DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0018
8
the hieroglyphical mode of wricing, was every where employed la
convey or conceal the dogmas of religion ; and we shall find that
the same symbols were employed to express the same ideas in
^almost every country of the northern hemisphere.
13. In examining these symbols in the remains of ancient art,
which have escaped the barbarism and bigotry of the middle ages,
we may sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between those com-
positions which are mere efforts of taste and fancy, and those
which were emblems of what were thought divine truths: but,
nevertheless, this difficulty is not so great, as it, at first view,
appears to be : for there is such an obvious analogy and connec-
tion between the different emblematical monuments; not only of
the same, but of different and remote countries, that, when pro-
perly arranged, and brought under one point of view, they, in a
great degree, explain themselves by mutually explaining each
other. There is one class, too, the most numerous and important
of all, which must have been designed and executed under the
sanction of public authority; and therefore whatever meaning
they contain, must have been the meaning of nations, and not the
caprice of individuals.
14. This is the class of coins, the devices upon which were
always held so strictly sacred, that the most proud and powerful
monarchs never ventured to put their portraits upon them until the
practice of deifying sovereigns had enrolled them among the gods.
Neither the kings of Persia, Macedonia, or Epirus, nor even the
tyrants of Sicily ever took this liberty ; the first portraits, that we
find upon money, being those of the iEgyptian and Syrian dynasties,
of Macedonian princes, whom the flattery of their subjects had
raised to divine honors. The artists had indeed before found a
way of gratifying the vanity of their patrons without offending their
piety, which was by mixing their features with those of the deity,
whose image was to be impressed ; an artifice which seems to have
been practised in the coins of several of the Macedonian kings,
previous to the custom of putting their portraits upon them.1
« See those of Archelaus, Amyntas, Alexander II. Perdiccas, Philip,
Alexander the Great, Philip Aridaeus, and Seleucus I. in all which the dif-
the hieroglyphical mode of wricing, was every where employed la
convey or conceal the dogmas of religion ; and we shall find that
the same symbols were employed to express the same ideas in
^almost every country of the northern hemisphere.
13. In examining these symbols in the remains of ancient art,
which have escaped the barbarism and bigotry of the middle ages,
we may sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between those com-
positions which are mere efforts of taste and fancy, and those
which were emblems of what were thought divine truths: but,
nevertheless, this difficulty is not so great, as it, at first view,
appears to be : for there is such an obvious analogy and connec-
tion between the different emblematical monuments; not only of
the same, but of different and remote countries, that, when pro-
perly arranged, and brought under one point of view, they, in a
great degree, explain themselves by mutually explaining each
other. There is one class, too, the most numerous and important
of all, which must have been designed and executed under the
sanction of public authority; and therefore whatever meaning
they contain, must have been the meaning of nations, and not the
caprice of individuals.
14. This is the class of coins, the devices upon which were
always held so strictly sacred, that the most proud and powerful
monarchs never ventured to put their portraits upon them until the
practice of deifying sovereigns had enrolled them among the gods.
Neither the kings of Persia, Macedonia, or Epirus, nor even the
tyrants of Sicily ever took this liberty ; the first portraits, that we
find upon money, being those of the iEgyptian and Syrian dynasties,
of Macedonian princes, whom the flattery of their subjects had
raised to divine honors. The artists had indeed before found a
way of gratifying the vanity of their patrons without offending their
piety, which was by mixing their features with those of the deity,
whose image was to be impressed ; an artifice which seems to have
been practised in the coins of several of the Macedonian kings,
previous to the custom of putting their portraits upon them.1
« See those of Archelaus, Amyntas, Alexander II. Perdiccas, Philip,
Alexander the Great, Philip Aridaeus, and Seleucus I. in all which the dif-