The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1917)

COLOUR DECORATION IN RELIEF
his gait. Another, with his boots, his shield, his helmet, and his sword,
appeared as though he had come straight from the school of the gladia-
tors. There was one who played the part of a magistrate, with the
fasces and the purple robe ; another that of a philosopher, with his
cloak, his staff, his wooden clogged shoes, and his goatish beard ; two
persons, with dissimilar reeds, represented, the one a fowler with bird-
lime, and the other a fisherman with his hook. I also saw a tame she-
bear, wearing the dress of a woman, and carried in a chair ; an ape, too,
with a plaited straw hat on its head, and clothed with a Phrygian gar-
ment of saffron colour, carrying in its hand a golden cup, and represent-
ing the shepherd Ganymede; likewise an ass, on which wings were
glued, and which walked near a feeble old man ; so that you would cer-
tainly have said that the one was Bellerophon, and the other Pegasus ;
hut still you would have enjoyed your laugh at both.
“ Amid this merry masquerade of the swarming people, the procession
proper of the guardian goddess now advanced. Females, splendidly
arrayed in white garments, expressing their joy by various gestures, and
adorned with vernal chaplets, scattered flowers on the ground from
their bosoms, along the path of the sacred procession. Others, again,
with mirrors placed upon their backs, showed all who followed to the
goddess, with their faces towards her as if they were coming to meet
her. Others, carrying ivory combs, imitated the combing and bedecking
of her regal hair,with the motion of their arms, and the twisting of their
fingers. There were others, too,vwho sprinkled the streets with drops
of genial balsam, and other kinds of perfume. In addition to all this,
there was a great multitude of men and women, who propitiated the
goddess, offspring of the celestial stars, by bearing lamps, torches, wax-
tapers, and other kinds of artificial light. Next came musicians, playing
sweetly on pipes and flutes. A graceful choir of chosen youths, in snow-
white garments, followed them, repeating a beautiful song, which an
excellent poet had composed under favour of the Muses, the words of
which explained the first origin of the votive procession. Pipers also,
consecrated to the great Serapis, played an air appropriate to the wor-
ship of the god, on pipes with transverse mouthpieces, and tubes held
obliquely towards their right ears. There were, also, a number of per-
sons, whose office it was to give notice that room should be left for the
sacred procession to pass. Then came a multitude of those who had
been initiated into the sacred rites of the goddess, consisting of men
and women of all classes and ages, resplendent with the pure whiteness
of their linen garments. The women had their anointed hair enveloped
in a transparent covering ; but the men had shaven and shining pates ;
earthly stars were these of extreme sanctity, who kept up a shrill and
incessant tinkling upon brazen, silver, and even gold sistra. But the
chief ministers of the sacred rites, clothed in garments of white linen,