Knight, Richard Payne: An Inquiry Into The Symbolical Language Of Ancient Art And Mythology (London, 1818) [Cicognara, 4789]

156

to have been made, in early times, to introduce similar acts of de-
votion in Ilaly; for when the oracle of Juno was consulted upon
the long-continued barrenness of the Roman matrons, its answer
was, " Iliadas niatres caper hirtus inito :" but these mystic refine-
ments not being understood by that rude people, they could think
of no other way of fulfilling the mandate, than sacrificing a goat,
and applying the skin, cut into thongs, to the bare backs of the
ladies.

fetudtttaiuao3,-Miiiuiitf ?vKi/.a .Me/. <.<> «}-tfKj;rjiiteB»--»fb 'u-*miiti'--<

--Jussaa sua terga manta?

Pellibus exsectis percutienda dabant;

»(s.tHl'.':(t. ji.3nj<|K dviliw ; W& ,*an.eij<!»)J ..ibiifMi wicir<>■ . ■' •<!<?•> .
which, however, had the desired effect:

Virque pacer subito, nuptaque mater erat.1

Jit Mendes female goats were also held sacred, as symbols of the
passive generative attribute;2' and on Grecian monuments of art,
we often find caprine satyrs of that sex. The fable of Jupiter hav-
ing been suckled by a goat, probably arose from some emblematical
composition; the true explanation of which was only known to the
initiated. Such was the Juno Sospita of Lanuvium, near Rome,
whose goat-skin dress siguified the same as her title; and who, on
a votive car of very ancient Etruscan work found near Perugia, ap-
pears exactly in the form described by Cicero, as the associate of
Hercules dressed in the lion's skin, or the Destroyer.3

102. The Greeks frequently combined the symbolical animals,

VvyaLKi rpayos efiiayero a.vat£a.vl>ov tovto es t7ri5«t|ii' avBpoyitoiV aiwctTO. Herod ot.
lib. ii. s. 46.

Zv 5t TaiswpoeipVH-fais Terreptucovff iifitpais ixovov ipacw avrov (rovAmv) at ywamcs,
KaTa Trpoaanrov 'KTraixwai, Kai SeiKvvovGi avaavpa/x^vai ra 4amw ytvvrrnita fiopia' rov
5' aWov xpovov airama KiKaKvfXfvoy effrw cis otytv auras tpxcaOai Tovrtp rep Gey. Die*
dor. Sic. lib. i.

1 Ovid. Fast. ii. 448.

1 Aiya 5c Kai rpayov MevSjjcrioi ti/iokjw, Strabon. lib. xvii. p. 312.
2t&ovrai 5e jrairas tous 0170$ oi Mti'Stja'ioi, Kai naWov tovs apacvovs twv OriKfUiv.
Hcrodot. lib. ii. s. 46.

3 Cum pelle caprina, cum basta, cum scutulo, cum calccolis repandis, De
N. D. lib. i. s. xxix.