DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0040
30
rian; there being scarcely a country in the world, where some
traces of the adoration paid to it are not to be found.1 The pry^
taneia of the Greek cities, in which the supreme councils were
usually held, and the public treasures kept, were so culled from
the sacred fires always preserved in them. Even common fires
were reputed holy by them ; and therefore carefully preserved
from all contagion of impiety After the battle of Plataja; they
extinguished all that remained in the countries which had been
occupied by the Persians, and rekindled them, according to the
direction of the Oracle, with consecrated lire from the altar at
.Delphi.2, A similar prejudice still prevails among the native
Irish ; who annually extinguish their iires, and rekindle them from
a sacred bonfire.3 Perpetual lamps are kept burning in the inmost
recesses of all the great pagodas in India; the Hindoos holding-
fire to be the essence of all active power in nature. At Sais
in iEgypt, there was an annual religious festival called the Burning
of Lamps;4 and lamps were frequently employed as symbols
upon coins by the Greeks;5 who also kept them burning in tombs,
and sometimes swore by them, as by known emblems of the Deity.6
The torch held erect, as it was by the statue of Bacchus at Eleusis,7
and as it is by other figures of him still extant, menus life; while its
being reversed, as it frequently is upon sepulchral urns and other
monuments of the kind, invariably signifies death or extinction.8
1 Huet. Demonstr. Evang. Praep. iv. c, 5. Lafitan Mceurs ties Sauvages,
t. i.p. 153. '-
1 Plutarch, in Aristid.
| 3 Collect. Hibern. No. v. p. 64.
' + AvxvoKmn. Herodot. lib. ii. 6'J.
5Seecoinsof Amphipolis, Alexander the Great, &c.
0 Au^ye, ere yap irapeowa rpts a'juoctj/
*HpaK\cta---^|etv.
Asclepiad. Epigr. xxv. in Bnmck. Analect. vol. i.p. 216.
7 Pausan. in 1. c.
/ 8 See Portland vase, &c. Polyniccs infers his own approaching death
from seeing in a vision,
Conjugis Argeia: lacera cum lampade mcestam
' EuVicm. Stat.Thcb. xi. 142.
rian; there being scarcely a country in the world, where some
traces of the adoration paid to it are not to be found.1 The pry^
taneia of the Greek cities, in which the supreme councils were
usually held, and the public treasures kept, were so culled from
the sacred fires always preserved in them. Even common fires
were reputed holy by them ; and therefore carefully preserved
from all contagion of impiety After the battle of Plataja; they
extinguished all that remained in the countries which had been
occupied by the Persians, and rekindled them, according to the
direction of the Oracle, with consecrated lire from the altar at
.Delphi.2, A similar prejudice still prevails among the native
Irish ; who annually extinguish their iires, and rekindle them from
a sacred bonfire.3 Perpetual lamps are kept burning in the inmost
recesses of all the great pagodas in India; the Hindoos holding-
fire to be the essence of all active power in nature. At Sais
in iEgypt, there was an annual religious festival called the Burning
of Lamps;4 and lamps were frequently employed as symbols
upon coins by the Greeks;5 who also kept them burning in tombs,
and sometimes swore by them, as by known emblems of the Deity.6
The torch held erect, as it was by the statue of Bacchus at Eleusis,7
and as it is by other figures of him still extant, menus life; while its
being reversed, as it frequently is upon sepulchral urns and other
monuments of the kind, invariably signifies death or extinction.8
1 Huet. Demonstr. Evang. Praep. iv. c, 5. Lafitan Mceurs ties Sauvages,
t. i.p. 153. '-
1 Plutarch, in Aristid.
| 3 Collect. Hibern. No. v. p. 64.
' + AvxvoKmn. Herodot. lib. ii. 6'J.
5Seecoinsof Amphipolis, Alexander the Great, &c.
0 Au^ye, ere yap irapeowa rpts a'juoctj/
*HpaK\cta---^|etv.
Asclepiad. Epigr. xxv. in Bnmck. Analect. vol. i.p. 216.
7 Pausan. in 1. c.
/ 8 See Portland vase, &c. Polyniccs infers his own approaching death
from seeing in a vision,
Conjugis Argeia: lacera cum lampade mcestam
' EuVicm. Stat.Thcb. xi. 142.