DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15099#0192
148
relative, and of that veneration with which they would approach
the presence of the divinity to whom they were about to offer
sacrifice. The only exception to this attitude of awe is the child
occupied in holding or pressing forward the ram, which is about
to be offered as a propitiatory sacrifice. At the left corner of
this subject appears a window, through which is seen the head of
a horse. This description of monument has been the subject of
many discussions and dissertations ; the various authors of which
are so little agreed as to the exact nature of the scene repre-
sented, or in their interpretation of the import of some of the
details and accessories, that the only result at which we can
arrive with certainty is, that we are very imperfectly acquainted
with many of the rites and ceremonies of the ancients, and with
many of their opinions, sentiments and feelings.
Amongst the Towneley collection of marbles is a monument of
this kind, in which a funereal banquet is displayed before two
reclining personages, who, in an engraving published by Mr.
Towneley himself, are named Castor and Pollux j and the horse,
whose head appears at the window, is supposed to be waiting to
convey Castor from the shades below, as soon as the prescribed
term of his residence in the infernal regions shall have been ter-
minated. This interpretation however cannot be admitted, for
Mr. Towneley has taken his idea from the engraving, and not
from the marble which was actually in his own possession, where
the principal figure is a venerable bearded personage, more re-
sembling Jupiter himself than either of his young, elastic, athletic
sons. In this monument the assembled family maintain the same
attitude of veneration as in that now under discussion; the ani-
mal to be sacrificed is a sow, not a ram; and it may be worthy
of remark that it is only the one or the other of these two
animals which ever appears as a victim in scenes of this de-
scription. It is true that Caylus1 represents one of these groups
1 Recueil cT Antiquites, vol. iii. part iii. in a vignette, p. 105.
relative, and of that veneration with which they would approach
the presence of the divinity to whom they were about to offer
sacrifice. The only exception to this attitude of awe is the child
occupied in holding or pressing forward the ram, which is about
to be offered as a propitiatory sacrifice. At the left corner of
this subject appears a window, through which is seen the head of
a horse. This description of monument has been the subject of
many discussions and dissertations ; the various authors of which
are so little agreed as to the exact nature of the scene repre-
sented, or in their interpretation of the import of some of the
details and accessories, that the only result at which we can
arrive with certainty is, that we are very imperfectly acquainted
with many of the rites and ceremonies of the ancients, and with
many of their opinions, sentiments and feelings.
Amongst the Towneley collection of marbles is a monument of
this kind, in which a funereal banquet is displayed before two
reclining personages, who, in an engraving published by Mr.
Towneley himself, are named Castor and Pollux j and the horse,
whose head appears at the window, is supposed to be waiting to
convey Castor from the shades below, as soon as the prescribed
term of his residence in the infernal regions shall have been ter-
minated. This interpretation however cannot be admitted, for
Mr. Towneley has taken his idea from the engraving, and not
from the marble which was actually in his own possession, where
the principal figure is a venerable bearded personage, more re-
sembling Jupiter himself than either of his young, elastic, athletic
sons. In this monument the assembled family maintain the same
attitude of veneration as in that now under discussion; the ani-
mal to be sacrificed is a sow, not a ram; and it may be worthy
of remark that it is only the one or the other of these two
animals which ever appears as a victim in scenes of this de-
scription. It is true that Caylus1 represents one of these groups
1 Recueil cT Antiquites, vol. iii. part iii. in a vignette, p. 105.