DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0121
Ill
sometimes four, but more frequently only three in the instances
now extant: for the ancient ./Egyptians, or at least some of them,
appear to have known that water and air are but one substance."
142. The statues of Diana are always clothed, and she had the
attribute .of perpetual .virginity; to which her common Greek
name APTEMIS seems to allude : but the Latin name appears to
be a contraction of DIVlANA, the feminine, according to the old
Etruscan idiom, of D1VUS, or A1FOX ? and therefore signifying
the Goddess, or general female personification of the Divine na-
ture, which the Moon was probably held to be in the ancient
planetary worship, which preceded the symbolical. As her titles
and attributes were innumerable, she was represented under an infi-
nite variety of forms, and with an infinite variety of symbols;
sometimes with three bodies, each holding appropriate em-
blems,3 to signify the triple extension of her power, in hea-
ven, on earth, and under the earth; and sometimes with
phallic radii enveloping a female form, to show the universal
generative attribute both active and passive.* The figures of her,
as she was worshipped at Ephesus, seem to have consisted of an
assemblage of almost every symbol, attached to the old humanised
column, so as to form a composition purely emblematical ;s and it
seems that the ancient inhabitants of the north of Europe repre-
sented their goddess Isa as nearly in the same manner as their rude
and feeble efforts in art could accomplish; she having the many
breasts to signify the nutritive attribute; and being surrounded by
deer's horns instead of the animals themselves, which accompany
* 'H yap vypa c/>wns, apxo Kai yeveats oma iravruv e£ apxvs, fa TtpoiraTpia (Tu^aTa,
y-fjV, aepa, Ktu -Kvp eiroiijcre. Plutarch, de Is. et Osir.
1 Varr. lib. iv. c. 10. Lanzi sopra le linguc morte dTtalia, vol. ii. p. 191.
3 See La Chausse Mus. Rom. vol. i. s. ii. tab. 20, &c. These figures.are
said to have been first made by Alcamenes, about the Ixxxiv, Olympiad..
AAKafiei'iis 8c (cfiai tioiceiv) ■nfitnos ayaXpara 'Ewttjs rpia enoirjae Trpoo-exofiera aXAij-
Xois, r)v A0ijtoioi KaKovtnv eirnrvpyfiiav. Pausan. in Corinth, c. xxx. s. 2.
*See Duane's coins of the Seleucidre, tab. xiv. fig. 1 and 2.
5 Sec De lit Ohausse Ma-. ll<:ai. v.oltJ.;;. tab. wiii.
sometimes four, but more frequently only three in the instances
now extant: for the ancient ./Egyptians, or at least some of them,
appear to have known that water and air are but one substance."
142. The statues of Diana are always clothed, and she had the
attribute .of perpetual .virginity; to which her common Greek
name APTEMIS seems to allude : but the Latin name appears to
be a contraction of DIVlANA, the feminine, according to the old
Etruscan idiom, of D1VUS, or A1FOX ? and therefore signifying
the Goddess, or general female personification of the Divine na-
ture, which the Moon was probably held to be in the ancient
planetary worship, which preceded the symbolical. As her titles
and attributes were innumerable, she was represented under an infi-
nite variety of forms, and with an infinite variety of symbols;
sometimes with three bodies, each holding appropriate em-
blems,3 to signify the triple extension of her power, in hea-
ven, on earth, and under the earth; and sometimes with
phallic radii enveloping a female form, to show the universal
generative attribute both active and passive.* The figures of her,
as she was worshipped at Ephesus, seem to have consisted of an
assemblage of almost every symbol, attached to the old humanised
column, so as to form a composition purely emblematical ;s and it
seems that the ancient inhabitants of the north of Europe repre-
sented their goddess Isa as nearly in the same manner as their rude
and feeble efforts in art could accomplish; she having the many
breasts to signify the nutritive attribute; and being surrounded by
deer's horns instead of the animals themselves, which accompany
* 'H yap vypa c/>wns, apxo Kai yeveats oma iravruv e£ apxvs, fa TtpoiraTpia (Tu^aTa,
y-fjV, aepa, Ktu -Kvp eiroiijcre. Plutarch, de Is. et Osir.
1 Varr. lib. iv. c. 10. Lanzi sopra le linguc morte dTtalia, vol. ii. p. 191.
3 See La Chausse Mus. Rom. vol. i. s. ii. tab. 20, &c. These figures.are
said to have been first made by Alcamenes, about the Ixxxiv, Olympiad..
AAKafiei'iis 8c (cfiai tioiceiv) ■nfitnos ayaXpara 'Ewttjs rpia enoirjae Trpoo-exofiera aXAij-
Xois, r)v A0ijtoioi KaKovtnv eirnrvpyfiiav. Pausan. in Corinth, c. xxx. s. 2.
*See Duane's coins of the Seleucidre, tab. xiv. fig. 1 and 2.
5 Sec De lit Ohausse Ma-. ll<:ai. v.oltJ.;;. tab. wiii.