DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1623#0127
122 Collection of Etruscan , Greek and Roman Antiquities
alfo was nothing more than an unshaken Stone, as the Pallas adored
. in the: acropolis of Athens was only a rough fake, Tertullian calls it (p)%
Sine effigie rudis palus & informe lignum, what a diftance from that,
to the Statue of the fame Qoddefs which Phidias (10) placed in the Par-
thenon % (n) and which according to Maffimus of Tyr was not at all
inferior to the Verfes of Homer \ but the diftance was not leafi, from, the
Stone of Thefpia7 to the Cupid which Praxiteles made for the Theft
pians, without- which fays Cicero (iz) nobody woud have cared to fee Thef-
pis I One shoud think that the imagination of thefe people which had
exhaufted itfelf in the invention of Gods , did not furnish them the
means of fatisfying the defire they had to reprefent them ; hut when
the Poets had painted thefe Gods as fenfible beings, whofe nature and
pajjions refembled much to thofe of Men, they began to perceive that
they might at leaf; indicate them by Symbols which point out fame
of their Attributes , it was then mofi probably, that they reprefented to-
wards Corinth near the tomb of Aratus, a Jupiter Melichius in the
form of a Pyramid , and a Diana Patroa in that of a Pillar : the
Pofts which they called of the Kings, were at Sparta the Emblem of
Diofcures , whofe wood work being kept together by two crofs beams ,
reprefented 3 according to Plutark, (13) Birth and Friendship . Such, were alfo
the fquare Statues of Jupiter (14) and Neptune (15) that were to be feen at
Tegea and Tricolona in Arcadia, and that were nothing more than Stones
in the form of Terms upon which they had placed a rounded Stone which fi-
gured the head, it is for this reafon that afterwards the word Kim fignified
without diftinblion a Column or a Statue , in the fame manner as
under the denomination of "Eç/mu they underftood either great Stones or
reprefentations of Mercury , the very confufion which thefe Synonyms
feem to occafwn in things of so different a nature , shews that very
anciently fimple Columns or elfe Stones longer than they were broad ,
having taken the place of thofe heaps of Pebbles which in the obfeure
Streets (16) were confecrated to Mercury , became the Jtmbols of thofe very
Gods,
(9) Tertull. adv. Gent.
(10) PUnius m,, 34. Strab 1X<
(11) Maxim. Tyr. Differt. XXVI.
(iz) Cic. in Verr. IV.
alfo was nothing more than an unshaken Stone, as the Pallas adored
. in the: acropolis of Athens was only a rough fake, Tertullian calls it (p)%
Sine effigie rudis palus & informe lignum, what a diftance from that,
to the Statue of the fame Qoddefs which Phidias (10) placed in the Par-
thenon % (n) and which according to Maffimus of Tyr was not at all
inferior to the Verfes of Homer \ but the diftance was not leafi, from, the
Stone of Thefpia7 to the Cupid which Praxiteles made for the Theft
pians, without- which fays Cicero (iz) nobody woud have cared to fee Thef-
pis I One shoud think that the imagination of thefe people which had
exhaufted itfelf in the invention of Gods , did not furnish them the
means of fatisfying the defire they had to reprefent them ; hut when
the Poets had painted thefe Gods as fenfible beings, whofe nature and
pajjions refembled much to thofe of Men, they began to perceive that
they might at leaf; indicate them by Symbols which point out fame
of their Attributes , it was then mofi probably, that they reprefented to-
wards Corinth near the tomb of Aratus, a Jupiter Melichius in the
form of a Pyramid , and a Diana Patroa in that of a Pillar : the
Pofts which they called of the Kings, were at Sparta the Emblem of
Diofcures , whofe wood work being kept together by two crofs beams ,
reprefented 3 according to Plutark, (13) Birth and Friendship . Such, were alfo
the fquare Statues of Jupiter (14) and Neptune (15) that were to be feen at
Tegea and Tricolona in Arcadia, and that were nothing more than Stones
in the form of Terms upon which they had placed a rounded Stone which fi-
gured the head, it is for this reafon that afterwards the word Kim fignified
without diftinblion a Column or a Statue , in the fame manner as
under the denomination of "Eç/mu they underftood either great Stones or
reprefentations of Mercury , the very confufion which thefe Synonyms
feem to occafwn in things of so different a nature , shews that very
anciently fimple Columns or elfe Stones longer than they were broad ,
having taken the place of thofe heaps of Pebbles which in the obfeure
Streets (16) were confecrated to Mercury , became the Jtmbols of thofe very
Gods,
(9) Tertull. adv. Gent.
(10) PUnius m,, 34. Strab 1X<
(11) Maxim. Tyr. Differt. XXVI.
(iz) Cic. in Verr. IV.