DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0046
56
appearance" in" the world.* On some of the early coins of the
Phoenicians, we find it attached to a chaplet of beads placed in a
circle ; so as to form a complete rosary; such as the lamas of
Thibet and China, the Hindoos, and the Roman Catholics, now
tell over while they pray.3-
47- Beads were anciently used to reckon time; and a circle,
being a line without termination, was the natural emblem of its
perpetual continuity ; whence we often find circles of beads upon
the heads of deities, and enclosing the sacred symbols, upon coins,
and other monuments.3 Perforated beads are also frequently
found in tombs, both in the northern and southern parts of Europe
and Asia,-which are fragments of the chaplets of consecration
buried with the deceased. The simple diadem or fdlet, worn
round the head as a mark of sovereignty, had a similar meaning ;
aad was originally confined to the statues of deities and deified
personages, as we find it upon the most ancient coins. Chryses,
the priest of i\pollo, in the Iliad, brings the diadem or sacred
fillet of the god upon his sceptre, as the most imposing and in-
violable emblem of sanctity : but no mention is made of its being
worn by kings in either of the Homeric poems ; nor of any other
ensign of temporal power and command, except the royal staff or
sceptre.
48. The myrtle was a symbol both of Venus and Neptune, the
male and female personifications of the productive powers of the
waters, which appears to have been occasionally employed in the
same sense as the fig and fig-leaf;4 but upon what account, it is
not easy to guess. Grains of barley may have been adopted
1 01. Puidbeck. Atlant. p. 11. c. xi. p. GG2. and p. 111. c. i. s. 111. 01.
Varelii Scandagr. Runic, Borlase Hist, of Cornwall, p. 10G.
1 Pellorin. Villes. T. iii. pi., exxii. fig. 4. ArchajqJ. Vol. xiv. pi. 2.
Nichoff s. ix. Maurice Indian Antic|uities, Vol. v.
3 Sec Coins of Syracuse. Lydia.
4 See Coins of Syracuse, Marseilles, &c. Schol. in Aristbph. Lysistr. 64,6.
MtdepiMjveveTai to Bpiov TTOTiir/ios xai kutjo-is (lege yevvriais vel icvj]<ris) naviav,
koi 5o/cei yewr)TiKtp popup rt\v tpwty eonterai. Plutarch de Is. et Osir. p. 305.
appearance" in" the world.* On some of the early coins of the
Phoenicians, we find it attached to a chaplet of beads placed in a
circle ; so as to form a complete rosary; such as the lamas of
Thibet and China, the Hindoos, and the Roman Catholics, now
tell over while they pray.3-
47- Beads were anciently used to reckon time; and a circle,
being a line without termination, was the natural emblem of its
perpetual continuity ; whence we often find circles of beads upon
the heads of deities, and enclosing the sacred symbols, upon coins,
and other monuments.3 Perforated beads are also frequently
found in tombs, both in the northern and southern parts of Europe
and Asia,-which are fragments of the chaplets of consecration
buried with the deceased. The simple diadem or fdlet, worn
round the head as a mark of sovereignty, had a similar meaning ;
aad was originally confined to the statues of deities and deified
personages, as we find it upon the most ancient coins. Chryses,
the priest of i\pollo, in the Iliad, brings the diadem or sacred
fillet of the god upon his sceptre, as the most imposing and in-
violable emblem of sanctity : but no mention is made of its being
worn by kings in either of the Homeric poems ; nor of any other
ensign of temporal power and command, except the royal staff or
sceptre.
48. The myrtle was a symbol both of Venus and Neptune, the
male and female personifications of the productive powers of the
waters, which appears to have been occasionally employed in the
same sense as the fig and fig-leaf;4 but upon what account, it is
not easy to guess. Grains of barley may have been adopted
1 01. Puidbeck. Atlant. p. 11. c. xi. p. GG2. and p. 111. c. i. s. 111. 01.
Varelii Scandagr. Runic, Borlase Hist, of Cornwall, p. 10G.
1 Pellorin. Villes. T. iii. pi., exxii. fig. 4. ArchajqJ. Vol. xiv. pi. 2.
Nichoff s. ix. Maurice Indian Antic|uities, Vol. v.
3 Sec Coins of Syracuse. Lydia.
4 See Coins of Syracuse, Marseilles, &c. Schol. in Aristbph. Lysistr. 64,6.
MtdepiMjveveTai to Bpiov TTOTiir/ios xai kutjo-is (lege yevvriais vel icvj]<ris) naviav,
koi 5o/cei yewr)TiKtp popup rt\v tpwty eonterai. Plutarch de Is. et Osir. p. 305.