DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5179#0248
THE EARLIER TEMPLES OP DIANA, ETC. 211
The latter sentence is merely to be regarded as
a customary mode of expression among the ancients
to denote great antiquity. Its great age is further
shown by the circumstance of the Temple being
formerly washed by the sea,1 and from its statue
having been a diopetes, or one of those which were
supposed to have fallen from Jupiter, or heaven.
Some even pretended that the Temple, like the
statue,3 fell down from heaven.3 But great as was
the antiquity of the Temple, the worship of the
goddess was even more remote : sacrifices having
been paid to her, long before the erection of a
temple, under the figure of the trunk of an elm-
tree;4 over6 which the Amazons subsequently built a
temple;G and Hyginus tells us that Otrita, the wife
of Mars, was queen of the Amazons at that time.7
1 See page 198. 2 And the church of Sa. M>. di Loretto.
3 Scaliger, quoting an ancient Greek epigram, lib. ii. pars ii.
p. 55, No. dccclxx.
4 Dion. Perieg. v. 829.
5 Such I conceive to be the meaning of DionjTsius' expression,—
irgifivif h'L wrtXir],;; for, according to the usual reading, the Amazons
built a temple, an immense miracle to man, on the trunk of an
elm-tree, which is evidently absurd. Some have endeavoured to
explain this by substituting altar for temple, and others by sup-
posing that jiteXeijc refers to Plelea, one of the quarters of the city ;
(see page 24) but then there would have been no occasion for the
word Trpifiva. But reading,—over the trunk of an elm-tree, the
meaning is quite clear, and corresponds with the expression used
by Callimachus : — " They afterwards constructed around this
statue a vast temple." (v. 248, 9.)
6 Dion. Perieg. v. 829; Mela, da Situ Orbis, i. 16; Solinus,
Polyldst. xliii. ; Pans. iv. 31. ' Hyginus, Fab. ccxxiii. ccxxv.
The latter sentence is merely to be regarded as
a customary mode of expression among the ancients
to denote great antiquity. Its great age is further
shown by the circumstance of the Temple being
formerly washed by the sea,1 and from its statue
having been a diopetes, or one of those which were
supposed to have fallen from Jupiter, or heaven.
Some even pretended that the Temple, like the
statue,3 fell down from heaven.3 But great as was
the antiquity of the Temple, the worship of the
goddess was even more remote : sacrifices having
been paid to her, long before the erection of a
temple, under the figure of the trunk of an elm-
tree;4 over6 which the Amazons subsequently built a
temple;G and Hyginus tells us that Otrita, the wife
of Mars, was queen of the Amazons at that time.7
1 See page 198. 2 And the church of Sa. M>. di Loretto.
3 Scaliger, quoting an ancient Greek epigram, lib. ii. pars ii.
p. 55, No. dccclxx.
4 Dion. Perieg. v. 829.
5 Such I conceive to be the meaning of DionjTsius' expression,—
irgifivif h'L wrtXir],;; for, according to the usual reading, the Amazons
built a temple, an immense miracle to man, on the trunk of an
elm-tree, which is evidently absurd. Some have endeavoured to
explain this by substituting altar for temple, and others by sup-
posing that jiteXeijc refers to Plelea, one of the quarters of the city ;
(see page 24) but then there would have been no occasion for the
word Trpifiva. But reading,—over the trunk of an elm-tree, the
meaning is quite clear, and corresponds with the expression used
by Callimachus : — " They afterwards constructed around this
statue a vast temple." (v. 248, 9.)
6 Dion. Perieg. v. 829; Mela, da Situ Orbis, i. 16; Solinus,
Polyldst. xliii. ; Pans. iv. 31. ' Hyginus, Fab. ccxxiii. ccxxv.