DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0125
chap, xxxvii.] BRONZES OF MONTE FALTERONA. 109
to between six and seven hundred. They were mostly
human figures of both sexes, many of them of gods and
Penates, varying in size from two or three to seventeen
inches in height. But how came they here ? was the
question which puzzled every one to answer. At first it
was thought they had been cast into the lake for preserva-
tion during some political convulsion, or hostile invasion,
and afterwards forgotten. But further examination showed
they were mostly of a votive character—offerings at some
shrine, for favours expected or received. Most of them
had their arms extended as if in the act of presenting
gifts ; others were clearly representations of beings suffer-
ing from disease, especially one who had a wound in his
chest, and a frame wasted by consumption or atrophy;
and there were, moreover, a number of decided ex-votos—
heads and limbs of various portions of the human body,
and many images of domestic animals, also of a votive
character. All this implied the existence of a shrine on
this mountain, surrounded, as the trees seemed to indicate,
by a sacred grove, like that of Feronia or Soracte, and of
Silvanus at Csere ;2 and it seemed that, by one of those
terrible convulsions to which this land has from age to age
been subject, the shrine and grove had been hurled down
into this cavity of the mountain. It is well known that
such catastrophes have in past ages occurred on Monte
Palterona. For it is composed of stratified sandstone
(macigno), and argillaceous schist (bisciajo), which latter,
being very friable, has given way under the pressure of the
superincumbent mass, and caused tremendous landslips,
by which extensive forests have been precipitated down
the slopes.3 No traces, however, of a shrine, or of any
habitation, were discovered with the relics in this lake.
2 That of Silvanus was girt about with 3 Repetti (II. p. 91) records three of
fiw- Vii-g. ^En. VIII. 599. these landslips : the first on 15th May,
to between six and seven hundred. They were mostly
human figures of both sexes, many of them of gods and
Penates, varying in size from two or three to seventeen
inches in height. But how came they here ? was the
question which puzzled every one to answer. At first it
was thought they had been cast into the lake for preserva-
tion during some political convulsion, or hostile invasion,
and afterwards forgotten. But further examination showed
they were mostly of a votive character—offerings at some
shrine, for favours expected or received. Most of them
had their arms extended as if in the act of presenting
gifts ; others were clearly representations of beings suffer-
ing from disease, especially one who had a wound in his
chest, and a frame wasted by consumption or atrophy;
and there were, moreover, a number of decided ex-votos—
heads and limbs of various portions of the human body,
and many images of domestic animals, also of a votive
character. All this implied the existence of a shrine on
this mountain, surrounded, as the trees seemed to indicate,
by a sacred grove, like that of Feronia or Soracte, and of
Silvanus at Csere ;2 and it seemed that, by one of those
terrible convulsions to which this land has from age to age
been subject, the shrine and grove had been hurled down
into this cavity of the mountain. It is well known that
such catastrophes have in past ages occurred on Monte
Palterona. For it is composed of stratified sandstone
(macigno), and argillaceous schist (bisciajo), which latter,
being very friable, has given way under the pressure of the
superincumbent mass, and caused tremendous landslips,
by which extensive forests have been precipitated down
the slopes.3 No traces, however, of a shrine, or of any
habitation, were discovered with the relics in this lake.
2 That of Silvanus was girt about with 3 Repetti (II. p. 91) records three of
fiw- Vii-g. ^En. VIII. 599. these landslips : the first on 15th May,