DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0146
136
liis female personification a winged Victory, sacrificing a bull,
seem to allude :? but all that we have seen are of late date, ex-
cept a single instance of the Criobolium or Victory sacrificing a
ram, on a gold coin of Abydos, in the cabinet of Mr. Payne
Knight, which appears anterior to the Macedonian conquest.
169. The celestial or aetherial soul was represented1 in symbo-
lical writing by the butterfly ; an insect which first appears from
the egg in the shape of a grub, crawling upon the earth, and
feeding upon the leaves of plants. In this state it was aptly made
an emblem of man in his earthly form ; when the aetherial vigor
and activity of the celestial soul, the divirta particu/a mentis, was
clogged and encumbered with the material body. In its next state,
the grub becoming a chrysalis appeared, by its stillness, torpor,
and insensibility, a natural image of death, or the intermediate
state between the cessation of the vital functions of the body, and
the emancipation of the soul in the funeral pile : and the butterfly
breaking from this torpid chrysalis, and mounting in the air,
afforded a no less natural image of the celestial soul bursting from
the restraints of matter, and mixing again with its native aether.
Like other animal symbols, it was by degrees melted into the hu-
man form ; the original wings only being retained, to mark its mean-
ing. So elegant an allegory would naturally be a favorite subject
of art among a refined and ingenious people; and it accordingly
appears to have been more diversified and repeated by the Greek
sculptors, than almost any other, which the system of emanations,,
so favorable to art, could atford. Being, however, a subject more
applicable and interesting to individuals than communities, there
is no trace of it upon any coin, though it so constantly occurs
upon gems.
170. The fate of the terrestrial soul, the regions to which it
retired at the dissolution of the body, and the degree of sensibility
which it continued to enjoy, are subjects of much obscurity, and
1 See Bassirel. di Roma, tav. lviii.-lx. &c.
liis female personification a winged Victory, sacrificing a bull,
seem to allude :? but all that we have seen are of late date, ex-
cept a single instance of the Criobolium or Victory sacrificing a
ram, on a gold coin of Abydos, in the cabinet of Mr. Payne
Knight, which appears anterior to the Macedonian conquest.
169. The celestial or aetherial soul was represented1 in symbo-
lical writing by the butterfly ; an insect which first appears from
the egg in the shape of a grub, crawling upon the earth, and
feeding upon the leaves of plants. In this state it was aptly made
an emblem of man in his earthly form ; when the aetherial vigor
and activity of the celestial soul, the divirta particu/a mentis, was
clogged and encumbered with the material body. In its next state,
the grub becoming a chrysalis appeared, by its stillness, torpor,
and insensibility, a natural image of death, or the intermediate
state between the cessation of the vital functions of the body, and
the emancipation of the soul in the funeral pile : and the butterfly
breaking from this torpid chrysalis, and mounting in the air,
afforded a no less natural image of the celestial soul bursting from
the restraints of matter, and mixing again with its native aether.
Like other animal symbols, it was by degrees melted into the hu-
man form ; the original wings only being retained, to mark its mean-
ing. So elegant an allegory would naturally be a favorite subject
of art among a refined and ingenious people; and it accordingly
appears to have been more diversified and repeated by the Greek
sculptors, than almost any other, which the system of emanations,,
so favorable to art, could atford. Being, however, a subject more
applicable and interesting to individuals than communities, there
is no trace of it upon any coin, though it so constantly occurs
upon gems.
170. The fate of the terrestrial soul, the regions to which it
retired at the dissolution of the body, and the degree of sensibility
which it continued to enjoy, are subjects of much obscurity, and
1 See Bassirel. di Roma, tav. lviii.-lx. &c.