DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4266#0061
28 ANTIQUITIES AT DELOS.
of a temple, to which the above fragments may have been appropriated, shewing the elevation
of the front, reverse, and profile of such an entire order. The Mithraic mysteries were generally per-
formed during the lower ages in Cavernsa, a worship which the Heathen priesthood attempted to in-
vest even with sentiments and ceremonies derived from Christianity; setting it up in impious hostility
to the superior influence of Revelation b. In justification of our arrangement however, we have found
authority to prove the existence of Temples raised to that idolatry, from the ruins recently discovered
at the anciently opulent city of Ostia, where the sculpture usually attached to this worship, represent-
ing Mithra slaying a kneeling bullc, was accompanied with the following inscription11, announcing
Aulus Decimius to have restored at his own expense, the temple with its pronaos, and the God the
Sun Mithra himself, together with the marbles and the complete worship.
A • DECIMIVS • A • F • PAL • DECIMIANVS • AEDEM
CVM • SVO • PRONAO • IPSVM • QVE • DEVM SOLEM • MITHRAM
ET • MARMORIBVS • ET • OMNI • CVLTV • SVA • P • RESTITVIT
The Headpiece to the Description of these Plates, delineates to the size of the original, a small
Vase, found recently within a tomb at Athens, embodied like rude examples of our own pottery, in
the vacuum of a terracotta figure. It represents a Mystic Cupid, springing from a bed of flowers, and
presenting a golden apple; the neck of the vase rises from the head of the figure, which is encircled
with ivy-leaves painted green, perhaps from Love being the companion of Bacchus, who changed his
crown of vine leaves into one of ivye resembling them in form, which being a perennial plant, by
the perpetuity of its verdure, reminded the ancients of immortal existence. Another plaited ring-
like chaplet encircles the head, and, with the luxuriant hair, is gilded. The wings are decorated
with colours like the iris, and the entire figure was otherwise appropriately painted. The Greeks
had many pleasing associations with regard to apples; they were prizes at the Pythian games f; the
golden apple of Paris need not be mentioned, nor those of the Hesperides, allusive to " a condition
of being which transcends this corporeal life and generation" s; gold also, from its incorruptible na-
ture, being a correct symbol of purity.
The presence of so elegant a production of the Grecian fictile art, which probably decorated
the toilet of some lady while living, whose tomb it enriched when dead, brings to mind a passage of
Vitruvius, which has caused some difficulty with regard to the acceptation of a word, in the
impressive tale, describing the discovery of the Corinthian Capital by Callimachus, at the
tomb of a Corinthian maid. "Virgo, civis Corinthia, jam matura nuptiis, implicita morbo decessit:
post sepulturam ejus, quibus ea Virgo poculis delectabatur, nutrix collecta et composita in calatho
pertulit ad monumentum, et in summo collocavit, et uti ea permanerent diutius sub divo, tegula texit."
a — Persei sub rupibus antri Second Room, No- 12*. Mus. Clem. Tome VII. PI. VII.
Indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mitram. Inghirami, Mon. Etrus. Tom. VI. Tav. C. II.
Statii Thebaid. L. I. v. 720. Not. Var. 1671. d Annales Encyclopediques, Tom. II. 1817- Art. Nouvelles
b V. Dale, Disser. De Origine et Ritibus Sacri Taurobolii, C. I. Litteraires, p. 335, including a Notice of the Mithraeum of Ostia,
c See the fine antique marble group recently deposited in the by M. Labus.
British Museum, representing this subject, or an engraving of a e Plutarchi Sympos. L. III. Qu. 11.
similar production in the Museum Clementinum, which are con- f Eckhel, Numi Vet. Anecd. p. 61. Tab. V. n. 9. Antholo-
sidered by Visconti with other Antiquaries, to be symbolic of gia Graca a Jacobs. L. IX. n. 357- It appears also from an
the ancient notion of the influence of the Sun over the Moon, epigram in Athenaeus, that apples were sometimes jocosely con-
represented by the Bull, (as evident by the above quotation,) with tended for, with other kinds of prizes, by the Grecian fair—
Mithra in the act of forcing it to shed its generative influence, —Gicw S) «x»t^im t§ek ruma;,
typified by the blood of that animal, on the earth. Inghirami «*) p>&« rim, **! (fiA^a-r' hvia.
describes it as the " God Mithra, that is, the igneous heat of the Ponam autem Victoribus prsemia, tres tsenias,
Sun, which reaching the sign Taurus in the spring, sheds its et mala quinquc, et oscula novem.
blood, a signification of the life received from nature, which in Athen. Deipnos. ed. Scb. weigh. L. XV. p. 668.
that season becomes pr6lihc; while the autumnal Scorpion 8 This passage regarding the Hesperides, is from a MS.
enervates Taurus of his generative force; because Nature at that Commentary of Olympiodorus, on the Gorgias of Plato, quoted by
time ceases to fructify." Synopsis of Contents of Brit. Mus. Taylor, in a note on his Translation of Pausanias, L. II. C. XIII.
of a temple, to which the above fragments may have been appropriated, shewing the elevation
of the front, reverse, and profile of such an entire order. The Mithraic mysteries were generally per-
formed during the lower ages in Cavernsa, a worship which the Heathen priesthood attempted to in-
vest even with sentiments and ceremonies derived from Christianity; setting it up in impious hostility
to the superior influence of Revelation b. In justification of our arrangement however, we have found
authority to prove the existence of Temples raised to that idolatry, from the ruins recently discovered
at the anciently opulent city of Ostia, where the sculpture usually attached to this worship, represent-
ing Mithra slaying a kneeling bullc, was accompanied with the following inscription11, announcing
Aulus Decimius to have restored at his own expense, the temple with its pronaos, and the God the
Sun Mithra himself, together with the marbles and the complete worship.
A • DECIMIVS • A • F • PAL • DECIMIANVS • AEDEM
CVM • SVO • PRONAO • IPSVM • QVE • DEVM SOLEM • MITHRAM
ET • MARMORIBVS • ET • OMNI • CVLTV • SVA • P • RESTITVIT
The Headpiece to the Description of these Plates, delineates to the size of the original, a small
Vase, found recently within a tomb at Athens, embodied like rude examples of our own pottery, in
the vacuum of a terracotta figure. It represents a Mystic Cupid, springing from a bed of flowers, and
presenting a golden apple; the neck of the vase rises from the head of the figure, which is encircled
with ivy-leaves painted green, perhaps from Love being the companion of Bacchus, who changed his
crown of vine leaves into one of ivye resembling them in form, which being a perennial plant, by
the perpetuity of its verdure, reminded the ancients of immortal existence. Another plaited ring-
like chaplet encircles the head, and, with the luxuriant hair, is gilded. The wings are decorated
with colours like the iris, and the entire figure was otherwise appropriately painted. The Greeks
had many pleasing associations with regard to apples; they were prizes at the Pythian games f; the
golden apple of Paris need not be mentioned, nor those of the Hesperides, allusive to " a condition
of being which transcends this corporeal life and generation" s; gold also, from its incorruptible na-
ture, being a correct symbol of purity.
The presence of so elegant a production of the Grecian fictile art, which probably decorated
the toilet of some lady while living, whose tomb it enriched when dead, brings to mind a passage of
Vitruvius, which has caused some difficulty with regard to the acceptation of a word, in the
impressive tale, describing the discovery of the Corinthian Capital by Callimachus, at the
tomb of a Corinthian maid. "Virgo, civis Corinthia, jam matura nuptiis, implicita morbo decessit:
post sepulturam ejus, quibus ea Virgo poculis delectabatur, nutrix collecta et composita in calatho
pertulit ad monumentum, et in summo collocavit, et uti ea permanerent diutius sub divo, tegula texit."
a — Persei sub rupibus antri Second Room, No- 12*. Mus. Clem. Tome VII. PI. VII.
Indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mitram. Inghirami, Mon. Etrus. Tom. VI. Tav. C. II.
Statii Thebaid. L. I. v. 720. Not. Var. 1671. d Annales Encyclopediques, Tom. II. 1817- Art. Nouvelles
b V. Dale, Disser. De Origine et Ritibus Sacri Taurobolii, C. I. Litteraires, p. 335, including a Notice of the Mithraeum of Ostia,
c See the fine antique marble group recently deposited in the by M. Labus.
British Museum, representing this subject, or an engraving of a e Plutarchi Sympos. L. III. Qu. 11.
similar production in the Museum Clementinum, which are con- f Eckhel, Numi Vet. Anecd. p. 61. Tab. V. n. 9. Antholo-
sidered by Visconti with other Antiquaries, to be symbolic of gia Graca a Jacobs. L. IX. n. 357- It appears also from an
the ancient notion of the influence of the Sun over the Moon, epigram in Athenaeus, that apples were sometimes jocosely con-
represented by the Bull, (as evident by the above quotation,) with tended for, with other kinds of prizes, by the Grecian fair—
Mithra in the act of forcing it to shed its generative influence, —Gicw S) «x»t^im t§ek ruma;,
typified by the blood of that animal, on the earth. Inghirami «*) p>&« rim, **! (fiA^a-r' hvia.
describes it as the " God Mithra, that is, the igneous heat of the Ponam autem Victoribus prsemia, tres tsenias,
Sun, which reaching the sign Taurus in the spring, sheds its et mala quinquc, et oscula novem.
blood, a signification of the life received from nature, which in Athen. Deipnos. ed. Scb. weigh. L. XV. p. 668.
that season becomes pr6lihc; while the autumnal Scorpion 8 This passage regarding the Hesperides, is from a MS.
enervates Taurus of his generative force; because Nature at that Commentary of Olympiodorus, on the Gorgias of Plato, quoted by
time ceases to fructify." Synopsis of Contents of Brit. Mus. Taylor, in a note on his Translation of Pausanias, L. II. C. XIII.