form and expression. This ideal was much higher than attached to the evil one in the commonly received notion, whom most of the writers down to the end of the sixteenth century had been accustomed to represent as essentially animal, both in form and instinct, whose chief, all-absorbing passion was lust, and whose human qualities were of the very lowest type. The popular idea of this being was such that he was always represented as the dupe, to be gulled and cheated by those he sought to make his victims. 13 9 8 HORNS OF THE DEVIL Stories without end exist as to his extreme gulli- bility 94 and simple, childish want of perception ; such histories as that of Jack the Giant Killer precisely illustrate what we mean, and the common phrase “ cheating the devil ” keeps alive the idea. Alongside this popular notion of his simplicity and semi-animal shape, on which we have been speaking, there was, among the more educated, if not more enlightened persons, such as the monks and secular clergy, a firm belief in his personal malignity and high intellectual power, by which he was supposed to be always on the watch to entrap the souls of men. At the same time it is curious that Art should have followed the popular imagination and habitually have given him, as it did, the grossest, most bestial and grotesque forms, now leaning towards the scriptural serpent and dragon, now leaning like Luini (Fig. i impost) to the black goat- man. In serious literature, from Genesis to Milton and Browning, he is treated always as a powerful though malignant person, endowed with great cunning and high intelligence. As a specimen, in one of the minor poems in the Vernon MSS . 95 of the fourteenth century is “A disputison between a god man and the dewel,” in which he carries on an argument some- 94 On this subject see Thorpe, Northern Mythology , vol. ii. p. 1 77 ; Dasent, Norse Tales , p. xcvii. ; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies pp. 939, 1018, 1024; Crane, Italian Tales , p. 221 ; Clodd, Tom Tit Tot , p. 47 ; Clauston, Popular Tales , vol. i. p. 381 ; FlSKE, Myths , etc.y p. 125 et seq.j R£ville, History of the Devily p. 29. 95 Early English Text Society. BELPHAGOR 99 thing like that in the Book of Job, and ascribing to him much cleverness and power of argument, but wherein the devil is always called either false schrewe , wikked schrewe, wikked gost, or wikked fend. He has always been held capable of assuming any form he pleased, and of showing himself to human eyes. In Milton’s own time we find him in still more human and Miltonic form, assuming a mortal shape, and taking a very active part in worldly affairs. A curious little book of 1647 called The Divell a Married Man , though more serious and less of a caricature than Le Sage’s well-known Le Diable Boiteux , is a skit upon matrimony, yet it paints the devil according to the then current belief among those educated enough to be able to read it. Even in this story peeps out in the end the common belief in the folly, and easily cheated character of the devil. Though a digression for which we apologise, it shows the prevailing notions in Puritan times as well as the Sorrows of Satan does in ours. The following is an epitome : Belphagor, an Arch- divell (before his fall an Archangel), arrived in Florence and set up as a money-lender under the name of Roderigo of Castile. He made a great display of wealth gotten, as he said, at Aleppo, though he gave out that he was a Spaniard of mean parent- age. In Florence he marries Honesta, daughter of a merchant, Amerigo Donati, but she proves such a fury that the other divells he had brought as servants, 100 HORNS OF THE DEVIL leave him, choosing rather to be free in hell than to live in a house with such a woman. His brother, whom Roderigo had established in business as a Levant merchant, gambles away his money, so that he is obliged to fly from his creditors, who closely pursue him. Roderigo is hidden by a bailiff in a dunghill, under a promise of great riches if he (the bailiff) will protect him from the creditors. When reminded of his promise he proclaims himself Bel- phagor, Prince of Hell, and that he will surely make good his word. He told the bailiff he would shortly hear that a lady was possessed, and that he might be quite sure that he was in her ; and, further, that he would only come out at his (the bailiffs) command. “You can make,” he said, “your own conditions and thus pay yourself.” A few days after, the daughter of Ambrogio Amadei was possessed. The ordinary relics of saints — the head of San Zenobio, the mantle of St. John Gualbert — were tried without effect, but these doings having come to the ears of John the Bailiff he went and undertook to cure her for 500 florins. Several masses were said, and some mock ceremonies were performed ; then the bailiff whispered in the woman’s ear, “ Roderigo, be noble, be a man of thy word.” “ I will,” quoth Roderigo, “and as soon as I am gone hence, I will enter into the daughter of the King of Naples, where also I will be at thy service.” In a very short time it was noised abroad that the king’s daughter STORY OF RODERIGO IOI was possessed, and soon after the king, having heard of his fame, sends for John the Bailiff, who makes a still better bargain, and with the same ceremonies as at first cures her also ; but the “ divell ” before he departed said, “ I am no more thy debtor, I am no longer Roderigo, but Belphagor, and will work thee all the mischief in my power.” John, who had received 50,000 ducats from the king, returned to Florence to enjoy his money, think- ing Roderigo would not harm him. Soon after, however, he heard that the daughter of Louis VII. of France was demoniac, but John was so greatly afraid when he recollected the last words of Roderigo, that when he was sent for by the French king he pre- tended to be sick and quite unable to come. At last, being compelled by the Seignorie of Florence to go to Paris, he was brought into the lady’s presence ; but there he excused himself, and declared he had no power over certain “divells.” The king, however, would not hearken to that, and in a rage replied, “ Either cure her or thou shalt hang for it.” John tries Roderigo with entreaties, reminding him of how he had befriended him and saved him from his enemies ; but the “divell ” mocks and insults him, saying he will make him hang himself before he has done with him. In despair John Matteo, the bailiff, at last thinks of another plan. He goes to the king and persuades him to have a great terrace or balcony made in the 102 HORNS OF THE DEVIL principal square of Paris, to have it hung round with arras, and magnificently decorated. Then he was to command the clergy to say mass ; trumpets, timbrels, sackbuts, and all kinds of loud music to sound at a given signal ; and that then, when the lady was brought out, the foul fiend would come out of her. All this was done, but when Roderigo saw so great a concourse he wondered what it all meant ; did John think to trick him ? When the bailiff came near once more to entreat him to come out, the “divell” demands, ‘‘What is all this mummerie ? ” The signal is then given, and the din of the music begins ; upon which again the “ divell ” inquires what it is all about, when John in a great fright cries out, “ Oh ! Roderigo, it is thy wife ; she is come to look after thee ! ” No spell or enchantment so strong as this; at the very name of his wife he posts off to hell and leaves the lady free. “Moral. No ‘divells’ will hereafter be valiant enough to adventure into the world to look for a wife. Unwelcome news this for many who are such she- ‘ divells * that they can expect no husband but from hell .” 96 The finale of this story is quite in keeping with the old notion that great noise will drive away the devil. 96 A story of the devil and his bride, very different to this, told by an old negro in New Orleans, is published in the Journal of American Folk- lore^ No. xlv. 1899, p. 128. HIS STUPIDITY 103 Bells in church towers were first placed there for that purpose, and they are the natural accompaniments of gargoyles, which are demons in stone ; the one kind to terrify the eyes, and the other the ears, of evil spirits lurking about. At two adjoining parishes (the churches of both can be seen from the place where this is written), called Langford Budville and Thorne St. Margaret, the bells of the former are (or used to be) rung on Midsummer night to drive the devil over to Thorne, and at Thorne the bells were rung on St. Margaret’s Day to drive him back to Langford. The story we have given above is another illustra- tion of the simplicity and gullibility 97 which, as we have remarked before, is part of the character popu- larly ascribed to the devil from the Middle Ages downwards, while at the same time it also shows that there existed a firm belief in his miraculous power. The traditional idea of the stupidity and simplicity of giants, devils, and all superhuman beings, is no doubt a very ancient one. The story of Polyphemus, the giant whose one eye was blinded by Odysseus, and the more familiar one so closely connected with the foundation of Rome, how the giant Cacus stole the cattle of Hercules, and was afterwards outwitted and slain by the hero, are but myths upon which have grown up many legends of cheating or befooling the devil . 98 There was no need of Ben Jonson’s “The 97 See Dasent, Norse Tales y Introd. p. cii. et seq . 98 See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations , ii. 359 et seq. 104 HORNS OF THE DEVIL Devil is an Ass ” to show his stupidity, a trait which was firmly established in the popular mind. He was, nevertheless, at the same time looked upon with the utmost dread, and this fear of the “ evil one ” has been stimulated, and much practised upon, by the clergy of all religions, down to the last, may we not say to the present, century, even to the present day ? We read" of the Scotch Protestant clergy of the seventeenth century, that in preaching on the torments by evil spirits which awaited the sinner, they used language “calculated to madden men with fear and to drive them to the depths of despair.” They told their hearers that they would be cast into great fires, to be roasted by devils, and hung up by their tongues, with other unutterable torments . 100 The Calvinistic preachers of the last century seemed, like the artists of earlier, and less lethargic days, to have drawn from their imaginations the most horribly realistic and hideous pictures of the devil and hell, for the purpose of terrifying their hearers ; and they certainly succeeded in keeping alive in the popular mind the most fearful notions of the dread enemy, viewed from the religious side . 101 On the other hand, at the very same time there remained in full 99 BUCKLE, History of Civilisation , ed. 1869, iii. 232. 100 r ev> r Wodrow, Analecta , vol. i. p. 51, quoted by Buckle. 101 Those who desire to study this curious phase in religious history will find much information in Buckle’s chapter on “ An Examination of Scotch Intellect in the Seventeenth Century,” Civilisation , vol. iii. p. 191 et seq. WHENCE HIS NAME iQ5 vigour all the grotesque and comic fancies, which no religious fervour and no amount of Board School education has even yet been able to uproot. Many of us still remember how our childhood was made miserable by our ignorant nurses, whose chief threat, and indeed actual punishment, used to be to put the child in the dark cupboard with the black man, or to declare that the old black man should have naughty children. These sayings and doings are undoubtedly the legacy left by our so-called pagan ancestors. It would be a nice and an interesting investiga- tion to determine which of the two parallel notions, the fearful or the humorous, now holds the firmest grasp on popular imagination. As a practical com- ment upon these two very opposite views of the arch-enemy, it is of some interest to look into the meaning and origin of the name devil, about which there are conflicting opinions. These have arisen, doubtless, through coincidence of sound. On the one hand, Grimm X03 holds that the Teutonic words devil, teufel, diuval, djofull ' djwful \ may all be traced back to the Zend dev-, and that our word is nothing but a corruption of deva , the Sanskrit word for God. This contention is supported by the fact that the Gypsies’ name for God is Dewel ', and that they are an Eastern race preserving Oriental names and customs . 103 Dr. Tylor 104 rather supports this theory, 102 Deutsche Mythologie, p. 939. 103 Pott, Die Zigeuner , vol. ii. p. 31 1. Prim. Vult., vol. ii. p. 248. 14 106 HORNS OF THE DEVIL on the ground that Dewel is rather feared than loved by these weather-beaten outcasts, through His storms and tempests, and that therefore He is rather the author of evil than of good. Dr. Murray (//. E. D .), does not even discuss this speculation, but affirms distinctly that the Teutonic devil , in all its forms, is immediately from the Greek SiafioXog — accuser, calumniator, slanderer, traducer. He says, “ The Gothic word was directly from Greek,” and this we accept as final. We hope to be able to prove that very distinct traces of both conceptions of the devil are to be seen in present-day representations of him. On the one side is the comical monster to be cajoled and cheated, the development of the old Polyphemus into the giant of the nursery ; while on the other he is the astute, powerful Satan of Paradise Lost . The many authors who have tried to explain away his very existence we leave alone, inasmuch as they deal with a part of the subject with which we have little concern ; we only have to deal with his personality as pictured in the minds of the people. We know that Luther thought he had fought out many actual contests with the devil, and that he devoutly believed not only in his individuality, but in his constant appearances in a bodily shape. The same may be said of John Knox, and other eminent divines, down to our own day. The writer has heard many local stories of his appearance and doings, LOCAL BELIEFS 107 which were said to have happened, quite within his own recollection. A cottage belonging to his father fell into decay, and has long been pulled down, because no one would live in it — “ ’twas that troublesome.” A man of ill repute, well known to the writer, used to live in this cottage, but was accidentally killed, and current report said that “ th’ old fellow corned arter ’n.” The next tenant was a man with a wooden leg, and he had not been there long before he came to the owner and declared he was “afeared to bide there, for th’ old fellow T , now that he’d a-had the old ,” would not let him have any peace, for “every night he do come, and I do hear ’n a-draggin’ my leg all round the chimmer (bedroom) by the buckle straps.” Another case known to the writer, was that of a well-to-do man who was said to have “sold himself.” He was always believed to be afraid to be out at night, for “the old fellow ” had been seen by many people waiting for him near his house. He certainly never would return home alone at night ; and this peculiarity, in an otherwise brave man, may have caused the story, but that it was firmly believed the writer can positively assert, for he knew him well, and the belief is all that concerns our present purpose. We have already alluded to the notion that the devil is black, and that the idea proceeds from the primaeval belief that a black goat is at least half of him . 105 Popular notions, however, credit him with 105 “ The devil damn thee black, thou cream fac’d loon.” — Macbeth , v. iii. io8 HORNS OF THE DEVIL general lycanthropy in its broad sense, and not as confined to the wolf, though that animal has always been one of his favourite metamorphoses. Hence probably the cult of the wolf, so evident in Egypt at Assioot. The hare, the sow, and indeed every creature whose shape was assumed by the gods in classic days, has at one time or other had his body occupied by the devil. 106 The hare was, singularly enough, an object of superstitious reverence and fear, in Europe, Asia, and America. The ancient Irish killed all the hares they found on May Day among their cattle, believing them to be witches, and therefore to have intimate relations with the devil. The same belief still survives in Somerset. 107 Divine honours were paid to the hare in Mexico. Wabasso was changed into a white rabbit and canonised in that form. 108 The Calmucks regarded the rabbit with fear and reverence. The hare was unclean to the Jews according to Levitical law, but there has always been as much confusion between hares and rabbits as between frogs and toads, lizards and crocodiles ; and also there is doubt as to whether the hare of Scripture is iden- tical with the animal so called by us. We know that small charms with eyelets made like the hare were in 106 See Bochart, Hierozoicon , Leipzig, 1794, especially De Lepore (Lev. xi. 6, Deut. xiv. 7), vol. ii. p. 400. The devil especially assumed the shape of the unclean animals. 107 See Evil Eye , p. 328. 103 Donelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian Worlds London, 1882. HARE AND RABBIT 109 Roman times protective amulets, and a hare appears very distinctly on the nail depicted in Fig. 159, Evil Eye , p. 328. 109 Bochart” 0 deals at great length with this subject, and that the confusion between hare and rabbit exists to-day is proved by the following. “ A sailor (South Devon) believed that if he said the word * rabbit ’ at sea it would bring him bad luck ; he always referred to them as ‘the long-eared gentry,’ and if I men- tioned the forbidden word always expostulated, 4 Don’t ’ee, miss, please ; you never know what mayn’t happen.’ ” 111 The exclamation “Drabbit!” is well known, and usually considered as a quasi - curse, like “ drat it,” but it is suggested that it may be an actual utterance by way of defiance of an unholy name. We have remarked elsewhere" 2 on the reluctance of fishermen generally to use the word hare, with the names of some other animals, and also as to words as well as acts of defiance against dreaded influences." 3 The fear of hares or rabbits is doubt- less connected with the belief in transformation, common to all systems of mythology, but in none 109 This nail is described at length in Bullettino Arch. Napolitano An vi. p. 45. 110 Hierozoicon , vol. ii. p. 400, De Lepore. 111 Letter from Miss Underhill to the writer, published in Devon Association’s Report on Folk-lore , 1896, p. 95. 113 Evil Eye , p. 31. Upon the rabbit see much curious information in Hist. Eng. Diet s.v. “ Cony.” 113 Op. tit., pp. 1 38 et seq t no HORNS OF THE DEVIL is it more so than in that of the East, especially modern India. Much is said on this subject by Gubernatis in Zoological Mythology , two vols., 1872. He says (i. p. 391) the horn supposed to be on the head of the wild ass through the myth of the cornucopia connects the ass with Pan; and somewhere else we have read of a curious fact, which reminds us of the whispering to Roderigo in the ear of the woman possessed, implying that the devil resides in the ass and can be invoked by speaking in his ear. It seems that the bite of a scorpion could be so cured. “ Si quis graviter scorpione ictus, id in aurem insusurret asini, ex tempore curetur.” 114 Again we are told that the mythical centaur, the satyr, faun, ass, and goat are mythologically equivalent terms — hence “ the devil is an ass ” is quite a literal expression. Silenus is often repre- sented in Montfaucon and elsewhere as riding upon an ass, for the ass was sacred to Bacchus and Priapus ; he was moreover always present in the Dionysian processions at the Eleusinian mysteries, and thus a very close connection is shown to exist between the ass and Pan, the modern devil’s proto- type, as we shall show later on. “ Te senior turpi sequitur Silenus asello, Turgida pampineis redimitus tempora sertis, Condita lascivi deducunt orgya mystae . ,,n5 114 Laus Asini, Leyden, quoted by Gubernatis. 115 Seneca, (Edipus . See also Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie. HIS BODILY SHAPE hi In a monkish piece of wood-carving in the church of Corbeil, near Paris, is to be seen a practical example of the combination between the horns of the devil and the ears of the ass.” 6 Moreover we drew attention to long horn-like ears in chap. i. p. 44. As regards this actual bodily shape in present popular imagination, we may remark that during the past few months the writer has met with figures of the devil in various metals and in various places, through all of which the same idea runs as that expressed by the poet, of “horns and hoofs and tail.” From the back of a cab-horse in Naples comes by far the largest specimen ; then in Rome a little oxidised silver charm beautifully chiselled ; another of the same kind from Florence, but more roughly executed ; while yet another is from Paris, where many are to be seen in the shop windows painted bright red.” 7 The same Parisian model was recently for sale in Regent Street; therefore we are justified in assuming that these devils which are all alike in shape and gesture represent the popular notion at the present day. Fig. 43 represents fairly the general 116 See Conway, Demonology , Fig. 19, vol. ii. p. 295. 117 We cannot account for the vermilion colour, unless it represents a new conception based on Faust, being usually clothed in red. It should, however, be noted that cows’, rams’, and terra-cotta horns and hands hung up in Naples shops, of which the writer has several specimens, are painted bright red, so are the hands over Jewish doors in Jerusalem. Red and blue seem to be prophylactic colours ; cf red coral. 112 HORNS OF THE DEVIL type, though it is really a modification of all four. The tail is leonine, and is copied from the Nea- politan cab-horse diavolo y whereas the horns on that example are dis- tinctly bovine, and the face round, stupid, and clownish ; the other ex- amples all have sharp features and a cunning expression. The attitude in all four is nearly the same. Curiously too, though coming from such widely different sources, and of such different models and sizes, all re- present the same general features, and every one is in the act of performing the same gesture — commonly called “taking a sight” or “making a snook.” This is the attitude of vulgar mockery among all people. Neapolitans call this Besseggiare , and it is given by Jorio as one of their common gestures .” 8 Hence it may be assumed that the devil is looked upon generally as a contemptuous mocking personage, with a dash of vulgar humour. This conception agrees well with what we hope to prove to have been the character of his prototype upon whom the modern notion has grown up. Having just bought the diavolini referred to, in Italy, on returning recently by way of the lakes, the ^ See Evil Eye y Fig. 120, p. 276. LUINPS GREAT FRESCO *3 writer was strangely impressed at Lugano by Luini’s well-known great fresco of the crucifixion, where is to be seen above the cross of the impenitent thief the very common representation of the devil receiving the soul. The accom- panying sketch, from one made on the spot, seems to need but the mere touch of the caricaturist to make the attitude precisely that we have been describing. Moreover on comparing this drawing with a photograph since obtained, the figure painted by Luini is still more suggestive of the grotesqueness of the modern representations than is the author’s sketch from the original. The difference is that modern art has deprived him of his wings, but this we can readily account for as we proceed ; and mean- while we remind the reader that one of our main purposes in the present study is to account for his horns ; of these rather than his wings our modern popular belief takes most cognisance. In his name “ Old Horny,” and in that commonest of proverbs, “Talk of the Devil, and you see his horns,” are evidently preserved at least one point in the people’s notion of his outward appearance. Perhaps to clear the way to the inquiry how and whence he got his horns in popular imagination, it is well to point out here, in addition to the facts we have dealt with in connection with the beliefs of the Middle Ages, that the popular notion of to-day is singularly *5 HORNS OF THE DEVIL 114 at variance with that conveyed by Scripture. First we read of him as the tempter of our first parents, in the form of a serpent, and in that form he is cursed — “upon thy belly shalt thou go.” In mediaeval repre- sentations of the scene in the garden he is often painted as a serpent with a human face, for the old notion of lycanthropy, or transformation, always has attached to him. As before remarked, he was thought to be able to change himself so as to appear in any form he chose, even as an angel of light,” 9 and often in the shape of a beautiful woman called Lilith, 120 as in the well-known picture of the tempta- tion of St. Anthony. In the Middle Ages, among other strange notions, there was a Jewish legend, very widely believed, that it was not Eve, but Lilith who seduced Adam, and then prevailed on him to eat the forbidden fruit, and that it was this unholy connection which brought death into the world. The serpent Apep of Egypt was the personification of darkness and of evil, which it was the business of Horus, the rising sun, to conquer and to kill, before he could appear in the east. In the Book of the Dead referred to later, p. 120, are seen Apep, the Egyptian devil, in the form of a serpent, and also of a crocodile, while an ass is shown in the serpents power, thereby confirming by earlier evidence the connection, at least in idea, between the devil and 119 On this see Conway, Detnonology , etc., 1879, vol. ii. p. 91 et seq. 180 See Oxford Eng. Did s.v. Devil 1. b. THE SERPENT AND DRAGON 115 the ass. There is no end to the stories in the Middle Ages relating to the devil, dating from about the time of the height of the belief in witchcraft, which latter was founded on the conviction of unholy compact with the devil ; it was this that led to such fearful persecu- tion of persons denounced as witches. Many of these stories are utterly inconsistent with each other, and the student will find just as great con- fusion with regard to the infernal hierarchy as he will in classical mythology, where the same name repre- sents many different attributes of one deity, and where many names represent the same personage. 121 In the Middle Ages the belief in witchcraft, or complicity with the devil, was a serious article of popular superstition. In His own day even the miraculous power of our Lord Himself was considered by many of the Pharisees to be sorcery, or magic power, obtained by compact with Beelzebub, 122 whom all regarded as a personal being, and therefore they necessarily clothed him in actual form. From a serpent, which seems to be the oldest shape assigned to him, he developed into a dragon, that is a serpent with wings, having sometimes the head of a lion, sometimes of a man, and at others that of a crocodile. 123 We must, in speaking of the devil, always remember 121 On this see Evil Eye , p. 185. 122 Matt. xvi. 24. 123 See an article in Melusine , September, 1896, p. 100, “ Le Serpent d’Airan et le livre des secrets d’Enoch” ; also The Book of Enochs trans- lated by Morfill and Charles, Oxford, 1896. HORNS OF THE DEVIL 1 lb Forum of Trajan, Rome. Fig. 45. the distinction between the dragon and the more classic griffin, whose body was that of a winged lion, with a head usually like an eagle, but with many modifications. Fig. 45 is the head of a griffin from the Forum of Trajan, in Rome, with a head of a lion, but horns of a goat, and hence of truly classic origin. In the Vatican Museum also, are several others to be seen with eagles’ heads on lions’ bodies, but with the fore feet like crocodiles’ claws. Mr. Marindin says that the griffin is an attribute of Apollo, and (see Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, “ that some suppose the reason of the attribute, to be Apollo’s supposed connexion with Hyperborean lands, where the Gryphes were supposed to dwell. ... As to the Greek griffins, I suspect they are due to Assyrian influence. I believe one was found at Mycenae, and there is no doubt but Assyrian and Babylonian art influenced the Mycenaean, although the Mycenaean art was certainly a genuine water product.” Schliemann says that the griffin came into Greece with Dionysos from India, and became the symbol of wisdom and enlightenment. The griffin 124 124 On the Griffin, “ The watcher of the gold,” see Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 2, xxxiii. 42 ; Milton, Par. Lost , ii. 1 . 943 ; also SCHLIEMANN, Mycence , pp. 177-8. “Griffins are beasts like lions, but with the wings and beak of an eagle.” They are on the helmet of Athena of the Parthenon. “Aristias of Proconnesus says in his poem that these griffins fight for the gold with the (one-eyed) Arimaspians . . . and that the gold which the griffins guard is produced from the earth.” — Frazer, Pausanias , vol. i. book i. p. 35. THE GRIFFIN 117 is, however, very rare in ecclesiastical decoration, and we only certainly remember one example. l L j . 1 Fig. 46 is from the doorway of the twelfth century cathedral at Scala, near Amalfi. One of these creatures guards each side of the entrance. The above sketches Scala, Amalfi. Fig. 46. might perhaps be here somewhat out of place, were it not for the remarkable fea* ture visible in both. Though the Scala figure is moulded with the fore legs of a wolf, the mane of a lion, and the head of an eagle, yet over all are the unmistakable horns ; and so of the other, on the classic one from Rome, the horns are still more conspicuous. Both have likewise wings of a conventional kind. What horns may signify on these composite animals must be left for the reader to imagine and for experts to decide. Another feature to be remarked is that the Roman head is somewhat canine, quite corresponding with the legs at Scala. 125 It is evident, however, that the scriptural dragon must be considered as a development of the serpent, from the well-known passage, “ And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil.” (Rev. xx. 2.) It is as a serpent-like dragon that he is shown fighting with St. Michael (see post, Fig. 1 1 1, p. 201 ), and that myth is evidently identical with those 125 It is quite possible that the Scala griffins may be ancient Roman from some temple. Columns and pieces of sculpture from earlier work are often found in later buildings. ii8 HORNS OF THE DEVIL of Horus, Perseus, and our own St. George, still per- petuated in this nineteenth century on the current coinage of our sovereigns and our crown pieces. As evidence that these stories are all one and the same myth, we may mention that in the Louvre is to be seen sculptured a high relief, though called has, of “ St. George and the Dragon,” executed by Michel Colombe in 1 508, but except in the size and shape of the dragon, and details of treatment, the incidents are precisely identical with a well-known picture contemporary with Colombe, in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, by Pinturicchio, and there called “ Perseus and Andro- meda.” Colombe represents St. George in plate armour piercing the dragon in the mouth with his tilting lance. The dragon is merely a monster crocodile, but the strange feature in this case is that in the background, upon a rock, is a kneeling female figure, dressed in the flowing robes of the sixteenth century, and with hands uplifted in the most stagey style of supplication. Truly here, Pegasus has lost his wings, while as a set off, Andromeda has found her clothes. So in these days the devil has lost his wings, but found a tail. The confusion between the serpent and the dragon is of very ancient date, and probably found its way into Scripture after the return of the Jews from Babylonish captivity. According to ancient Chaldean belief regarding the fall, it was caused by Tiamat, the dragon of the sea, the female principle of evil, CHALDEAN BELIEF 119 the original spirit of chaos, who, according to the Babylonians, older than the gods themselves, was self-existent, and eternal. It was the birth or separa- tion of the deities out of Tiamat, that was the first step in the order and creation of the world. At length one of the gods had become the husband of the she-dragon (or serpent), and so kept alive the power of darkness. Then there was war, in which Bel, or Merodach (the sun god), volunteers to fight Tiamat, The descriptions of this fight, and subse- quent triumph of the god representing the good principle over evil, of light over darkness, are said to be very fine. This Chaldean account has no correspondence with the narrative in Genesis, but is very suggestive of the contest between St. Michael and the dragon, as referred to above in Rev. xii . 126 Sometimes the devil is represented as a flying dragon. A wood-cut by Albert Dtirer, which the writer has seen only at Florence , 127 shows the dragon as a sort of hydra, with seven human heads, all of which bear distinct horns, and are all likewise crowned. These latter symbols are, we maintain, intended to show his might in conquest and his rank as king of the infernal hierarchy. Upon the pinnacle of Bow Church, Cheap- side, the dragon appears as a flying crocodile. Thus it is through the serpent and the dragon forms, given 126 On the Babylonish belief in the creation and fall of man, see Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis , p. 87 et seq. 127 This wood-cut is not in the print room at the British Museum nor mentioned in any notice of Diirer’s works. 120 HORNS OF THE DEVIL him by the sacred writers, and so portrayed by mediaeval artists, that we get the ideas which have developed some of the peculiarities of the horned semi-human figure now commonly accepted. From these symbols of darkness grew his tail, which re- presents Apep of Egypt, the serpent of the Old Testament and of the Revelation, but not the Agatho- demon of the classics. In the earlier Egyptian mythology we find the prototype of Perseus and our St. George, in Horus slaying the dragon in both the forms of a serpent and of a crocodile. The Book of the Dead , p. 248 (Brit. Mus. edition) has four different scenes which we reproduce in Figs. 47-50. There does not appear in these to have been any Andromeda, unless the poor ass in Fig. 50 may be taken to be her original in the myth. Fig. 47. Fig. 48. THE DRAGON A CROCODILE in Many fanciful pictures, like Hones, 128 of St. Dunstan and the devil, give him a barbed tail like that of the fabulous dragon, a creature that was supposed to send fire out of its mouth with poisonous vapours ; also called “the fiery flying serpent.” (Isaiah xxx. 6.) This conventional dragon usually has a barbed tail. Moreover we often see one of the devil’s feet, even when he has a human body, drawn with the three claws of the crocodile, as in a picture of the temptation by Lucas van Leyden, 129 where the devil is represented as a monk with the dragon’s foot peeping out beneath his gown, and the point of his cowl drawn out into a sort of tail like a serpent with its head at the end. This latter fancy is a mere reproduction of the same treatment, to be seen in the tail of the famous bronze Chimaera, in the Naples Museum. Leyden’s picture, however, represents the devil without horns, unless they are supposed to be covered by the monk’s cowl. 128 Every-Day Book , 1876, vol. i. p. 671. 129 See Conway, Demonology , ii. 185. 16 122 HORNS OF THE DEVIL To find his horns and his hoofs in connection with any semblance of a human body we look in vain through the Scripture narrative, and hence the old artists, DUrer and L. van Leyden, were theologically correct ; but the first glance at pagan mythology and classic art instantly unfolds the whole history. We have remarked already that horns worn for honour or dignity were those of bulls or cows, while those of the ram and of the goat were used as symbols of fertility or the generative power. Moreover we read 130 that according to mediaeval belief all inhabitants of ttntbreux wear horns as part of the infernal uniform, that they are liable to be forfeited by way of punish- ment or degradation (hence the Italian scornare previously discussed would have force even there). We are told that the phrase porter les comes arose from our first mother Eve, who having obtained from the devil, the chieftains horns he wore, as the price of her complaisance , presented them to her husband. Many stories of this kind might also be produced, but there was evidently the greatest confusion in the Middle Ages respecting the kind of horns with which to ornament the devil, for we find them of all kinds. Without going further back than the classic period, it will be sufficient to point out that the god Pan who in ancient Greece represented nature in its mere animal form was compounded of a man and a goat. He was 130 Collin de Plancv, Diet. Infernal , 1818, p. 142. THE GREAT GOD PAN 123 the personification of lust and animal passions, but withal he was a merry, jovial being, full of rustic fun, of dance and song. The Pan-pipes, lasting till our own times, are still the recognised accompaniment of Punch and Judy shows, and remain the abiding witnesses to that side of the god’s character. The same notion of his grim, mocking humour peeps out to-day in the gesture we have referred to and repre- sented in Fig. 43, in spite of all the malignity, envy, and hatred which are usually associated with the spirit of evil. We start then from the position that our modern conception of the personal appearance of the devil is the outcome of the Greco- Roman representations of the great god Pan, who, like all the other divinities, had his various attributes separately personified, especially as Liber and Priapus, the most licentious of all the Roman Pantheon ; with these, however, our present discussion has no concern. We shall there- fore attempt no more here than to show the various stages of his growth into the creature now commonly accepted. Fi g- 5 1 is from a Roman bronze lamp, 131 and repre- sents Pan standing upon the back of a tortoise. There is nothing special about this ; he is shown as always, unclothed, with goat’s legs and hoofs, and in this case the horns are rather more like those of a ram than a 131 From LlCETO, De Luc ernis. The same lamp is also thence copied by Montfaucon, vol. v. pi. 183. 114 HORNS OF THE DEVIL Fortunio Liceto. Fig. 51. goat ; but although we know that the goat, and not the ram, was Pans special relative, yet we are told that rams and cows were sacrificed to him as the god of flocks and herds. The ancient artists, too, like their mediaeval and modern successors, were not always realistically true to nature, and, moreover, were sometimes guilty of mistakes in their treatment. We have seen pictures by so-called “old masters ” of the doctors in the temple disputing with our Lord, and wearing very modern- looking, steel-framed spectacles ; and we have heard of Abel being shot with a pistol. Further, it will be noticed that the lamp (Fig. 52), which the vine leaves prove to represent Bacchus, has very distinct goat’s horns, and we are told that Bacchus, or Dionysos, also a lascivious god, is but another aspect of Pan. There are also several varieties of goats now, as there must have been always, and some have horns much more curled than others. The attitude of Pan depicted upon the tortoise by no means gives the idea of a merry being, but Fig. 53, which shows the head in a well-known group of Pan and Bacchus in the Villa Ludovisi, gives a much better Fortunio Liceto. FlG. ^2. THE MINOTAUR 125 notion of the half human, half bestial face, the true foundation on which has grown up the modern, vulgar, merry devil. Here, too, the horns are not very goat-like, but a good deal conventionalised, evidently to suit the exigencies of marble sculpture ; but the fact with which we are most concerned remains, they are a distinct feature. The whole figure in this statue corresponds admirably with the countenance, and being placed in a very public spot, may well have represented, not only the then prevalent ideal, but have so impressed itself upon the minds of the people as to become a tradition lasting down even to our own times. Moreover, in considering this tradition we must not forget that the same Roman people had before them other horned heads on many important statues. For instance, in the Vatican Museum is a bust (No. 232) called “Giove in forma di Bue,” which is simply the head of an ox on human shoulders. Again, in the Villa Albani is a group representing Theseus slaying the Minotaur, a very remarkable statue, inas- much as it represents the monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Further, the Romans were still more familiar with representations of the Minotaur in the shape of a bull with a human head, well-horned, as on the Sicilian coins. (Figs. 9, 10, p. 23.) This latter, the usual form of the Minotaur, was probably the more popular idea, and is more in 126 HORNS OF THE DEVIL accordance with Greek models received by the Greeks from Egypt, who in their turn, doubtless represented and modified those of the earlier Chaldeans, shown in the man-faced bulls in the British Museum. Being so accustomed to the various forms of the Minotaur, on which the horns were never omitted, whether the head were human or bovine, we may easily account for the confusion as to Pan in the popular mind, through which tradition had to percolate. In fact, “All the gods were one ,” 132 sang Orpheus, and we know that Bacchus (called Bicorniger) had horns, Jupiter had horns, Pan had horns ; therefore we cannot wonder if we find those of the bull, the ram, the goat used indifferently, and often wrongly. When we Museo Campidogiio, Rome. mask of Pan (Fig. 54) placed ophagus in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. 132 King, Gnostics , p. 83 ; Symbolica Diance Ephesicc , p. 10 : “ Apu- leius quoque Isin, Deum Matrem, Minervam, Junonem, Hecatem, Cerem, Venerem, Proserpinam, Hecatem unam, eandemque esse praedicat.” find our modern devil then with the horns of any one of those animals, our chain of sequence is not broken, for they have been conventional symbols even from Roman times. We know, how- ever, that Pan, the prototype, should properly have goat’s horns, as shown on the typical Fig. 54. above the famous Amazon sarc- FAUNS AND HERM^E 127 Another example (Fig. 55) is from a group in the Naples Museum, almost identical in subject with that from which Fig. 53 was taken. Here the body is the same half man, half goat, and the countenance though different, has an equally bestial expression, and represents as clearly in the original as a face can, all the low animal passions on which we have been dwelling, as well as the malignity of the more FlG - 55 - intellectual being we connect with the name of Satan. That even in the classic age a more human face was often given to fauns and satyrs (the latter name only signifies older fauns, the offspring of such beings as in later days were called incubi and succubae) is proved not only by such exquisite works of art as the fauns of Praxiteles and the dancing faun at Florence, but by other works of ancient sculptors. Some of these latter clearly show a transition between the true Pan-like countenance and the beauty of those last referred to, even though the beautiful fauns were of much earlier date. Fig. 56 represents the heads of two Hermae now in the museum of St. John Lateran. In the originals the expression of both is wonderful. The horns are merely symbols retained to express the character of the being represented, and are even shown to be artificial and no growth, by being fastened to a fillet 128 HORNS OF THE DEVIL passing round the head. The relationship to Pan is shown by the pointed ears and goat-like beard, but there all resemblance ceases. Along with features showing marked power and in- tellect, we see an expression which is well understood, but which we can only describe as devilish. Here are faces uniting the Satan of Milton, of Faust, or Lucio in Miss Corellis book, with the mere animal, lustful Pan. As represented by these modern authors the devil is more beautiful in feature, yet none could be more fascinating than these faces in the originals, or more clearly show the grandeur of ancient sculpture in por- traying character. All who are interested in this subject are strongly recommended, if opportunity should arise, to examine the statues themselves, whence these two heads are but rudely sketched. The heads are about life size. Leaping over many centuries, during which the Gnostic ideas had their full sway, and brought art down to a very low estate, we next come to a strange period — that of the Knights Templar of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We do not meddle with the accusations, trials, or suppression of that body, beyond noticing the fact that many of the crimes with which they were charged, were before their time laid as accusations against the Lateran Museum, Rome. Fig. 56. BAPHOMET 129 early Christians, and since their time have been both revived and kept alive to this day against the Jews. Some of the most atrocious criminal charges of which many Templars were pronounced guilty, and for which they were put to death, are to this day in some countries preferred against the Jews, and no doubt implicitly believed ; but it is to the credit of modern justice, that even where the intensest judenketze prevails, there has never been an approach to a legal conviction. Without entering, however, into the controversy, we give in Fig. 57 two aspects of Baphomet, whom the Templars were accused of worshipping, and who is represented by their accusers to be the devil. They are taken from a well-known con- troversial work — Von Hammer- Purgstalls Baphometum Rev e latum. There is no evidence that the Templars either intended these, and other figures they have left behind, to represent the devil, or that they actually worshipped them, any more than other figures in the most orthodox of Christian Churches are worshipped to-day ; but the popular and the clerical imagination in the thirteenth century believed them to be intended for the devil, and thus we get some further though slight evidence of what the people of those days thought he was Fig. 57. i7 130 HORNS OF THE DEVIL like. It is very probable that the horns on one of the figures suggested the devil. The sun, moon, and cross upon the other should have satisfied their accusers. One feature in these figures is remarkable, and might have instigated these charges against the Templars. It will be seen that both figures are hermaphrodite, and this may have appealed to those who, as we have seen, believed that the evil one could assume human form in either sex at his will. We know from statues and paintings that the belief in androgynous human beings was prevalent among the Romans. The most famous is perhaps the statue in the Villa Borghese, but there is another in the Naples Museum, and there are also Pompeian frescoes of the same kind. We can easily account for the Templars’ ideal, seeing that they received so much of their peculiar cult through the Gnostics, whose fancies in the direction of combination between human beings and all kinds of creatures, evidently bore much fruit in the pictorial representation of demons in the Middle Ages. 133 133 On this subject see Martin, Histoire des Monstres , pp. 309 et seq.; also King, Gtiostics. See also Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Dictionnaire des Sciences medicales, s.v. “ Hermaphrodisme.” It seems to be the verdict of science that though physiologically possible and in many animals even tres accentue , it is quite unknown amongst birds, but whether occurring in animals or man it is always teratologous. The present writer, however, has seen pheasants whose plumage very distinctly partook of both sexes, and he is informed by gamekeepers and others that such hermaphrodite birds are not uncommon. THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR I 3 I Only one of these Baphomets is horned upon his head, but it will be noticed that the other in female attire has the horned crescent upon the arm and also the sun upon the breast, and it is worth noting once more, en passant , that upon the breasts of both the well-horned North American Indian chiefs, Figs. 7, 8, we also find the sun very plainly painted. So far as the sun and moon upon the arm and breast of Baphomet are concerned, the Templars could be no more accused of idolatry than the Dean and Chapter of Wells, whose seal of a later date we show in Fig. no y post, p. 200. Except in the horns, there is little in the Templars’ so-called idol to suggest any kinship to the classic Pan ; yet it is the horns of our modern devil that we are endeavouring to account for, and nearly every example we come across in every land from the early Middle Ages gives him horns upon his head. The monkish ideas of the time of the Templars seem rather to invest him with St. Peter’s description 134 ‘‘as a roaring lion,” but still the horns are not for- gotten, though the features are often so much con- ventionalised that they suit no beast in particular. To illustrate this notion we give Figs. 58, 59, the heads of two of the famous devils of Notre Dame de Paris, probably not much later than Baphomet. The bodies are only modelled as far as the waist, 134 1 Peter v. 8. i3* HORNS OP THE DEVIL but in each case they are, except the head, human in form, and as usual, nude. The artist who designed them seemed rather to desire to make them hideous and savage, than to repre- sent any known animal, though the goat’s beard is shown in one. Perhaps these heads were his idea of what a dragon’s head was like. Fig. 60 is of a much higher type, and is the work of a famous artist, John of Bologna, the sculptor of the well-known Mercury now in the Bargello at Florence, a statue, perhaps, more copied than any other work of the Italian renais- Notre Dame. Figs. 58, 59. sance. The little bronze figure here sketched has a history which we have recorded else- where. 135 It was, however, designed avowedly, and placed where it was, upon the outer angle of a palace, as a devil to keep off the devil, and has been known for centuries as “il diavolino.” This figure, though a good deal conventionalised, is manifestly Pan with the head of “a roaring lion.” His horns are, how- ever, much curtailed — still there they are — the artist’s notions of propriety caused him to keep them small 135 Evil Eye , p. THE ROARING LION *33 and inconspicuous. In this thoroughly composite figure we cannot fail to see a representation of both the scriptural and the classical conceptions — the lion’s head and mane of that “ old serpent the dragon,” and the horns and body of the goat-man Pan. His tail is wanting, but so are those of the figures on Notre Dame, and we may well conclude that the head is the feature which is meant to signify and not the tail. Indeed his tail seems to have grown upon the devil quite in modern times. The Florentine diavo- lino is really a beautiful little work of art, but of the thousands of tourists who visit Florence few have ever heard of it, and far fewer still have ever seen it, but we urge all future visitors who may read these lines to examine it, in order to be able to judge what in the Middle Ages was the popular idea of the devil’s form and likeness. The original is now removed to the Bargello, while a copy is installed in its place. Two other examples we take from Florence, and 1 34 HORNS OF THE DEVIL Fig. 6i. both are approximately of the same age. Fig. 61 is from a large fresco in the Chapter House, now called the Capella degli Spagnuoli, in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, painted in 1332. It is said to be by Simone Memmi of Sienna, according to Vasari, 136 but other good authorities 137 attribute the picture to the school of Giotto, of whom there are some undoubted works close by ; but seeing that Memmi was a pupil of Giotto, 138 the objection is rather hypercritical. There is, however, some con- fusion on this point among the authorities. The face in this example seems to represent extreme and violent malignity, coupled with a good deal of intellectual power. The body too, is human, though furnished with bat-like dragon’s wings. The horns, however, are very remarkable, and different to any we remember ; and they add much to the fierceness of the head. Fig. 62 is by another Siennese artist, less known than Memmi — Francesco di Giorgio Martini. The subject is taken from a predella representing the life of St. Benedict, in the Uffizi Gallery; and in ex- pression we see the same frightful malignity, but here too the horns are not omitted. 136 Vasari, Lives of the Painters , vol. i. p. 184 (Bohn). 137 Murray’s Hajidbook Central Italy ; Lanzi, History of Painting , vol. i. p. 66. 138 Vasari, Lives of the Painters (Bohn), vol. i. pp. 119-185 ; Lanzi, op. cit. (Bohn), vol. i. p. 55. WINGED HEADS *35 This artist, according to Vasari, 139 was more architect and engineer than painter ; still, he was a man of very considerable eminence. His work dates from about 1480, nearly 150 years after Memmi. In the well-known fresco in the Vatican called the “ Dispute of the Sacrament ” Raphael has portrayed Satan with a handsome, in- tellectual face, but a diabolical expression ; on his head, however, are the inevitable horns — large, goat- like, and conspicuous. In the British Museum is a print of a Last Judg- ment by Fra Angelico, in which the devil is repre- sented with a human body, and bat-like wings, but the head is a gaping, roaring bull, with high branching horns. Another print, by Marco Antonio, represents the devil with a repulsive human countenance, high horns rising from a bald head, bats wings, and eagles legs. Fig. 63 is from a picture by Liberale da Verona, also in the Uffizi, c. 1530. The devil in both these little pictures (Figs. 62, 63), as in that of Simone Memmi, is repre- sented as floating in the air, and they are early examples of the fashion Fig. 63. then first appearing of painting heads with the wings only of a dragon. The painting Fig. 62. 139 Lives of the Painters (Bohn), vol. ii. p. 123. i3 6 HORNS OF THE DEVIL of winged heads without bodies, such as these, ran riot, both in stone and on canvas, in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, and has not yet disappeared from some of our country churches, though the heads now are made as infantile and as beautiful as they began in ugliness — a development that cannot fail to call to mind the story of the Gorgon, which being at first the type of fearsome hideousness, grew at last into the Strozzi Medusa, and that on the Tassa Farnese , 140 considered to be the very ideals of female beauty ; so that the face which once had fascinated and turned men to stone by its fearfulness, came to be considered at last to work the same charm by its loveliness. Thus the devil has become a cherub. The demon shown in both the latter sketches gives the idea of low cunning and ribald mockery, while the mouth in each denotes gross animal passions, mixed with in- tense malignity. The horns are not so prominent, but they are a distinct feature of the heads, and although they are a good deal conventionalised by the fancy of the respective masters, yet nevertheless they are present, and are, indeed, veritable horns. It would be easy to multiply examples, and to produce them from every decade down to the present day, but enough has been shown to prove the general accordance in European Art from the time of the 140 See Evil Eye , pp. 147-164. EASTERN IDEALS *37 Greek Pan down to the very end of the nineteenth century. One feature of the devil’s appearance — his horns — has been so thoroughly recognised as belong- ing to him, that in what shape soever he is represented, it is almost never omitted. In the Far East it is the same. The most fearful faces are given to all repre- sentations of Chinese and Japanese devils, retain- ing, nevertheless, a general human form ; though in that respect they are by no means like the heads from Notre Dame and Florence (Figs. 59, 60) ; yet in every case we have seen, the horns are as conspicuous as ever. In the Naples Museum is a little black Indian figure in terra cotta; human all but the face ; the body is nude and ill-shaped, with exaggerated belly ; the face is beaked like an eagle, with no trace of humanity, but above all are the inevitable, conspicuous, branching horns. While the Indian keeps to the Aryan type, the Mongolian idea however seems wholly apart from the Greek Pan. The Chinese figures are clothed more or less in Eastern fashion, and seem but very distantly related, if at all, to Indian conceptions of destructive and malignant beings, but the horns are never omitted. We give one more example, not only because it represents the usual and common form of Japanese devil, but simply because the horns are so much like the European conventional type, that they prove the almost universality of the belief, or rather the idea, we have been seeking to illustrate. 18 HORNS OF THE DEVIL 138 Fig. 64 is from a mask 141 sketched at Mr. Bowes s M Japanese Museum, Liverpool, evidently in- tended to represent a face of the utmost ferocity and malignity. Of course it is but a mask, yet it is quite as Fig. 64. valuable for our purpose as the representation of the living head. We started with a mask of Pan, which nearly two millenniums before expressed the Roman idea of the nature-god — partly joyous, partly terrible, and we have seen how that same idea has shaped itself in passing through a long succession of minds in various ages and among many nations. We have seen how all the bright side, except the simplicity or gullibility, has been gradually elimi- 141 Upon the word mask the writer was severely criticised for stating in the Evil Eye , p. 147, that “ it is said to be but a corruption of the older Greek fidaKa, whence PavKavla^fascina or amulets.” He was told that he was utterly wrong — that the word is Arabic, etc. With all deference to modern dictionaries, he begs to repeat what he said as above, and to say that his book not being a philological treatise he did not think it necessary to give his authority, but for the information of those who believe the word to be Arabic he refers them to Boettiger, Kleine Schriften , Dresden, 1838, Ueber das Wort “ Maske,” vol. iii. p. 402 ; also ib. ii. p. 366. See also Boettiger, Opuscula , Dresden, 1837, p. 222 n., “De Per- sonis Scenicis : vulgo Larvis.” Lobeck, Aglaopha?nus , p. 973 n., says of “ Graeci novitii /j.a., larvas” : “Nomen romanicum Maaca s. Mascara s. Talamasca cum latino fascinum (unde fescenninum derivant) et graeco pdatceiv KaicoXoyeip pacn 458 ; iv. p. 325. 164 THE HAND They may therefore with confidence be maintained to be precisely what Saul and his soldiers were accustomed to see at Tyre, and going behind the time of Saul we learn with much interest that “the Tyrian civilisation of historic times, so far as we know its actual remains, is little more than a depository of de- cadent Mycenaean art.” 175 We are not, however, aware of anything analogous to the Phoenician hand having been found by Schliemann ; yet it is quite possible there may have been plenty of hands as domestic symbols, though none were deposited in the tombs. It is instructive to note the fish on Fig. 86, the symbol of Dagon, the fish god of the Phoeni- cians. We may, therefore, conclude the victory here shown by the hand to have been ascribed to him. The hands in these illustrations are all “places” such as Saul set up, and the same remark applies to Absalom’s “place” in 2 Samuel xviii. 18. It seems a pity, when the meaning is made so plain A. J. Evans, Address to Section H. at British Association, Liverpool, 1897. THE ROMAN STANDARD 165 by these Phoenician trophies, that our eminent scholars who revised the passages did not pause before they translated jadh as “place” or “monument.” Cer- tainly there was a monument, but it only served as a base whereon was carved the all important symbol — the hand. How important a position the open hand held in ancient Rome may be seen in the reliefs representing triumphal processions on the columns of Trajan and Antoninus. The ordinary standard of the Roman legion was anything but a modern flag — it was a true standard, that is, a pole, and, attached to it, was usually a row of round or oblong patera, one over the other ; above all, on the top, there were various finials. Some bore a cock, some a very minute banner, the labarum , but the commonest top of all was an open hand, sometimes surrounded by a wreath and some- times alone. Figs. 88-89 are from Montfaucon, 176 who gives them from the columns so well known, and these may be con- sidered as typical, though of course 176 These and many others are given in the plates to Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible , vol. iv. pi. 35. THE HAND 1 66 a considerable variety may be seen. It will be noted that both of these are left hands, but there are plenty of right hands as well, so we must suppose that point to be immaterial. Besides we find both hands used symbolically with seeming indifference. The strange fact is that the Roman eagle, which we should expect to find, is often so conspicuously absent. On Trajan’s column, from whence most notions of military accoutrements are taken, there are very few eagle finials compared with hands. More often than an eagle is to be seen a statuette, probably of one of the gods. In commerce, too, the Romans used the same device. On their weights, particularly on the quadrans , the fourth part of the as or libra , is very frequently to be seen the open hand, with three roundels to show that it contains three unciee , each of which differed but seven grains from our ounce avoirdupois ; therefore the Roman pound was nearly the same as the modern Italian libra. Fig. 90 shows one of these weights with an open hand on each side — a right and a left. 177 The club of Hercules which accompanies each of these, is seen 177 From Montfaucon, vol. iii. Suppl., pi. 44. See also pi. 90. Several of the weights have a similar hand upon them with a roundel for each ounce. Priapus was clearly a patron divinity of Roman traders. Many of the weights bear phallic symbols on the obverse, with an open hand and club or hook on the reverse. A lyre, a dolphin, a thunderbolt, and other well-known symbols occur along with the open hand on weights of the time of the empire. TRADERS’ PATRONS 167 The Quadrans. Fig. 90. on many other of the Roman weights ; it is not a mere decoration, but may be taken with the hand to be of importance, thereby placing the dealer who owned the weight under that hero’s protection. Some have a pruning-hook alongside the hand, one of the symbols of Bacchus and of Priapus, both like- wise patrons, probably of some other trades using weights, analogous to the Arte of Florence, who had each its special patron saint ; and just as our modern pawnbrokers mount for their sign the three golden balls of St. Nicholas, their patron. The open hand, as is well known, was commonly represented as a gesture of angels, and is to be seen thus in the Ravenna mosaics of the sixth century. In the scene at the church of San Apollinare Nuovo, the angel here shown on the left, Fig. 91, represents but one of a great assembly who hold the right hand thus, in a position which will be instantly recognised as one of the attitudes of benediction still in use, though rather more uplifted, by modern clergy. Our Lord, and the other angel in the illustra- tion, are depicted as making the gesture reserved at present in the Roman Church for the use of the Pope alone ; while in other of the mosaics, as in Fig. 92, w T e find alongside of it the position retained, since the schism of a.d. 729, as the priestly attitude of solemn 1 68 THE HAND benediction in the Eastern Church, as before pointed out, i.e. that of extending the index, middle and fourth finger, while closing the thumb and third finger ( digitus medicus) of the right hand. At Ravenna this attitude is confined to representations of the first person of the Holy Trinity, while the attitude now used by the Pope (called hereafter as the pose of the Mano Pantea) is attributed to the second and to the third. In the two scenes in Abraham’s life (the offering of Isaac, and the “three men,”) placed in juxtaposition, here de- picted as if synchronous (Fig. 92), all the three several poses of the hand of which we have been speaking are well displayed. The hand from the cloud and the right hand of the central figure are in the same ATTITUDES OF BENEDICTION 169 San Vitale Ravenna. Fig. 92. position, while the right hands of the other persons are making the other two gestures we have been describing. Note the three crossed -cakes, as we have more to say about them. The open hand, moreover, is not only a decora- tive symbol, as on the great Puerto del Perdon of the Alhambra (see ante , Fig. 83), upon the Moslem drums of Tunis, Fig. 93 178 (of which a sketch is here given), as a sign of adoration and also of benediction, but as the symbol of victory on Roman standards and Phoenician “places”; and in all these cases it is well known to be very distinctly prophy- 22 178 See for description Evil Eye , p. 250, 170 THE HAND lactic as well. This is made quite evident by two bronze hands, quite plain and open, but made so as to stand upon their own base, now to be seen at the Ashmolean Museum, numbered 2729, 812 from S Jebeil (Byblos). They are both alike in shape, but they differ much in size — one is about four inches, the other seven inches high. It is doubtful whether they are Greek or Roman work, pro- bably the latter ; but a glance at the Ashmolean. sketch herewith (Fig. 94) will convince FlG - 94- any candid reader that their purpose must have been that of a household ornament, and we doubt not it was considered a protective amulet. In the museum at Zurich is an open hand, num- bered 206, of Roman work in terra cotta. It is about natural size, and is precisely of the same sort as the two at Oxford, made to stand upright upon a table. We could not ascertain precisely where it was found, beyond the fact that it was in Switzerland, and that it is an undoubted relic of the Roman occupation of Helvetia. A hand of this kind in so fragile a material is of almost greater value than the same thing in bronze, inasmuch as it goes to prove the common use of these undoubted house amulets, made of mere clay, so as to be within the means of the poor. Their very commonness and easy destructibility fully account for their rarity in terra cotta. Another large bronze hand of precisely this kind HOUSEHOLD AMULETS 17 1 was found at Heddernheim, near Frankfurt, and with a full-sized drawing, nine inches high, is published in a paper by Dr. Becker. 179 There is an inscription in Roman capitals upon it. IOVI-DOLICENO G. IVL-MARINVS 7 BRITTONVM GVRVEDENS D D Without following the discussion as to who this Gaius Julius Marinus might have been, we see here a rare and distinct dedication of the hand to Jupiter Doli- cenus, the special divinity of some of the legions stationed in Germania, and we are further interested in the third line. It does not appear where the hand now is, but we presume in the museum at Frankfurt. This hand bears no mark of having once been the head of a standard, though possibly the next may have been ; we believe it to have been fixed on a stand, like Fig. 96. Kirscherian. In the Kirscherian Museum Fig. 95. 179 Die Heddernheimer Votivhand , Frankfurt, 1861. 172 THE HAND in Rome is another open hand of nearly natural size (Fig. 95), with no other ornament than a sort of conventional snake bracelet. It has apparently been broken off from its stand or base, or perhaps its staff. In the Naples Museum are two open hands, set on stands, as in Fig. 96 ; one is quite small, only an inch and a half, the other six inches high, but both are alike in pose, and were evidently house amulets. Once more we refer to its analogue as painted on the robe of an American Indian of modern date (Fig. 7). It still continues to be used both on the backs of Nea- Na P . mus. politan cab-horses 180 and as a pendant charm contro la jettatura , and can be bought in the shops of Naples, made of silver, coral, or mother-of-pearl. There are several open -hand charms in the writer’s collection ; moreover the Jews use it in this form as an amulet, they have it cut out of flat sheet metal, each side being covered with Hebrew texts, such as, “ Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” A specimen was shown at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, 1887, and described to the present writer by his friend Mr. Isidore Spielmann, but there is no photograph of it in the illustrated catalogue, though many other hands in various gestures are depicted ; all, moreover, are l0 ° See Evil Eye , p. 208. FAMILY OF THE PROPHET *73 manifestly intended to be worn as amulets. At Baalbec, in April, 1898, we saw a mendicant Moslem Haji, with green turban, etc., who had on the top of his staff about four feet high a hand of about natural size, cut out of sheet brass, and covered on both sides with Arabic inscriptions. Below the hand the staff was draped with a piece of black muslin. The owner seemed to regard the hand with special care and reverence, nor could he be tempted to part with it. This was probably that of the Sunni or Arab sect, who, with all Moslems, regard the open hand as peculiarly sacred. Each digit is dedicated specially to, and is taken to personify, one of the holy family. Thus the thumb represents the prophet ; the index finger is Abubakr, 1st Kalipha ; the middle finger, Umar, 2nd Kalipha; the ring finger, Uthman, 3rd Kalipha ; and the little finger, Ali, 4th Kalipha. The four are called “ Chakdr Yaran,” the four companions (of the prophet). Among the Shiah or Persian sect the thumb also represents the prophet, while the fingers are : — 1st, the Lady Fatima; 2nd, Ali, her husband; 3rd, Hasan; and 4th, Husain, sons of Fatima and Ali. 181 To sum up, we may accept it as certain that the open hand, whenever depicted, may be taken for the symbol of power and triumph ; or, when expressive of 181 The writer is indebted for the above to his friend Sir James Campbell, of Rosneath, whose long residence in the East renders his information of much value- *74 THE HAND an attitude, it is the sign either of benediction or of the extreme reverence of adoration. It may be, as Perrot et Chipiez say (iii. 253), that “la main ouverte et dressee symbolise la priere,” and such may be its significance when used as a household amulet. The lamhdearg — the red hand of Ulster — is said to be the same as that of the Phoenicians (and we suggest it to be the same as that of the Jews of Jerusalem). The tradition is that it was they (the Phoenicians) who brought it to Ireland, whence, as is well known, it has taken its place in heraldry as the special cognisance of a baronet. We have dwelt elsewhere, 182 at considerable length, on some other manual gestures, especially those of the N eapolitans, against the malocchio , all of which are represented in actual charms, made of various materials to be sold, specially, and avowedly contro la jettatura. Of these, as shown when treating of hands as charms, by far the commonest is the mano cornuta , the position depicted as used by both Dagon and Brahma r (Fig. 70, p. 149), about which it is unnecessary here to say more than 182 Evil Eye , chap. vii. Fig. 97. HERCULES ON A GREEK VASE 175 that the gesture is known both in pagan and Christian art. The Indian goddess (Fig. 97) in the Somerset County Museum has both hands so posed, and the Dextera Dei , in mosaic, on the tomb of Galla Placidia at Ravenna is also in this position ; while on other Christian mosaics at Ravenna (as on Fig. 98, St. Luke), the gesture is several times repeated. Hercules is represented upon an is ancient Greek vase as the protagonist of a scene. He has a large eye on each breast, and another on each thigh (four in all), very conspicuously drawn. Moreover he is holding up his right hand distinctly in this man- ner, so that it is evident he was intended to be making the well- known gesture. 183 San Vitale, Ravenna. Fig. 98. On one of the Apulian vases in the British Museum, No. 33 1 of cir. 350 b.c. is a sitting female, probably Tyche (Fortuna), making this same gesture towards a winged Eros. The name (mano cornuta ) by which the hand, with the fore and little fingers thrust out, is known, points to the close connection between it and the all-powerful horns of the several moon goddesses — Ishtar, Isis, Hera, Dinaa, etc. — whose help was supposed to be ever ready to protect their suppliants, and whose 183 Inghirami, Pittura di Vasi Fittili , iv. tav. cccc. 176 THE HAND horns, the hand thus posed readily signifies. In a former chapter, as well as in another place [Evil Eye , chap, vi.), we have dealt with horns at such length that it is only necessary here to refer to the subject. The action of the hands in the pantomimic telling of stories, shown upon many Greek vases, has been also dealt with sufficiently, but it may be here men- tioned that several other remarkable ones, told by manual action, are given by Minervini in Monumenti Antichi Inediti, Napoli. 1852. Much has been said about that other well-known position of the hand called the mano in fica. xlK We have but to repeat that this forms the ordinary silver charm worn with a neck-ribbon by Roman infants of to- day. Fig. 99 is a correct representa- tion from one in the writer’s possession. In Naples the children wear the cima- ruta, while we used to wear the coral and silver bells ; all originally for the same purpose — protection. This mano in fica, as we have shown, is the sur- vivor of the turpicula res of Varro, l8s and itself was known in classic times 184 On this see Evil Eye , p. 255 et seq. 185 De Lingua Latina, viii. 9 7. FAR LA FICA 1 77 as manus obscaena , l86 fully described by Ovid. It is this gesture of the hand which is known by all Latin races as faire la figue, and expresses the climax of contempt ; while in modern Italian, far la fica con- veys something besides, which is well understood as a double entendre . From this comes our common ex- pression, “ I don’t care a fig.” Fig. ioo is from Jorio’s Mimica , etc., and shows the back of the hand in the attitude common in Naples and everywhere else . 187 Nor is this gesture confined to Europe, for in Batavia (Java) are to be seen two heavy brass guns, in each of which the breech, instead of ending in the usual knob, takes this form. The meaning is fully appreciated by the natives, and the hand in this position is an object of devout worship, especially by childless women . 188 Besides its many aspects as an instrument for the conveyance of signs and gestures, the hand has always played a very important role in all matters relating to magic, divination, or enchantment, and in this con- 186 “ Signa que dat digites medio cum pollice junctes,” Fasti, v. 433 ; “ Favebant ii, qui manum in obscaenum modum formabunt,” PRETORIUS, De Pollice , Lipsiae. 1677, p. 42. 187 Among Neapolitans the position of the hands has all-important meanings, and those who desire full information on the subject are referred to Canon Jorio’s Mimica degli Antichi, from which are repro- duced three interesting plates of gestures, with their several significations, in The Evil Eye, p. 274 et seq . 188 Letter from J. B. Andrews, February 5, 1895. 2 3 lyS THE HAND nection we cannot overlook the curious belief in “ the hand of glory,” which seems to have been very widely spread throughout Northern Europe in the Middle Ages, and which is perhaps not yet extinct in parts of Holland, France, Germany, and Spain, while it cer- tainly is still remembered in England. It was “made use of by housebreakers to enter houses at night, without fear of opposition.” The true “hand of glory ” was the hand of a man that had been hung, which had to be prepared in a very special manner according to a prescription of which a translation has been published by several authors . 189 189 Grose, Prov. Gloss, and Popular Superstitions ; Brand, Pop. Antiq. iii. 278 ; Henderson, Folk-lore of Northern Europe , p. 202 ; Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages , p. 405. All these copy from Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal , who first obtained it from Les Secrets du Petit Albert . On comparing these translations with the original, we find all exactly alike, and none exact. We therefore subjoin the original from Les Secrets du Petit Albert, Lion, 1754, p. 1 1 1 : — “ On prend la main droite ou la gauche d’un pendu exposd sur les grands chemins ; on l’enveloppe dans un morceau de drap mortuaire, dans lequel on la presse bien pour lui faire rendre le peu de sang qui pouvoit etre rest£, puis on la met dans une vase de terre avec du limat, du salpetre, du sel, et du poivre long, le tout bien pulverise ; on la laisse durant quinze jours dans ce pot, puis l’ayant tiree on Pexpose au grand Soleil de la Canicule, jusqu’a ce qu’elle soit bien seche, et si la soleil ne suffit pas, on la met dans un four qui soit chauffe avec la Fougere et la Vervaine, puis on compose une espece de chandelle avec de la graisse de pendu, de la cire vierge, et du sisamie de Lapotiie , et l’on sert de cette main de gloire comme d’un chandelier, pour y tenir cette chandelle allumde, et dans tous les lieux ou l’on va avec ce funeste instrument, ceux qui y font demeurer immobiles. Et sur ce qu’on leur demanda s’il n’y avoit point de remede pour se guarantir de ce prestige, ils dirent que la Main de gloire devenoit sans effet, et que les Voleurs ne pourrvient s’en servir si Ton frottoit le seuil de la porte de la maison, THE HAND OF GLORY 179 The “Nurse’s Story” in the Ingoldsby Legends is upon the “ hand of glory,” and begins with three murderers standing beneath the gallows : — “ Now mount who list, And close by the wrist Sever me quickly the Dead Man’s fist ! Now climb who dare Where he swings in the air, And pluck me five locks of the Dead Man’s hair ! ” On the next page is the description of the old witch preparing the hand for use by a recipe differing from the more authentic one of Le Petit Albert. It runs as follows : — “ Tis awful to see On that Old Woman’s knee The dead, shrivelled hand, as she clasps it with glee ! And now, with care The five locks of hair From the skull of the Gentleman dangling up there, With the grease and the fat Of a black Tom Cat She hastens to mix, And to twist into wicks, And one on the thumb, and each finger to fix.” The effect of the hand thus prepared is in the main the same as recounted by other romancers. Its power was believed to be very great, for when set alight at the fingers it held all sleepers insensible ou les autres endroits par ou ils peuvent entrer avec un onguent compose, de sul de Chat noir, de graisse de Poule blanche, et du sang de Chouetse, et qu’il falloit que cette confection fut faite dans le temps de la Canicule.” THE HAND i$o and unawakeable within the circuit of its influence. Other accounts say that it stupefied those to whom it was presented, and rendered them not only speechless but motionless, so that they could no more stir than if they were dead. There is some confusion about the several stories told of its wonder-working, but it seems that it had to be lighted at the tips of the fingers, and that so long as it kept burning its effect remained powerful. Once upon a time, on a dark night, a knock was heard at the door of a solitary wayside inn, and on opening, a wretched beggar, soaked with rain, be- sought shelter for the night. As there was no other spare place for him he was told that he might lie down before the kitchen fire, which he seemed only too glad to do. When all the household had retired, a maid-servant, who had not liked the strangers look, determined to watch him, and this she was able to do through a small hole in the door. After a while she saw the beggar get up and go and seat himself at the table. She then saw him draw out of his pocket a black, withered hand, which he set upon a candlestick ; he then anointed the fingers and put a light to them. Very frightened she quietly rushed upstairs, but could not wake up either her master or anyone in the house. Creeping back very cautiously she saw all the fingers alight except the thumb — this was because one person in the house was awake. The beggar was collecting all the valuables he could THIEVES 5 STORIES i B i lay his hand upon, but when he had gone into another room, she ran into the kitchen and tried to blow out the burning fingers. Blowing, and pouring the stale beer upon them, only made them burn brighter, and at last, at her wits’ end, she caught up a jug of milk and poured it over the hand, when at once the flames were put out, and all the household immediately awoke. The thief was thereupon seized and ultimately hung. There are many stories told of very similar kind, in which it appeared that nothing but milk could extinguish the flame of the “hand of glory.” Old John Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary, says it was “generally believed when I was a schoolboy that thieves, when they broke open a house, would put a candle into a dead man’s hand, and then the people in the chamber would not awake.” 190 It is said that so late as 1831 some thieves in Ireland entered a house, armed with a dead man’s hand, in which was a lighted candle, believing them- selves to be invisible, and that it would prevent the sleepers from waking. They, however, failed and fled, but it is evident that the belief was current. Thorp 191 gives a story of a thief in Flanders, upon whom was found the foot of a man who had been hanged, which he confessed was for the purpose of putting people to sleep. There is also another story about some thieves at Huy in Holland who were 190 Remaines of Gentilisme , ed. Britten, 1 88 1, p. 103. 191 Northern Mythology , iii. p. 279. 182 THE HAND watched by a maid-servant, and who produced a “hand of glory,” but could only make four of the fingers burn, because, as they said, “ There must be someone not asleep in the house.” They, how- ever, set up the hand with the four burning fingers on the chimney-piece, and while they were gone out to call their mates, the maid rushed in and shut the door against them, but she could not wake the master, until after she had returned, and had at last succeeded in putting out the fingers with milk. In the meantime the thieves were attacking the house, and had just forced the door as the burning hand was extinguished, when of course the men woke up and drove away the robbers. This looks very like a variant of the beggar story, still it is evidence of the widespread belief. The “hand of glory” was evidently a well-known “property” of the witches and magicians of the Middle Ages. In a very curious picture by Jan Breughel, of which an engraving by Cock is dated 1568, we see his notion of the temptation of St. J am es — ‘ ‘ Divus Jacobus Dia - bo His PraestigiisAnte Magnum sistiturH The picture is full of demons of grotesque and utterly impossible shapes, but before a great open are seated four rats on little Fig - ioi « three-legged stools, while up THE WITCHES’ SABBATH i»3 yf\ the great chimney is flying a witch astride a besom, with another witch coming out at the top ; but the most remarkable feature of the scene is, that over the chimney beam, known in Somerset as the “clavel,” there is fixed a “hand of glory,” with a flame rising from every finger. Fig. 10 1 is a copy of Breughel’s hand. A later engraving after T eniers, entitled ‘ ‘ Depart pour le Sabat, ” 192 has many witches, and among other objects, also a large fire- place with a witch riding up the chimney on a broomstick, while again over the “clavel” is fixed a “ hand of glory” alight, of which Fig. 102 is a copy. Fig. 102. 192 The witches’ Sabbath was supposed to be held on a Saturday, when there was a general assembly to worship their master the devil, who appeared in the form of a goat, by dancing around him. At some of these assemblies it is said that Satan was much out of humour, and that he vented his spleen by beating the witches black and blue with the spits and brooms on which they had ridden to the tryst. Before the meeting breaks up all are said to have had the honour of saluting the devil’s posterior. They afterwards open graves to obtain ingredients for their incantations from the dead bodies ; also at the Sabbath “ Satan teacheth how to make pictures of wax or clay, that by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by continual sickness.” (King James, Dcsmonology, bk. ii. chap, v.) See also SCOTT, Discovery of Witchcraft , bk. iii. chap. i. p. 40. (Ed. B. Nicholson. Pub. by E. Stock, London, 1886, pp. 34-37.) Collin de Plancy {Diet. Infernal, p. 252 et seq. ; a long account will be found here) says that on the spot where witches have held their Sabbath, nothing will grow, and that Strozzi declares that he saw on a field near Vicenza a circle sur- 184 THE HAND The original picture of Breughel seems to be remembered by the writer ; he believes it to be in the Berlin gallery. The placing of the hands over the chimney by two artists, who were not only not contemporary, but who lived long and far apart, shows the subject to have been quite well and widely understood. 193 The story of the beggar at the inn is in one place recorded as having occurred in Yorkshire, while sub- stantially the same account is said by Collin de Plancy 194 to be given by Delrio (Disquisitional Magicarum, 1603), but we have been unable to find it after several diligent searches. Those, however, who know the book, will not be surprised at this failure, and the mention of the “ hand of glory ” by Delrio, together with the part it plays in witch pictures of the Elizabethan period from which we have taken illustrations, show how far-reaching was the superstition. That it lurks even now in many places we may well conclude from its mention by modern authors. rounding a chestnut tree, as barren as the sands of Libya, where witches had danced and held their Sabbaths. Wednesday and Thursday are the ordinary nights for the meeting. All of both sexes have a mark im- pressed by the devil entre les fesses . Part of the ceremony is baiser le fosterieur de Maitre Leonard. A witch being asked if she had kissed him said he had a visage entre le cul et la queue , and that it was this they kissed, not the cul. 193 For the loan of the two engravings, from whence the illustrations are taken, the writer is indebted to his friend the Rev, S. Baring-Gould. 194 Dictionnaire Infernal, p. 35. THE HAND OF GLORY 185 “ Thus he said, And from his wallet drew a human hand, Shrivelled and dry and black ; And fitting as he spoke A taper in its hold, Pursued, ‘ A murderer on the stake hath died ! I drove the Vulture from his limbs, and lopt The hand that did the murder, and drew up The tendon-strings to close its grasp, And in the sun and wind Parch’d it, nine weeks exposed. The salutary spell Shall lull his penal agony to sleep, And leave the passage free.’ ” 195 Sir Walter Scott was evidently acquainted with the superstition. In the Antiquary (chap, xvii.) he makes the German charlatan Dousterswivel describe it : “ De hand of glory ... is hand cut off from a dead man, as has been hanged for murther, and dried very nice in de schmoke of juniper wood . . . then you do take something of the fatsh of de bear, and of de badger, and of de great eber, as you call de grand boar, and of de little sucking child, as has not been christened (for dat is very essential), and you do make a candle, and put it into de hand of glory.” 193 Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer , book v. 27. In a note to the writer’s copy (Longmans’ ed., 1853) is given a long extract from Grose, Prov . Gloss., with the often copied translation from Collin de Plancy, mistakes and all. 24 1 86 THE HAND It is quite clear that the belief as sketched by Sir Walter Scott is a development of the earlier notion of the true “hand of glory.” There seems to have been in this as in many other customs a confusion and an overlapping : first the dead hand itself, as we have seen, was to be anointed and set to burn, then a candle made of human fat was to be placed in the dead hand, and later still came the belief still existing that what are called “thieves’ candles ” can be made from human fat. The con- ditions as to the hand of a murderer who has been hung, and as to the ingredients and rites to be observed in preparing the hand for lighting, seem to have been dropped, and only the main idea of the human fat has remained. Though a little outside our subject of the hand proper, a few facts as to this later survival may not be without interest. In 1619 in Lithuania, a hausknecht was tortured with red hot pincers and afterwards burnt alive, on his own confession of several murders, for the purpose of obtaining sinews wherewith to form wicks for “thieves’ candles.” He also employed the fingers of infants for the same purpose. A cook named Schreiber, at the Castle of Sorau, also confessed to being in league with him, and to having manufactured these candles. At Budissin two murderers were executed in 1602, who admitted that they had committed the same crime. THIEVES’ CANDLES 187 In 1638 a man was imprisoned for a month at Ober- Haynewald for cutting off the thumb of a man hanging in chains, that he might use it as a “thief’s candle.” This last example points to the survival of the idea of the original “hand of glory,” which the other accounts seem to show had died out. Frantzen, the Nuremberg executioner, relates in his biography how he had broken on the wheel at Bamberg in 1577 a man who had committed three murders for the sake of the fat of his victims. In 1601 he executed a man guilty of twenty murders, among which were several for the same object — that of making “thieves’ candles.” In 1 834, 196 in the forest of Plantekow, in Pome- rania, an old herdsman, named Meier, was murdered, and on the body being discovered a triangular piece of flesh was found to have been cut from his body, below the heart. The crime remained a mystery for over a year, when a quarrel between the pair led a woman named Berger to denounce her husband as the murderer. Mutual recrimination ended in the arrest of both man and wife, and the story of the latter strikingly accounted for the wounds found upon the herdsman’s body. She said that her father had more than once told her husband that the possessor of a “thief’s candle” could enter a house and rob it, 196 Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1887, “A Strange Crime,” by Rev, S. Baring-Gould, to whom the present writer is indebted for several hints on this subject. 1 88 THE HAND without those in the house being able to wake so long as it burnt, and that a “ thief’s candle ” was fashioned out of human fat. This idea ran in her husband’s head, and he often expressed his desire to have one. She described what he did on the day of the murder, and how on his return he pro- duced the fat he had cut off from under the dead man’s ribs, and how they melted it, twisted a wick of cotton, and poured the fat into a mould, but that it would not set, and that it remained fluid and had to be thrown away. The man, who was a known thief, after some time passed in prison, confessed that he had murdered the man at the instigation of his wife and her father, who often told him if they could secure human fat, and make candles of it, “ we might rob and steal in any house at night without anyone waking and seeing us.” It came out at the trial that they had borrowed a candle-mould from a neighbour, and also the fact was established that human fat will not set like common tallow in an ordinary mould. The sequel to the story is the strangest part. The man died, protesting his innocence of murder, in 1838. Six years after his execution, in 1844, a sailor was con- demned to death in Memel for another crime, and he in articulo mortis confessed himself to have been the murderer of the poor herdsman in the wood, and a pouch which he produced was identified as having belonged to the murdered man. ROBBERS INVISIBLE 189 The real connection which Berger, the thief who suffered for it, had with the herdsman, was that by chance he lighted upon the dead body, and the opportunity presented itself to him of obtaining human fat for a “thief’s candle.” He therefore im- proved it by cutting out the piece of flesh from under the heart. The story in extenso is recom- mended to the curious. It is satisfactory to note that except the case mentioned in Ireland in 1831, there have been no recorded instances of this practice in our own country within the present century ; but in Central Europe and elsewhere, the belief that certain charms render robbers invisible is evidently still prevalent, and is also the cause of many crimes. Nor does it seem to be peculiar to Slavs or Teutons, for in 1865, in Essequibo, British Guiana, there had been many burglaries, but in no case had the residents been disturbed or awakened by the thief ; so that the notion got abroad that the thieves were protected, and could not be caught. A Portuguese, whose store had been repeatedly entered, said, “If lead could not touch them, iron should.” He therefore loaded his blunderbuss with broken nails, and hid himself behind his counter. Between two and three in the morning the bolt of the shutter was forced back, and a man got through the window ; the shop- keeper fired, and the man fell. On his neck, wrists, and loins were found human bones ; he also had others, 190 THE HAND with some narcotic herbs, which he said he used to make a smoke to cause deep sleep to his victims while he ransacked the premises. He acknowledged having taken the bones from graves. 197 He was a black man, about thirty years of age. He died of the wound. It will not fail to strike the reader that here we have the two old beliefs cropping up — one in the mouth of the Portuguese shopkeeper, that witchcraft cannot stand against iron ; and the other in that of a British Guiana negro, about invisibility. 198 The narcotic herbs used by him preserve the ancient notion that fern-seed, 199 and some other vegetable substances, render their possessor invisible. The virtue of torches made from human fat for other purposes is believed in all over the world. So late as 1870 a resident in far-off Ningpo relates of one of the Tai Ping rebels, that in order as he thought to discover hidden treasure, he seized the first prisoner he could lay his hands on, and quietly proceeded to cut him up and put him into a large cauldron to simmer until a sufficient coating of oil had collected on the surface ; then a roll of cloth 197 From letter signed C. B. Loughborough, January 18 (1889?) in Telegraph. 198 On this see Evil Eye, p. 221. 199 Shakespeare evidently knew of this belief : — “We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern- seed, we walk invisible. “ Chamberlain . — Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.” Henry IV ii. 1 . SCHLAFSLICHTER I 9 I was soaked in this human oil and tightly rolled up into a torch. 200 The latest account comes from Russia, where, according to a Viennese correspondent, in January, 1889, there was a trial and conviction of four peasants at the South Russian Government of Kursk, for the murder of a girl of eleven, named Lukeria Cherkashina, in October, 1888. Their sole object in killing the child was to make candles, with which they believed they would be rendered invisible, and thereby be able to rob with impunity. It was stated in court that the superstition of “thieves’ candles” is still very common in Russia, and it is maintained by Dr. Bloch that it is firmly held by thieves all over the continent of Europe. 201 In the German criminal statutes of the present century are express penalties against the making of Diebslichter or Schlafslichter, Even so late as 1876 in Galicia the Public Prosecutor in a murder case referred to the Schlafslichter Nor has the accusation of murder for the sake of obtaining human oil been confined to thieves. One of the charges made against the Templars was that in their secret rites they took a new-born infant, begotten by a Templar of a maid, roasted it with 200 Once a Week , vol. vi. 1870, p. 218, quoted at length in Notes and Queries , Nov. 28, 1896, p. 445. 201 Leader in morning paper (? Telegraph), Jan. 14, 15, 1889. 192 THE HAND fire and took all the fat, with which they consecrated and anointed their idol . 202 The use of the hand in connection with disease such as that referred to by Naaman has been before mentioned, when he expected the prophet to “strike his hand over the place.” It is further implied by the name medicus , that of the third finger of the right hand ; and here again is evidence that a very ancient belief existed in the power of the hand per se, and apart from any instrument or medicament. The king’s touch for scrofula was by the hand alone, and being practised so late as the seventeenth century in England shows the extreme vitality of the belief. The strong- conviction that there is virtue in the hand of a corpse remains to this day, and here in Somerset it is the commonest thing for a person afflicted with goitre to go to a corpse of the other sex, that the dead hand may “strike” the swelling. In fact this is the recognised remedy. Aubrey 203 says, “The wenne that grewe in ye man’s cheeke at Stowell in Somerset, as big as an egge, was cured by stroking it with his dead kinswoman’s hand ; and Mrs. Davy Mill (Musitian) had a child with a hunchback cured in like manner.” “For ague, some of the women of Egypt hang to their necks the finger of a Christian or Jew, cut off a corpse and dried .” 204 202 King’s Gnostics , p. 195. 203 Re?naines ) p. 198. 204 Lane, Modern Egyptians , p. 268. THE DEAD HAND 193 The power of the “ dead hand ” is, however, thought to be infinitely greater if the owner had met with a violent death, and above all if by execution of the law. At the execution of Dr. Dodd in 1 777, “after he had hung about ten minutes, a very decently dressed young woman went up to the gallows, in order to have a wen in her face stroked. The executioner, having untied the doctors hand, stroked the part affected several times therewith.” Many other similar stories may be found in Aubrey, Scott, Brand, and elsewhere, but in these days it will be hardly credited that so late as 1845, at the execu- tion of Crowley at Warwick for murder, scarcely was he dead than the scaffold was crowded with women afflicted with goitre or white swellings in the knee, upon which the dead mans hand was passed to and fro “ for the benefit ” of the hangman. Whether any benefit accrued to the women does not appear, but the scene described shows the advantage of discon- tinuing the brutal spectacle of public executions. The writer well remembers a couple who fixed their wedding for the day of an execution at Taunton, in order that they might go to see the man hung and be married with only losing one day’s work. In Essex so recently as 1895 205 a female child was taken to be “stroked” by the hand of a dead youth (difference of sex is all important) as a remedy for rickets. 205 Pall Mall Gazette , June 17, 1895, p. 9. 25 CHAPTER IV. THE MANO PANTEA , OR SYMBOLIC HAND F all expressive positions of the hand, certainly the most important, as well as the best known, is that used in the attitude of benediction by the Western Church, but now, for over a hundred years past, limited to the Pope only. Although we have elsewhere devoted a whole chapter to it, the subject is very far from being exhausted. It was the open hand that was commonly placed 206 The illustration here given is from a sketch from the original, but it has been published in Bronzi di Ercolano, 1771, vol. ii. p. 3. 194 Naples Museum. Fig. 103. upon the top of the Roman standard, as already shown, but the bronze hand in the Naples Museum 206 (Fig. 103) is in a different attitude, showing that with which we shall henceforth have most to do. It must have been once mounted on a pole, for we find it prepared by a hollow to take the staff, and there LA MAIN DE LA JUSTICE i95 is a hole for a nail to fasten it thereto. The in- scription, not to be explained, seems to throw no light on it, but it is, however, probable that this hand found at Herculaneum may have served another purpose ; for we know that one of this shape, and with the fingers thus posed, was mounted on a staff, and was formerly carried in France, at coronations, before the king, as La Main de Justice . It was preserved in the treasury of St. Denis down to modern times. We may, then, assume this ancient hand to have been part of some civic mace or official staff. Another hand in this position, found at Pompeii (Fig. 104), is in the Naples Museum, No. 5505. It is well moulded, about eight inches high, and being mounted on a plinth, standing upright, is in itself evidence of what we show later on, that the hand alone, posed in this special manner, was an object of much import- Nap]esMuseum ance and consideration, if looked on simply yig. I04 . as a part of the ordinary house furniture. A hand of this kind appears upon the seal of Hugh Capet, and was in use down to the time of the Renaissance : another example, Fig. 105, is to be seen over the great door of the Cathedral of Ferrara, a building of the twelfth century. We venture to call special attention to this particular hand, because it appears 196 THE SYMBOLIC HAND to be placed upon what is well known as the wheel- cross, a very ancient emblem of the sun, and wherever we find it we may surely look upon it as a survival of sun worship. The same object, a cross within a circle, is one of the commonest of brass ornaments seen upon the harness of cart-horses in England and all over Europe, origi- nally so placed, as we show elsewhere, for an amulet against fascination. In Roman times this same sign of the wheel-cross was in very common use ; it is shown on several of the pantheistic hands in the following pages, and also on several of the dischi sacri in the writer’s possession, referred to in Chapter V. The antiquity of this emblem of the wheel-cross, as well as the Oriental source from which it originates, is proved by Fig. 106, from Nimroud, 207 which shows Baal, the sun god of the Assyrians, posed in front of his own attri- bute, with his open right hand raised in the gesture already described. The wheel - cross, representing the sun, was, with various modifications, the only object emblazoned upon the 207 Bonomi, Ni?ieveh and its Palaces , p. 253. This illustration has been copied in O’Neil’s Night of the Gods , vol. ii. p. 600, published since we sketched the above, but it gives an inferior, badly drawn representation. Baal, Nimroud. Fig. 106. ROMAN INSIGNIA 19 7 shields of many of the Roman legions. Of these we give examples in Fig. 107. Elsewhere 208 we have pointed out that the suns disc formed the centre of the insignia of nearly every legion of the army of the East; while the disc, or some other sym- bol of the sun, formed the umbilicus of the great majority of those of the West. It will be noticed that in two of these insignia we have the crescent as well as the sun, while one has the planets in addition. In Christian times we see it repeated in Ravenna mosaics (see Fig. 91), where our Lord has the same wheel - cross . . „ Pandroiio, Legion es Lomitan tenses, xxi. p. 36. behind his head ap- fig. 107 . Evil Eye , p. 169, from PANCIROLLO, Notitia Dignitatum . 198 THE SYMBOLIC HAND propriately and designedly to represent His Godhead; while the angels have but the simple circle or nimbus. Again we see it in Figs. 114, 115 post , where it dis- tinguishes each person of the Holy Trinity. Besides these, its use in mediaeval art will be familiar to every reader. And, lastly, we find this wheel — this sun emblem — still to be the type of the Irish cross, of many in the Isle of Man, of St. Martin’s at Iona, and of a large number in England, many of which are to be found among the crosses of Somerset. 209 We wonder how many of the artists who produce modern pictures of our Lord, and place behind his head a golden wheel-cross as a conventional nimbus, like Fig. 108, from an Anglo-Saxon MS. of the tenth century, 210 are aware that they are perpetuating an ancient heathen cult, and are demonstrating indisputably thereby, from early and dis- tinctly Gentile sources, H is claim to the title of “Sun of Righteousness.” As a confirmation of the assertion that the wheel nimbus in Art was really intended to represent the sun, 209 See Pooley, Old Crosses of Somerset . 210 From Twining, Symbols of Early Christian Art . Pig. 108. THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 199 1 Giotto, Rosini, ii. 123. Fig. 109. we give an illustration from a “Virgin and Child,” by Giotto, in which the infant Christ has the cross within the nimbus actually repre- sented by the suns rays. It is manifest that Christ- mas cards and other prints, which place the wheel- nimbus behind the heads of saints, are in error, both historically and mythologi- cally. San Gennaro, on the Neapolitan harness, inter alia mult a, shown in The Evil Eye , p. 204, has a wheel-cross nimbus, but we scarcely look for accuracy among Neapolitan tradesmen. From these facts it is clear that the hand of Justice, backed by the symbol of the supreme Deity, although both elements are essentially pagan in origin, may well be considered appropriate to represent the Almighty, in the second person of the Holy Trinity, in His attri- bute of Judge. Thus the hand posed as in Fig. 105 takes the place symbolically at Ferrara of the material- istic representations of the last judgment, where He so often appears in person over cathedral doors. In this aspect the wheel - cross is an interesting and undoubted survival of sun worship retained in Christianity. In Christian art, however, when used alone, the 200 THE SYMBOLIC HAND hand in the position we are considering is often depicted with the fingers pointing downwards, and as the Dextera Dei , it stands as the recognised symbol of the Almighty Father. It is thus that we find it in so many instances depicted in Miss Twining’s valuable book, of which we have already given a specimen (Fig. 80.). Perhaps no example of the hand thus posed, here in England, is more interesting than that on the seal of the Dean and Chapter of St. Andrews Cathedral, Wells, dating from about a.d. 1200, which has con- tinued to be used by them, ad causas , so late as in the last century (Fig. no). 211 Another curious fact about this seal is that it bears, along with the Dextera Dei , the ancient Gnostic symbols, the sun and moon, on either side of the central figure, just as they are to be seen on many of the gems and seals of the time of the Roman empire, and to be seen to-day on the arms of the old town of Ashburton. Another example of the hand in this position, representing the Almighty 211 Church, Chapters in the History of the Early Church of Wells , P . 258. ST. MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON 201 power and protection, is in a curious Norman sculpture (Fig. 1 1 1 ) 212 at Hoveringham, Notting- Hoveringham, Notts. hamshire, of St. Michael fighting have referred to this illustration in discussing the dragon (ante, p. 1 1 7). Another is over a doorway at Elkston, Gloucestershire, and one more in Somersetshire on a coffin- lid at Lullington. We have also referred to the same gesture to be seen at Romsey Abbey (ante, p. 1 58). The special position of the hand, with which we are now deal- ing, when used in sacerdotal bene- the dragon. We o Fig. 112. 212 From J. Romilly Allen, Christian Symbolism, pp. 162, 163. 26 202 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Daglingworth, Glouc. (Saxon). Fig. i 13. diction, is, however, always more or less uplifted, and not pointing downwards. In mediaeval art this attitude was generally confined to the second person of the Holy Trinity, as in the examples given (Figs. 112, 1 13). 213 It would be easy to repro- duce hundreds of illustrations of this attitude, but the reader will notice marked exceptions to the statement given above, for in the early Ravenna Mosaic at S. Apollinare, angels, as well as our Lord are represented in this atti- tude (see Fig. 91, p. 168). Again in the very rare four- teenth century MS. in the British Museum, Fig. 114, each Person of the Blessed Trinity is represented, but in this case the first and second Persons only are raising the right hand thus ; while in Fig. 1 1 5 from MS in Brit . Mus . XIV . Ce „t. another fourteenth century fig. 114. 813 Fig. 1 12 is from a MS. of the Gospels at St. Gall, and Fig. 113 from the Saxon Church of Daglingworth, Gloucestershire, both from J. Romilly Allen, op. tit. GESTURE IN BENEDICTION 203 MS. all three Persons hold the right hand in this position . 214 We have already seen that this gest- ure of the hand was well known in Europe and in Asia before its adoption as part of Christian ritual ; and yet it is curious that of all the known manual signs used by the demonstrative, half- heathen Neapoli- tans, this one alone seems at the present r Fig. 1 15. day to be tabooed and left entirely to the priesthood, or rather to the Pope. Canon Jorio, who deals with almost every other manual gesture, leaves this special one severely alone. He never even alludes to it, though his priestly office must have made it to him one of the most familiar of all. How it came to be one of the two adopted attitudes of benediction in the early Christian Church, 214 Figs. 1 14, 1 1 5 are from Miss Twining’s, op. cit. These illustrations were used in the Evil Eye to exemplify the meaning of the orb and cross. 204 THE SYMBOLIC HAND we cannot absolutely demonstrate, but we can produce very good circumstantial evidence. That it was well understood in classic times we see clearly from the description of it given by Apuleius. 215 “ Porrigit dexteram et ad instar oratorum conformunt articulum, duobusque infimis conclusis digitis, cesteros eminus porrigit.” ( Metamorph . ii. 12.) Probably it was a gesture made by orators in ancient times, but we conclude that it must then, as now, have been held to be a sacred sign. In Switzerland the hand is thus raised to-day, in taking an oath, just as the open hand is among the Jews. We gather this from Herr Meyer’s description of the hand (Fig. 135) found at Avenches. He says twice over in his description, “ drei finger derselben sind wie zum Schwur erhoben.” The plate he publishes shows one of these to be the thumb, and is, in fact, a drawing from the same hand as our own illustrations. The many specimens of bronze hands, all in this position, which are still preserved, belong to a period anterior to the reception of Christianity in Rome, and the important fact remains, that hands of bronze in this attitude alone of all others, were made the foundation on which to place so many of the attributes of the gods, that they have been truly named Pantheistic. In Chapter V. we hope to show that these hands are 215 Mittheilun gen der Antiq. Gesellschaft , band xi. 7, pp. 35, 37. Zurich. We give Meyer’s quotation, for we are unable to find it in the Metcunorphoses of Apuleius. THE MANO PANTEA 205 a distinct outcome or development of an earlier piling- up of symbols upon a less durable material. It is clear from the number of hands still existing, and from their being always with two first fingers and thumb erect, and also from being always so made as to stand pointing upwards, that great importance must have been attached to the position or gesture itself, apart from the figures embossed upon them. The number remaining, and the General excellence of the work- manship they display, would seem to show that these hands in the first place must be considered to be sacred in character, and next, that they must have played an important part in the daily religious life of the people about the time of the Empire, probably not unlike that occupied by the crucifix of our own days. There can be little doubt but that the mano pantea , as it is now called, must have been something much more than a mere household ornament, and we may take it as certain that in Roman families these symbolic hands held about the same position in their day as the figures of the saints and angels, with or without their special attributes, such as those to be found in most southern Italian houses, do at present. They were but a piling -up of the symbols of those particular ^divinities under whose protection they placed them- selves, just as the cross, the heart, the anchor, and other like objects are combined, set up, or worn to-day. There is evidence that the Romans had many 206 THE SYMBOLIC HAND other objects of household or family veneration, be- sides these hands, although we believe them to have been the most in use. Many such are to be seen in the Naples, Kirscherian, and other museums. One specimen only out of several drawings in our possession we give from the Naples Museum. Fig. 1 1 6 was found at Herculaneum, and is manifestly a household ornament. It is of bronze, about six inches in both di- mensions. The general shape is a crescent, bespeaking theTprotection of the Moon goddess. The eagle grasping the thunderbolt appeals to the almighty Sun god, Jove, while the heads on either horn represent probably Cybele on the left and Venus on the right. There is no aperture or any indication of its use for any other purpose than as a domestic ornamental amulet. If we attempt to analyse the feeling underlying the use of all these symbols, we shall find it to be much the same now as it was then. They remind their possessors of the powerful beings whose protection they seek, or whom they desire to propitiate, but no Naples Museum, No. 5460. Fig. 1 16. VENERATION AND WORSHIP 207 doubt, then as now, they who used and valued these symbols would as stoutly deny anything like worship of the concrete objects, as their Christian descendants deny that they worship images. They would in both cases profess to venerate (not worship) with the utmost devotion the personages symbolised, whether they be known to them as Barnabas and Paul, St. Joseph and Madonna, or as Jupiter and Mercurius, 216 or Bacchus and Diana. In the one case, however, the objects venerated are to-day called pagan superstitions, in the other religious objects of devotion. Surely we have a survival of this custom in the hand (Fig. 105) over the door at Ferrara. In seeking to interpret the root idea underlying all symbolism in worship, we must not forget the very narrow border which divides adoration of the image, emblem, or symbol itself, which is idolatry, from that of the being symbolised, which of course, is true worship ; the untutored intelligence, however, is but too apt to step over that border, and to confound the one with the other. Of the latter, the uncultured man, “ When the religious sentiment awakens within him, and, at the outset, searches its object and its food in the visible creation, he finds himself face to face with phenomena which he personifies, which are, on the one hand, lovable and loved, as the Aurora, and the life-giving vegetation, with the rain that refreshes and fertilises it ; and on the other hand, fright- ful and terrible, as storm, thunder and darkness. Hence come good gods and evil gods. As a general rule, and in 216 Acts xiv. 12. 208 THE SYMBOLIC HAND virtue of that nai've egotism which alike characterises the childhood of individuals and of peoples, the dreaded gods are more adored than the loving deities, who always do good of their own account and unasked. This way, at least, the remarks converge of all the voyagers who have closely observed those people of both hemispheres who retain their savage state .” 217 Hence it comes that it is easy to demonstrate how large a place fear has in religion, compared with veneration and love, amongst all primitive peoples ; and a little closer investigation, even among a man’s own friends and acquaintances, will convince the most sceptical that no amount of civilisation has been able to eradicate it. We have already shown the gesture we are describ- ing to be one of the sacred sutras of India, and such is the unchangeableness of Orientals, that it probably existed long before Greek or Roman history began. We therefore suggest that this hand posture may always have been held in deep reverence in their ritual by the flamines of old, as representing the D ex- tern Jovis, and thus, having been so shaped in the concrete bronze, may have been subsequently adopted as a suitable base on which to place the symbols of Jove’s other attributes, along with those of other gods. And hence we must consider these hands as o the classical link between the sacerdotal gesture of Western Christendom and its Oriental prototype, 217 Reville, The Devil , his Origin and Greatness , trs. 18 77, p. 3. DEXTERA JOVIS 209 behind which we cannot look. Sittl, in Die Gebarden der Griechen und Romern, Leipzig, 1890, p. 325, says that the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast (Daniel v. 5) was by a hand, in this position. We have, however, much to say not only upon the hand simply thus posed, but upon the symbols embossed on it, and on their origin. All the examples hitherto known of the particular kind of hands we are now about to deal with, are either found scattered amongst many museums, or noticed by many different writers, but in no case can more than three or four be found together, either in the concrete or in historical description. Jahn 218 is the first author who has hitherto ventured to bring any number together, and he attempts to portray but two out of the fourteen he enumerates ; while the great advantage to students of marshalling the evi- dence by comparison of the various hands by pictorial means, has never so far been recognised or attempted. He and all the others who have written on the subject seem to have taken for granted that these hands were all votive offerings, but as no arguments have been put forward in support of the assump- tion, it is here submitted that for this assertion there is but slender authority. 219 It arises, so far as the 218 Jahn, Aberglauben des Bosen B licks. The particulars he gives of the first seven in his list are copied verbatim from Bronzi di Ercolano , vol. i. p. 5, without acknowledgment. 219 Sittl, op. cit ., refers to these hands, and follows all the rest in calling them Votivhanden. He refers (p. 325) to Jahn, Meyer, Becker, and 27 210 THE SYMBOLIC HAND present writer can discover, chiefly from a single in- scription upon one of them, “ cecropius v.c. votum s.,” i.e. Cecropius voti coinpos votum solvit . This Montfaucon 220 translates “Cecropius aiant obtenu sa demande a satisfait a son vceu.” There is another hand (Figs. 153, 154) now in the British Museum, bearing an incised Greek inscription, show- ing that it was intended specially to honour Sabazius (the Phrygian Jove). We have dealt with this at some length elsewhere. 221 Jahn also refers to it as one of the hands known to him. It is, however, one of the poorest examples of which the present writer is able to produce a sketch, and we venture to submit that two inscriptions only upon all the hands known are quite insufficient to build up a confident theory to include the whole. More especially we would remark that there is no evidence as to when this latter hand was engraved, while as to the “Cecropius” hand, the letters are merely upon a separate plinth or stand of uncertain date, and it is even doubtful to which of two different hands the inscription applies. No other inscription than those above mentioned says anything about a vow. Upon this slight evidence, said to be on one of the best - known others ; especially he refers to three bronze hands discussed by Karl Dilthey, Arch, epigr. Mitth. aus Oesterreich , ii. 1877. 220 E Antiquite Expliquee, vol. i. pi. 137, p. 328. Paris, 1719. 221 Evil Eye , p. 298. VOTIVE OFFERINGS 21 1 hands, published by Montfaucon and by Grevius ( Thesaurus Romanarum Antiquit atum, xii. 963), and on the doubtful Greek words above referred to, has been founded the conclusion that all these hands were ex votos (Jahn cites this hand as b in his list). Against this we would point out that the Latin inscrip- tion relied upon is, as just stated, simply upon a base, that is not even part of the hand, but is upon a sort of turned plinth, which may or may not have been made at the same time as the hand itself. We should rather conclude that it was made afterwards, and that Cecropius caused the base to be made, to bear the inscription placed upon it, in order to mark that this particular hand was dedicated exceptionally as a votive offering. We understand votive to mean something offered in fulfilment of a vow, in gratitude for something received, or vowed as a gift to be made conditionally upon something prayed for being granted. Thus Jephtha’s was a true votive offering. Another fact which seems to tell against these hands being primarily intended as ex votos is, that so far as is known, no one of them has ever been found in a temple, or in connection with any statue of a god. On the contrary, they all appear to have been found amongst the ruins of domestic buildings, where lamps, cooking utensils, mirrors, and other bronze articles have been met with. We place first among our illustrations the specimen best known and most easily examined by our readers 212 THE SYMBOLIC HAND for themselves. Figs. 1 1 7, 1 1 8 represent this hand of Cecropius, known as the Barberini hand, most probably the one now in the British Museum, and called there Payne Knights. Most of the symbols are identical and in the same position, *as on the hand published by Montfaucon from the Barberini collection ; Mont- faucon’s hand, however, has a third small snake on the thumb, while in it also, the arch over the woman and child is carefully realistic, and is manifestly intended to represent a crescent. There are other differences in the size and moulding of the several objects em- bossed on each. The fig tree, for instance, in the Payne Knight (British Museum). Fig. 1 1 7. Fig. 1 18. NOT AN EX VOTO 213 Barberini, as drawn by Montfaucon, is not, like Payne Knight’s, as above, growing out of a stump or trunk ; there is, however, a very striking general resemblance between the two, and it is likely the Montfaucon drawing is inexact. We deal with this hand again later on. It should be noted that the plinth on which the much-becopied inscription was found has entirely dis- appeared, and it is now extremely doubtful to which of the known hands it really belonged. On the whole it seems most likely that the plinth was made to order with the inscription at a much later date than the hand itself. Moreover, as only one or two other known hands bear any inscription at all, it seems reasonable to contend that they were specially made votive offerings, and that being so exceptional they required inscriptions to denote the unusual fact. A conclusive reason for maintaining that these pantheistic hands were not what they are assumed to be, is that a number of unquestionable ex votos still remain, and that from their shape and general condition it is evident that they were intended, like the votive offerings to be seen to-day in modern churches, to be suspended. No doubt many of these latter were in pagan times hung up in the temples near the statue of some favourite god, just as the identical objects are now to be seen hanging near the statue, or in the chapel, of some favourite saint Montfaucon (vol. ii. plate 100) gives no less than 214 THE SYMBOLIC HAND sixteen of these veritable ex votos on one large page, and they are precisely such as those with which we are now most familiar — eyes, legs, hands, feet, fingers, etc., but each prepared or pierced for suspension. The only difference is that the modern notion seems to be, to make the ex votos represent that part of the body which has been healed by the intervention of the saint, to whom the offering is made ; whereas according to many authors, quoted by Montfaucon, each hand, foot, leg, finger, or eye was sacred to and under the protection of some particular divinity ; and consequently each member was a symbol of that tutelary deity, and so became a suitable object to be offered by way of gratitude, possibly for favours received, but much more probably for favours to come. Thus we read : — 222 “ That the eye was consecrated to Apollo, who, according to Plutarch, was symbolised by the Egyptians under the form of an open eye, because the sun, which means Apollo, cast his eye over all the world ; wherefore they called the sun the eye of Jupiter, and the Latins called Apollo Coelispex , the viewer of the heavens. ... St. Athanasius says the same, that parts of the human body were adored as special divinities. Some, he says, have placed among the number of the gods . . . the head, the shoulder, the hand, the foot, without reference to the cult of the entire body.” 222 Montfaucon, ii. p. 249. TRUE EX VOTOS 215 Montfaucon goes on to say that the fingers were consecrated to Minerva. The hand and foot tied together became dedicated to Minerva and Mercury, and the leg with wings on the feet without doubt to Mercury. Altogether the plate is both curious and instruc- tive. From it we give one out of the sixteen examples in Fig. 119. This account is inconsistent with his remarks upon the ears given in another volume. 223 “ La coutume d’offrir a Dieu la figure des membres malades, soit pour etre delivre du mal, soit en action de graces de la guerison obtenue, cette coutume, dis-je, est des plus anciens temps.” These ears (Fig. 120), he says, were vowed by a person who had been cured of deafness or other mal cT oreille; they were vowed in respect of the cure and “ non en action de graces.” The whole question of votive offerings is most difficult and obscure, whether viewed as an- cient or modern. Probably the Montfaucon, iv. App. p. 122. ideas which originally prompted them have undergone much evolu- tion, and though the concrete objects survive, many new beliefs may have become encrusted upon them, 223 Montfaucon, Appendix, vol. iv. p. 119. Ex voto, from Montfaucon, vol. ii. pi. 100, p. 250. Fig. 1 19. 2l6 THE SYMBOLIC HAND and yet, an fond y remain to-day solid monuments of paganism only half supplanted. Figs. 1 2 1, 122 represent a hand now in the Berlin Museum, but formerly in that of Bellori in Rome. This hand has been more drawn, and is better known to the writers named than any other. 224 It has embossed upon it a bust of Serapis above what looks like a cornucopia, and is perhaps in- tended for a tripod, of which but one leg appears. But no two drawings are alike, and Jahn ( c in his list) calls it a bracket. There are also a sacri- ficial knife, a scarab, and a woman and child under 224 It appears in the collection of Causseus, in Thesaurus Romanarum Antiquitatwn (ed. Grevius) ; in Montfaucon, vol. ii. p. 330, pi. 137; in Jahn’s Aberglauben , etc., tav. iv. ; in Boettiger’s Opuscula , tav. ii., and probably in other books, which the writer has not seen. Berlin. Fig. 121. Fig. 122. SERAPIS WORSHIP 217 an arch, accompanied by a bird, which seems to be watching them, probably intended for a cock (of which more later), the symbol of the watchful Mercury. On the back is a frog, at the root of the middle finger (, digitus inf amis), 225 a very appropriate position for this well-known aphrodisiac. The serpent is in this as in other examples also placed with evident design, climbing up the digitus medicus, and in combination with it, typifying /Escula- pius, the preserver of health ; there should, therefore, be naturally a close connection between that finger and the serpent. The balance, flagellum (the whip of Osiris), and crocodile, all seem, like Serapis, and indeed most of the other attributes upon these hands, to bear witness to the intimate connection of Roman with Egyptian mythology. This connection would naturally be expected when we consider that the time when these hands were in fashion was just that when the worship of Serapis and Isis had taken firmest root in Southern Italy ; when there was the closest mer- cantile intercourse between its ports and Alexandria. The Serapeum at Pozzuoli and the Iseon at Pompeii are the witnesses. Consequently we find, what indeed we should expect, that the Roman people having already assimilated the Greek Pantheon, would naturally add to it several of the new gods, as well as new notions concerning their own old ones, brought to them through their constant trading with Egypt. Thus it 225 On this see Evil Eye , pp. 310, 319, 413. 28 2l8 THE SYMBOLIC HAND is that we can account for such a piling-up of the symbols of different divinities from countries foreign to Rome, as well as the frequent duplication of the same symbol to be seen in other examples, and also the representation upon the same hand or disc (of which we speak later) of the same divinity by different symbols. These remarks apply equally to the cult of Sabazius and Cybele, Phrygian importations, which became very popular in later Roman times. There are upon this hand, besides the above, the cant hams, or two-handled vase, and the tortoise. We shall have to remark later on upon all of these objects, inasmuch as they will appear in various combinations over and over again. The extreme conservatism of popular habit and belief is well exemplified by the fact that we are able to show, by specimens in the writers own collection, that nearly every one of these symbols survives to-day, alone and separated from the rest, as well as combined with many others, as an amulet, made and sold in the shops for a porta fortzma , that is, against the evil eye. They are often to be seen in shop windows, labelled contro nialocchio or contro la jettatura . It is this particular hand which has been carefully imitated by Roman silversmiths and sold as a revival of an ancient amulet against malocchio. Two of these, one mounted as a pendant, the other as a brooch, are in the writers collection of modern charms. These hands are said to have been used as amatoria , THE WHIP OF OSIRIS 219 and at the same time they are called votive. The scarabaeus upon Fig. 12 1 shows its intimate connection with Egypt, where it was a symbol of the renewal of life or resurrection, as well as of the path of the sun (who dies and rises again daily) — a notion derived from the creatures well-known habit of rolling round balls of clay with such persistence. Dried beetles, powdered and mixed with wine, were con- sidered, according to Pliny, to be an infallible ama- torium. The scarab in this case is placed over the woman and child, wherefore it is said to represent simply the phenomenon of generation . 226 This same notion is repeated by the flagellum , the whip of Osiris, which will be found on many of these hands ; more- over, it is here, and in the next hand we have to deal with, placed immediately over the cantharus or two- handled vase, one of the recognised symbols of Osiris, the god whose story is so intimately connected with the Nile. Other authorities make the whip the symbol of Bacchus. The Jlagrum or flagellum of Osiris was the restorer of virile power, and according to Apuleius was the proper sign for a seminator . 227 It was, moreover, the symbol of divination , 228 and may also bear reference to the Lupercalia in ludo funonis, which latter goddess was believed to be the same as Isis herself . 229 On 226 Jahn, Montfaucon, Lobeck. 227 Pretorius De Pollice, p. 21 1. Osiris usually holds a whip, in Egyptian sculptures. 228 Suetonius, Aug., c. xciv. 229 Ovid, Fast., lib. ii. Causseus, Thes. Rom. Ant., xii. 970. 220 THE SYMBOLIC HAND the other hand Montfaucon 230 says that the whip is a sun sign, that it represents Apollo (Phoebus), for with the whip he urged forward the horses of the sun. This view is but the classic dress of the older Egyp- tian myth of Osiris in his aspect of a sun god. The entire hand manifestly symbolises Serapis, who really is the same as Osiris (Osiris- Apis), and we may expect every symbol upon it to be in some way con- nected with or related to him or to Isis. Returning to the first illustration, Figs. 1 17-8, drawn from the original now in the British Museum. It is part of the collection of the late Rev. Payne Knight, but it is not known how or whence he obtained it. We must, however, consider it to be the same as that de- picted with the inscription by Montfaucon, vol. ii. pi. 137, (P* 33 °)> an d by La Chausse (Causseus) said to have been in the Barberini collection. 231 As will be readily observed, it is a most interesting example, con- taining a much greater number of attributes than Figs. 1 2 1—2, which has thirteen while this has twenty-five. Of these, several are the same on both hands here illus- trated, while some others are but alternative symbols of the same divinities. Here, instead of the bust of Serapis, we have the ram’s head, which generally represents Mercury, 232 to whom we must conclude 230 Vol. ii. p. 330. 231 A fresh drawing of this hand has lately been published by the British Museum in the new Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Antiqui- ties. 232 Montfaucon, vol. i. p. 383. THE TRIPOD 22 this hand more especially to appeal. We often see the head of Serapis on coins and gems (eg. Fig. 3) with curled ram’s horns, which, as we show else- where, are different toto ccelo from those of the goat ; but the entire ram’s head seems not to have been one of his symbols. The ram is here appropriately placed upon the mons } ovis , the root of the middle finger, which in all cases we must take to be the place of honour on every hand, and evidently represents the god to whom the hand is sacred. Immediately beneath is the tripod bearing the three cakes, a common sacri- ficial offering. Again, this is immediately over the woman and child, so that we may in this case safely consider the ram’s head of Mercury to re- present the same set of ideas as that conveyed by the scarab ; the cakes typify the divinity of the being to whom they are supposed to be offered, in the same way as in the other hand this is signified by the sacrificial knife. The cantharus , again, being above the woman, implies that she is under the protection of Dionysos or Bacchus, 233 the generative power. Other writers, 234 as before noted, make the cantharus to symbolise Osiris. The tripod is an altar of sacrifice, and hence also denotes that a deity is above it. 235 Taken alone the 233 Payne Knight, Symbolic Language of Art , p. 18. 234 Montfaucon, vol. ii. p. 136. 235 “ Sacri tripodes viridesque coronas,” — V irgil, ALn., v. no a 222 THE SYMBOLIC HAND tripod is said 236 to represent Time — past, present, and to come. It is also said to represent the divine Triad of pagan antiquity. 237 Mr. Frazer 238 says there is much difficulty and confusion regarding tripods — that they were dedicated to Apollo at Amyclae, to Hercules at Thebes, 239 to Zeus at Ithome 240 — and he remarks upon the contest of Hercules with Apollo for the tripod. 241 On the whole, he considers the dedication to have been to Apollo. 242 There was once a street in Athens named “Tripods.” 243 We must not omit again to point out the striking analogy of the three cakes, which occur again and again, not only upon the hands, but oftener still upon the earlier dischi sacri, and, as we have shown else- where, upon the altar of Melchisedek, 244 and before the three strangers entertained by Abraham, from the early Christian mosaics of Ravenna (see Fig. 92). Cakes were offered in the Erechtheum at Athens to the supreme Zeus. 245 The pine-cone mounted on the thumb appears on this and several other hands, and we always find it in a conspicuous place, showing it to be an important attribute of whatever god it symbolised. We find 236 Macrobius, Saturnalia , bk. i. cap. xxi. ; also Thes. Rom. Ant., xii. 967. 237 Payne Knight, ib. 170. 238 Pausanias , iii. 18, 7, (vol. iii. p. 360.) 239 lb. x. 7, 6. 240 Ib. iv. 12, 8-10. 241 Ib. iv. 21, 8 ; viii. 37, 1. 242 Ib. vol. v. p. 299 et seq. 243 Ib. vol. i. p. 27. 244 Evil Eye , Fig. 113, p. 265 ; n6, p. 268. 245 Frazer, Pausanias , vol. i. p. 38. THE PINE CONE 223 that it was sacred to Serapis, and also to Cybele, and being on the thumb, believed to be the seat of power in the hand, we may take it to imply the god’s might, apart from his sensuality. The pine was the tree of knowledge in its Chaldean name asnan , and in Babylonish, asnan meant also pine - cone. 246 The Romans called the pine, pura arbor ; 247 it was beloved by girls, and hence at Rome a type of virginity, so that they may well have engrafted the Oriental sig- nificance of the cone upon their own tradition. As with the tripod, so with the pine-cone, there is much uncertainty and difficulty. It is pointed out by Mr. Marindin that the pine tree was sacred to Atys, and in the Megalesia, the festival held in honour of Cybele, who was worshipped with Atys, it was carried in procession. 248 As we find Cybele certainly to be represented prominently on other hands, eg., Fig. 135, we may perhaps conclude the pine-cone to be her symbol, but in view of modern usage of it, this is not to be taken as decided. As a modern amulet the pine-cone is very common. Especially is it set up for a protection to vineyards, gardens, and entrance gates generally. Along the new Cornice Road, from Positano to Cetara, past Amalfi, the pine-cone in terra-cotta, red and new, 246 Sayce, Higher Criticism , pp. 65, 105 ; also Sayce, Religions of the Ancie7it Babylonicuis , p. 529 n.l. 247 Ovid, Fasti , ii. 25, 8. 248 See Smith, Diet. Antiq s.v. “Atys” and “Megalesia.” 224 THE SYMBOLIC HAND may be seen on the piers and walls of numberless new vineyards and orange terraces, constructed to supplant the olives, now being rooted out . 249 It is not placed as a mere finial, but is manifestly for a purpose well known. In the Vatican Museum are to be seen no less than four large pine-cones set on handsomely carved dwarf columns, in all about six feet high, of fine white marble, and evidently intended to stand alone just like a statue or other object of art. The columns are all different in design, though each is evidently meant to bear the pine-cone as its chief attraction, while the elaboration with which the capital of each is carved, proves the great importance of the symbol it bears. The whole thing is such as can only have been suitable for the grandest of Roman palaces. According to Lazard, the pine-cone had also a phallic significance, and was much used in the cult of Venus, but we may dismiss that consideration of it here. Its use in gardens and vineyards seems rather to point to Bacchus or Priapus, the patron deities of vineyards, but probably on these hands the Phrygian Cybele is the deity symbolised. The crocodile or lizard, for they seem to be taken as one and the same symbolically, has been dealt with at some length elsewhere . 250 It was thought 249 This is being done to a large extent in Southern Italy, petroleum has so completely superseded olive-oil for lamps. 250 Evil Eye , p. 320 et seq. THE CROCODILE 225 to be the type of silence, and to denote both the wisdom and the silence of the wise. This idea arose, according to Pliny, 251 from the fact (?) that of all land animals the lizard and crocodile are without tongues. A lizard mounted as a modern amulet is quite common in many lands. It is made in painted porce- lain at Caldas in Portugal, to be affixed to a wall, and it is manifestly intended as a house amulet. We have elsewhere alluded to the Lagarto suspended over the door of Seville Cathedral since 1260, also to the croco- dile upon which stands St. Theodore at Venice, and refer the reader to the remarks generally thereon, 252 to which, if space permitted, much might be added. Even the Moslems of Tunis and elsewhere still set up a crocodile over their doors. We have seen one with a horse-shoe on its tail and another on its snout, of course to enhance its power. Seeing that we are now dealing with the objects on the back of the hand, we may, perhaps, consider them to be the attributes of other deities than the great ones typified upon the more important positions on the palm and thumb, to whom principally the hand was dedicated as an object intended to stimulate veneration. We find, then, that both lizard and tor- toise were sacred to Mercury, 253 and as we see that the caduceus, his undoubted symbol, is placed between 251 Nat. Hist., viii. 25 (vol. ii. p. 287, Bohn). 252 Evil Eye , pp. 214, 320 et seq. 253 Montfaucon, i. Supplement, p. 96, plate xxxvi. 29 226 THE SYMBOLIC HAND them, we may accept it as certain that Mercurius Triceps, in his threefold attributes, is here intended. Fig. 123 is from Liceto, 254 and the same representation is to be found in Calmets Dictionary of the Bible . Later we have more to say on this figure of Mercury. Next we find the frog in the same position as before, and doubtless having the same signification, about which we have said sufficient elsewhere ; but being here placed between the lizard Mercunus Triceps. anc j tort:o i se) directly over the caduceus, we must take it that Mercury is typified in his sensual attribute, for he was one of the four lascivious gods with Liberus, Priapus and Phallus. He was worshipped as such under his Greek name Hermes, and hence the obscene statues called Hermae, which, in one respect, were always considered to be set up as prophylactics against fascination. 255 The two whips also in juxtaposition, together with the two serpents in erect position, lend to the entire group a quite unmistakable meaning. The large pro- tecting serpent climbing up the digitus medicus and looking out over the front of the hand, along with the smaller one climbing up the index, have a twofold meaning. As representing ^Esculapius, we suggest that they typify a prayer to that god for preservation in 254 De Lucernis , p. 178. 255 Fortunio Liceto, De Lucernis , p. 581 . THE PROTECTING SERPENT 227 health, specially as regards the cult of Hermes ; while the erect posture marks the serpent as the watchful guardian, to be seen especially on each side of the entrance of tombs, whether rock-hewn, as in the tombs of the kings at Thebes, or as at Gavr Innis in Brittany, or on many a cinerary model house, in which the Romans placed the ashes of their dead. Many of these latter are to be seen in the Vatican, Florence, and other museums, having a Medusas head on the door, and an erect serpent on either post. (See Fig. 39 a.) We have suggested elsewhere that the cable mouldings on windows and door jambs, so common in Venetian architecture ; also twisted columns in the like position, to be seen in many other places, are but the conventional representation of the protecting serpent Agathodemon. 256 We cannot forget that the chimaera itself represented a combina- tion of the three great forces of Nature — the generator, the preserver, the destroyer — by the goats head, the serpent for tail, the lion for body. It is doubtful whether the insect perched on the serpent is a bee sacred to the Ephesian Diana, or a cricket ; both were powerful amulets, dealt with elsewhere. On further examination of this hand (Figs. 1 1 7, 1 1 8) we find that lower down, at the back of the wrist, are the attributes of other deities. The fig tree was the symbol of Priapus, 236 Compare the famous column made of twisted serpents from Delphi, now on the Atmeidan at Constantinople. See Evil Eye , p. 314. 228 THE SYMBOLIC HAND the cornucopia of Ceres and Fortuna (Greek Tyche). The thyrsus and vase were the representatives of Bacchus, the vase of Osiris also ; while the two flutes were peculiar to Cybele, the curved, or Phrygian flute, denoting the Phrygian cult of that goddess in Italy. The balance which appears on this and on many other hands is not to be easily explained. Otto Jahn plainly says he cannot do so, nor can the present writer do more than suggest that it may have been inserted as a type of justice, intended to appeal generally to the gods propitiated under their several attributes. Schliemann ( Mycencz and Tiryns , p. 199) found two golden balances in one of the tombs, but offers no suggestion or explanation as to their mean- ing. Many of the objects found were protective of the dead, and seeing how often the balance occurs on these hands, we cannot but conclude that it had some important symbolic meaning. There is one other symbol on this hand, which is by no means uncommon, that cannot be explained with any con- fidence. It is a kind of horse-shoe ending in two 0 rings or bows. We found an amulet for suspension in the Etruscan Museum at Bologna (Fig. 124) which is much like it. Provisionally it is suggested to represent a pair of crotala or cymbals, sacred to Cybele. Taken altogether this hand Bologna. must be looked upon as mostly lascivious, fig. 124. with a few attributes appealing to nobler THE BALANCE 229 qualities, such as the bee, the tripod, the balance, and the flutes, thrown in. Fig. 125 is a sketch taken direct from another very interesting example. It was found at Resina, i.e. Fig. 125. Herculaneum, in 1746, and is No. 5506 now in the Naples Museum. 257 257 Plates representing this hand have been published in Antichita di Ercolano , vol. i. tav. 5, and in Bronzi di Ercolano , vol. vii. p. 37. It is referred to by Jahn, Aberglaubcn , etc., p. 101 (f). 230 THE SYMBOLIC HAND If any further argument were needed to prove that these hands were not ex votos , as generally under- stood, it is furnished by this example. The stand with four feet, on which it rests, is part and parcel of the same bronze as the hand itself. It was there- fore manifestly intended to stand alone, on a flat surface, and could not have been suspended or mounted on a staff. Among the twenty-nine objects upon this hand is the full figure of a man, an object quite unique as such, although there are several heads on other hands, of the same bearded personage. From the prominence given to him, he must represent one of the greater gods, and from his cap and dress, which are distinctly Phrygian, he must be Sabazius, about whom we read , 258 that he was a Phrygian deity “whom the Greeks identified with Dionysos and sometimes also with Zeus.” His orgiastic worship became widely spread in later times throughout Italy. We find that the snake was his special symbol, scorpions also were sacred to him, and he became identified with Jupiter in his lower animal attributes. The Sabazia in Greece were festivals of so licentious a character that, at the time of Demosthenes, it was not considered respectable to take part in them. We can further identify this figure by the solid-looking thunderbolt across the fingers above his head on which are two snakes, his own symbols ; while perched 258 Seyffert, Class. Diet ., ed. Nettleship and Sandys ; also Smith, Diet. Antiq . THE PHRYGIAN SABAZIUS 231 in its proper place, grasping the thunderbolt, though now of course broken off and gone, was Jove’s own eagle. This we see by the claws which alone remain on this and several other hands. At his feet are the ram’s head, the tripod and offering, on which we have already remarked, denoting his divinity, and beneath, on the wrist, are the same woman and child, with the cantharus. On the back we find nearly similar objects to those on Figs. 117-8, though disposed somewhat differently ; the serpent, the snake, and pine-cone, however, are in nearly the same places, the snake on the index finger in both cases. Beneath the balance are four leaves crosswise, which we cannot explain, although the same symbol appears on the Tarentine dischi sacri {post). There are two knives, two frogs, 259 and but one whip. The cymbals or crotala represent Cybele, the mater deorum ; and below is the wheel-cross, a sun sign, which we have already discussed. The oblong with two holes and the object above it cannot be identified, notwithstanding that this is one of the best-finished 259 Frogs and toads were both considered powerful aphrodisiacs, and entered largely into the components of love philtres ; they seem, like lizard and crocodile, to have been treated as identical when used symbolically. Potter, Ant. Grczc ., ii. 248, speaks of the virtues in the bones of the right and left sides of a toad, very much to the same effect as Pliny, Nat. Hzst., 32 (vol. vi. p. 22, Bohn), does of the frog. He evidently got his idea from Pliny, and translated toad, whereas Bohn’s translator calls it frog. 232 THE SYMBOLIC HAND hands the writer has seen. The minuteness of the objects (for the entire hands are somewhat smaller than natural size) is such that, poor as are the Pompeii. Fig. 126. drawings, they are more distinct than on the bronze originals. The uplifting of both hands by Sabazius in the special pose has its significance. Fig. 126 is from the original, numbered -§-|f in the Naples Museum. It was found in 1894 in Pompeii, THE COCK 233 and has not before been published. In general size it is about the same as the rest ; all are from five to six inches high in their present mutilated con- dition, i.e. with the eagle gone. The average size is well typified by the three or four specimens in the British Museum. This hand again had Jove for its chief deity, though he is only indicated by the tripod with offering cakes, and by the thunderbolt with feet of the eagle, the body of which has in all cases disappeared. The fractures are quite plain in the original bronzes, and the claws show that the bird always faced to the front of the hand. Here again the woman and child are guarded by a cock, and in this case, being somewhat more dis- tinct, it helps to identify the bird. The cock was sacred to several divinities among the Greeks ; to Athene (Minerva) and to Ares (Mars ), 260 on account of his pugnacity, hence at Athens cock- fighting was instituted during the Persian War . 261 He was sacred to Apollo , 262 to the Sun, and to /Esculapius . 263 260 Pausanias, vi. 26, 2. Rasche, Lexicon rei numarice , s.v. “Gallus.” 261 .Elian, v. H. ii. 58, 28. 262 IAMBLICUS, Vita Pythag., cap. xxvii. HELIODORUS, /Ethiop., cap. iii. ; also Iamblicus, On the Mysteries , etc., translated by Taylor, 1895, P* 240. Much information is to be found in this book upon several of the symbols of the gods ; especially in a translation of Dissertation on Theurgy , by Proclus, p. 343 et seq. In this we learn also the sym- bolic meaning of certain flowers, such as heliotropes, the lotus, etc. We are also told how the cock is much feared by the lion — that there are many demons with a leonine front, who, when a cock is placed before them (p. 345), suddenly disappear. 263 HECKHEL, Doctr. Num., vet. i. p. 21 1 et seq. 234 THE SYMBOLIC HAND The cock was the patron or symbolic cognisance of ancient Imera, in Sicily, said to have been so adopted as representing /Esculapius, the god pre- siding over the hot medicinal springs. Those of Imera were celebrated throughout Sicily, Greece, and Italy, and their fame amounted to a religious cult, to such an extent that among the Greeks it developed into a worship of mineral springs generally. Heckhel believes that the cult of ^Esculapius arose at Imera, of whom the cock was the symbol. Her- cules is also said to have been the founder of the baths of Imera, and that the cock was also his symbol. Another account is that, as the herald of the dawn, he is called tjiuepofpcwos , and that from the similarity of sound the people of Imera placed him upon their coins . 264 On the other hand, Montfaucon says that the cock was sacred to Mercury . 265 All this does but confirm the almost inexplicable confusion of ancient mythology, to which we have so often to refer. On the back of this hand Mercury takes again the prominent place with his caduceus, above which are a bow and the usual balance. The bow is difficult to explain with certainty, for not only Diana and Hercules are often shown carrying a bow, but Juno Martialis has one as well, in some statues, according 364 Gabrici, Topografia Numismatica dell antica Imera . Napoli, 1894, p. 29 et seq. 265 Antiq. Expl . , i. pi. Ixxi., Ixxii. ; also Supp., xxxvii. CYBELE 235 to Montfaucon. The disc, or patera , at the foot of the fig tree is said to denote the earth, and thereby Cybele or Vesta, 266 who were its tutelary deities. The snakes, as before stated, we believe to repre- sent Sabazius, the Phrygian aspect of Jove. The one-handled ewer is a symbol of Bacchus the wine god. It has been suggested that the snakes on these hands point to the double connection of the “genius loci ” with the earth and its fruits, and the underworld of the dead ; but it seems improbable that along with symbols directly representing definite personifications there should be any denoting a mere abstraction. All the symbols are surely direct appeals to special deities. It is possible, however, that they may on these hands symbolise the tutelary deity or “ famulus genius loci.” “ Geniumne loci famulumne parentis.” (Virgil, Ain. v. 95.) Moreover, we can only explain the balance as a symbolic abstraction. The triangle, like the cymbals or crotals, was also, as a musical instrument, one of the symbols of Cybele and therefore we may consider her to be intended by it. Several meanings were implied by a triangle. According to many writers of the phallic school, it represented the female principle in nature. Others 267 say that it represented the three-fold nature of the gods, implied respectively in tria virginis ora Diana , 266 WlNCKELMANN, Monume?iti Antichi Inediti , p. 149. 267 Potter, Ant . Grcec.y ii. 254-317. 236 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Diana Triformis, Mercurius Tresmegistus , 263 fulmen t 7 'ifidnm of Jupiter, the trident of Neptune, etc. Others again declare it to represent the perfect, magical, and mystic number three, but all associate it in some way or other as a sign expressive of divinity. An object on the front of the thumb and another on the wrist cannot be identified. Another hand, Figs. 127-8, is also sketched from the original, now in the museum at Brescia, recently dis- covered in a field near the city, but far from the temple. It also has never before been published, and so far as one could ascertain on the spot, neither it nor its companion, found about the same time, have ever until now excited any tourists or other atten- tion. The Curator seemed surprised to find any- one to take interest in such things. Here Jove is denoted by a wheel-cross as the sun-god, while the ram’s head is mounted on the third and fourth finger, a position it occupies on other examples. The frog and tortoise on the front of the hand instead of the back are unusual ; so are the cup without handles, and the torch on the back. Next to the latter is the common straight flute. The large serpent, here twined about the wrist and climbing up the hand, is looking out between the thumb and index. It will be noticed that the large serpent is like other specimens hooded, and that this hand is also cast with feet to stand alone. In several respects 268 Liceto, De Lucernis , p. 1179. THE WHEEL-CROSS 237 Brescia. Fig. 127. Fig. 128. it is quite unlike most others, but the differences themselves are proof of careful design in the disposal of the various attributes. Figs. 129-30, from the original now also at Brescia, was found near, and about the same time as the last described, but is in a much worse condition through corrosion. It is, however, quite plain that it never had more figures upon it than are now drawn — 238 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Brescia. Fig. 129. Fig. 130. the serpent and pine-cone, which latter in this case occupies an unusual place on the finger-tips, where hitherto has rested the thunderbolt The hooded serpent too, although connected with the thumb, is differently placed to any we have so far noted. Figs. 1 3 1-2 are from the original hand in the Louvre Museum, and never before published. It is difficult to discover any special meaning to this hand, which, MERCURY *39 by the way, is not in a good state of preservation. Besides three or four of the old familiar symbols, we have a head perched upon the bent joints of the third and fourth fingers, but it is not quite certain whom it represents. Seeing, however, that we have an un- doubted Mercury in this same position on two other hands (Figs. 136, 142), it is tolerably safe to conclude that it is intended for him, and that the little points on THE SYMBOLIC HAND 240 his hat which look like horns are really meant for wings. The wings of Mercury on Fig. 136 are almost as ideal as these. The smooth face, too, and the round hat both point to him, although Seyffert says that Sabazius was often represented with horns, but then he is generally bearded. The torch on this hand is unmistakably seen only on one other (Fig. 128). For the first time we find a goat’s head on the wrist, as well as a ram’s on the thumb ; this is of course to represent Pan. The two large serpents on the same hand are quite unique in our experience, and moreover these are not crested. We note here also the crater without handles, as in Fig. 128. Next to Jupiter, under his various aspects, Mercury must certainly have the second place upon all these hands, and like Diana, as explained elsewhere, he has a trinity of attributes. Fig. 123 shows “ Mercurius Triceps,” often in company with Serapis and Isis; “ nam Mercurius et terrestris, et celestis vocatus fuit, quod illi accidit vel propter triplices vires, quas obtene- bat, naturalem scilicet moralem, et rationi obtemperan- tem facultatem, vel quod cum congressis, tres Alias suscepisset.” 269 He is also called “ Mercurius Tri- cephalus,” i.e. he is a god in heaven, earth, and sea (Giraldus). Servius, quoting Cicero, says he is Trice- phalus, because some Hermse are made tricipites in order to point the way in three directions. “ Mercurius Tresmegistus appellatus quod nunc fuerit simul et 269 LlCETO, De Lucernis Antiquorum , p. 1179 (1652). THE TWO LIGHTS 241 Maximus Princeps, et Maximus Sapiens, et Maximus Sacerdos.” 270 On the heads of the figure of Mercurius Triceps (Fig. 123) are three lilies, the royal flower, the flower of Juno ; in the two hands are burning two lamps, these represent will and intellect. 271 Can these be any other than the pagan prototypes, adopted into the Christian Church ? These two lights were pro- nounced to be lawful in the Anglican branch by the decision recently (July 31, 1899) given by the two archbishops. There are in the Louvre two other of these hands. They are smaller than usual, and so much corroded that it was not possible to make satisfactory sketches, but we noted that one of them was remarkable in having a pine-cone, not only on the thumb, but also on both tips of the upright index and middle fingers, three in all. There was a tripod and three snakes on the hand, two climbing up the thumb and one at the side of the palm, while as usual Agatho- demon was looking out from behind over the digitus medicus. The third hand in the Louvre, which there was no opportunity to sketch, is much smaller than most of those known to the writer, though it must have been finely executed. The thunderbolt, with eagle’s claws remaining, is on the tips of the fingers ; there are also a rams head and two serpents, but the other figures 270 Liceto, De Lucernis Antiquorum , p. 1179 (1652). 271 lb . p. 1180. See also remarks ante , p. 226. 242 THE SYMBOLIC HAND are so indistinct as not to be made out. The backs of both are too much damaged to attempt description, but they probably had some of the usual symbols. Figs. 133-4 are from the original in the Kirscherian Museum in Rome, never before published. There is nothing unusual about this hand, except that it is not so well modelled as most others. The symbols seem to point to several separate deities, rather than to the Fig. 133. Kirscherian. Fig. 134. FROG AND CROCODILE 243 elaboration of the attributes of one or two in particu- lar. The prominence of the ram’s head makes this also a Mercurial hand, while Mercury, Priapus, JE scu- lapius, Bacchus, are clearly represented by the usual symbols before discussed, and perhaps Venus also by the frog. The ears on this rams head are so erected as to appear like a second pair of horns. Compare this with the Egyptian god Chnemu referred to (p. 15). It is strange that we can find no one personage in the Roman pantheon whom we can certainly describe as represented by either the frog or the crocodile. On both Pliny descants at considerable length, and inasmuch as we find one or both upon the majority of these pantheistic hands, we must conclude that they were like the balance, intended to reinforce certain attributes of the gods symbolised, or possibly to represent special qualities to be aimed at in the daily cult wherein we believe these hands held their place. The extreme licentiousness of Roman society in the later period to which these hands belong, lends con- sistency to the belief that Aphroditic worship is, to a great extent, symbolised by them. It is probable that as symbols both frog and crocodile came to Rome with Serapis from Egypt, and that as both creatures were held there in great reverence, so they took a like place in the estimation of the Romans. It is certain that the frog has maintained its position down to the present time, for it is still one of the 244 THE SYMBOLIC HAND commonest of modern Italian and Greek amulets ; like the lizard and tortoise it is also made at Caldas as a Portuguese amulet. The writer possesses frog amulets from Constantinople, Smyrna, Athens, Naples, and Rome. Figs. 135-6 show a hand now in the Museum at Zurich. It was found in 1845 at Avenches in Canton Zurich Museum. Fig. 135. Fig. 136. Vaud, near the lake of Morat. Aventicum was once the Roman capital of Helvetia, and thus no explana- tion is needed to account for theTnd. The illustration MEYER AND JAHN 245 is from the original, though a plate of it is given in Herr Meyers article. 272 This example is mentioned by Jahn, 273 but he only quotes Meyer, and the drawing of the hand was not published by the latter till 1856, after Jahn wrote. The writer had an opportunity of comparing Herr Meyer’s plate with the original, and has ventured to put forward his own sketch here given from one taken on the spot, as a little more correct in detail. Herr Meyer follows the old story as to this being a votive hand, and assumes that this was one made by a Wdchnerin for a safe delivery ; but although he pro- duces no evidence except the presence of the woman and child in support of this ; he himself furnishes, in his description of another hand, almost certain proof that such was not the intention of one at least of them ; and arguing from the known to the unknown, we again confidently submit that not any one of them was an ex voto at all, i.e., for favours received, but rather an expression of supplication to the gods for blessings to come. On the hand in the Zurich Museum (Fig. 135), he seems to support our con- tention, for he remarks, that it is not improbable the mother depicted may be seeking the protection of the deities for her new-born child, and by the aid of powerful amulets to guard it from sorcery and witch- craft. He says that in the Leyden example (see post , 272 Mittheilungen der Antiquarische Gesellschaft, vol. xi., Zurich, 1856. 273 Aberglauben , etc., p. 102. 246 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Fig. 149), on the other hand, instead of the woman and child upon the wrist (where, in all these hands known to us, they alone are placed) there stand the man and wife together, holding each others hands over an altar. “ Who can doubt that this repre- sents an appeal to the divinities shown above them for a safe and happy delivery to come?” Here we entirely agree with him. On this Meyer, who is not very clear, goes on to say, that it is also an ex voto for a safe delivery, “wie O. Jahn sagt,” showing, as we submit, that Meyer does not himself quite believe it, though he does not venture to con- trovert so great an authority as Jahn. It cannot be reasonably maintained that the same object can be intended as a propitiatory or protecting amulet, and at the same time be an ex voto or thank- offering in fulfilment of a vow, conditional upon the favours prayed for having been received. Meyer says of the Avenches hand (Fig. 135) that it excels all others in the richness and multitude of the objects upon it, and in this also we agree with him. It is undoubtedly sacred to the Phrygian god (Sabazius), who had in the later period of the Empire almost entirely engrossed the worship of the Roman people to the exclusion of Jove in his other aspect as Serapis. From its delicacy of workmanship, and the tenderness ( weichheit ) of the fingers, he con- siders it to be a womans hand, and he compares it unfavourably with the patched - up and new hands VARIOUS GODS 247 upon many of the antique statues, very few of which have been found with their fingers perfect. He says it is about four inches high, and it rests upon a round base. We say it is nearer six. On the thumb is a pine-cone, and on the bent third and fourth fingers is a head of Mercury, young, and with wings on his cap. On the back, behind the fore and middle fingers, is a bust of Bacchus, holding his hand over his head, which is decked with grapes and vine leaves, while his breast is partly covered by the chlamys; behind Mercury is a ram’s head. The bust on the front of the fore and middle fingers is the Phrygian Sabazius, the same bearded face we see in Figs. 125 and 137. His cap is of the usual type, but with two projections, which perhaps represent the horns with which he is so often depicted. The objects immediately below him are probably intended for offering-cakes, as seen beneath Serapis in other hands, except that here are four instead of the usual three. Close to the ram’s head is the frog, and next to him the tortoise, then the cantharus , and next the crocodile. On the root of the thumb is the bust of Cybele, wear- ing the turret crown, and over her head the tympanum (prototype of the tambourine), one of the proper attributes of this Asiatic goddess. The serpent on this hand differs from most others, in twining twice round the wrist and then climbing up the palm instead of the back of the hand. This occurs in 248 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Fig. 1 3 1, now in the Louvre. Near the serpent is a cap surmounted by a cross, and then a branch of oak, having exaggerated acorns. On the front of the wrist is the woman and child, but without the usual arch over them. Altogether this is a most interesting hand, from the number of busts of deities upon it. The other objects, except the cap and oak branch, are common enough. The strange mixing up of all these gods, the Phrygian Sabazius and Cybele, the Romano-Greek Hermes or Mercury, Dionysos or Bacchus, with the Egyptian crocodile and serpent, bear witness to the effect which the conquered people had upon their conquerors, and proves the readiness of the Romans to adopt any religion, or even none at all, from those with whom they were brought into contact ; indeed, had they been now existent, they would well deserve the name “ undenominational,” from comprehending all while preferring none. Figs. 137-8 are from Caylus (Tubieres) Recueil , vol. v. pi. 63 ; in Jahn’s list, p. 101 (g). This hand is remarkable from being a left hand, the only one of this kind known to the writer, a fact unnoticed hitherto, and it is clear from this out of many oversights, that Jahn and others who have written upon them have not given these important objects very close examination or attention ; they have for the most part merely quoted from each other or copied from others. The head here is evidently the same as that of the figure in the same position MITHRAS 249 on Figs. 125, 136. From his cap we believe that he represents the bearded Phrygian Sabazius, which we must take from his repeated appearance to be proof of his having at least rivalled, even if not supplanted, [Caylus (Tubicres) Recueil , vol. v pi. 63. Fig. 137. Fig. 138. both Serapis and Jupiter in the Roman pantheon. It has been suggested that this bust may be that of Mithras, whose cult, though brought to Rome by Pompey, was very much in vogue under the later Empire : yet we submit that he is always represented as a smooth-faced youth, and therefore the bearded 32 THE SYMBOLIC HAND 150 figure could not be meant for him. We think these hands for the most part belong to an earlier period, seeing that two, at least, were found at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and therefore cannot be later than a.d. 60, when Mithraic worship had scarcely so far taken root as to have supplanted Sabazius. Moreover, Fig. 125, probably one of the earliest, has Sabazius undoubtedly in the place of honour. It is hard to say what bird is intended to be perched on the thumb, probably the dove, an attribute of Venus. The woman and child are in their usual place, but are remarkable for being placed under the snake or smaller serpent instead of under the arch or crescent. 274 Moreover, we have here two crocodiles, as if to impose silence on both sides of the hand. The object below the one on the palm is uncertain, it may be a scarab. Figs. 139-40 are from the museum of St. Genevieve, and this hand was published by Montfaucon (vol. ii. pi. 137). It was found in Tournay, 375 and after having dis- appeared for many years, its present resting-place is the usual bourne of lost antiquities, the British Museum. The front only of this hand has been hitherto published, 274 It is assumed from these, by Jahn, that all the hands on which they appear are ex votos in respect of childbirth, past or expectant. Against this we have Meyer’s remarks {ante, p. 245), which seem to be conclusive. 275 Jahn, whose list as to the first seven hands is copied verbatim from Bronzi di Ercolano , gives this as (a). It was also published by Pignorius, Paris, 1623. THE DIOSCURI 251 British Museum. Fig. 139. Fig. 140. first by Pignorius, from whom Montfaucon copied. The present writer is now able for the first time to supply the deficiency from a sketch made from the original, and so to exhibit this hand like the rest front and back. Bacchus is strongly represented by the two thyrsi, while the crescent upon the palm is quite a new feature, representing Diana according to all authorities. The two round caps are said 276 to re- present Castor and Pollux, and the cross on the top 276 Jahn, p. 105, also Montfaucon, vol. ii. p. 330 ; also Roscher, Lexikon , etc., s.v. “ Dioscuri.” 252 THE SYMBOLIC HAND of each their respective stars. On the back of this hand there are, according to Jahn, who never saw it, but copied Montfaucon, a lyre, pincers, cymbals, Phrygian flute, knife, and a phallus. The two caps here represented are manifestly the same as the single one on Fig. 136, which Meyer calls a bell. We see that there are two Phrygian flutes as in other examples, and that the so-called knife is the well-known pruning- hook, symbol of both Bacchus and Priapus. There is also the sistrum , 277 sacred to Isis, and a large object, possibly meant for a caduceus, but not to be identified with certainty. It has been suggested that this may be the my s tic a vannus Iacchi of Virgil, an ancient winnowing implement borne often in the processions celebrated in honour of Bacchus and Ceres : or at least it may be the old winnowing shovel, symbolic of those divinities, who were proper guardians of agriculture and rural life. The special features to be noted in this unique hand are the crescent, the lyre, the tongs of Vulcan, and the phallus. Upon these we shall have much to say in our next chapter. Figs. 1 4 1-2 are from Gori, 278 cited by Jahn ( e ), but it does not appear where the hand was found, nor where it is at present. Gori writes upon this, that it is un- doubtedly sacred to Mercury, and that the right hand 277 In the Naples Museum are several statues of Isis, each holding a sistrum. 278 Inscriptionum Antiquaruni , vol. iii. pi- 5. Florence, 1643. GORI’S OPINION 253 Gori. Fig. 141. Fig. 142. was dedicated to him whenever his image appears upon it. He goes on to repeat the old story about these hands being ex votos , but his only evidence relates to the one bearing the inscription by Cecro- pius, and, according to him, it was this hand which Cecropius dedicated! He enumerates a number of articles offered to the gods, and also many objects sacred to them severally. He says the eyes, tongue, teeth, breast, etc., represented the parts healed, and that they were made of gold, silver, ivory, precious stones, crystal, and even of bronze ; still others of wax, 254 THE SYMBOLIC HAND wood and clay (terra-cotta). All this is precisely true of the objects hung up in his time, and in the churches of to-day, but there is not a scrap of evidence that these pantheistic hands were ever ex votos , in the sense of being so devoted in temples, etc. Gori remarks on the identity of gesture in every one of them, and that the thumb, index, and middle fingers being raised while the others are closed, is because these were considered more apt at numeration ; but he says he cannot account for the closing of the medicus and minimus. At the same time he refers to Numa having dedicated this sign to denote 300 on the right hand and 65 on the left. 279 The cuirass of Mars and the three little pots are new features ; so is the second tortoise on the palm near the can- tharus . Its position, no less than its curious foreshortening, is remarkable. One little pot similar to these is upon the Payne Knight hand (Fig. 118), and we would point out, regarding this difference in the numbers of the same objects, that on one hand (Fig. 140) we have two caps, and in another (Fig. 136), one of the self-same kind ; so we have two frogs, and four cakes, against one and three in other hands. Figs. 143-4 are from Montfaucon (Bonanni Coll.), ii. pi. 137. This hand was found in 1708 on the Isola Farnese in Rome, and used to be in the museum of the Collegio Romano, now merged in the Kirscherian, 279 All this is dealt with in the Evil Eye , p. 236 et seq. See also PLINY, Nat. Hist., xiv. c. vii. ; MACROBIUS, Sat., i. c. xiii. THE CANTHARUS 255 Isola Farnese, Montfaucon. Fig. 243. Fig. 144. but it has disappeared. It is (d) in Jahn’s list, who simply copied Bonanni, from Antichita di Ercolano , vol. i. p. 5. The termination of the thumb in the head of Serapis is very remarkable, and together with the ram’s head, of course denotes the dedication of the hand to him and to Mercury as the principal deities. Again we find the cantharus of Bacchus on the front, and a unique example of a vine bearing fruit on the back of the hand, which go to prove that he was the other principal god worshipped thereby. This is an 256 THE SYMBOLIC HAND interesting specimen showing nearly the same variety in the combination of attributes, compared with other hands, as we find to-day in the modern pantheistic cimaruta. 2io Figs. 145-6 are from Dissertazioni della Pia Accade- mia di Archczologia (Roma, 1836, vol. vii. p. 427), cited Valeria in Cagli. Fig. 145. Fig. 146. as (z) in Jahn’s list. It was found at Valeria in Cagli about 1833. Where the hand is at present is unknown. Wanting the eagle, it is said to be of the exact size of 280 See Evil Eye , p. 343 et seq. THE PURSE OF MERCURY 257 the original drawing, which is just six inches high. In many respects it is peculiar, for while the pine-cone in the centre of the palm seems perhaps to denote Sabazius, but more probably Cybele, the figure in the Phrygian cap not being bearded is very likely in- tended for Atys, who was worshipped along with her. It has been suggested by Mr. Marindin that this head may be that of Mithras, who was usually repre- sented as a youth in a Phrygian cap. 281 On the tips of the fingers are the undoubted symbols of Jupiter in the thunderbolt, and in the eagle, which once stood upon it. The proximity of the two frogs points to the licentious orgies connected with the cult of Cybele ; or possibly to the Sabazia. Within the balance, on the back, is an object similar in shape to that seen on post Fig. 159, which seems to the present writer to be the bag or purse of Mercury, a less common symbol than the caduceus or the tortoise ; but Jahn calls this object ein Muschel (uterus), sacred to Juno Lucina. We should venture to take exception to Jahn’s opinion on the ground that several undoubted uteri , which have been true ex votos, are to be seen in terra-cotta in the museums of Naples, Paris, and Oxford (Ashmolean) ; but there is nothing in their general shape at all corresponding with the two symbols upon the hands now being considered. The objects upon 281 Knowing what we do of Roman society at the period, whenever there is any doubt of the intention of a symbol, it is safe to ascribe it to the more licentious divinity. 33 258 THE SYMBOLIC HAND the pollex and minimus are obscure, and it is doubtful whether the article on the wrist is intended for a vase or ambos (anvil). The modelling and finish are apparently poor, while inasmuch as the original is no longer to be seen in any public museum, we are unable to supply a sketch from the original. Figs. 147-8 are taken from a hand in the Kirs- cherian Museum at Rome now first published. It is a small, ill-moulded hand, extremely long and thin, but evidently of the same character as the rest, and dedicated solely to Hlscu- lapius. There is a simi- lar one in the Naples Museum (No. 19), found at Herculaneum, having only a single serpent upon it, but of this we omitted to make a sketch. We find, however, that every one of these hands, so far as we know at present, has one or more serpents upon it, even when there is no other symbol. Figs. 149-50 depict a very remarkable specimen, now in the museum at Leyden, of which no drawing has Fig. 147. Fig. 148. THE NEWLY-WEDDED PAIR 259 Leyden, Jahn ( m ). Fig. 149. Fig. 150. hitherto been published. 282 It has been referred to by Herr Meyer (ante, p. 240) and by Jahn, who merely cites it in his list as ( m ) ; but they fail to note several peculiarities. The serpent climbing to the top of the index is a new and unique feature. The pine-cone in the place of honour, like Fig. 146, points to Cybele. The strange object like a spade cannot be identified nor its mystery solved, though a friend has suggested that it may be a sistrum . The bird is also seen for the 282 jr or t ^ e sketch f r om the original, whence this illustration is drawn, the author is indebted to his friend Mr. Strangman. All others are from the author’s own drawings from the original hands, unless where otherwise described. 26 o THE SYMBOLIC HAND first time in this position ; it is probably meant for a dove, and in that case is identical with the bird perched on the thumb (Fig. 138). Of course the chief interest in this example lies in the man and woman joining hands over a large vase or altar, and it is submitted with some confidence that the whole hand is thereby interpreted. It must surely be intended as the special household appeal for pro- tection and help, by a newly-wedded pair, to the gods whose symbols are embossed thereon. Figs. 1 5 1, 152 are from another hand in the museum at Zurich. It was found at Sion, in Canton Valais, and Zurich, found at Sion, Valais. Fig. 151. Fig. 152. EX VOTO IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 261 although when first seen the writer believed it to be unpublished, he has since seen a lithograph of this hand in Mittheilungen der A ntiquarischen Gesellschaft , Zurich, 1861 (Band xiii. Abth. 2, heft. 4), but no light is thrown upon it in the text. The cone upon the tripod is the feature in this hand, occupying the place of honour on the palm, and showing by the two cones that the whole is probably an invocation to Cybele, We have already described (p. 241) a hand in the Louvre bearing three pine-cones. The serpent peeping out between the first and second fingers is a new position. British Museum. Fig. 153. Fig. 154. 262 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Figs. 153-4 represent the famous hand formerly in Lord Londesborough’s collection, bearing the Greek inscription so much discussed by Jahn and others. 28 It is now to be seen in the British Museum, and has not hitherto been published. It will be found to be rather an insignificant example, and, except for the inscription here repeated, not of special interest. This latter is indistinct, and is here given upon Jahn’s authority — he cites this hand as n in his list, and renders the words into modern Greek letters as Zov7ropag €v£duevo$ dveQrjKev 2a/3af/o>. This is of course one of the dedications so much relied upon to prove these hands to be ex votos. There is, however, no evidence that the inscription was not added at some time long subsequent to the casting of the hand. It is, we submit, one of the few special exceptions of express dedication which show that these hands were not primarily, nor generally intended for ex votos. Examples so accessible as those in the British Museum can be well left to explain themselves to any who desire to study them further. Figs. 155-6 are from another hand in the British Museum, belonging to the class with which we are dealing, and chiefly remarkable as the only one of the series without a serpent, unless the bracelet is intended to take the place of it. This is a recent acquisition, and hitherto unpublished. 283 See Evil Eye , p. 298. WANTING THE SERPENT 263 Figs. 157-8 are from a hand in the Naples Museum, No. 5509, hitherto unnoted and unpublished, found recently at Pompeii. The only objects upon it are of the usual type, and in positions found on other examples. Its chief interest lies in the place where it was discovered, thus fixing approximately the date of all these hands. Figs. 159-60 are from the original in the Museum at Cortona, never before published. It is a specimen of exceeding interest, and is the one which first drew the present writer’s attention many years ago 264 THE SYMBOLIC HAND Naples. Fig. 157. Fig. 158. to these remarkable remains of ancient Roman life, though at that time he omitted to take a sketch of it. The annexed illustration is drawn from photo- graphs taken specially for the writer. Most of the objects upon it are familiar, and have been already discussed. The purse-like, long-necked bag is similar to that on Fig. 145, and being placed under Mercury seems to show the hand to be dedicated to him. The small tripod at the wrist is without offering upon it. The three small pots or vases have been noted on other hands, Figs. 118, 141, but cannot be explained. Mercury is evidently the protagonist, for besides his WORSHIP OF iESCULAPIUS 265 Cortona. Fig. 159. Fig. 160. bust, we have two rams’ heads, the purse, caduceus and crocodile. Fig. 1 61 is a small example from the original in the Naples Museum, No. 5461. It is three inches high, and has only a pine-cone for Cybele and a serpent on it. From the unfailing appearance of the serpent, we cannot but conclude that whatever gods the Romans worshipped besides, yEsculapius was never omitted ; that health was the one thing they never forgot to pray for. Over and above all the examples which the present writer has been able to bring together, it is well known that there are very many others existing 34 266 THE SYMBOLIC HAND that he has had no opportunity of examining, or of which no drawings have been published. Dr. Becker, in Die Heddernheimer Votiv- hand (Frankfurt, 1861), cites a con- siderable number of hands, presum- ably of this kind, including several of those here dealt with ; indeed he numbers thirty in all, but as they are but imperfect descriptions, without plates or sketches, it is impossible to form any accurate conclusion as to whether they all belong to the dis- tinct class with which we have been dealing. The student is directed to the brochure itself, and particularly so because the self-same hand, which gives the title to the paper, and is illustrated by a drawing nine inches high, said to be naturliche grosse , is not a mano pantea at all, but a plain open hand, already sufficiently discussed. One very remarkable fact is established by the bringing together of so many examples ; there is no known duplicate, nor are any two so precisely similar that it would have been possible to produce them from the same mould. In the one or two cases where the general shape or distribution of the symbols resembles that of another example, there is either a marked difference in the size of the hands themselves, or the several symbols upon them bear distinct in- dividuality, either in size or modelling, or iffiboth. Naples. Fig. 161. NO TWO ALIKE 267 From this vve gather that it must have been customary for every individual who possessed one to have it specially made for himself, different in some detail from every other. We are supported in this opinion by finding the highly composite amulets made for sale to-day in conservative modern Naples, to be all differing in some particular or other. We have never seen two cimarute nor two sirene precisely alike. The large number of these remarkable hands, which are known still to exist, is of itself a very important fact, and proves decisively that they must once have been exceedingly common in Roman households. It may well be maintained that no one speciality of Roman life is represented by so large a number of the same object, manifestly intended for religious use, as the mano pantea. W e infer from this fact that it must have been of such daily use, and so extremely common, as to have escaped all record. So far as we know, there is no reference to these hands in any classical or even later writer until quite modern times — indeed the very earliest mention of any one of them is no older than the seventeenth century ; nor so far as we can ascertain is there any remaining tradition in Italy or elsewhere which can in any way throw light upon them. We are thus left to form an opinion as to their use, solely upon such evidence as may be provided by a study of the hands themselves, and by the places and circumstances in which they have been found. Only 268 THE SYMBOLIC HAND one 284 out of all that have been unearthed has been discovered in or near any temple. Even that one, said to have been found in the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Penninus on Mount St. Bernard, may have well belonged to the household effects of those who served the temple in that solitary spot. There is nothing to identify it except De Loges’ description. He says it was cast in a mould : that the two last fingers were closed on the palm ; on the tip of the thumb was an excrescence like a pine- cone. A crested ( huppd ) serpent was entwined between the index and annulaire. It seemed to bite into the hand. In front on the wrist was a bonnet pontifical ; on the back of the hand were a frog and a lizard. This does not correspond with any one of the hands here illustrated, and if still in existence its present resting place is unknown. It may be re- marked that the bonnet pontifical must have been a repetition of the cap on Figs. 136-140, which we know to symbolise one or both of the Dioscuri, 285 and his description only shows how careless and slovenly have been the few writers who have noted the figures embossed on these important remains of pagan Rome. No doubt, however, we have here a description by 284 Mentioned by De Loges, Essais Historiques sur le Mont St. Bernard (1789), p. 53. 285 The worship of Castor and Pollux was held in high esteem in Rome, at and before the time of these hands. RELIGIOUS ACCESSORIES 269 De Loges of a distinct and undoubted mano pantea no longer accessible, yet differing from any known example. Comparing the many specimens bearing the recumbent woman and child, with the Leyden hand (Fig. 149) bearing the man and woman together, we submit with all confidence that the latter is the missing link, disposing of the very broken chain by which they have been dubbed ex votos, i.e ., thank offerings in acknowledgment for favours received. They have all been found, with one exception, in or about domestic buildings, and we maintain there- fore that they were accessories of home life ; that being obviously religious they were the household protectors, like the teraphin of the Israelites, 286 and that they were veritable penates, representing powerful beings in whom their possessors believed ; and that these hands held in Roman families the same place as statuettes of Madonna or of saints do in Italian families to-day. Is there anything among all the mountains of modern literature, that if preserved would hand down to posterity a thousand or fifteen hundred years hence, any description of the appearance, material, use or cult of the little images to be seen to-day in the windows of so-called religious depositories, whether in Rome, Paris, or London ? Where do we read any 286 Genesis xxxi. 19. This subject is dealt with in the Evil Eye, pp. 122, 184, 307. 270 THE SYMBOLIC HAND mention, likely to inform posterity, of the thousands of little bronze copies of St. Peter of the Vatican ? Will they in the year 3500 leave more remains than we find now of the viano pantea ? How much less likely then is it that we should now be able to find any mention of these ancient objects of reverence ! We believe and hope to prove in our next chapter that these symbol-bearing hands were but a develop- ment of something much older still, and a connecting link which has helped to hand down to these latter days the very ancient idea that safety is found not only in the protection of one powerful being, but is made more certain by addition and accumulation of a number of their names or symbols into one composite whole, such for example as we find in the dedication of guilds, hospitals, abbeys, or churches, to St. Mary and St. Peter, to SS. Paul and Barnabas, to St. Michael and All Angels, or to All Saints. Inasmuch as several of the examples here cited have been unearthed in obscure cases in great mu- seums or in small local ones, it is sincerely hoped that all who are interested in the subject will take note of any other specimens of these very remark- able hands that may come in their way, in order that still more data may be brought together for the elucidation of their true meaning and use. Further, it is to be hoped that classical mytholo- gists will be induced by the considerable materials APPEAL TO SCHOLARS 271 herein placed at their disposal, to study more closely and with greater knowledge the exact and specific symbols embossed on these hands, so that their precise significance, as well as their historical and traditional connection with the deities they undoubt- edly represent, may be completely and accurately understood. CHAPTER V. DISC HI SACRI I N dealing with this subject after that of the mano pantea we must face the charge of inconsistency, or of putting the cart before the horse. Our inquiries and our methods are perforce purely inductive, and depend solely upon the collection of facts. We have no desire, as we have no opportunity, to be consistent. Our evidence must speak for itself, and perhaps like testimony of other kinds is often conflicting ; our object is merely to state what is true and to leave experts to explain and to harmonise that which appears contradictory. It therefore comes naturally and not designedly that we should have to trace backwards towards their beginnings the curious hands with which we have been dealing, rather than to take the earlier objects we have now to consider. The title here adopted is, like that of the previous chapter, purely local. It is that given on the spot to a large number of fragments in terra-cotta, lately discovered in the Italian Govern- ment excavations at Taranto. Those with which we are now concerned are all flat discs or plaques, mostly 272 GREEK PATTERNS 273 circular in shape, from half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and although nearly all are broken, it is easy to see that in their original and perfect state they were of various dimensions, ranging from four to eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. The largest of these in the writers possession are not covered with small and distinct objects like those here shown, but have each a gorgons head of the early, grinning, split-tongued type as a centre, round which in concentric circles run well-known Greek patterns, such as, especially, the meander or key- pattern, the egg and dart, and the anthemion. These are described as the “ chief characteristics of the geometrical style 1,287 of the middle Greek period, known now as “ Dipylon ” from the great finds in the cemetery outside that gate at Athens, where so many of those typical ornaments have been brought to light. Upon all the discs are a variety of objects which, from our previous study of the pantheistic hands, we recognise at once as symbolic. Most of those recently found are evidently moulds, that is, the symbols upon them are sunk, and are intended to produce a raised impression upon whatever material is applied to them. On the other hand, a few of the Tarentine find are in themselves camei , i.e. finished positives, having the objects upon them in relievo. Previous to the discoveries of the last twenty years, 287 E. Gardner, Authority and Archeology, 1899, p. 270. 35 274 DISCHI SACRI two only of these remarkable discs were known, and upon those two alone has been mainly founded all that has hitherto been written about them, which amounts to very little. The best-known specimen is the single one in the British Museum, presented by the late Sir William Temple, and said to have been found at Pozzuoli. Fig. 162 is a representation of this disc, about which the first notice appears in Jahn’s treatise, 288 who Terra-cotta Disc in the British Museum : actual size of original, 5 in. by 4f in. Fig. 162. speaks of it as a curious monument and a distinct amulet. It is quite evident, however, that he had 288 Aberglauben , etc., op. tit., p. 52. SIZES OF THE PLAQUES 275 never seen the object itself, but only a drawing which he copies. ( Op . cit ., tav. v. 3.) In his note Jahn says that his illustration is one- third of the size of the original, whereas his drawing is 3J in. by \\ in., while the original is exactly 4f in. by 5 in. No observer would be so careless as to estimate the disc in the British Museum as measuring 11J in. by 13^ in., therefore it is clear he only wrote at second hand. Terra-cotta Disc in the Museo Nazionale, Naples, No. 5466. Fig. 163. 276 DISCHI SACRI The second well-known example is in the Naples Museum, of which Fig. 163 is a fairly correct sketch. 289 This is nearly the same size as the Temple disc, being \\ in. by 5^ in., the greater length being accounted for by the longer projection or foot. It was found at Pompeii, and was of course well known to Minervini, the editor of Bullettino A rcheologico Napolitano, No. 120, 1857, an. v. tav. vi., in which he gives a plate and full description. In his article on it he refers to Jahn’s account of that in the British Museum (Fig. 162), and criticises some of Jahn’s identifications of the several symbols. He implies, by speaking of these due notabili monumenti , that there were no others in existence — in any case he knew of no more. In the Gazette Archeologique , 1883, p. 7, is a plate of another of these plaques now in the Louvre, of which Fig. 164 is a copy. The size is not given, and we have not yet seen the original, but presume it to measure about the same as the other two previously noted. Heydemann, who had previously seen the articles in the Bullettino Archeologico Napolitano , 1857, by Heuzey and Minervini, upon the Naples disc (Fig. 163), writes that he neither agrees with Heuzey that the object of these “moulds” was to impress the objects on them upon sacrificial cakes ; nor with Francois Lenormant (who writes in the same volume), that they served for the making of lamps. 289 From Evil Eye , p. 373. The writer has more than once compared his sketch since it was made, with the original. VARIOUS AUTHORITIES 277 Fig. 164. H e gives his own opinion, to which we refer later, and with which we cordially agree. He confesses that he is unable to identify many of the symbols. In the same volume of the Gazette is an article by Lenormant, being a report of an archaeological expedition to Southern Italy on behalf of the French Government. He describes a frao-ment of one of o these “ moulds ” which he discovered at Meta- ponto, gives a drawing of it (Fig. 165), and says it is larger in size than either of those he has seen before, but he does not say what has become of it. Besides these, Heydemann refers to another of 278 DISCHI SACRI these “moulds’ 1 as being at Berlin, but we have had no opportunity of seeing it or of obtaining a sketch ; we therefore assume that both these examples are cor- rectly described as moules ; i.e. having the symbols sunk, not embossed. Here the matter rested, until Mr. Arthur J. Evans obtained another (Fig. 166), now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, to- ll gether with two fragments obtained at the same time, of which one has a gor- gon’s head in the centre. In 1886 Mr. Evans wrote an important article, 290 en- titled “ Recent Discoveries of Tarentine Terra-Cottas,” in which he deals with those now in the Ashmolean. The heading of the section about these discs is “ Moulds for Sacred Cakes,” and though it is true that the examples at Oxford are moulds, i.e., intagliati , he assumes that all others known are of the same kind, and he follows Heuzey and Minervini in the supposition that as moulds they were intended to make raised impressions on the sacred cakes offered to the gods. Further, he 290 Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1886. Gazette Archeologique , 1883, p. 79. Fig. 165. “MOULDS FOR SACRED CAKES” 279 Terra-cotta Disc in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford : size 5! in. by 3! in. Fig. 166. truly remarks that the resemblance of the other two described by Jahn and Minervini to the specimens he had brought from Tarentum leads to the fair presump- tion that all alike had come originally from the same place. In this we may agree, but it is a singular example of careless observation that both Heuzey and Minervini, who had the object itself under their own eyes, should have described it as a mould, and so have imagined a use for it as such, when all the time both it and the disc at the British Museum were manifestly nothing of the kind, for both discs are cameos and 28 o DISCHI SACRI not moulds — they are actually finished casts taken from some other moulds, such as those which Mr. Evans has at Oxford. It was not until after he had obtained fac- similes, and carefully re-examined the discs in London and Naples, that the present writer discovered that he had been mistaken in assuming the correctness of other writers. He has consequently to withdraw his state- ment on p. 376 of The Evil Eye , and to affirm, on the contrary, that both the discs known to Jahn, Heuzey, and Minervini are not moulds but reliefs. This fact entirely upsets and changes all that has hitherto been written about them, notwithstanding the remarks of Heydemann and Lenormant. It is the inaccuracy of Heuzey and Minervini that is responsible for all the sacred cake theory. Jahn does not hazard an opinion as to the purpose for which these terra-cotta plaques were intended, he probably never saw either of them ; but he readily perceived that they were pantheistic objects, and he goes into details as to the symbols upon them, and as to the deities whom they were intended to represent. In Walpole s Me 7 noirs } p. 452, a plaque of this kind is mentioned, but the account is too vague to show whether he refers to a copy of that in the British Museum, or to that now said to be in Berlin, or to some other. It is possible he may have seen one of those subsequently obtained by Mr. Evans. Up to 1896 the examples referred to above were the only ones known, and only by the present writer NO TWO ALIKE 281 had even so many as three of these been brought together for comparison and study. 291 In that year, however, being at Taranto, he saw that there had been a great find of these remarkable discs — a few perfect, but for the most part in fragments. The result was that in February, 1898, he was able to exhibit to the Society of Antiquaries no less than fifty-four out of his sixty-four casts, and facsimiles of that number of different, entire or parts of, dischi sacri, no two of which are alike ; and here we may recall attention to the same remarkable fact of individuality regarding the pantheistic hands treated in the last chapter — a fact which cannot but be of great signifi- cance. The bulk of the new specimens found at Taranto are moulds, but two or three are not ; they are reliefs like the discs in London and Naples, and consequently the plaster casts in the writer’s collection are, with those exceptions, in similar relief to that at the British Museum, which of course is an original. The writer’s specimens are of all sizes, from the finished disc of four inches to fragments of eighteen inches in diameter. These larger ones (2) have each a gorgon’s head of the early split-tongued type in the centre. The writer hoped that by exhibiting these strange remains of antiquity to the world of science at the British Association and the Society of Antiquaries, 36 291 See Evil Eye , pp. 371-3. 282 DISCHI SACRI together with the publication of his notes in their Proceedings , 292 much light would be thrown upon the interesting questions of their use and history. The great number of fragments, each representing a differ- ent and distinct plaque, being found in the same place, seems to point to the fragments as patterns rather than broken pieces — indeed many show no signs of fracture, though evidently only segments or portions of the entire article; and one cannot but believe that a manufacturer’s stock of patterns must have been lighted on. In any case their number proves them to have been in common demand, at least in that part of Magna Grsecia where they were found in bulk. That three or four specimens only have been found in other parts of Italy, and nowhere else, proves nothing. The material being fragile, and the objects of no artistic value, would fully account for their disappearance. We must then assume that whatever else they were, they were primarily household effects. They certainly were crude and common even in their day, pronounced by experts to have been not later than 300 b.c., pro- bably about the time of the Greco- Roman transition. We know that the makers of these things were capable of much better things, for among this very find were found finely moulded heads and other works, proving them to be no mean artists. Many of these heads, too, are not mere broken pieces of statues, 292 See Proc , Soc. Antiq ., London, 1898. COMPARISON OF SYMBOLS 283 but finished models, as though they also were intended for patterns. Of these latter the writer possesses many remarkable specimens, showing distinctly the transition from the early Greek to the Greco- Roman and Roman types. On careful comparison of all these different discs, it is found that notwithstanding their indi- viduality and diversity of treatment, there is a very obvious regularity and system, both in the position and combination of the many figures em- bossed upon them. Not only do we find the same object, say the trident or the caduceus, repeated over and over again on different specimens, but they gene- rally are placed near each other, frequently in line, with some other object between. The constant appearance, moreover, of the caduceus upon these discs cannot but recall the same frequent appearance of that symbol upon the mano pantea. Other symbols, like the lyre, the dove, the three cakes, the wheel- cross, found alike upon the hands and discs, cannot be accidental, and we must admit that whatever was intended or typified by the objects upon the hands, had surely an earlier existence upon the discs. Many of the symbols on the latter have no place upon the hands, but time would account for changes of fashion in that respect, just as it would doubtless for the total disappearance of the fragile discs themselves ; while greater riches, and the consequent increase in the use of bronze, would cause the more durable form 284 DISCHI SACRI of the metal hand to take the place of terra-cotta as the foundation on which to emboss the sacred symbols. Besides all this, other reasons of a religious nature probably tended to supersede the fragile disc by the uplifted hand. Sacred we certainly hold all the symbols to be, whether in bronze or terra-cotta. It will not fail to be noticed, however, that the hand itself, though open, appears on no less than seven out of the eleven illustrations here given ; moreover, these seven speci- mens were selected as a mere sample of the whole, and by no means because they are even the best examples or because they have these hands, much less to support any theory whatever, for the open hand appears on a large proportion of the whole. It will be noted that the discs are of two distinct kinds as regards arrangement of symbols. One kind, as in Figs. 162, 167, 168, has them in lines, so far as a circular limit permits, while the other has them grouped roughly, like the spokes of a wheel, as in Figs. 164, 166, 174. The former kind is much the more frequent. Figs. 162, 163 are, at first sight, strikingly alike, and there are many more which, seen apart and not measured or closely examined, would probably be called duplicates. So it is with the hands — bring them together and the difference becomes immediately evident. Again, symbols on some of the discs are very indistinct and difficult to identify, whereas what INFLUENCE OF EGYPT 285 is obscure on one is often plain on another ; so that by comparing them together one specimen constantly makes clear what is doubtful on others. For example, in Fig. 162 the ladder is obvious enough, but the next two objects in line with it, upon which a sheep (? ram) is standing, are indescribable ; but on turning to Fig. 163 we see that nearly the entire row is identical, and there it is quite plain that the two figures doubtful on the former are a torch and a scabbard : both these symbols are to be found on the bronze hands. Fig. 167 is a most valuable fragment of the linear type, containing a large number of symbols, some of which {e.g.y two wheel-crosses, two plain crosses, two scabbards) seem to be duplicated, another feature to be remarked on one or two of the hands as well as on these plaques. The grapes also are seen on the hands. We note, however, that on the discs only two or three out of the entire number have a serpent, of which this is one, and the lizard is entirely absent. From this we infer that the influence of Egypt became persistent at a period later than these dischi scccri , but earlier than the mano pantea. The head of Diana is obvious enough on this and another, while the foliated border in low relief, we submit once more, completely disposes of the sacrecl-cake theory. There are, of course, many symbols which cannot be identified. Of these, one is the kind of St. Andrew’s cross next to the ladder, appearing also on the next illustration, and on many other discs. 286 DISCHI SACRI Terra-cotta Disc found at Taranto (£ linear). Fig. 167. Another is the square object with a number of holes in line ; this is a very frequent one, and occurs in no less than seven of our few illustrations, besides on many more of those in the writer’s collec- tion. The curved thing in five of the foregoing figures, near the bottom, might be intended for a cornucopia, but it looks like an exaggerated tiger’s DIFFICULTIES OF IDENTIFICATION 287 Terra-cotta Disc found at Taranto O linear). Fig. 168. tooth. It is a strange commentary, moreover, that the writer possesses several tiger’s teeth in metal, coral, and other material, mounted and sold to be worn as modern charms against the evil eye ; but the fact is that these are really intended for a dolphin, as will be seen on careful examination of all the 288 DISCHI SACRI originals. The two hands, joined by a kind of half- circle, are strikingly like the Egyptian hieroglyph Ka. It will be noticed that there are also no less than three scabbards for Ares (Mars) and two wheel- crosses, besides two other Greek crosses, and the seven-rayed sun in the centre. Fig. 1 68 is another interesting segment, very like the last, but how different ! Although drawn to the same scale as the previous one, it has many less symbols upon it, for the reason that each separate one is of a much larger size. It will be noticed that the arrangement is identical, but on the centre line there is no room in this latter beyond the caduceus (this is not so distinctly shown on the drawing as it appears in the original), consequently the club of Hercules, Dianas head and the hand are left out. Nevertheless this plaque is complete on the top where Fig. 167 is defi- cient, so that we are in a way able to complete the latter. In both, one of the rams stands on the trident, a position occupied also in Fig. 162, but here the other ram is above the ladder. Fig. 169 is another bordered example, having comparatively few, though well-defined, symbols. The two sheep are in quite a new position. The object above the bird is the sistrum of Isis, found on many other of the discs. The kind of bench above the sistrtim , on which are the two amphorcz , is found on two or three others, and is quite a new feature. There is no doubt as to its meaning, confirmed certainly by THE DIOSCURI 289 Fig. 169. the two vases above it. The vases, and the object on which they stand, are alternative symbols of the Dioscuri, who were much worshipped among the Greeks, and whose symbols appear upon the hands (round cap with cross or star on the top). According to Roscher , 293 two vertical beams, with two others bound across them, was the most ancient symbol of the deities known to the Romans as Castor 293 Lexikon der griech. und rom. Mythologic , “ Bestehend aus zvvei vertikalen, durch zvvei horizontalen verbundenen Balken .'* 5 37 290 DISCHI SACRI and Pollux. This same symbol is still the astrono- mical sign of Gemini. The next symbol in antiquity was, according to the same authority, two amphora , with or without serpents upon them. No less than ten different symbols of these deities, including the round, star-crowned hats, are enumerated by Roscher. We find, too, that the Dioscuri were worshipped as gods of the sea, 294 hence we should expect to find them held in such great reverence at Tarentum as to lead to a doubling of their symbols. The knotted rope next to the central wheel-cross, which appears on several other discs, cannot be identified. The tongs of Vulcan (Hephaistos) appear on every one of the foregoing discs, and on one of the hands. The remarkable feature of this and one other of the plaques is the cross botonde in the centre. Many students of modern heraldry will be surprised to see this device so early as 300 b.c., and in such company 1 Long before the Crusades, however, yet many cen- turies later than our plaques, this same device was the badge of the Roman Legion of the West — called Constantia. 295 Fig. 170 is a small plaque with few but very large and distinct symbols upon it. Those at the top on 294 Seyffert, op. cit. 295 See Pancirollo, Notitia Dignitatuniy etc., p. 127. THE LADDER 291 either side of the hand appear in several, but we must leave others to ex- plain them. The modern astronomical sign for the “ascending node” is like this, but it does not seem to denote any planet or constellation. In this the ladder is very prominent, and as an emblem in these Terra-cotta Disc found at Taranto (I linear). discs is almost as frequent 1 Fig. 170. as is the serpent on the hand, but it is by no means easy to determine which of the deities is intended to be represented by it. Jahn, in writing upon it , 296 is very doubtful as to its signification, and finishes with something like a guess that it is the symbol of Aphrodite. Minervini , 297 on the other hand, disagrees with Jahn, talks of the pretesa scaletta, and maintains that it is the web of a loom ( arnese da tessere ) and is a symbol of Ceres. Had he seen all the specimens we could show him, he and Millingen, whom he quotes, would both admit that all this is mere nonsense. The object is an undoubted ladder ; moreover very many of the ancient symbols found on these ancient discs have survived as modern charms against the “evil eye.” Of those on 296 Aberglauben , etc., p. 96. 257 Bull. Archeo . Napol ., No. 120, p. 170 (1857). 292 DISCHI SACRI these very discs the writer has in his own collection two ladders, a lyre, two canthari, pincers of Vulcan, caduceus , tiger s teeth, hands, wheel (of fortune), sun, crescent, owl, dove, cock, bunch of grapes, knife, sheep in bone, precisely like those on Fig. 162 (the latter well worn), pruning-hook of Priapus, whip of Osiris, etc. There is, therefore, not the shadow of a doubt as to the object so often repeated being a ladder, and the only difficulty is to explain satisfac- torily its significance. Fortuna, Bona Dea, Tyche was one of the most favourite goddesses of the ancients. She or her symbols appear constantly. On the lamp we show later (Fig. 175) she is the central figure, bearing a cornucopia, one of her special symbols ; the many wheels too, or wheel-crosses, upon the discs, especially on Figs. 167, 168, although properly sun signs, may possibly be intended for her wheel, still considered in these latter days as the emblem of her revolving favours. Fortunes wheel, however, is but the sign of one of her aspects — the changeable, unexpected, fortuitous ; while the cornucopia signifies the abun- dant plenty she has brought to, or is hoped for by her suppliant. A third aspect is, we believe, sym- bolised by the ladder, that of the patient, climbing, striving, persistent suitor, who sues her by his own efforts and means to scale her heights ; to win by patient perseverance the favours she was believed to bestow. Hence “the ladder of fortune” is no less JACOB’S LADDER 293 one of her symbols than her wheel. This will be made evident by a study of two or three facts. In the Book of the Dead 298 we find much about the ladder. We read that the ancient Egyptians believed one part of a man only could mount to heaven, and that by means of a ladder. “In the pyramid of Pepi I.” we read : “ Hail to thee, O Ladder of God, hail to thee, O Ladder of Set. Stand up, O Ladder of God, stand up, O Ladder of Set, stand up, O Ladder of Horus, whereon Osiris went forth to Heaven.” By this we see that the notion of a connection between earth and heaven by a ladder was quite familiar to the Egyptians, and doubtless to the whole Eastern world. Hence we may fairly assume that Jacob’s dream was not the unaided first product of his brain, but that it was a result, and well accorded with the notions and beliefs of the age in which he lived, influenced, as we know they were, by the close connection of the patriarchs with Egypt. Allowing for the confusions in mythology, on which we have dwelt fully 2 " here and elsewhere, the ladder of Horus, Set, Osiris, and Jacob may well have become that of Tyche, the Fortune of the Greeks, and later of the Romans. Next, the discs on which the ladder we are dis- cussing is found, are distinctly Greco- Roman of early date (fourth century b.c.). They were found in Apulia, 298 Papyrus of Ani , E. WALLIS BUDGE (1895), p. Ixxi. 299 Evil Eye , p. 185 et seq. 294 DISCHI SACRI one of the earliest settled parts of Magna Graecia, and there, if anywhere, we might expect to find the ladder used as a symbol upon other objects. We are not disappointed. In the British Museum are many ancient Greek vases from Apulia, and we are told 300 that we must look to vases not only for the illustra- tion of passages familiar to us in ancient literature, but also for the preservation of much that would otherwise be lost “relating to manners and social life.” On several of these vases is to be found a ladder, sometimes held in the hand and sometimes suspended or standing alone, but in every case where it appears there is indication of a love scene. Either Aphrodite, Adonis, Eros, or Hermes are in close contact with it. Fig. 1 7 1 represents a standing female, believed to be Tyche, holding out a ladder, sketched from No. 308 she seems to be holding out behind her the open box symbolic of all the evils and 300 Gardner, Authority and Archceology, p. 276. Apulian Vase, 308, British Museum. Fig. 1 71. vase. On 331 is a female sitting, but holding a ladder in her right hand, and in her left an open box held at arm’s length in the opposite direction. It is here sug- gested this is no other than Pandora, and that while with one hand she holds out the symbol of successful love, UMBRELLA ON A GREEK VASE 295 misfortunes accompanying licentious passion. No. 272 has the ladder as a separate symbol. Vase No. 414 has a winged Eros holding out a ladder of fifteen rounds in his right hand. Fig. 172 is from another of these (No. 373) fine vases, showing Eros holding the crux anzata , with a ladder at his feet. Several of these vases, moreover, represent some of the manual gestures with which we have been dealing, as well as the objects now under con- sideration. On 331 is a sitting female, making the sign of the mano cornuta, upwards, towards a winged Eros. On 308, another sitting figure is making the sign of the mano pantea with her right hand, while holding a fish in the left (a modem charm). Facing her is another female holding up a very perfect umbrella ! On 332 is Mercury, leaning on a fountain making the sign of the mano pantea , and in his left hand holding the cadiiceus . On No. 160 are Castor and Pollux, both wearing the conical caps shown on the hand (Fig. 140). One is making the sign of mano pantea with the right hand, while his left wrist is grasped by his companion. We give these particulars here because they are so accessible and easily verified by all interested. Much to the surprise of the writer, in all cases the ladder on these vases is described in the Museum Fig. 172. 296 DISCHI SACRI Catalogue as an Apulian sistrum , but no authority is vouchsafed, and we submit, with much deference, that none is to be found. On the other hand there are several writers who doubt not that these are veritable ladders. Heydemann , 301 no mean authority, gives two interpretations of the ladder — one, that it was symbolic ; the other, the obvious one, that it was a domestic implement. He believes the ladders upon Apulian vases to be the symbol of Fortuna. On the other hand Gori 302 argues that they were sacred offerings, donaria , suspended in honour of Jove, but produces little evidence in support of this theory, while Passer 303 agrees with Heydemann that the ladder certainly represented the goddess Fortuna. We repeat that in every case in which the ladder is depicted on these Apulian vases it appears in close connection with a love scene, denoted always by a winged Eros. Moreover, so far as the present writer is aware, it is not found as an ancient symbol, or indeed at all in classic pictures, except upon the dischi sacri of Taranto in Apulia, and upon Apulian Greek vases. Yet it is found to-day as a modern Neapolitan porta fortuna , or, as we call it, a charm. We therefore with some confidence maintain that it represents upon the vases the ladder of Fortune 3 °x « Scalae in Vasorum Picturis significatu,” art. in Annali delV Institute ), etc., p. 309, Roma, 1869. 302 Museo Etrusco (1737), ii. p. 321. 303 Piet . Etrusc. (1767), i. p. 7. SAME SYMBOLS ON HANDS AND DISCS 297 (Heydemann says, in successful love), and that upon the dischi sacri, pronounced by experts to be contem- porary with the vases in the same district, the ladder is to be taken as having the same meaning. It should here be remembered in this connection, that we have already remarked upon the apparently licentious character of many of the pantheistic hands, and knowing what we do of Roman society of about the date of those hands — say the time of the pros- perity of Pompeii — we are not doing the earlier people of Apulia, who used the dischi sacri , an injustice if we attribute much the same character to the symbols on the latter. Fig. 173 is another small but very interesting perfect disc. Here again we have a very few, but very large, separate symbols. It will be noted that Jove’s un- mistakable thunderbolt has appeared so far on every one of the fore- going examples, and it will be remembered on how many of the hands it appeared upon the tips of the fingers, of the thunderbolt we find a striking connection between the dischi sacri and the mani pantde. The 38 (J linear). Fig. 173. Once again in this persistence 298 DISCHI SACRI ladder here holds a very subordinate position ; still, it is present. The distaff, single and large, is an im- portant feature, not only on this plaque but on Fig. 168, and on several others in our collection. On these, as well as on this last (Fig. 173), it is placed next to the club of Hercules, and therefore we must assume its position to be intentional and important, as it is undoubtedly on Figs. 163, 168. Of course the distaff has always been commonly looked on as representing Clotho (the spinner), one of the Fates, but on several of these discs we find three small distaffs together, and it is of course but reasonable to assume that the three Parcse were thereby designated. But upon the same plaques (eg . , Figs. 162, 163, 164, 168), and on several others in the author’s collection, we find this large single distaff, as well as the three small ones, and we submit that it must represent some special one of the greater deities. This can only be Athene (Minerva), 304 the patroness of spinning and weaving. Besides the distaff, she also among the greater gods was represented by the Cock. It is of much interest to compare the reverence implied upon these discs, by the difference in im- portance accorded to the several symbols. Thus, on Figs. 170, 173, two unbroken examples with few upon each, we note four, common to both, eg., ladder, club, thunderbolt, caduceus , and the two uncertain figures ; 304 Smith, Class. Diet., s.v. Athena ; Smith, Diet. Antiq ., s.v. Fusus ; Seyffert, Diet. Class. Antiq., p. 81. SIGN OF APHRODITE 299 but while on Fig. 170 these are all about equal in prominence, on Fig. 173 the thunderbolt and caduceus largely predominate, whereas the ladder and two doubtful figures are much reduced, and the distaff on the latter is substituted for the open hand. The hand above the thunderbolt on 170 we interpret as the sign of triumph and victory, upon which we have before remarked. The two undetermined objects on Figs. 170, 174 are probably the same as the one on Fig. 173, but their extreme prominence on Fig. 170 forbids us to adopt the method of Jahn and others — to pass them by unnoticed. This figure is given in Montfaucon 305 as one of the signs of Venus, an alternative of the well-known ankh , 3 ° 6 still used as her astronomical sign. It is then suggested that Aphrodite may be the goddess typified on these discs by this doubtful symbol — we have before sug- gested the resemblance to the sign of the “ascending node,” but we shall be glad of a better interpretation. Of the object like 8 on several plaques we cannot even suggest an explanation. Both the figures above referred to will be found upon the hands. The last of our illustrations (Fig. 174) is of the wheel or radiated type, of comparatively large dimensions (7J in. diameter), and in extremely low relief, so that as a mould it would be absurdly use- less for making any sort of raised figures upon 303 Montfaucon, vol. i. Suppl. xlvii. 306 See Evil Eye , p. 277 el seq. 300 DISCHI SACRI sacrificial cakes, or upon any soft substance. Although a complete disc, the figures are too indistinct to be more than very partially identified. We note the scabbard, trident, and caduceus, with the club and perhaps the torch, but three of the radii cannot be guessed at. There seem to be several crescents ; a sheep is distinct, and so are the two signs of Venus THE FINISHED RELIEFS 3 01 or the ascending node (?). There is a triangle and a squat two-handled vase, both of which are found upon the hands (Figs. 126, 143); but this example lends us very little help towards determining the purpose or intention of these strange objects, for we must maintain that so many ancient designs, all of the same general character and having so many traits in common, must have had a distinct use, and must have entered into the daily life of the people. The diversity of size we find in them, seems at first sight to point to a variety of uses, and if the many fragments we have were indeed patterns, it may well be that the finished casts, in whatever material they were made, were applied to various purposes. The shape of Figs. 162, 163, 170, with many other similar ones taken in connection with their smaller sizes, seems strongly to point to their having been patterns of moulds for making the upper side of the common lamp of the period ; but of these lamps none have been found at Taranto, though many have turned up elsewhere. We cannot, however, identify any known lamp as made from any one of these moulds. Even if we could do so, we are met with the difficulty : What about the finished reliefs, Figs. 162 and 163, and the others we know of? In support of the lamp theory — for we have many casts from actual moulds, very nearly like Figs. 162 and 163 — we produce a drawing 302 DISCHI SACRI (Fig. 175) of a lamp 307 having upon it many of the symbols found on the discs. Another lamp is de- Terra-cotta Lamp. Fig. 175. picted in the same work 308 with very similar objects upon it. This lamp (Fig. 175) is of later date than the dischi sacri , and is probably contemporary with 307 From the collection of Sig. Barone, published in Bull Arch. Nap., an. iii. p. 182, tav. vii. 308 Op. cit ., an. iii. tav. ii. SYMBOLS ON LAMPS 3°3 the hands. We find upon it, however, many of the symbols found alike upon both discs and hands. At the top we have the face of the sun, apparently mounted on a swivel, of which the supporter is the crescent. The central seated figure is unquestionably Fortuna, who holds her cornucopia in the left hand, while holding out a patera in the right. Very many of these patera are shown on the discs, but we do not see any plausible explanation for them when appearing as in this case alone. Upon this lamp we find two serpents, a peacock (Juno), a dolphin 309 (Neptune), an eagle, a dove (Aphrodite), thyrsus, cadiiceus , pomegranates (Hera and Demeter ), 310 cymbals, ear of corn (Ceres), pincers, systrum , lyre, club, torch — indeed, as many symbols as on the discs, and of course representing as large a pantheon. The border too has a very Greek feeling, although the lamp is distinctly Roman. Another use, for which we suggest these moulds may have been used, is that from them bronze mirrors may have been cast. In Montfaucon are plates of many mirror backs of Roman period with symbols upon them of like character, though none precisely 309 Frazer, Pausanias , vol. iv. p. 408. 310 Frazer, Pausanias, ii. 7, 4 (vol. i. p. 96). The pomegranate in the hand of Hera. Ibid., viii. 3 7, 4 (vol. iv. p. 380). Those initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries were forbidden to eat the pomegranate ; perhaps it was a symbol of Persephone rather than Demeter. Demeter was symbolised by a fig-tree, which she presented to Phytalus. On this see Frazer, ibid., i. 37, 2. 3°4 DISCHI SACRI like any found on these discs. Seyffert 311 too gives a drawing of a mirror of similar character. More- over, the backs of modern Japanese mirrors of to- day bear many objects, such as a tortoise, fish, cross of leaves, birds, placed in no apparent connection or design, just as we find the same objects as symbols upon the hands and discs. In one or two cases the objects are identical. Backs of mirrors then is another use put forward to account for some of the moulds. Many of the plaques are far too large for either of these purposes, which could only have been adopted for the smaller sizes . 312 These large ones are fragments of circles, and not of the pear- shape suitable for lamps or mirrors. It is suggested that these were moulds for embossed dishes, of which there are still large numbers of fragments to be seen at Naples and elsewhere. These dishes are of red pottery, such as might be cast from the kind of moulds we possess. They have serpents, frogs, lizards, swords, and various like objects embossed upon them, and we suggest they may be the prototypes from whence Palissy got his ideas, if not his technique. The large dishes of Greco- Roman Taranto, of which we have the moulds, were of course many centuries earlier in date than the fragments to be seen at Naples (also a part of Magna Graecia), but the general similarity is quite unmistakable. 311 Diet. Class. Antiq.,s.v. “Mirror.” 312 See remarks ante , p. 273. ARE ALL PROPHYLACTIC? 3°5 What, however, we repeat, is to be said of the small finished plaques in relief, such as our Figs. 162 and 163? Again we have to look at modern facts to explain ancient analogies. We have al- ready shown that an artificial horn of terra-cotta was made for suspension in ancient Tarentum. 313 To-day in the grocers’ and butchers’ shops of modern Taranto and Naples may be seen a terra- cotta horn attached to a crescent, a ball and a hand, hung up over the door or under the ceiling, avowedly to keep off the evil eye. The writer possesses several ; they are painted bright red. Moreover, Canon Jorio 314 expressly refers to these amulets suspended by Neapolitan shopkeepers, and we have before alluded to many of these same symbols made in Caldas ware, in Portugal, intended to be placed against a wall. We have then in the shops, on the Cimaruta for the children’s necks, 315 or as separate charms, sold openly contro malocchio , most of the very same symbols found upon the discs, and later upon the mano pantea. Is it then presumptuous to maintain that one important use for these terra-cotta plaques was to attach them to the interior walls of houses as sacred appeals to the protecting deities represented, against the ever - dreaded evil eye ? 316 313 See ante , p. 70. 314 Mimica degli Antichi, p. 89. Napoli, 1837. See also Evil Eye , p. 258 et seq. 315 Evil Eye , p. 345, etc. 316 See ante, p. 59. Advertisement from Italian Journal of 1896. 39 3°6 DISCHI SACRI We believe this to have been the prime object of the terra-cottas, and that subsequently the same devices were used for the same purpose by way of decoration on lamps, mirrors, and dishes. The like or similar symbols were embossed later on the bronze hands, and exist to-day as charms, not only in half- heathen Naples, but in Christian England, and more or less in most other countries. We are fortified in our contention (written long before we had read his remarks) by Heydemann , 317 who agrees with none of the modern writers who have referred to these objects, and maintains that their sole use and object was apotropaic ; that is protective as averters of evil. He considers they were suspended in the houses where found to keep off ill influences, and this he says is proved by the crowd of divinities represented. Lastly we venture to submit that we have proved our only assumption — the one with which we started on page i, that all ornament or decoration had origi- nally some distinct signification ; and that we have produced pictorial as well as literary facts, which throw light upon the life and manners of the obscure past. 317 Gazette Archeologique , 1883, p. 7. INDEX Aben Esdra, 23. Adam seduced by Lilith, 114. Advertisement of charms, 59. Aisculapius, 265. Agrina, Coin of, 23. Albert, Les Secrets du Petit , 178. Albogalerus, Flamen’s cap, 26. Alexander the Great, Two-horned, 30. Alhambra, Puerto del Perdon, 162, 169. Allen, J. Romilly, Christian Symbolism , 201. Ambos, The, 258. America, The President’s oath, 162. American Folk-lore, Journal of, 102. Ammon, The horn of, 17, 19. Amphorae, 290. Anderson, Catalogue , etc., 150. Andrea di Salerno, 18. Andrea Sirani, Picture by, 76. Andrews, J. B., Letter from, 177. Andromeda, 118, 120. Animal-headed gods, 85. Anthemion, Greek pattern, 273. Anthony, St., tempted by demons, 88, 1 14. Antickita di Ercolano, 229, 255. Antoninus, Column of, 165. Apep, the devil of Egypt, 114, 120. — the personification of darkness, 114, 120. Aphrodite, Symbol of, 291, 294, 299. Apis and Mnevis, 13. Apollo Ccelispex , 214. Apollo represented by the griffin, 116. Apollonius of Tyana, 89. Apuleius, Metamorph. , 204. Apulia, Vases from, 175, 296. Apulian helmets, 32. Apulian sistrum , 296. Artificial horns as amulets, 74* Ascoli, Cecco d’, burnt in 1327, 91. Ass and scorpion, The, no. Ass and the devil, The, 114, 120, 121. Assyrian and Babylonian Art, 116. Assyrian gods, 149. Athanasius, St., on parts of the body, 214. Athene, patroness of spinning, 298. Attributes of the same deity, Different, ii5- Atys and Cybele, 223. Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme, 181. Augustine, St., belief in the devil, 87, 95- Authority and Archceology , 5,71, 273,294. Avalokiteswara, Japanese god, 152. Avenches hand, 244. Avignon, Papal see at, 49. Baalbec, Moslem pilgrim at, 173. Bacchus, a lascivious god, 124. Bacchus Bicorniger, 61, 126. Baddeley, St. Clair, Robert the Wise , 48. Balfour, Evolution in Decorative Art , 2, 20. Baphomet, 129. Baptism, Christian, Gestures in, 153. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 178. 307 3°8 INDEX Baring-Gould, Gentleman' s Magazine , 1 86. Barnes, Rev. W., 141. Becker, Die Heddernheimer Votivhand , 171, 266. Beelzebub and the Pharisees, 115. Bel Merodach, 14. Bel, The sun god, 119. Bellori’s hand, 216. Bells in church towers, 103. Benediction, Sign in, 1 5 1. Bishop, Consecration of a Roman, 77. “Bless vore,” To, 159. Bochart, Hierozoicon, De Lepore, 108-9. Bodin, Histoire des Flandres , 88. Boettiger, Opuscula ; Kleine Sc hr if ten. 138, 216. Bologna, John of, 132. Bona Dea, 292. Bonifazio, Crown by, 43. Bonnet pontifical , 268. Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces , 196. Book of the Dead , 114, 120. Bosporus — the passage of the cow, 11. Boss, Bronze, from Pompeii, 69. Bourke, Scatologic Rites , 55. Bow Church, Flying Dragon on, 119. Brand, Pop . Antiq ., 178. Breughel, Picture by, 86, 182. Bronzi di Ercolano , 194, 229. Browning, Ring and the Book , 81. Buckle, History of Civilisation , 104. Budge, E. Wallis, Papyrus of Ani, 293. Bull, Symbol of St. Luke, 54. Bullettino Archeologico Napolitano , 35, 109, 276, 291, 302. Caduceus, The, 288. Cakes, The Three, 169, 222. Caldas ware, 305. Calmet, Dictionary of the Bible , 27, 149, 165. Campbell, Sir J., of Rosneath, 173. Cantharus, or Two-handled Vase, 218. Capet, Hugh, Seal of, 195. Carthage, Monuments from, 163. Castor and Pollux, 251. 268, 289, 295. Cecropius, Inscription by, 210. Celestial Mother, 11. | Ceres, Cult of, 69. J Chaldaean Account of Genesis, 119. ; Chapel of the Minutoli, 45. I Chaplet, The — Foundation of Crown, 38. Charles, Book of Enoch , 115. Cheating the Devil, 98. - Chimcera at Naples, 12 1, 27. Chinese Devils, 137. Chnemu , Doubly-horned, 15. Chonsu wearing the Crescent, 15. I Church, Chapters in the History of the Early Church of Wells , 200. j Cinerary— house-like boxes, 72. j Clauston, Popular Tales , 98. ! Clazomenre, Sarcophagus from, 5 » 34* | Clodd, Tom Tit Tot, 98. | Clotho (the spinner), 298. j Cock and the Lion, The, 4, 93. | Cock, the Symbol of Mercury, 217 ; | of Athena, 233 ; of Ares, 233 ; of j Minerva, 298. j Cockscomb, Cockade, etc., 6. j Coins, Greek, Bearing horned heads, 23. Coleridge, Literary Remains , 12. Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal, j 122, 178, 184. | Colombe, Michel, Sculpture of St. George, 118. i Constantia — Roman Legion, 290. i Conway, Demonology, 86-1 11, 1 14-21. j Corelli, Marie, Sorrows of Satan, 128. 1 “ Cornards” in Littre’s Dictionary, 51. Corner, William, Mexican traveller, 143. Corni, Porta Fortuna, 59. Como means Phallus, 59. Coronae, Various, 39. Corriere da Napoli, 59. Cortona, Hand in museum at, 263. Cosson, E. A. de, Cradle of the Blue Nile, 92. INDEX Cotgrave makes panache and horn synonymous, 36. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations , 103. Crane, Italian Tales , 98. Crater, The, 240. Crawford, Marion, Pietro Ghisleri , 146. Crescent develops into horns, 11. — ornament, 206. — the cognisance of the Turk, 14. Crests, Origin of, 5. Crocodile killed by Horus, 114, 120. — same as the dragon, 118. — sacred to Mercury, 225. Cross botonee , 290. — The wheel, 196. Crotala, or cymbals, 231. Crown, The, 3. — The double and triple, 14. — of the devil, with horns, 1 19. Crowns, Royal, 41. Crucifixion, Luini’s fresco of, 113. Crux ansata upon the royal crown, 43, 295. Cybele, Cymbals sacred to, 235, 257, 261, 265. Darwin, Expression of the Emotions , 7. Dasent, Norse Tales , 98, 103. Dead , The Book of the , 114, 120, 293. Death, origin of, 114. Death synonymous with Satan, 83. Decoration and disfigurement, 3. De Loges, Essais Historiques, etc . , 268. Delrio, Martin, Disquisitionum Magic- arum !, 22, 90, 184. Demeter, 61, 303. Denis, Sciences Occultes , etc., 91. Devil, as an angel, 114. — of Scripture, 1 14. — Origin and meaning of, 105. — The black, 91, 97. — The crowned and horned, 118. Devil’s appearance, The, 83. Devils, Casting out, 95. Dextera Dei , 58, 1 75, 200. Dexter a fovis , 208. Diana with cow’s horns, 21. Dictionnaire Infernal, 122. Dictionary, Oxford English , quoted, 114, 121. Dilthey, Arch, epigr. Mitth. aus Oesterreich , 210. Dionysos, horned head of, 21, 61. Dioscuri, 251, 268, 289. Dipylon, Greek pattern, 273. Dischi Sacri, 272. Disgrace of wearing horns, 55. Dishes, Ancient embossed, 304. Dissertazioni della Fia Acc. di Arch., 256. Distaff, The, 298. Divell a Married Man, The, 99. Dodd, Dr., Execution of, 193. Donelly, Atlantis: Antediluvian World , 108. Doria Gallery, Rome, 67. Dorset Ooser, 139. Dragon development of serpent, 117. Dragon, The, on Bow Church, 115, 1 19. — The winged, 1 1 5, 119. — St. George and, 118. Driver, Prof., Authority and Archeeo- logy, 14. Dropping the Pilot, 42. Druse women, 29. Dubus of New Guinea, 60. Diirer, Albert, at Florence, 119. Ears like horns, 44. Eastern ideals, 137. Egypt, Influence of, 285. Egyptian deities horned, 8. — influence, 248. Eleusinian Mysteries, 303. Enoch, Book of, 115. Eros, Winged, 295. Escorne — ruined, defaced, 51. Etruscan hut urns, horned, 70, 71-3. 39 a 3 10 INDEX Etymology of devil, 105. Evans, A. J., Address at Liverpool, 24, 164. — “Tarentine Terra-Cottas,” 278, 280. Eve presented horns to Adam, 122. “ Expedition to Torres Straits,” 7. Ex votos , 21 1. Eye sacred to Apollo, 214. Farman, A. E., 2. Fauns of Praxiteles, 127. Ferrara, Hand over door at, 195. Fica , Far la, 177. Fig tree, symbol of Demeter, 303. — sacred to Priapus, 227. Figures, Moon, from Mycense and Cyprus, 16. Fiske, Myths , 98. Folk Lore Society, Collection at Cam- bridge, 143. Foot and hand sacred to Mercury, 215. Fortuna, The Goddess, 292 296, 303. Fortune’s ladder, 292. Fra Angelico, “Last Judgment,” by, 135 - Fraser, Pausanias, 34, 116, 303. Freeman, Sicily , 24. Frogs and toads, 231. Froissart, Chroniques, 91. Gabrici, Topograjia Numis. etc ., 234. Galla Placidia, Tomb of, 58. Gardner, Authority and Archceology , 5, 273 , 294. Gargoyles, 92. Gazette Archeologique , 276, 306. Gender of the sun and moon, 15. Gestures on Greek vases, 295. George, St , Legend of, 118. Gela, Coin of, 23. Gemini, Sign of, 290. Genesis, Chaldean account of, 119. Giotto, Crown by, 41. — Picture by, 45, 134. — Nimbus showing sun’s rays, 199. Glory, Hand of, 179. Gnostics, The, 126, 128, 130. Good Words , “Lost Soul of Patterns,” 2. Gorgon’s head on discs, 281. Gorgoneion, 72. Gori, Inscriptionum Antiquarum , 142, 252. — Museo Etrusco, 296. Greek Church, Benediction in, 152. — crests, 5. — helmets horned, 32. — inscription on hand, 262. — patterns, 273. — pre-affix, 65. Gregory, St., and visible demons, 87. Griffin, “ The watcher of the gold,” 1 16. — at Scala, 1 17. Griffiths, F. L., Authority and Archceo - *ogy, li. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 98, 105, no. — Prov. Gloss, and Popular Super- stitions , 178. Grose, Dictionary of Buckish Slang , 55. Grotius, 22. Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology , no. — Laus Asini , 1 10. Guhl e Koner, La Vita dei Greets 72. Gullibility of the Devil, 103, 138. Haddon, Dubus of New Guinea, 74. Haddon, Evolution in Art , 2. Hallam, Middle Ages , 49. Hand, The, 145. — of a corpse, Cure by, 192. — Open, at Oxford, 170 ; at Baalbec, 173 * Hannah’s horn exalted, 30. Hares and rabbits, 108. Hathor symbolised by the cow, 13. Heckhel, Doctr. Num ., 233. Hera, Pomegranate symbol of, 303. Hera-Io and the Bosporus, 1 1, 61. Heddernheim hand, The, 171. Hedelin, Traiti des Demons, etc ., 91. INDEX 3i 1 Heliodorus, AZthiop ., 233. Helmet of salvation, The, 79. Helmets, Horned, British, 33. Henderson, Folk-lore of Northern Europe , 178. Herculaneum, Hand found at, 258. Hercules making manual sign, 175. Hermse at St. John Lateran, 127. Hermse tricipites, 240. Hermaphrodites, 130. Hermes (Mercury) gave horns to Isis, 14. Heuzey, Bull. Arch . A r ap., 276, 279. Heydemann, Annali , etc., 296. — Gaz. Archeo ., 276, 296, 306. Hindoo gods, 149, 151. Historical English Dictionary, 4, 144. Hobby horse, The, 140. Homeric helmet, 24. Hone, Every-day Book , 1 21. Hopkins, Matthew, the witchfinder, 89. Horned crowns of the Devil, 1 19. Horn fair, 53. Horns, Badge of the highest divinities, 12. Horn of salvation, The, 78. Horns distinguish gods as well as goddesses, 12. Horns of animals represent crescent, 11. Horns of twofold significance, 77- Horse-shoe, The 56 * Horus — Perseus, St. Michael, St. George, 118, 120. Horus slaying the serpent, 114, 120, 121. Hue, Abbe, on Thibet, 154. Iamblicus, Vita Pythag., 233. — On the Mysteries , 93, 233. Incubi and succubse, 88. Inghirami, Pittura di Vasi Fittili, 175- Ingoldsby Legends , Hand of glory in, 179 . Ishtar — Isis, Hera, 175. Isis with long cow’s horns, 14. Issus, Battle of, 32. Jacob’s ladder, 293. Jadh , The Jewish, 161, 165. Jahn, Aberglauben, 209, 275, 291. Jahn, Otto, U Darstell. griech. Vasen- bildern , 6. Japanese devils, 138. — mirrors, 304. Jerome, St., tempted by demons, 23, 88. Jettatura or malocchio , 146, 152, 172, 174. Jewish hands, 172. — legend of the Fall, 114. — phylacteries, 75. — ritual, 154. Jorio, Canon, Mimica degli Antichi, 73 , J 45» 177, 305- Journal of Hellenic Studies, 27 8. Juno horned, 68. — Sospita, 19. Jupiter Ammon, 17. — Serapis, 19. Justice, The hand of, 162. Ka, Egyptian hieroglyph, 288. Kalendier des Bergers , 86. King, Gnostics , 18, 37, 126, 130, 192. King, C. W., Handbook of Gems , 17, 44. Knox, John, appearances of the devil, 106. Kuen-atem at Tel-el-Amarna, 160. Kwan-yin , Chinese goddess, 15 1. Labarwn , The, 165. Ladder, The, 285, 292, 294. Lama, Mendicant, 154. Lamhdearg, The red hand of Ulster, 174- Lamp, The Barone, 302. — with Pan on tortoise, 123. Lane, Modern Egyptians, 192. Lanning, Awakening of Nature , 82. 3 12 INDEX Lanzi, History of Painting , 1 34. Leaf, Walter, Homer , 25, 34. Lenormant, Gaz. Archeologique, 276. Le Sage, Le Diable Boiteux , 99. Leyden, Lucas van, picture of the devil, 1 2 1. Liberale da Verona, 135. Liber, personification of Pan, 123. Liceto, Fortunio, De Lucernis , 123, 226, 236, 241. Lights, The two, 241. Lifting up of the hand, 160. Lilith, The seducer of Adam, 114. Lion, The roaring, 132. Lobeck, Aglaophamus , 138. Lockyer, Sir Norman, 9. Long-eared gentry, 109. “ Lost Soul of Patterns, The,” 2. Lucio, Marie Corelli’s, 128. Luini, Fresco at Lugano, 98, 113. Luke, St., and the bull, 175. Luther, his contests with the devil, 106. Lycanthropy of the devil, 108, 114. Lycia, Greek tomb in, 72. Macrobius, Sat. , 17, 254. Main de la Justice , 195. Mano cornuta, 58, 15 1. — in fica, 176. — pantea , 205. Manual gestures, 148-9. Marco Antonio, 135. Marindin, G. E., 68, 116, 257. — on the pine, 223. Martin, Hist, des Monstres, 89, 91, 130. Martini, Francesco di Giorgio, 134. Mask, Upon the word, 138. Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation , 13. Matawopah and the open hand, 19, 20, 35> i 62 - Mediaeval representations of devil, 114. Medusa, The horned, 60, 63. — with pointed ears, 67, 68. Megalesia, 223. Megara, Coin of, 23. Melusine quoted, 59, 115. — “Serpent d'Airan, etc.,” 1 15. Memmi, Simone, of Sienna, 134, 135. Mercurius Triceps, 226. Mercury horned, 21. — The purse of, 257. Merodach fighting a griffin, 14. — the sun god, 1 19. Metaponto, Disc found at, 277. Mexican Mystery Plays, 143. Meyer, Mitt. d. Antiq ., Zurich, 204, 245- Michael Angelo, 21. Michael, St., and the Dragon, 1 17, 119, 201. Millingen quoted by Minervini, 291. Milton, Paradise Lost , Satan in, 97 ; griffin in, 1 16. Milton’s idea of Satan, 81. Minehead Revel, 140. Minervini, Bull. Arch. Nap., 276, 279. — Monumenti Ant. Inediti , 176. Mino Senese, 19. Minotaur, 16, 125. Minutoli family, 47, 146, 160. Mirrors, Backs of, 304. Mithras, 249, 257. Mitre, Horns of the, 76, 80. Mnevis said to be Moses, 22. Mockery of the devil, 112. Modern models of the devil, in. Monaco, Lorenzo, 18. Monkish ideas, 13 1. Monte Cavo, the goal of triumphs, 71. Montelius, La Civilisation primative en Italie , 71. Montfaucon, Antiquit i Expliquet, 6, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 37, 68, 210, 214. Moor, Hindoo Pantheon , 149. Morfill, Book of Enoch, 115. Mosaics of Ravenna, 202. Moses and the dextera Dei, 15 7. — Horns of, 21, 22, 27. Moslem gesture and rites, 152. INDEX 3*3 Moslem typical hand, 173. Moulds, 273, 278. Mudrd, Hindoo, 148. Murillo’s pictures 11. Murray, Dr., Editor of Oxford Eng. Diet., 106, 1 14, 144. Muses with horned heads, 68. Museum, Ashmolean, 170, 278; Athens, 16, 62 ; Brescia, 238, 239 ; British, 23, 32, 34, 62, 66, 126, 151, 175, 202, 212, 220, 262, 274, 279, 281, 296; Cortona, 263; Florence, 62, 71 ; Frankfurt, 171 ; Kirscherian, 171, 206, 242 ; Leyden, 258 ; Louvre, 32, 238, 239, 276 ; Naples, 62, 127, 172, 206, 229, 258, 265, 275; Rome, 62 ; St. John Lateran, 127 ; Vatican, 19, 71, 72, 125; Zurich, 74, 170, 244, 261. Mycensean Art, 116, 164. Myres, J. L. , at British Association, 34. Naaman and Elisha, 159. Naples shop amulets, 58, 73. — under the Angevins, 48. Neapolitan horned knights, 47. New Guinea cockade, 7. Nicholas, St., Three golden balls of, 167. Nimroud, “ Man-headed bull,” 23. Nitocreon, King of Cyprus, 17. Node, the ascending, Sign of, 291, 301. Notes and Queries, Somerset and Dor- set, 139. Notre Dame de Paris, Devils of, 131. Nuttall, G. Clarke, in Good Words , 2. O’Neil, Night of the Gods , 196. Ooser, Meaning of, 14 1. Open hand, The, 160-66. Ornament not arbitrary, 1. — originally prophylactic, 3. Osiris consort of Isis, 13. Ovid, Fasti, 177. Palissy ware, Prototypes of, 304. Pan, The Great God, 67, 123. Panache of heraldry, 33, 35, 67, 79. Pancirollo, Notitia Dignitatum, 197, 290. Pandora’s box, 294. Papyrus of Ani, 293. Parcae, The, 298. Passer, Piet. Etrusc., 296. Pausanias, 233. Payne Knight's hand, 212. — Symbolic Language of Art, 221. Peacock, Juno’s bird, 303. Peetoh-peekiss, 19, 20. Perino del Vaga, Picture by, 40. Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de V Art , 160, 163. Persephone, 303. Perseus, Legend of, 118. Petit Journal pour rire, 54. Phalerse — military decorations, 39. Phoebus, The rays of, 17. Phoenician sign of victory, 163. Phrygian cap, The, 257. Phytalus, Fig-tree presented to, 303. Pignoritus, Vetusta Tabula , 14, 27, 250. Pine-cone, The, sacred to Cybele, 222. Place, The, of Scripture, 163. Pliny, Nat. Hist., 225, 231, 254. — on the Griffin, 1 16. Plumes, panache, horns all one, 36. Pomegranate, The, 303. Pompeii, Hand found at, 263. — Isis worship at, 69. Pontificate Romanian, 151. Pooley, Old Crosses of Somerset, 198. Pope, The, his triple crown. — Gesture peculiar to, 167, 203. Popes, Rival, 49. Pott, Die Zigeuner, 105. Potter, Ant. Grcec., 235. Pre-affix, The, 60, 74 - Pretorius, De Pollice, 154, 177. Priapus same as Pan, 123. INDEX 3*4 Primitive trephining in Peru, 96. Prince, African traveller, 29. Proclus, Dissertation on Theurgy , 93. Purgstall, Von Hammer, 129. Quaint words and modern authors, 142. Ramman, god of the Chaldeans, 13. Ram’s head, The, sacred to Mercury, 220. Raphael, “Dispute of the Sacrament, 41. ^s- Rasche, Lexikon rei mwiarice, 233. Ravenna mosaics, 58, 157, 168, 202. Rayed crowns, 18. Rays passing through the hand, 156. Requeno, Abate, manual numeration, 150. Reville, The Devil, his Origin , etc., 84, 98, 208. Rickshaw ?ne 7 i at Durban horned, 20. Rituale Ro 77 ianu 77 i, 153. Roaring lion, 93. Robbers invisible, 189. Roman cavalry crest, 6. Roman insignia, 197. Romsey Abbey, Hand at, 1 58. Roscher, Lexikon , etc., 251, 289. Rosini, Pittura ltaliana , 18, 41. Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, 82. Sabazia, licentious festivals, 230. Sabazius, Phrygian god, 218, 231, 257. — often horned, 240. Saint-Hilaire, Is. Geoff., Diet, des Sciences Med., 130. Salii, priests of Mars, 25. Sandhya, or morning prayer, 148. Satan of the Old Testament, 83. Satan , Sorrows of, 81, 99. Saul’s triumphant place, 164. Savage cockades, 7. Sayce, Dawn of Civilisation , 13. — Higher Critical, 223. — Religions of the Babylonians, 223. Scabbard, The, 300. Scala Cathedral, Griffins at, 117. Scandinavian genders, 15. Schindlerus, Lexicon Polyglott , 154. Schlafslichter, 19 1. Schliemann, Ilios, 14; Mycencc a 7 id Tiryns, 14, 16, 24, 25, 116. Scorn, to deprive of horns, 50. Scorpion bite cured by a whisper, no. Scott, Discovery of Witchcraft , 183. Scriptural description of devil, 114. Seligman, C. G., 7. Seneca, CEdipus, no. Serapis, The corn measure of, 17; Osiris-Apis, 37; worship, 217. Serpent, the oldest shape of the devil, 115; fiery flying, 121; and the dragon, 114, 118, 133; the pro- tecting, 227. Servius Tullius, begotten by an incubus, 89 , Seyffert, Class. Diet., 39, 230, 290, 304. Shakespeare on scorn, 53. Shiah hand, The, 173. Shopkeepers, Neapolitan, 305. Signet of Francis I., Duke of Brittany, 44. Sion, Hand found at, 260. Sistru 77 i, sacred to Isis, 252, 288. Sittl, Die Gebarden der Griechen und Ro 7 /iern, 209. Smith, Chaldean Acc. of Genesis, 119. Smith, Did. of Antiq., 38, 39, 1 1 6, 230; Did. of the Bible , 29. Society of Antiquaries, 282. Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, 185. Spannheim, Dissertationes, 23, 24. Spielmann, Isidore, 172. Spranger, Malleus Maleficarn 77 i , 89. Standard, The Roman, 165. Strangman, Sketch by, 259. Strike, To, 159, 192. Stupidity, Sign of, 147. Sulpitius, priest of Mars, 26. Sun and moon as living beings, 9. Sun of Righteousness, 198. Sun, the father of life, 10. Sunni hand, The, 173. INDEX 3i5 Taranto, 21. Taylor, Bishop, on Sepoys’ horns, 28. Tel-el-Amarna, Sun worship at, 156. Templar, Knights, 128, 129, 191. Temple, Sir W., Disc in British Mu- seum, 274, 276. Tenebreux, Inhabitants of, wear horns, 122. Teniers, “Depart pour le Sabat,” 183. Terra-cotta horn at Taranto, 70, 74* Terra-cotta, Symbols in, 284. Terrors of the Middle Ages, 85. Tetini, Statuettes from, 160. Theseus slaying the Minotaur, 125. Thieves’ candles, 182, 187. Thompson, Land and the Book , 29. Thorpe, Northern Mythology , 98, 181. Thumb, The, in ritual, 1 54. Thunderbolt, Persistence of the, 297, 299. Tiamat, the dragon of the sea, 118. Tigers’ Teeth, 287. Tommaso degli Stefani, Fresco by, 46. Torch, The, 285. Torments preached by Scotch clergy, 104. Torquemada, Hexamerone, 90. Torreblarca, De Mcgia , ,22. Tournay, Hand found at, 250. Trajan, Column of, 165, 166. “ Trepanation Prehistorique, La,” 95. Trinacria, Medusa on arms of, 67. Tripod, The, 221. Tromba — trumpet, cornucopia, horn, 36. Tuchmann, A/elusine, 59. Tunis Jewesses, 29. — Moslem drums at, 169. Turks, Circumcision among, 154. Turpicula res, 176. Twining, Symbols of Early Christian Art , 156, 198. Tyche, 292, 294. Tylor, Primitive Culture , 105. Tympanum , symbol of Cybele, 247. Uffizi gallery, Florence, 73, 134. Uteri at Naples, Oxford, etc., 257. Valeria, Hand found at, 256. Vanes, 93. Vannus Iacchi , 252. Varro, De Lingua Latina , 176. Vaughan, Cardinal, 77. Veneration and worship, 207. Venus, Frogs sacred to, 243, 299. Vernon MSS. cited, 98. Votivhanden, 209. Vulgate translation of Scripture, 22, 26. Waitz, Theo., Anthropologic, etc., 82. Wallis-Budge, E., Life of Alexander the Great , 30. Walpole's Memoirs, 280. Ward, Five Years with Congo Cannibals , 35- Weathercock, Origin of, 93. Weights, Roman, Hands on, 166. Wells, Dean and Chapter of, Seal of, 131, 200. Whee.l-cross., ,Th^, 2.37.- ■ , ' r— ofjfortune'J 392./ , \ 7 Whip' 6f Osiris', 219. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians , 156, 160. ; Wi'nckielmlanr!, Monumenti Ant. Inediti, | ; / v \ Winged heads, 135, 136. Wings, Devil without, in modern art, 1 13- Witchcraft and commerce with the devil, 115- Witches’ Sabbath, 183. Wito, The, of Africa, 91. Woodrow, Rev. R., Analecta , 104. Zedekiah’s horns of iron, 28. Zornius, Biblioth. Antiq ., 22, 146. f\ -5UZ5S GETTY CENTER LIBRARY o Q O O 125 00C 15 3490