DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4266#0059
2G
ANTIQUITIES AT DELOS.
Fig. 19. represents a marble fragment of a tomb, also at Ilhenea, resembling a thatch of laurel
leaves, somewhat in the manner of the tholus over the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at Athens.
PLATE V.
On this Plate is introduced a Restoration of the Capitals lately seen at Delos, to which are attached
the singular adjuncts of the foreparts of two kneeling Bulls. They, with the Triglyph, doubtless be-
longed to some edifice dedicated to the worship of Mithra, the Sun of the Persians, Phoebus of the
Greeks. At Persepolis, and in the vicinity, tauriform capitals are yet in existence, a design from
which we have inserted beneath, derived from delineations in the recent travels of Sir R. K. Porter %
accompanying which, we have represented a coin that we attribute to a city of Cilicia, bearing an
emblem allusive to similar idolatry of the Celestial Bull, or rather of the Sun in that prolific sign.
Such capitals were executed before Zoroaster had reformed the worship of Persia, under the
auspices of Darius Hystaspes, when the religious code of that philosopher was adopted by the state, on
the ruins of the ancient and proscribed idolatry. During the conquest of Persia, by Alexander, and
the reign of his successors, the intercourse on the part of the Greeks, with the sect of that country
which had not embraced the new religion of the Magi, must have been considerable, after which,
from the reminiscence of such capitals as that before us, attached to the architecture raised in honour
of the Mithraic worship in Persia, may have resulted an adapted imitation of them, as seen at Delos,
devoted to the same idolatry at the mythic birth-place of Apollo.
Although from a passage of Plutarch, it has been alleged, that the worship of Mithra was not in-
troduced into Italy previous to the conquest by Pompey of the Cilician Pirates, b. c. 66, among whom
he states it to have prevailed"; yet from the antecedent intercourse of the people of Cilicia with Per-
sians, and also with Greeks who were prone to adopt new Gods when having a relation to their
own, it may be additionally concluded that the worship of Mithra had long previously prevailed in the
Archipelago. The Persian army which sailed to Marathon, commanded by Datis, (who, it would appear,
by order of Darius, performed a sacrifice during the voyage at Delos,) had embarked from the coast
of Cilicia% which country and Phoenicia, continued to the time of Alexander, the chief maritime outlets
to Greece for the Persian resources ; Strabo points out the connection between the Cilicians and Delos,
after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, at which emporium, he says, the Cilician Pirates could
sell ten thousand slaves in one dayd.
a Porter's Travels in Persia, Vol. I. PL 17- 35. and 45. d Strabo, L. XIV. p. 668. " A great part of the slaves in
Plut. in Vit. Pompeii. Rome were Syrians ; for the Pirates of Cilicia, who used to in-
c Herod.L.VI. CXCV.XCVII. Mitford's Greece, C.VII. s.4. fest the coasts of Syria, carried all their captives to the market
ANTIQUITIES AT DELOS.
Fig. 19. represents a marble fragment of a tomb, also at Ilhenea, resembling a thatch of laurel
leaves, somewhat in the manner of the tholus over the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at Athens.
PLATE V.
On this Plate is introduced a Restoration of the Capitals lately seen at Delos, to which are attached
the singular adjuncts of the foreparts of two kneeling Bulls. They, with the Triglyph, doubtless be-
longed to some edifice dedicated to the worship of Mithra, the Sun of the Persians, Phoebus of the
Greeks. At Persepolis, and in the vicinity, tauriform capitals are yet in existence, a design from
which we have inserted beneath, derived from delineations in the recent travels of Sir R. K. Porter %
accompanying which, we have represented a coin that we attribute to a city of Cilicia, bearing an
emblem allusive to similar idolatry of the Celestial Bull, or rather of the Sun in that prolific sign.
Such capitals were executed before Zoroaster had reformed the worship of Persia, under the
auspices of Darius Hystaspes, when the religious code of that philosopher was adopted by the state, on
the ruins of the ancient and proscribed idolatry. During the conquest of Persia, by Alexander, and
the reign of his successors, the intercourse on the part of the Greeks, with the sect of that country
which had not embraced the new religion of the Magi, must have been considerable, after which,
from the reminiscence of such capitals as that before us, attached to the architecture raised in honour
of the Mithraic worship in Persia, may have resulted an adapted imitation of them, as seen at Delos,
devoted to the same idolatry at the mythic birth-place of Apollo.
Although from a passage of Plutarch, it has been alleged, that the worship of Mithra was not in-
troduced into Italy previous to the conquest by Pompey of the Cilician Pirates, b. c. 66, among whom
he states it to have prevailed"; yet from the antecedent intercourse of the people of Cilicia with Per-
sians, and also with Greeks who were prone to adopt new Gods when having a relation to their
own, it may be additionally concluded that the worship of Mithra had long previously prevailed in the
Archipelago. The Persian army which sailed to Marathon, commanded by Datis, (who, it would appear,
by order of Darius, performed a sacrifice during the voyage at Delos,) had embarked from the coast
of Cilicia% which country and Phoenicia, continued to the time of Alexander, the chief maritime outlets
to Greece for the Persian resources ; Strabo points out the connection between the Cilicians and Delos,
after the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, at which emporium, he says, the Cilician Pirates could
sell ten thousand slaves in one dayd.
a Porter's Travels in Persia, Vol. I. PL 17- 35. and 45. d Strabo, L. XIV. p. 668. " A great part of the slaves in
Plut. in Vit. Pompeii. Rome were Syrians ; for the Pirates of Cilicia, who used to in-
c Herod.L.VI. CXCV.XCVII. Mitford's Greece, C.VII. s.4. fest the coasts of Syria, carried all their captives to the market